Chapter 5: The Kiss of Betrayal is a Trap
“I heard some students tried to attack a girl.”
“Those twin transfer students managed to save her.”
“I wonder if the prefects beat the life out of those boys?”
Rumors were swirling through school the day after Brett attacked me. They caught fire because the culprits weren’t in class that day. The student body had also learned how eager Dum and Dee were to jump into a physical confrontation.
Now, no one will be foolish enough to come after me anymore.
My peaceful school life was back to normal—at least, that was what I thought until later in the day.
“…Hey, Dum.” I stopped writing on the blackboard and whispered to him.
The mood in the afternoon orthography classroom was extremely distracted. Few students were actually listening to the lecture. Even Dum was twirling my hair around his fingers.
“What is it, Alice?”
“I know you want to protect me, but don’t you think this is a little over the line?”
For some reason, I was sitting on Dum’s lap in the back of the classroom. The teacher was pretending not to notice, taking it for an extreme public display of affection.
Dum instantly answered my confusion with a “No.”
“Charles told me that girls in Ark School sit on boys’ laps during class.”
“There’s no way that’s a real rule. Don’t you think it’s strange, Dee?”
“No. Be sure to sit on my lap in the next class, okay?”
“Urk…”
Dee smiled kindly at me, and I didn’t know how to respond.
Dum was forceful, while Dee knew how to be sweet.
They looked the same but knew how to make a girl swoon in opposite ways. I’d always thought of them as little brothers, so being on the receiving end of their infatuation wasn’t easy to process.
I mean, how am I supposed to stop my heart from racing when they do this stuff?
I would have only had eyes for Dark if he serenaded me with words of love like before—even with Dum and Dee having turned into such beauties. As I sadly pondered how, at this point, Dark might not even try to win me back if I fell in love with the twins, class finished in a flash.
“Let’s go, Alice.”
“Let’s go, Alice.”
Dum and Dee put their arms around me and led me to the linguistics classroom. Along the way, Leeds came down the staircase and called out to us.
“Can you three come to the library and help me with something?”
“Of course.”
“Help me with something” was a code our family used. It signaled that one of us had obtained new information.
Leeds took us to the library, closed the door behind us, and locked it. He had the key to the library along with all the others in his bundle.
The bell signaling the start of class was ringing.
People rarely came to this small library in the first place, so locking the door wouldn’t raise suspicions.
Leeds hooked the keys back to his belt and looked at us with a dumbfounded expression—one you didn’t usually see on teachers’ faces.
“I’m hearing all sorts of rumors about you, my lady. It hasn’t even been a full day, and they keep turning crazier and crazier.”
“We know. They say Alice is actually a princess from Hungary who snuck into Great Britain.”
“We’ve heard. They say Alice gave her twin knights orders to correct any students who act improperly.”
Dum and Dee seemed to be enjoying the rumors, even though they were nothing but an annoyance from my point of view.
“A princess and her knights? They’ve all read one too many fairy tales,” I sighed.
“I don’t hate their enthusiasm, but I wish they could make it a little more realistic. For example, that immortal beings are walking around Ark School or something.” With that blatantly less realistic suggestion, Leeds started walking to the back of the library.
A sea of books covered the walls. The quiet but violent waves were like a world no one would ever imagine existed in such a small room.
“The same student who told me about the rumors also told me about rumors of undead existing at this school. I laughed and called it silly gossip, but that sounds like something of interest to us, no?” Leeds said.
“But demons don’t die in the first place.”
Leeds nodded at my instant reply. “I looked into it right away. It doesn’t seem like this school changes teachers very often, but I thought the headmasters would be written somewhere, at least. So here’s what I found out about the school’s history.”
He pulled a large, old book off the shelf at the back of the room. The binding was wrinkled with age, and a light layer of dust flew into the air as Leeds turned the pages. It was obvious no one had opened it in many years.
A drawing of a lion and an eagle facing each other was printed on the cover.
“It’s not a lion and unicorn?” I observed.
“Apparently, it was an eagle first and was changed to a unicorn at some point. This book was written about three hundred years ago when the school first opened. It has the name of the headmaster the castle’s owner transferred the rights to.”
Leeds carefully turned the pages until his bony finger landed on a certain name.
“Headmaster: Caterpillar.”
“That’s the same name as the current headmaster, but it’s a leap to call him immortal because of this. He could be his descendent, after all.”
“Do you still think so after seeing this?”
Leeds flipped to the next page containing the names of the teachers in charge of each class. Astronomy, arithmetic, Latin…they were all the same names as the current teachers. One or two could have been a coincidence, but there was no explaining every name being the same.
“I guess I have to believe it after seeing this.”
It was possible the teachers were all being kept alive with a demon’s magic. Few people ever came to an isolated island like this. Once the students graduated, they never wanted to come back to Ark School again. The boys would be none the wiser to the fact that the teachers had been in the same positions for hundreds of years.
Dum and Dee peered into the books curiously.
“Is the headmaster really the demon?”
“Or is it one of the teachers?”
“They’re both possible. I won’t be able to tell until the demon gives themself away somehow.”
“It would be best to sit and wait for that, but it will take too long. What should we do?”
When he saw me cradling my head in my hands, Leeds lit up.
“I think I know what to do. Remind me of your power again, my lady?”
“My stigma allows me to erase other powers… Ah, that’s it!”
If the demon was using their magic to turn the teachers immortal, my power should be able to make them normal again.
Even if I failed, I would at least be able to know if they were branded with a demon’s stigma or not. However, this power wouldn’t work on the demon themself.
A stigmata could try as hard as they like, but they would never be able to defeat an actual demon.
“I can lure the trap-laying demon out with my power. But if I undo the spell, the teachers will instantly die…”
Some weren’t as passionate as others, but none of the teachers were bad at their job. I couldn’t forgive the headmaster for using corporal punishment, though I did enjoy his enthralling demon studies class.
It was Charles, Robins, and the students who would suffer if the teachers suddenly perished. It may have been a school ruled by a demon, but it was still an important place for the boys to learn and spend their youth.
Was it really okay for me to destroy this place for our sake? As someone who had lived there as a student, too, I was reluctant to throw it all away for good.
But Leeds leaned his lips close to my ear and whispered to me. “Don’t hesitate, my lady. You can’t save everyone. I don’t have to tell you that having sympathy will only get you killed.”
“That’s right.”
Our priority was to turn Dark, Jack, Dum, and Dee back to normal. I would have to eliminate the immortals if I wanted to find the trap-laying demon.
I couldn’t allow those who violated the laws of nature to exist. Even as a noble who watched over the criminal underworld and a stigmata with an otherworldly power, I would have no choice but to let death take me too someday.
Death was a part of life—the cycle made our world function.
“I’ll use my stigma to expose the trap-laying demon,” I said. “Once we find them, it’s just a matter of how to undo the spell.”
We’d previously weakened demons enough for Dark to use his powers and send them to Hell. His help would be indispensable in getting them back to normal.
“I’ll try asking Dark for help, although I don’t know if he’ll listen…”
“No!”
“No!”
The twins puffed up their cheeks.
“I want to stay like this.”
“I want to stay like this, too.”
Leeds put his hands on his hips. He couldn’t believe the twins needed persuading. “Don’t make trouble for my lady. Who knows what mess you might end up in if you stay like that? Be good boys, now, and do as she says.”
“No!”
“No!”
The twins grabbed my arms and stuck their tongues out at Leeds.
“We won’t let Alice go look for the demon.”
“We’re staying with Alice just like this.”
“Wait, you two! Sorry, Leeds, but we’ll talk again soon!”
They then dragged me out of the library.
Not even the head of the Liddell family could resist her family members’ intense determination.