Night fell upon the clinic. After another chaotic meal, Arty lay on the bed in the bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. This bed, apparently, was Lily’s—the elf was now sleeping in the adjacent bed, which belonged to Zenos. The shadow healer was asleep on the couch in the dining room, so he wasn’t present.
Compared to her bed in the Saintess’s Spire, this one was small and a bit too hard, but to Arty’s surprise, she didn’t find it disagreeable. And there was a certain comfort in having someone else sleeping nearby—the enormous, empty tower felt at times more like a prison than a home.
“Hey, Lily,” Arty called out. “Are you awake?”
“Mmm,” came a voice from the darkness. “What is it, Arty?”
“I feel bad saying this about the person helping me hide, but...I can’t tell whether Zenos is a good or a bad healer.”
“Zenos is the best healer in the whole world, I think.”
“But...he said he didn’t want a license so he could keep overcharging people.”
Lily let out a laugh. “That sounds like something he’d say.”
“What do you mean?” Arty asked, turning toward the other bed where Lily was looking back at her.
“I think it’s less that he won’t be able to overcharge, and more the fact that if he gets a license he won’t be able to undercharge,” Lily explained.
“Huh?”
“Zenos charges a lot if the patient has money, but otherwise, he only takes what he thinks they can afford. And kids always get free treatment.”
“R-Really?”
“A lot of people in the slums have no money, and even those who do can’t go to regular clinics because of where they’re from. If he had a license, he’d have to charge everyone the same, but the world isn’t equal. Zenos says he provides unequal treatment because the world is unequal.”
“Unequal treatment...” Arty stretched out her hands from under the blanket and looked at them in the dim light. “I...was always told I shouldn’t use my power carelessly. I’ve healed people before, but only royalty.”
“But you healed that demi-human in the camp.”
“Well...I’d never seen someone so completely covered in blood before, so I just reacted. And I owed you all for the bread...”
Equality, inequality. The poor, the royals, class systems. How to clean, how to season food. All things she’d never once had to think about in the isolation of the Saintess’s Spire, now swirling through her mind.
“The world is...complicated, isn’t it?” she murmured.
Lily gave her a small smile. “Yeah. It’s complicated, and it’s easy to get lost in. That’s why I think we need a light.”
“A light? What do you mean?”
“Like...hope, or faith, or ethics... I think Zenos is pursuing all those things, and just does what he can. That’s how he chooses to live.”
“He does what he can...” Arty whispered, placing a hand on her chest.
Unlike the manufactured quiet of her tower, sealed off from the world, the clinic was filled with the gentle sounds of the breeze and the chirping of insects. Amid the signs of life and nature, the night in the ruined city wore on.
✦ ✦ ✦
Two weeks later, one of the seven great nobles slammed his fist on a round table.
“The saintess still hasn’t been found?!” Lord Giesz demanded.
“My deepest apologies, my lord,” replied Seagall, commander of the Royal Guard’s Special Ops division. He stood perfectly straight except for his head, which was deeply bowed out of respect for the Council of the Seven. “Our search efforts continue in full force.”
All major roads were being closely monitored, and search teams had even combed through the mountains behind the slums, but they’d yet to find any trace of the saintess.
“What are we supposed to tell Prince Figaro?!” Lord Giesz snapped. “His Highness is a stern man! At this rate he will do much more than simply dismantle House Minerva!”
At Lord Giesz’s harsh words, Lady Minerva bit her red lips under her veil.
“Commander Seagall,” said Albert Baycladd, his calm voice cutting through the tense atmosphere. “All entrances and exits to the capital are closely guarded, correct?”
“Yes, my lord! We thoroughly inspect every traveler and their carriages. Nothing slips through. I can’t possibly imagine anyone getting past security.”
“Which means the saintess is likely still hiding somewhere within the capital,” Albert surmised.
“That’s our working hypothesis,” Seagall confirmed with a nod. “But...”
“You seem unconvinced.”
Placing a hand over the medal on the left side of his chest, Seagall said, “The Capital Defense Corps is stationed around the perimeter of the city, and the Royal Guard is conducting a full-scale search within the capital’s bounds through every information network we have. Still, we’ve been unable to find any trace of her.”
Because the saintess’s escape was a classified, top secret matter, the Royal Guard were limited in how publicly they could conduct their investigation. But with this level of intense surveillance, it seemed unthinkable that a lone girl could evade detection.
“And so—”
“What you’re saying is that the saintess herself couldn’t possibly be that skilled at hiding, correct?” Lady Minerva cut in.
Having lived her entire life isolated in the spire, fully reliant on her maids for even the most basic of tasks, and having escaped with virtually no valuables, the saintess couldn’t possibly elude so many skilled searchers.
“Which can only mean she’s no longer in the capital!” Lord Giesz shouted angrily.
“No. There’s another possibility,” Albert said quietly, giving the enraged Lord Giesz a serene glance. “Someone is assisting her.”