3 bar menu

I Demand Fifteen Mysteries – Part 05

“You’re an ignorant princess locked in a tower.”

Later that night.

Within the small yet cozy bedroom nestled deep within the candy house, Victorique was dreaming, wrapped in comforters of a light blue hue as soft as drifting clouds, partially concealed by the veil cascading from the canopied bed.

Victorique de Blois, having celebrated her fifteenth birthday yesterday, was already considerably grown up, but within her dreams, time had rewound, turning her into a tender girl who had yet to reach the age of ten.

In a dreadful place far removed from the comfortable bed she now occupied, she lay nestled on a makeshift bed of dirty fabric laid over straw in a small, cell-like room atop a stone tower, sleeping like an animal.

Stacks of books lined the walls, and an array of confections lay scattered on the floor. Clad in a dress adorned with frills and laces, she hadn’t yet acquired the notion of changing into sleepwear at night. She held knowledge of lives captured within the pages of books, but they spoke of distant realms, nothing of the here and now.

A maid would bring her these books and dresses, trembling.

Night after night, the young Victorique cried out like a wounded animal, yearning for light, yet unable to grasp the essence of what she sought. She merely gazed up at the moon glimpsed through a small window, longing for salvation.

At some point, her stepbrother Grevil de Blois arrived. In exchange for granting him wisdom, she ordered him to make his blond hair pointy.

Expecting objections, she was caught off guard. To her astonishment, her brother, who typically quivered in her presence, showed no fear, and instead responded with ridicule.

Tonight, it appeared Victorique was reliving that particular evening.

She stirred in her sleep, rolling from one end of the bed to the other, labored breaths spilling from her plump, cherry lips.

“If you wanted to throw me into the pits of despair, you should have asked me not to love Jacqueline anymore.”

“Didn’t think of that, did you?”

“You have no power to put anyone in despair. Because the little Gray Wolf has never loved anyone.”

“That’s not true,” she groaned.

Victorique tossed and turned over and over, letting out pained, hot breaths.

In her dream of the horrifying past, the moon outside the small window gradually turned into a shade of purple.

Mocking laughter accompanied Grevil’s footsteps as he descended the stone staircase.

Left all alone, the young girl writhed. Then, the moon she gazed upon from her straw bed transformed into a ring, sparkling as it jumped from the window.

A smile as bright as an innocent child’s, the kind the real Victorique had never shown, graced her face as she extended both hands eagerly.

The ring grew wings and fluttered away like an insect. Victorique sprang to her feet and ran after it. When she at last seized it, cradling it gently in her hands, a woman with a face strikingly similar to her own peered in through the small window.

This, too, was an event in her distant past.

Within the dream, Victorique shrank even further. She was now four to five years old.

Imprisoned within the stone tower, the young girl was bound by chains due to her uncontrollable outbursts; her only solace was the books that kept her alive.

The woman possessed resplendent locks of gold and eyes of deep emerald green, her facial features as perfect as a doll’s. How she climbed all the way up to the window, the little Victorique did not know. The woman handed her a golden pendant and told her she loved her.

Only once—on that unforgettable, cherished night—did Victorique see her mother’s face directly.

Thereafter, the girl became engulfed by a sea of books, in search of the meaning of the word “love.” An enigmatic concept that eluded her grasp.

A decade had passed since then.

Shimmering, the pendant fell into her small hands. It was crafted from a gold coin that Cordelia brought with her when she was banished from the Nameless Village with nothing but the clothes on her back.

As she reached for it, the coin pendant suddenly plummeted, and when she looked down, the floor of the cell had transformed into a gaping, pitch-black abyss.

Noticing the small figure of a boy with black hair and jet-black eyes teetering on the edge, Victorique extended her arms, not towards the pendant, but towards the boy.

Toward her invaluable friend.

In a sudden epiphany, Victorique realized that what truly mattered were not material possessions, but people; not memories of the past, but the present moment. She had learned, without realizing it, something she had never found swimming through seas of books or wandering the forest of knowledge.

The sensation of the boy’s warm, clammy palm as she pulled him up instilled deep within Victorique a mix of intense fear and some indescribable emotion.

Since then, whenever she looked at the boy’s face and heard his voice, she felt a mysterious blend of irritation and fondness, even more so than before. When he was around, she couldn’t help but act out, playing mean pranks on him or pushing him away, but at the same time his absence made her feel exceedingly lonely and hateful.

Oh? She had woken up, it seemed. Victorique had grown once more. She had left the stone tower, and was currently in the candy house.

With her father, Marquis Albert de Blois, no longer keeping an eye on her, her homeroom teacher looked after her instead, transforming the house into a cozy haven in just a matter of weeks. The once-hard bed now had a canopy and a fluffy comforter. Decorations adorned the drawers. A vase appeared on the table, while the tea set bore a lovely floral motif. Even the curtains had been replaced with luxurious velvet drapes.

No.

Victorique was still dreaming.

It was between spring and summer. A gentle warmth prompted her to open the window, and she settled herself in a chair beside it. The young boy from earlier was smiling at her, his jet-black hair stirring like spring grasslands in the breeze.

His black eyes glimmered with delight and affection.

“You’re such an enigma. To me, you are the strangest of all mysteries.”

“Someday I’ll solve the mystery surrounding you. I swear it.”

A white butterfly fluttered past the boy’s face.

Victorique, dreaming with her eyes shut tight, smiled a faint smile. Her remarkably long golden eyelashes stirred softly.

She lay on the delicate bed covered with light blue comforters. The gold pendant on the chest of her sleepwear, adorned with pure-white ruffles, sparkled.

“Kujou,” Victorique mumbled in her sleep. “You stupid scoundrel!”

Even in her dream, she was angry. She kept grumbling and hurtling insults in a barely audible voice, but her gentle expression showed her true feelings, much more openly and honestly than when she was awake.

Finally at peace, the corner of her lips loosened. Then, tears of relief started spilling from her eyes.

Outside, the moon shimmered brightly.

“Kujou, this is all your fault!”

Tears streaming down her face, Victorique softly opened her eyes.

Rousing from a long dream, she just stared at the bed’s canopy for a while, wondering where she was.

Finally in a hushed voice, she said, “I might have started wanting to run for my life. From the depths of nothingness and ennui where I’ve been for so long, the monster has finally emerged onto land. Maybe that’s why this body has become weaker. After all, what kind of power does a mere mortal like me really have? Hmph…!”

Her long golden hair, fanned out on the light blue sheets, resembled a living entity afloat in water.

Victorique stirred, as though rocked by waves. “Europe’s last and greatest intellect. The Philosopher in the Fur Coat. Within this frail body resides a feeble, powerless soul.”

The night sky bore witness to Victorique’s musings.

“Kujou, only you can protect me.”

Gazing into the deep blue darkness shrouding the small bedroom, Victorique shed another tear.

“The students who hurried home, the nobles who evacuated to the village. Soon, my brother would come here. Grevil I can bear.”

The light blue sheets quivered like waves.

“But I don’t want to see Father.”

Victorique stared quietly into the darkness, her small figure swaying in the phantom waves. On her chest, the golden pendant glittered endlessly, as if saying it would always be by her side.

She turned over, and the pendant flipped, following her movement.

The night was far from over.

Outside the window, the frozen moon bathed everything in a pale glow. A clump of snow fell from the roof, and Victorique gave a start. Then, she nestled deep into the light blue comforter.

Before long, her soft, adorable snores filled the room.