She could secretly keep it, of course, but that would defeat the point. Lacey had to become who they expected her to be.
“I don’t know anyone else with good enough magic skills for the job...” Lacey continued in a whisper, her eyes downcast. She appeared pained.
But Wayne kept facing away from her. “Nope. It’s important to you. I don’t care what you have to do, just keep it safe.”
“I thought you’d say that.” Lacey couldn’t help but smile. Wayne probably wouldn’t budge on this. She refrained from commenting and decided to ask again later when the time seemed right.
“So, what kind of person is he?”
“Who?”
“Your fiancé. The duke’s son. Raymond Dejafaim. I know his name, but that’s about it. He’s marrying my friend, so of course I wanna know what he’s like.”
Mother wanted to know every detail, apparently. Lacey blinked.
“What he’s like...? I’m not really sure. I’ve only met him a handful of times.”
She’d often felt a certain prickliness behind his words, but on the surface, Raymond remained cordial. His country had arranged this marriage, so he had to pretend that he welcomed it. Although they’d frequently exchanged letters while Lacey was away, the contents were terse.
Wayne’s question prompted Lacey to search her memory. No adjectives came to mind. Thinking that she could at least describe his appearance, she reflected out loud.
“Well...he has blond hair, but not as light as yours.”
“Okay.”
“His eye color is...a bit like mine, maybe. But I wouldn’t call it hazel; it’s more like a dark orange. The qualities of his mana are kind of similar to mine. That was why he was designated as my fiancé.”
“I see.” While he’d been the one to ask, Wayne didn’t seem too interested. He was staring off in the completely wrong direction, behind the bench.
“Also, he’s...ummm, around ten years older than me.”
“He’s in his mid twenties, then?”
“Right. He should be!” She unintentionally raised her voice, relieved to have another piece of information.
Wayne sighed disinterestedly, still not looking toward Lacey. What’s with him? she wondered, picking her staff back up and pouting.
“So basically, he’s like that?”
Apparently, there was someone among the passers-by who’d caught his indifferent attention. Lacey, leaning back against the bench, turned around to look at the person Wayne was pointing at.
“Yeah, like that—” Lacey started, before losing all words. She went silent in the middle of her sentence.
Wayne gave her a puzzled glance. “Lacey?”
Lacey stared fixedly at the man. Her hazel eyes were wide open, and her tiny mouth was clamped shut. The target of her gaze was conversing with a woman and laughing. They were standing rather close to each other. The woman was liberally dressed, politely speaking. Impolitely speaking, she was barely dressed. The man turned in their direction, prompting Lacey to hurriedly hide behind the bench.
“Hey, don’t tell me...” Wayne’s tone suddenly stiffened.
Lacey shut her eyes along with her mouth. There was nothing more she could say, or so she thought at first, but curiosity won her over. She raised her head again at last. “What’s the duke’s son doing in a place like this?”
“I think it’s safe to say he’s on an incognito downtown date,” Wayne said with a lackadaisical look.
“She could just be his friend.”
The moment she tried to defend him, Raymond—Lacey’s fiancé—wrapped his arms around the woman’s waist. Wayne’s eyes grew even duller. “Rather close friends, from the looks of it.”
Lacey stared from behind at Raymond and the woman whose name she didn’t know. All she could say in response was, “Yeah.”
She kept her head down and watched, but the pair eventually vanished into the streets.
∗ ∗ ∗
After parting with Wayne, Lacey curled up into the bed at the inn and thought back on things.
She had known from the time of her betrothal that she would be a wife in name only, so seeing Raymond walking around with another woman didn’t shock or wound her much. All she had was a sinking feeling, as if the darkness were swallowing her whole.
A week passed by. Lacey kept herself busy. She had been born and raised in the royal capital, but had hardly ever seen what it had to offer, so she decided to take a leisurely tour around the city. It was much larger than she’d realized, and even places she’d seen before held new discoveries upon closer inspection. Then she observed already familiar places with exhaustive scrutiny. She did this again and again.
Trying to see the whole city from one side to the other took forever, and she could never finish. It was an enormous undertaking for Lacey’s small body. She held tight to her staff and counted down the days until the end.
She’d leaned the portraits she’d purchased against the wall of her room at the inn. Sitting in front of the portraits under the moonlight, Lacey studied the faces of her companions. The picture of the red-haired woman was nothing like Lacey, but she had the same staff and looked both magnificent and dignified. Lacey quietly stretched her hand out to the woman in the picture.
Just then, she heard a clatter, and the twin casement windows flew open. She didn’t know who’d caused this, but just as she gripped her staff and narrowed her eyes, intent on teaching them a lesson...she realized that she recognized this magic.
A small bird came in. It flew unsteadily, bobbing up and down, and landed on Lacey’s finger. Looking closer, this bird emanating Wayne’s mana wasn’t a living creature. It was made of white paper. He must have folded a letter into the shape of a bird and sent it to her. Wayne occasionally used amusing spells that were beyond Lacey’s imagination.
As soon as she read what was written in the letter, Lacey went to sit at the desk. Once she’d written a reply on some paper she had, she contemplated a little. “Is it...some sort of applied wind magic?” Usually, that kind of magic was for tearing through one’s enemy or repelling attacks. “Something like this?”
She didn’t use her staff, instead just twirling her index finger around. The paper made crinkling sounds as it folded into layers, opened up, and turned into an intricate bird. Lacey snapped her fingers, and with startling speed, the bird flew out the open windows back toward Wayne.
Would he reply to her tomorrow?