Epilogue
IT was already close to midnight when the carriage arrived at the residence of the new Duke of Aznavour.
After all the hullabaloo with the discovery of Cesar’s Dragonmate, things ran behind schedule. Cesar had convinced Therese to have a private chat with him, promising to see her safely home, so Agnes and Claude left. The maid would be returning after her mistress, in a duke’s carriage, no less.
It was kind of unbelievable when you thought about it, but Agnes was glad that everything seemed like it was going to work out well. She’d been on her feet all day, and now felt pleasantly tired.
The carriage door opened, and Claude got down, holding his hand out for Agnes.
But as soon as she took his hand, Claude pulled her into his arms and carried her!
“Claude!”
Claude began walking toward the mansion as Agnes protested in his arms.
“It’s customary to carry the new bride over the threshold,” he insisted.
“Really? Well, you don’t have to carry me all the way across the pathway!”
Even after getting down from the carriage, there was the long driveway and the stairway. Couldn’t he just have lifted her in front of the door?
“But I want to carry you. I want to hold my beloved wife in my arms.” With a dopey smile that would make an onlooker blush, Claude kissed Agnes’s forehead.
He was always kind, but since the wedding ceremony ended, he’d become even more affectionate. Agnes wasn’t sure how she was going to handle living like this…
Claude carried her into the entry hall, and moonlight poured down from the skylight above. The sunlight shining in during the day had been beautiful, but at night, the stained-glass windows sparkled like stars in the night sky.
“Wow, it’s beautiful.”
Released from Claude’s arms, Agnes put her feet on the ground, where colorful mushrooms were projected wonderfully as well.
Ciel, at their heels, started darting about, batting at the sparkling fungi. He seemed to find the rays of light very stimulating and became more and more excited, showing no signs of calming down. His cat-like…tiger-like…batting was growing more and more frantic.
“I’ve already seen the stained glass, but these sculptures and artwork… They weren’t here last time, were they?” Maybe Agnes was imagining it, but she didn’t remember the paintings and statues being there before. She looked at Claude, who looked away guiltily.
“Er, there’s something I want to show you. This way.”
Trying to distract her from the issue at hand? Not that she’d be fooled, but Claude was so obvious, it was kind of cute.
“What is it you want to show me?”
“The garden.”
“But it’s already night, I won’t be able to see. Why don’t we see it tomorrow, in daylight?”
Agnes let Claude lead her through the house, but the moonlit hallway was dark, and she couldn’t see where she was stepping. She’d hardly be able to see the garden without daylight.
“No, no, now is the best time to see. …Look.”
Claude opened the door leading to the garden, which was illuminated with brilliant lights. The moonlight picked out the dark shape of plants, and there were countless green lights dotted all around. It was like light particles had been dispersed throughout the greenery. How exactly did it work?
“Wow, it’s like a starry sky. Amazing.”
Claude led Agnes into the garden, and when she brought her face close to a speck of light, she finally realized what it was.
“These are…all mushrooms?!”
The small mushroom that glowed green all over was a Mycena lux-coeli. There were smaller ones too, emitting a bright green light. The Mycena lazuline shown with yellow-green glow, deep azure roots, and a translucent white canelé top.
There was also a Geastrum britannicum, which looked like a statue of a dwarf with a gray sphere and four white leglike things sprouting from it. It stood beside a Mycena chlorophos and an Omphalotus japonicus,
“I used luminescent mushrooms to express a starry sky,” Claude explained. “I’m so glad you like them. I’m going to add a whole variety of mushrooms in the future.”
“What?! You’re going to add more?!”
After going through all the trouble of placing rare translucent mushrooms throughout the garden, Claude planned to add more?
Agnes had been worried about mushrooms growing in the vegetable patch! She had finally come into her own a little after Philip’s abuse, but Claude, too, seemed to have advanced with his mushroom fetishism.
Bewildered, Agnes let him lead her through the starry sky of mushrooms to the center of the garden. There were more growing across the rose arch, making it look like it was twinkling with stardust.
In a mushroom garden, beneath a mushroom arch, Agnes was face to face with a mushroom fetishist. She felt a sense of resignation. There was no getting away from it—her life would be all mushrooms going forward.
But what was really odd was that she didn’t mind that thought at all.
“Agnes, thank you for being born,” Claude said as he took Agnes’s hands and gazed into her eyes. “Thank you for choosing to go through life with me. I promise to love only you, with all my heart and soul.”
There was a cacophony of pops, and milky-white Cuphophyllus virgineuses sprouted all at once like a carpet under their feet. And, on Claude’s shoulder, there sprouted a red and white Amanita muscaria.
Claude gasped at the sight of the mushrooms, his smile growing wider.
“…And thank you for the mushrooms too, you were going to say?” Agnes quietly asked.
“Them too, of course.”
They giggled together, and Claude pulled Agnes close—close enough to feel his breath on her face, and Agnes could see herself in those silvery-gray eyes.
“Claude. Thank you for finding me. Thank you for accepting me as I am. From now on, I will be by your side forever, as your wife.”
Claude listened intently as Agnes spoke, filling her chest with a deep sense of warmth.
“…I love you,” she said the words clearly, gazing into his eyes, and Claude gave her a knee-weakening smile.”
“Oh, I know.” Claude’s hand slowly caressed Agnes’s cheek, and his face moved closer. “I love you, too… My Dragonmate, my Mushroom Princess.”
The green light of the mushrooms illuminated the two of them as their lips touched.
Their shadows joined as one, never to be parted.