Chapter 23
“…Who knows what now?”
Looking half-dazed, Lizzy asked again. Garrett responded as if this were all nothing out of the ordinary.
[Edward knows where the shiny human is.]
“Who’s Edward…?”
But it wasn’t Garrett who answered Lizzy’s question.
A small robin, seemingly unfazed by the shiny ointment on the patched-up tin head, proudly puffed out its orange chest and replied.
[I am Edward.]
“Oh my god.”
[He says he’s seen him often while patrolling his territory.]
Edward nodded, looking rather pleased with himself at Garrett’s comment.
[Of course. I make a habit of keeping track of the humans wandering around my domain.]
“Garrett. You little…”
Well, you lost, but you fought well.
With a touched expression, Lizzy squeezed out the remaining ointment and applied it to Garrett’s patched-up head.
A breakthrough had come from an unexpected place.
If the robin really knew where Cyrus was, then a week might not be so short after all.
“So, where is Cyrus?”
Lizzy asked urgently. The robin tilted his small head and answered.
[I don’t really know such a strange name. But if he’s the human with black feathers on his head and those deadly eyes…]
“A human with…?”
[Hmm… hmmm…]
Mid-sentence, the robin placed his gray wing under his beak and began seriously pondering.
Lizzy frowned in concern.
Had he already seen Cyrus collapse from side effects?
Or maybe the butler had locked him up in the top of the mansion, claiming he was insane.
Just as Lizzy’s imagination was running wild—
The robin finally opened his beak.
[Explaining it is hard. I’ll just show you directly.]
“Hard to explain…?”
[This body can only count to three.]
“…”
Ah.
If you can only count to three, it would definitely be hard to describe a mansion of that size.
Lizzy understood.
A night thick with clouds was so dark that visibility was almost zero.
Tap, tap.
Lizzy stepped out of the cabin, walking side by side with a Galloway eagle that had a crow perched on its shoulder and the robin Edward sitting on its head.
Anyone who saw the scene might’ve rubbed their eyes seventeen times.
But Lizzy and the three birds strode forward without hesitation.
The mansion’s people were surely asleep at this hour, and the knights only patrolled the main gates and walls, so they weren’t likely to run into anyone.
Even if someone happened to peek out the window, a tiny robin, a pitch-black crow, and a dark-feathered Galloway eagle wouldn’t be easily recognized in the dark. Nothing to worry about.
[He’ll be awake.]
Edward, the garden robin, spoke confidently.
[That human never sleeps.]
[Yeah, it’s true!]
The crow on Lizzy’s shoulder nodded its head in agreement.
[Even back at the farm, he never slept. I tried to watch him, but he didn’t close his eyes all night, even after dawn!]
“Hmm, was insomnia a side effect?”
Edward shook his head firmly at Lizzy’s murmur.
[No, he’s always been that way.]
“Always?”
[Yeah. Even back when I heroically seized this marvelous territory from those damned cats—he slept less than the horses in the stable.]
“How long do horses sleep?”
[One, one… ugh…]
Edward wiggled the tips of his gray wings in the air, then finally answered with a proud look, like he’d accomplished something great.
[Three!]
“…I’m impressed you know horses sleep three hours.”
[I learned it while studying numbers in the stable. Ahem, I’m a fast learner.]
“Yeah, amazing.”
Lizzy tossed out a half-hearted compliment, then furrowed her brows in thought.
Just three hours a day?
If it were just for a day or two, maybe. But maintaining that kind of sleep schedule daily was definitely bad for both physical and mental health.
If it wasn’t a side effect, then why didn’t he sleep?
‘Damn it, I should’ve held onto him longer at the cabin, assassin or not, and observed him more.’
While Lizzy chewed over the mystery—
They arrived at the mansion’s front.
When she looked up, the glass windows that had sparkled in the sunlight were now swallowed by the thick darkness.
“Looks like everyone’s asleep.”
To that, the robin opened his beak.
[Mostly. But not that human.]
“But there’s no light.”
She’d thought of visiting at night before.
But without any lights on, and with the crow’s poor night vision, it had been impossible to search the entire place. So she gave up.
[There is light. Just too faint to see properly.]
Edward continued seriously.
[Sometimes, people in black clothing show up. And they always find their way in perfectly. When that happens, it causes a huge ruckus in the middle of the night and wakes me up… I swear I’ll dent those bastards’ heads someday.]
The crow on Lizzy’s shoulder shivered from the trauma laced in Edward’s words.
Meanwhile, the robin had already finished preening his feathers and was ready to fly.
[Anyway, I’ll go confirm the human’s location. He’s in a different place every time, so it might take a while. Wait here. Garrett, let’s move out.]
With a tone more formal than necessary, the robin took off.
The crow followed.
Though robins aren’t particularly better at night vision than crows, Edward was familiar with the area, so there was nothing to worry about.
“We’ll wait here,” Lizzy said.
Zane whimpered and asked,
[Can’t I go too?]
“You can’t see in the dark.”
[Neither can they!]
“They might bump into a window and make a ‘thud’, but you…”
Imagining a Galloway eagle the size of a calf crashing through a window in the dead of night and knights firing crossbows in response, Lizzy turned toward Zane.
Apparently imagining the same, Zane closed his large beak and gently folded his wings, which he’d been flapping like he might take off.
“They’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”
Before long, the robin and crow would return with Cyrus’ location.
Once they knew which floor and which window he usually stayed at, or where the study and bedroom were, they could observe him even during the day—
“What was that?”
Lizzy suddenly looked up sharply.
The eagle beside her, just as sensitive to sounds, also turned its fierce eyes to the darkness.
Something was moving in the shadows.
“Hmm.”
Cyrus Blanchard dimmed the flickering lantern even further and leaned by the window.
Though it was an expensive magic lantern that prevented light from leaking outside, Cyrus still refused to leave it too bright.
Assassins could sense even the slightest bit of magic.
On nights when they came, the stench of blood alone kept him from sleeping. It was better to deal with the inconvenience.
“…”
At the end of his gaze was the shadowed rear garden.
Today, Cyrus had stayed in his bedroom all day.
It was dreadful to remain there, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the garden outside.
Not the imperial garden full of exotic flowers, nor the famous Wigglow estate’s garden—sold off now—had moved him.
To him, gardens were just orderly rows of trimmed flowers and trees—a boring sight.
But this garden stirred forgotten emotions within him like a heat haze.
A strange sense of déjà vu.
“Wildflowers.”
He repeated the word his aide had told him today as he looked outside.
“Wh-what flowers, sir… uh, they were mostly…”
His aide, Niles Honeycutt, had stammered and eventually gave a half-defeated reply.
“There were some bluegrasses, and… something called glass… uh, they were mostly all wildflowers.”
Then he had added:
“I-if you don’t like them, I’ll have the gardener replace them with more valuable, beautiful ones—”
“Don’t.”
“Wh-what?!”
“Leave.”
“Ah, y-yes! Right away!”
Even as Niles retreated, Cyrus continued to stare outside.
His chest fluttered at the sight of the wind-swayed waves of flowers.
It was strange.
To spend so much time just looking at nameless flowers?
“…I really have gone mad.”
Clicking his tongue at himself, Cyrus stepped away from the window.
He had to snap out of it.
The orange-haired gardener stood out, but that was it.
The person who made this strange garden.
The gardener was nothing more.
Once he found out the truth about Cyrus, he’d either hate him, fear him, or try to kill him.
Now holding the nearly extinguished lantern, Cyrus slowly opened the door.
And just as he was about to close it—
“…!”
A faint footstep from outside the window made Cyrus’ amethyst eyes gleam.
A knight wouldn’t move so stealthily. It had to be an assassin.
“Damn it.”
Cursing, Cyrus drew the dagger from his belt.
How many this month already?
Tonight, he’d kill this bastard and demand answers from the knights who let him through.
He gently set down the extinguished lantern and crept toward the window.
The stealthy footsteps had stopped.
Instead, desperate breathing and wild flapping could be heard.
Flap flap! Thud!
“…Thud?”
Confused by the sound, Cyrus flung open the window and leaned out.
And then he saw it.
“…”
“…”
[…]
[…]
Cyrus saw:
The gardener with one hand clamped over an assassin’s mouth, choking him with the other.
A robin pecking at the half-unconscious assassin’s head.
A crow jabbing at his side.
And an eagle staring blankly at the scene.
A kind of silence he never expected in this mansion hung between the two humans and three birds.
Then, Lizzy—who had wanted to meet Cyrus, but not quite like this—spoke with forced calm.
“…Uh, hey?”
Naturally, it didn’t land at all.
