---
"Mandrelson. Find out everything."
Kay inclined his head once and vanished without a sound.
Gerald leaned back in his chair, the cool, minty scent still clinging to his skin.
*What a strange creature she is.*
He'd been amused by her flustered reaction—seized on her words purely to tease her. *Help*, she'd called it. What possible help could someone like her offer someone like him?
But deciding to treat this as payment for his teasing, he'd allowed her to do as she pleased.
The unfamiliar sensation of her fingers in his hair had startled him. Such a gentle touch. Such careful movements. He hadn't shown his surprise, but he'd felt it—a flicker of something unfamiliar in his chest.
Then the cloth had descended, cool and damp, settling against his forehead and eyes.
That same fresh scent he'd caught yesterday. And beneath it, something warmer: the clean fragrance of her skin.
He'd inhaled this aroma once before, during their strange encounter when he'd leaned close to her neck. The familiarity of it now was oddly... pleasant.
Any touch near his eyes always caused him agony. He'd braced himself for the familiar searing pain, deciding to endure it as further payment for having tormented her.
But then she'd begun to read.
And this time, he'd found almost nothing to criticize. The tale was unexpectedly captivating—a raven who lied to survive, who repaid kindness despite its nature, who soared free in the end while the count it had helped lived on in gratitude.
He'd become so absorbed that he almost forgot the cloth on his face.
Until slowly, gradually, he noticed something impossible.
*My eyes... don't sting.*
The wet grass had long since touched the sensitive skin around his eyes. By all rights, the pain should have been excruciating.
But there was nothing.
Gerald went rigid with shock.
Since losing his sight, he'd worn the black ribbon because his eyes had become unbearably sensitive. If his eyeballs had possessed skin, the sensation would have been like flesh being flayed from living muscle. Constant. Unrelenting. Whether his lids were open or closed, the slightest stimulus sent fire through his skull.
But tonight—for the first time in over a year—his eyes didn't hurt.
*Mandrelson. What exactly is this flower?*
He became so absorbed in the question that time slipped past unnoticed.
At some point, the familiar presence of Kay materialized in the air.
"Is the plant poisonous?"
His voice emerged clearer than usual. With his eyes not screaming in agony, the other senses that constantly tormented him had quieted as well. For the first time in longer than he could remember, Gerald listened with a mind unclouded by pain.
Kay's report was thorough. The conclusions... complicated.
*Poisonous grass. And she applied it to my eyes.*
*A spy, then?*
The thought should have alarmed him. Instead, it almost made him laugh.
*If spies were as clumsy as she is, I would have purged every infiltrator from this castle years ago.*
"Summon Olive and Zero."
Kay's silence served as acknowledgment. The shadow vanished like smoke.
---
Footsteps approached through the corridor sometime later.
Gerald identified them easily: Olive's measured tread, and heavier ones—Zero, apparently having chosen his adult form tonight.
When they reached the door:
"Enter."
The door swung open, and Zero's voice preceded him into the darkness.
"Duke. Just because *you* don't sleep doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't. Why drag me from my bed in the middle of the night?"
The alchemist swept in, tossing his waist-length silver hair over one shoulder with obvious irritation. Even without sight, Gerald could feel the displeasure radiating from him.
"Mr. Zero, please speak more quietly—"
Olive's warning came from nearby, accompanied by a nervous glance toward the Duke.
Zero removed the spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, wiped them on his nightgown, and replaced them with deliberate slowness.
"He's *blind*, not deaf."
"Mr. Zero!"
Olive's face drained of color.
Zero chuckled—a sharp, caustic sound.
"Oh, right. It's perpetually dark in here. Perhaps you should relocate to an actual cave, Gerald. The atmosphere would be identical."
He fiddled with a bracelet on his wrist, and light bloomed from it—alchemical illumination flooding the study.
*Show-off.*
"Are you finished?"
"Finished with what?"
Olive, observing from the sidelines, barely suppressed a sigh.
These two had been friends since childhood. They got along and they didn't—sometimes simultaneously.
"I'll wait until you're done, then."
"Listen here." Zero shifted his weight, leaning crookedly on one leg. His azure eyes glittered with ice. "As an *extremely* friendly person, let me point out: dragging people from their beds at this hour is excessive."
"Isn't addressing a Duke as 'listen here' also excessive?"
Gerald leaned back, folding his arms across his chest.
"If you don't like it, fire me."
"I *am* a Duke, in case you've forgotten."
"The moment I return home, I'll hold that title as well."
"You think they'll actually grant it to the runaway son?"
Gerald's chuckle was cold. Zero's eyebrow twitched with displeasure.
"Shall I produce the letters where they *beg* you to come back?"
Olive, watching this exchange devolve into childish bickering, couldn't contain his sigh.
"What was that sigh for?"
"What?"
Both demanded simultaneously.
"At times like these," Olive said mildly, "you're remarkably similar."
He stepped forward before either could retort.
"Your Grace, Mr. Zero hasn't slept in three nights. That's why he's particularly... prickly at present."
"..."
Gerald listened in silence.
"He's been developing a new treatment," Olive continued. "For your eyes."
"*Olive!*"
Zero lunged to silence him, but Olive dodged with practiced ease, smile turning sly.
"Which explains his current temperament."
No matter how sharp Zero's tongue became, no one in this room doubted his dedication.
"I'm going to turn you into *olive oil*," Zero hissed.
"Such commitment to your employer," Gerald observed. His tone was exaggerated. Teasing.
"Ask your damned question so I can *sleep*!"
Zero scratched the back of his head, embarrassed despite himself, and retreated to lean against the wall. His glare bored holes into the back of Olive's skull.
"Tell me about Mandrelson."
Gerald had allowed the banter to continue long enough to settle Zero's mood. Now he asked what he'd truly wanted to know.
"Interesting." Zero peeled himself from the wall, adjusting his spectacles. Curiosity sparked in his eyes. "Several people have shown interest in that weed lately."
"Several? Who else?"
Gerald leaned forward, frowning.
"Why do *you* care about Mandrelson?"
"Is it the temporary worker?"
Question met question. Both fell silent.
Zero glanced briefly at the black ribbon covering the Duke's eyes, grimaced slightly, then spoke first.
"The temporary worker, then..."
"Why are you interested in her?"
"So you really *do* call her that?"
Zero removed his glasses entirely, blue eyes gleaming with undisguised fascination.
"..."
Gerald's jaw tightened. Conversations with Zero inevitably derailed.
"*Mandrelson.*"
He ground the word through clenched teeth.
"Ah, yes. Common weed. Grows everywhere." Zero shrugged. "Nothing remarkable about it."
"I'm told it appears in your compendium of poisonous plants."
"Yes and no." A pause. "Why—do you need a laxative?"
Gerald's expression flickered with surprise at the bluntness, but Zero merely continued:
"No matter how much Mandrelson you consume, the worst that happens is diarrhea."
"You said it was poisonous."
"Some unlucky souls die of dehydration while sitting on the privy." Zero's tone suggested he found this mildly amusing. "But that's the extent of its danger."
Olive, listening from the side, adopted a serious expression. He'd never considered diarrhea could prove fatal.
Gerald hesitated before asking his next question.
"Can it... have effects when applied externally?"
"Pff—*HA-HA-HA!*"
Zero doubled over, clutching his stomach, laughter ringing through the study.
"The *funniest* thing I've heard in years!"
"Leave."
Zero snorted at the Duke's displeasure, adjusted his glasses, and grinned.
"By the way—I like her. Give her to me."
The silence that followed was absolute.
"...The temporary worker is not a *thing*."
Gerald's voice had gone flat. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with teasing.
"Says the man who doesn't even use her name."
Zero's smirk sharpened, watching the Duke's expression with predatory interest.
"You misunderstand what was said."
"I'm a genius. There's never a time I don't understand—"
"*She* is temporary."
The correction came fast. Sharp.
Zero's eyebrows rose.
Olive, standing to the side, carefully filed this exchange away for future contemplation.
The Duke of Vines—who had never shown interest in any woman, who avoided human contact entirely, who treated everyone outside his inner circle as interchangeable—had just corrected someone's phrasing regarding this particular girl.
*Interesting,* Olive thought.
*Very interesting indeed.*
---