♚♚♚
ROCK saw Guido and Michaela off in the foyer where she’d welcomed them. Lord and Lady Alexis were watching them, so they couldn’t say anything suspicious in parting.
“I had a wonderful time. Let’s meet again soon, Roxy.”
Rock looked right into Michaela’s smiling eyes and nodded.
“Yes, it’s a promise.”
Michaela curtsied after hearing Rock’s reply and then left the manor accompanied by her brother.
Rock was struck by the desire to chase after them as she watched them leave the house. But Danilo closed the door behind them before she could act on it, shutting off Rock’s connection to the outside world once again.
Michaela had said Ebel and Phoebe were close by. So Rock hoped she could at least step outside to show them she was doing well, but she wasn’t even allowed that freedom. Suffocating sadness filled her, but she closed her eyes and blocked it out.
“Come, dear. It’s time to go back to your room. Show me the gift you received from Lady Michaela,” Lauretta said with a big smile.
“Yes, Auntie,” Rock responded. Then she suddenly noticed a loose thread on her sleeve. “Weird…?”
The cuffs were shamefully frayed, which was odd, considering it looked brand new when Lauretta had gifted it to her that morning.
“What’s the matter, Roxy?” Lauretta asked.
“My dress cuffs are frayed,” Rock answered honestly.
“You’re right, dear. This was supposed to be a brand new dress I had tailored just for you, though.”
“At least I can still repair it.”
Rock always carried a sewing kit on her, so she’d never miss a chance to make some coin. She’d had it with her when she visited the mausoleum with Ebel too.
“I have a sewing kit in my room, so I can repair it now,” she said.
“You can do that too?” Lauretta’s eyes widened with surprise.
“Yes, Mother taught me.”
“I see…” she uttered in a low voice, then fell into deep thought.
Placido pensively walked past Lauretta as she seemed rooted to the ground.
“Say, is it all right if I watch you mend it?” Lauretta eventually asked after what felt like a long pause.
Rock thought it was an odd request, but she’d no reason to turn her down.
She returned to the coral pink bedroom with Lauretta and mended the dress’s cuffs under the watchful eye of her new dove friend. All she had to do was take off the loose thread and resew it, which was a thousand times easier than fixing the fray.
Even so, Lauretta was beyond impressed by it.
“You’re good… You have such skill with your hands, I wouldn’t be afraid to call what you’re doing art.”
Her eyes twinkled with childish delight as she sat next to Rock, watching her hands work. She was like a child being shown a flashy magic trick.
From Rock’s perspective, this skill was how she made her living, and she felt a giddy kind of embarrassment when it was praised. It wasn’t a bad feeling, being complimented.
In the coral pink room illuminated by the setting sun, Rock mended the dress sitting side by side with her aunt. There was something strangely comforting about the way their shadows seemed snuggled up together on the floor. It almost reminded her of when her mother taught her how to sew as a child.
“Something like this happened before…” Lauretta seemed to be reminded of the past as well. She slowly began recounting the incident. “Valencia mended my sleeve after it caught on something and tore. She said, ‘I can handle something this simple, Sister.’”
There was something gutting about realizing those were once her mother’s words. Her aunt seemed to truly know a side of her mother she didn’t.
“When it came to sewing, her hands really did work magic. She seemed happiest when she had a needle and thread in hand…”
Loneliness crept into Lauretta’s expression as she dug through her memories—the way everyone gets a little sad when they reminisce about the past.
She must’ve cherished and missed those long-gone days that she could never return to. Regardless of their fighting leading to their separate paths in life, there was once a point when they were close sisters. And there was no way to return to that time.
“I didn’t know how sad it’d be to lose her back then,” Lauretta muttered, her eyes locked on Rock. “My precious little sister did a wonderful job raising you.”
Tears lightly misted her gray eyes. Her expression, which seemed so inhuman and cold the first day they met, had regained human warmth and emotion.
“…Thank you, Auntie.”
Rock was uncomfortable because she was starting to feel guilty about deceiving her aunt by playing along with what she wanted.
Though she was doing it for the just cause of pinning down the location of the Werewolf Brotherhood, her aunt was sure to get her feelings hurt in the process. Rock’s goal was to discover the truth and then return in one piece to the slums. Lauretta would surely suffer even more when she found out Rock wasn’t planning to stay.
But Michaela seemed like she was onto something when she’d written: (Like, what if those statues not only turn people into werewolves but also amplify their desires, making them uncontrollable?)
If her theory was correct, then uncovering the truth would lead to saving Lauretta and Placido.
They’d kidnapped their own niece to satisfy their desires. Even if they did it out of familial and marital love, they needed to be stopped now before it was too late.
If they were left to their own devices, they might very well commit another crime for their “family.”