When Anne voiced the thoughts that had been swirling around inside her, she began to feel like she’d found the right path.
Then Mithril asked her calmly, “All right, Anne. Do you love Challe Fenn Challe?”
Her chest tightened at the question. She loved him, of course. She nodded.
Mithril said, “Try saying it out loud, Anne.”
“Well…”
She hesitated. No matter how her heart swelled with those shapeless, suffocating, sweet feelings, she couldn’t get the words out. As though she was under an incantation forbidding her to declare her love aloud, some part of her heart kept her from saying it.
“If it’s easy for you to come right out and say you love someone, then you don’t really love them yet. Probably…I think.” Mithril gently reached out and touched Anne’s cheek. “What’s all this? Don’t cry. Now it feels like I was picking on you.”
Only after Mithril said this did Anne notice that a number of tears had fallen from the corners of her eyes. She didn’t understand why she was crying; the tears had simply started to flow when she’d tried to say that she loved Challe.
I just don’t know anymore.
As confused as she was, the one thing she did know was that she was being pushed to come to a decision.
I have to make up my mind. Once I decide, I can move forward without worrying about these sorts of things. I’ll be able to focus on work. And if my work leads me, like Challe said, to the same place he wants to go… I wish I could just think about candy crafting. But I don’t know. Do I love Keith enough to be with him? I don’t know.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Now that she could finally see signs that this job was going according to plan, she wanted to follow through on it no matter what.
She wanted to do so for the fairies, but also to improve the art of candy crafting. And if she could achieve both goals, then the day would come when humans and fairies could work equally as crafters without discrimination.
Anne wanted to see that kind of workshop and craft candy there happily there for the rest of her days.
The shape of the world she was striving toward was just starting to come into focus.
I want to do my job.
She wanted to make up her mind and focus on where her work was taking her. Anne thought it was much more important to bring together Challe’s wishes and the future of her craft than it was to get him to reciprocate her feelings.
More than anything, she wanted to touch silver sugar. She wanted to touch it, knead it, and make it take the shapes she desired. As long as she could do so earnestly, Anne’s heart would be at ease.
Mithril let out a deep breath. Then with a little tap, his silvery head came to rest against Anne’s arm.
“Mithril Lid Pod?” She looked down at the fairy in her arms and saw that Mithril was smiling broadly.
“I’m going to sleep now. I’m tired.” His fleeting smile startled Anne.
“Say, Mithril Lid Pod. Are you feeling unwell? You seem off now and then; you have for a while.”
“I’m all right. It’s not my time yet,” Mithril mumbled, then closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Anne. I really am sleepy.”
Even as he spoke, his eyelids slowly lowered, and his breathing started to deepen. He was sleeping like he had used up every ounce of his strength and exhausted his energy.
He says he’s all right, but…can I really believe him?
Anne couldn’t help worrying about the small fairy in her arms, but the only thing she could do was embrace him softly, like she would never let him go.
Despite the countless thoughts swirling in her head, Anne had managed to fall asleep.
“Anne. Anne.”
She awoke to someone shaking her shoulders and calling her name. The room around her was already dimly lit, and through the gap in the closed curtains, a streak of morning sunlight fell onto the floor.
“Anne. Wake up, Anne!”
The person leaning over her bed and shaking her was Noah. There was an urgent look on his face, and tears were pooling in his purple eyes.
“Noah…? What is it?”
She sat up and rubbed her eyes, and Noah said in a trembling, tearful voice, “I’m so sorry, Anne. I was sound asleep, so I didn’t notice…”
“What happened?”
She could tell from how Noah was acting that this wasn’t good news, and now she was wide-awake.
“They’re not here… None of them…,” he said.
“None of who?”
“The fairies.”
A chill ran from the top of Anne’s spine down to the tips of her toes as she understood the meaning of his words.
“No, that can’t be!”
She threw off the blanket, leaped out of bed, and hurried through the door.
There’s no way they left. Challe was watching over them. He would have told me if it looked like they were going to run.
She sped down the corridor and peeked into one of the dorms where the fairies had been sleeping. All she saw were cold beds with the covers turned back, along with specks of dust dancing in the morning sun. Quickly, she looked into the next room. But it was also empty. The one after that was empty, too. And so was the next.
When she peeked into the dorm closest to the lesser hall, she found a lone female fairy sitting on her bed. It was Emere Torte Ray, the fairy who had spoken to Noah several times. Her long, golden-brown hair was gathered in a high ponytail, and it cascaded down her back. When she turned toward Anne, her hair followed smoothly behind her, like the tail of an animal. She took one look at Anne’s face and lowered her eyes apologetically.
“Where are…the others…?” Anne asked.
“They left in the night. I decided not to go, though.”
“But they promised…and Challe…,” Anne mumbled.
Emere looked at her with sympathy. “They’ve forgotten how to keep promises. You see, we’ve all been in environments where no one keeps their promises to us. Even I did not stay here to keep my promise to you.”
Anne felt her legs give out, and she only managed to stay upright by clinging to the doorframe.
Why is no one here? Where’s Challe? What happened, Challe?!
There was no way he would have let them go quietly. Something must have gone wrong. At that thought, a cold chill ran up her spine, and she found she couldn’t move.