♚♚♚
IT’D been ten days since she left the slums.
After stopping by the store to make sure nothing was stolen, Rock headed straight to see Justia.
As she approached the bakery under the public bathhouse, the smell of delicious, freshly baked bread drifted out to meet her.
When she stopped to appreciate that nostalgic fragrance, the person in front of the store also paused with a start.
“ROCK!” Justia cried out, tossing her broom aside to rush out to meet Rock in the road.
Cargus poked his head outside, his eyes widening when he saw her.
“Hi, guys—”
Before Rock could finish her awkward greeting, Justia threw her arms around her.
“For heaven’s sake! You always make me worry! Where have you been?!”
“Whoa! Sorry! I’m sorry!”
“You think sorry fixes things? You foolish child! I was worried sick thinking they’d gotten to you too!”
Crying, Justia pounded her fists into Rock’s back.
As Rock struggled to find the right way to appease her, she saw Cargus’s wry yet relieved smile over his wife’s shoulder.
Apparently, she really had caused them both to worry about her.
“I went looking for Krister,” Rock explained, earning a teary scowl from the baker’s wife.
“You were putting yourself in danger again?”
“I-I wouldn’t call it dangerous. Phoebe was with me.”
Justia would surely be enraged and give her a real earful if she told her the whole story. She definitely couldn’t tell her.
Of course, she understood all the scolding came from Justia genuinely caring about her.
“Speaking of Phoebe, where is she? You came back together, right?”
“Yeah. She said she’ll come after she gets dressed.”
It had been ten days since Phoebe came back home too. He said he had a ton of things he wanted to tend to. They agreed to meet up at the hash house for potato bread after they both finished the things they wanted to see to first.
Rock was hard-pressed apologizing and explaining herself to Cargus and Justia until Phoebe showed up.
They’d sat her down in a corner of the bakery and drilled her with questions. What’d happened to Krister? Where was he, and what was he up to now? And how were Rock and Phoebe involved in the search for him?
She was stuck walking a thin line between telling them the gist of things and blurring the truth.
“Krister was kidnapped by a shady group and put through some pretty terrible stuff. Phoebe and I just so happened to come across their hideout…”
“How?”
“B-Because someone else was checking it out…”
Justia’s question had thrown her off, but she was able to come up with a quick save.
“Krister is injured,” she swiftly mentioned to distract the other woman from asking more questions she couldn’t answer. “He’ll survive, but he needs time to recover before he can come home, and he’ll be stuck using a cane for life.”
Justia and Cargus’s concern instantly switched to him.
“I see… It sounds like he went through a lot.”
“But even he said, ‘I struck gold just surviving my ordeal.’ Nisha was overjoyed when I told her how he took it.”
Krister should be returning to the slums soon too. Maybe they’d spot him walking through the shantytown using a cane while Nisha supported him on the other side.
“Well, now Nisha can finally collect on all the money she used for those posters.”
Contrary to her word choice, Justia was smiling, the dark shadows finally lifting from her worried face.
Phoebe, now changed into his favorite attire, walked into the hash house just then. His chestnut tresses cascaded down his back, his beautiful face was powdered and highlighted by makeup, and he wore a blue dress Rock had tailored for him.
He spotted Rock as soon as she waved, and his rouged lips broke into a sweet smile.
When he dressed like this, he really did look like a big-boned beauty.
“Phoebe, I just heard all about your big adventure with Rock,” Justia called out to him, sounding a little exasperated.
Phoebe playfully winked at her.
“You need a good adventure every once in a while to stave off boredom.”
“You can adventure all you want with your skills but try not to drag Rock into too much danger. This kid is so weak, you could snap him like a twig,” Justia warned, then returned to the kitchen with Cargus.
Phoebe sat in the chair across from Rock and shrugged.
“It was quite the big adventure this time, huh?” He swept his thick, luxurious hair off his shoulders. “But we both got home safe and sound. His Excellency doesn’t have any dresses in my size on hand yet, so I’m thrilled to finally be back in my second skin.”
“You look beautiful,” Rock complimented him from the bottom of her heart.
Rock loved both Phoebe, who dressed and lived as a woman, and Fredericks Berwick, who did the opposite. She loved that her father didn’t have to give up either side of himself.
“Living in that mansion in pants for days on end almost made me forget how much I love this look, too,” Phoebe said jokingly.
Rock had already learned all about how he spent those ten days from Johanna. She giggled as she recalled her stories and Phoebe arched a suspicious eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking how much I would’ve loved to see what things were like between you and His Excellency.”
“…Grr. That little rat. She’s such a blabbermouth.” Phoebe clicked his tongue, then cracked a wry smile. “You sound awfully optimistic for someone who got kidnapped.”
“Yeah, I guess I do…”
Rock was undeniably violently kidnapped and forced to live days on end with no peace of mind. The air of tension and volatility she experienced at Alexis Manor was still fresh in her mind too.
But she had a feeling that even those miserable days might become a different kind of memory with time.
Maybe she would feel differently about her aunt and uncle when she looked back on that time someday in the future. There was still much she couldn’t get over yet, but she hoped she could forgive them eventually. And hopefully, when that time came, she could speak with them without being scared. She really wanted to hear more about her mother.
“Anyway, let’s enjoy some of the potato bread that we haven’t had in days!” Rock exclaimed, the smell of the bakery making her nostalgic. She raised her hand and called out to the kitchen, “Justia! Can we get some bread?!”
“Sure thing!” Justia answered from the kitchen. Then she turned around as if she just remembered something important. “Oh yeah, Rock! Have you been by to see Lady Trilian yet?”
“What? No, I haven’t…”
“She seemed super ticked off that you hadn’t been around in days and started wondering if you were skipping rent. She went around grumbling that she’s going to jack up the rent, so you’d better go speak with her.”
Now that she thought about it, Rock had been staying with Phoebe ever since Krister first showed up in front of her apartment. It really had been a long time since she actually went back to her own place, so it made sense her landlady would worry.
“How ticked was she?” Rock asked, fearful of the answer.
“Do you think that woman’s capable of quiet anger?” Justia laughed. “It’s so bad, she was going around complaining that her tenant fled in the night. I’d prepare for the worst.”
“I was planning on moving out soon too…”
It seemed unlikely she’d be allowed to move out in peace with her landlady so upset.
Holding her head in her hand, Rock glanced at Phoebe.
“…Will you come with me to talk to her?”
Phoebe graced her with a benevolent smile.
“I can’t send you into that fox den alone. Shall we go get our heads chewed off together?”
Thus, Rock and Phoebe headed to the battlefield together after they finished eating.
Negotiations with Lady Trilian, who was already armed and ready, weren’t pretty, but Rock laid out a sound argument, Phoebe occasionally made matters worse, but eventually, they arrived at a deal both sides could agree to.
In the end, they won the right to move out comfortably in exchange for two months’ rent.