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Dream at Dawn – Part 02

And so I began to accompany the magician Brian Roscoe on his shows as his assistant. While I was confined to the stone tower and the hospital, the two Brians became full-fledged illusionists and went from town to town, performing in various theaters. I enjoyed being involved with theater. After all, I used to be a dancer. The atmosphere at night. The sweet, dark scent. The applause from the audience, like a blessing from God.

Most of the time I was in the Mechanical Turk, while we were on the road or doing shows. I would hole myself up in this tiny machine, which seemed like it couldn’t hold a person inside, and played chess with customers.

I never lost. I’d been banished from my village, drugged for a long time, but a Gray Wolf’s intellect could never be bested by mere humans.

The two Brians patiently took care of me.

And something, whether it was camaraderie or something akin to love, gradually formed between me and the two red wolves.

I can say now that I love them.

But our bond was brittle, and at the same time complicated.

I never stopped thinking about my lost daughter, but they despised Albert de Blois so much that they hated her as well. We always disagreed when it came to her, but whenever I was worried about my daughter, they would, although reluctantly, go check on her.

Eventually I was able to leave the Mechanical Turk for relatively long periods of time. Little by little the fear left my body.

I’m still with them, waiting for the next storm, watching my daughter and Albert de Blois and his Ministry of the Occult. Sometimes from the trees, like a beast. Other times from deep in the forest. Never being noticed by anyone.

As I talked to them, I gradually learned about their upbringing and their feelings about me.

But that’s another story.

It would be a long, long time before I could talk about it.

It was so dark and damp in the Mechanical Turk, where I spent most of my days, that I felt like I’d been buried alive in a moving tomb.

As though the dead was watching the world through two tiny holes.

Yes.

The eyes of the living buried alive.

---

“Dig up a grave?” Marquis Albert de Blois’s voice reverberated forbiddingly throughout the basement hall.

Everything seemed to tremble—the icy water flowing endlessly from a giant lion’s mouth, the wax figures of women floating in the man-made pond, the pile of chairs and small tables in the corner.

His voice appeared to tear through the fabric of time and space; for a moment it felt like Cordelia Gallo, Ginger Pie, all the young, lively women who had sung and danced here decades ago, in roller skates and wedding clothes, with huge plumes on their heads and showing their skin, glided past Victorique and Marquis de Blois as they stared fixedly at each other, unyielding.

The illusion vanished into the walls with the sound of laughter.

In reality, standing around Victorique and Marquis de Blois were Kazuya, Ms. Cecile, and Inspector Blois with his pointy, golden cannon.

Marquis de Blois’s dark green eyes glowed eerily.

Keeping his back straight, Kazuya circled around Victorique, as though trying to disrupt the silent staring contest between the two. His leather shoes, dark-blue in color as specified by the academy, clicked loudly. Inspector Blois was pacing back and forth with a frown in front of his father, leaning so far forward that his drill could’ve stabbed someone. Ms. Cecile was standing in front of Victorique, munching on the sandwich she had bought as she swayed her upper body from side to side like the needle on a metronome.

Marquis de Blois’s cheek, eerily pale as the reaper’s, twitched ferociously. “Here I was, wondering what the little wolf was going to say. Dig a grave?” He threw his head back and laughed. “You want to dig the grave of the Blue Rose of Saubreme, of Queen Coco? You’ll never receive the king’s permission, not for that kind of reason—solving a murder case.” He turned his attention to the others. “Stay put, you lot. You’re disturbing us.”

“No, not Queen Coco’s grave,” Victorique denied in her deep, husky voice.

The sound of the water flowing from the lion’s mouth echoed low in the silence.

“What?”

“The Downtown Blue Rose’s grave.”

Marquis de Blois’ shoulders slowly dropped back down. His monocle glinted ominously. “Who is that?”

“She used to be a dancer in this theater. She’s buried in a small church nearby.”

“…”

Marquis de Blois and Victorique stared at each other.

“Get out of the way,” Victorique hissed at Ms. Cecile.

The teacher froze. “I’m just worried. I can’t leave you two alone. Oh, do you want bread stuffed with snakeberry jam?”

“Of course.”

“Here you go.”

Holding the bread in her tiny hands, Victorique bit into it like a squirrel. She glanced up. “Kujou is wandering around like he’s ready for combat, and brother is probably trying to protect Father with that drill of his. Hmph.”

“We all feel the odd atmosphere. Munch, munch.”

“Stop moving, Kujou! Munch, munch.”

Kazuya froze. Blinking, he looked at Victorique.

Marquis de Blois called for his men and gave them an order in his dreadful, deep voice. He then turned to Victorique.

“Let’s go,” he said.

His face was devoid of emotion, and his eyes, deep as the abyss, gleamed viciously.

Victorique nodded, and she cast her gaze down, her eyes flickering uneasily.

The small pink hat on her head and the dove perched on her shoulder swayed as Victorique walked along. Kazuya and Ms. Cecile followed behind, the former marching rhythmically like a soldier, the latter looking around, holding a sandwich.

The sound of the water flowing from the lion’s mouth continued to echo eerily through the underground hall.

---

They exited the theater and took a carriage to the church.

Marquis de Blois was wearing a frightening look as he pondered over something. Victorique was watching him with an expression as blank as a doll’s. Kazuya couldn’t tell what was on either’s mind.

It was cold outside. Their breaths were white as ice.

It was still early, but it being winter the sun had already set, and night was creeping in on the city. Darkness was already coiling around the eaves of stores, on the twilit streets, in the corners of vacant lots, waiting patiently for night to come.

“Father,” Victorique, with nary an expression on her face, suddenly called.

Everyone shuddered, except for Marquis de Blois, who slowly lowered his chin and stared at the little Gray Wolf through his eerie monocle. His eyes were icy cold.

“What?”

“You’ve met Queen Coco, no?”

Marquis de Blois nodded, wrinkles appearing on his chin. When he moved his head, his hair—once glittering golden, tied-up like a horse’s tail, but now turning silver—stirred like a rippling wave.

When he was younger, he visited Leviathan, the masked alchemist living in the clock tower, while wearing a white blouse and riding trousers, a simple attire that emphasized his beauty.

His cat-like green eyes had a profound gleam to them, torn between childlike curiosity and cunning ambition, and his cheeks were rosy as flowers in full bloom.

Believing in the power of the Leviathan, he planned to create an army of artificial human beings—homunculi—at St. Marguerite Academy to help fight in the coming storm, the first global war in human history, an unprecedented catastrophe that would engulf everything.

But Leviathan’s downfall and disappearance crushed the young Albert’s ambition. Then about ten years later, he found a descendant of the legendary Gray Wolves in the theater in Saubreme, captured it, and locked it up in a tower made of stone.

Marquis de Blois, now older, with a wicked and terrifying aura that he wore around him like a second skin, was under the stare of Victorique, a young pup with formidable intellect, born between him and the Gray Wolf.

“Coco Rose? Of course.”

Victorique gave him a glare, urging him to continue.

Everyone stared at Marquis de Blois’ mouth with bated breath.

“It was 1987, when she came from France and married into the royal family,” he began. “I saw her for the first time at the wedding ceremony held at the palace. The king looked magnificent, wearing a white silk robe and a large crown on his head. The queen-to-be was quiet and shy, and looked terrified of the lavish party.”

“Hmm.”

“I still remember her shoulders trembling like it was only yesterday.”

The carriage rocked. In the distance stood the church’s small spire. The bell tolled, announcing the evening hour.

“Soon the whole kingdom was shaken by Coco Rose’s sudden rise in popularity. It was almost as if the people had lost their minds. She indeed looked lovely in her public photographs, and in the newspapers, where she stood next to the king. But when I saw her in person at the royal banquet, she seemed like a very ordinary, even shyer, girl. She barely responded when spoken to, and I could not puzzle out how she earned so much of the public’s admiration.”

“I see.”

“She stayed in the royal palace for only three years, until the year 1900. She then spent most of the next fourteen years recuperating in a country house in the suburbs. Some said that her moving was simply an excuse for her to enjoy herself, but they were unaware of the queen’s true nature.” Marquis de Blois scratched his chin with his long, sinister fingers, each looking like sharp knives. “I met Coco Rose once in the academy’s clock tower. I think it was in 1899.”

“When you went to see Leviathan.”

“That is correct.”

Victorique’s golden hair billowed softly, as though blown by the wind.