Sassel awoke from his dream to find that Jeanne was still asleep.
The fire in the hearth was still crackling softly, accompanied by the rustling of pages—like the quiet rhythm of breathing during sleep—filling the room with a sense of calm. An oil lamp sat on the desk draped with violet velvet, its faint glow casting light over the tabletop. Viola was reading. She had heard the faint rustle of clothing against the carpet—the black sorcerer had slept fully clothed on the floor, after all. He wasn't exactly close enough to the two women in this room to be sharing a bed.
Viola closed the literacy primer that Sassel had painstakingly copied for her—she was illiterate, so they had to start with the basics. She stepped down from the chair, crouched beside him, and deftly pulled a warm, damp towel from her bosom to hand to him.
The towel still held the warmth of her body; she must have just wrung it out.
"How did you know I'd wake up around now?"
Sassel didn't get an answer. The silence slowly melted back into the room. The girl stared at him without blinking, light catching on her lashes.
Everything around her—and on her—was foreign, unnatural, out of place: the handwritten primer in the common tongue of sorcerers, the blood gem imprisoning a witch's soul, the bedroom caught in divine stasis, the fine dress, the upper-class attire embroidered with roses, the pale violet ribbon tied in her braid. But she herself—her quiet sorrow and the gentle motion of handing over the towel—was simple, serene, just like when she had lived in a small fishing village before her life veered down this path.
The towel was still warm and slightly damp. Sassel sat up halfway and wiped his face with it.
"Tastes a bit salty," he muttered, instinctively giving it a quick lick.
"I... I might've drooled on it a little when I dozed off," Viola stammered.
Sassel looked at her for a moment, long enough for her face to flush red as she buried it in her knees. Then he shook his head.
"All right, if you say it's drool, then it's drool."
He didn't feel like calling her out for crying alone in the middle of the night. He was terrible with kids—by the gods, he'd spent the first half of his life in the military, the second as a black sorcerer. How would he know how to take care of a child?
"Y-yeah... it was drool. Just drool." She mumbled the words again softly.
Sassel raised an eyebrow.
"Well then, since I just licked your drool, that means you'll never get married."
"Huh?"
"Did you know? Usually, when a man licks a young lady's drool, she gets pregnant in a few weeks and then has a baby. Got that?" Sassel said.
"Th-that's not... I mean…"
"Are you mentally prepared for this?!"
"When I was little, my mother explained where babies come from, sir."
Sassel froze.
"...You just ruined my fun."
"But... still, thank you for cheering me up," she said quietly. "Even if, um, your way of doing it was kind of crude."
"Go, go. Back to your book," Sassel waved her off. "No backtalk to adults."
He turned over, pulling the blanket over himself.
Viola stood up carefully. She looked at Sassel's back for a while, then, hesitantly, reached out to gently brush his black hair. Her hand was slender and soft, faintly scented—undeniably a little girl's hand.
When the black sorcerer stiffened from head to toe, she turned away and walked barefoot across the carpet, silently returning to her chair and her book.
Being pitied by a child... damn it.
Sassel sighed soundlessly. Yeah, he really wasn't good with kids. Who could blame him? He was the subject of folk horror stories.
Feeling a bit depressed, he decided to wake Jeanne up—maybe watching her suffer from being dragged out of sleep would make him feel better.
He got up, gathered his blanket, and walked to the bed where the woman lay on her side. She was covered by a slightly pale blanket, like a shroud of white. Without much thought, he yanked it off.
She was still wearing the lady of the house's nightgown. What, did she think she was a princess? Meanwhile, he'd been sleeping on the carpet in full clothes.
Who was the real guest here?
Sassel scowled.
Then again, ever since they'd first met—when she awakened in the dungeon—he hadn't seen her face without that usual sour expression. And now he had. To be honest, it felt like he was seeing a completely different person... or maybe, for the first time, truly seeing her.
Like a strange ghost—or a living painting.
Everything in this image was detailed and precise—from the embroidered seams of her nightgown, to the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, to the pale blue vein pulsing at her throat, to the curve of lips that looked like they'd never smile. And yet, in sleep, they seemed softer.
Her hair spilled over her shoulder, over her closed eyelids, over her small nose tip—like falling ash or the moonlight flickering on a stream, oddly distant and unfamiliar.
The glow of the fire was dim and soft, like light refracted through water—it fell on Jeanne's face, coating her in a gentle halo, making her seem even more unreal than the doll.
Sassel tapped his skull a few times.
He shook his head and tore his gaze away from her face, glaring instead at Viola, who had been watching him.
"It's all an illusion."
He crossed himself absentmindedly, confused by the strange emotion welling up in his chest... and then his brows furrowed.
The scroll in Jeanne's hand had caught his attention.
Yellowed parchment, rolled tight and bound with a blue ribbon.
That was magic.
Ancient, bloody magic—it reminded him of the Pathways of the Demonbinders, the Snow Fiends, and the Temas. Races from the ancient world, the earliest intelligent beings—so-called "Creator Races."
As a black sorcerer, he could access the human-allowed pathways, even the heretical ones tied to elder gods. But as long as he was still human, he could never reach the ones restricted to those ancient races. And this scroll—was clearly tied to something no human should be able to access.
He was certain it hadn't been in the room when he'd fallen asleep.
"Well then—let's see what exactly this thing is—"
Sassel exhaled softly, crouched down, and reached toward the scroll clutched in Jeanne's hand. He carefully took her wrist, trying to pry her fingers off the scroll.
Damn, why was she gripping it so tightly?
He strained to pry open those long, elegant fingers—it felt like trying to bend five iron rods. Veins popped on his wrist as he clenched his teeth. None of that earlier softness remained on his face.
Damn, why is her grip so strong?
"What are you doing?"
Jeanne's eyes snapped open, meeting his in an icy stare.
"Let me guess... a midnight assault?"