Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter: Volume 15 E-Book

Riku Nanano

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 304

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Civil war threatens the Lalannoy Republic. An opposition party colluded with church agents, splitting the young nation in two in a bid for power. Determined to build a coalition against the growing influence of the false Saint and her apostles, the Wainwright Kingdom dispatches a highborn envoy to broker an alliance with the republic’s rightful leader. But a diplomat needs an aide, and that’s where Allen comes in. Fresh from a bitter reunion with his best-friend-turned-undead-foe, the young sorcerer was already looking for a chance to set aside his tutoring and follow a lead to Lalannoy himself. He knows he’s walking into a trap, and he doesn’t care. The secrets lurking beneath the city of craft—and the guise of an unexpected traveling companion—will test Allen like never before.

Leseprobe

Prologue

“Lord Ridley, I’ve finished probing their mana, and the wavelengths match. We’ve found them: apostles of the Holy Spirit and their band of inquisitors!”

The shout rang through the moss-covered entryway of a disused chapel on the western edge of Tabatha, the city of craft, capital of the Lalannoy Republic. A boy with dull-blond hair flushed beneath the hood of his white-and-silver robe, still clutching his metal staff as he ended his detection spell. Lord Artie Addison looked frail and childlike in the light of the mana lamp. Everyone said he was fifteen, but he still reminded me of a puppy. Nearby, several dozen of our crack troops shot good-natured grins at the eldest son of Marquess Addison, founding champion of the republic.

At his age, my kid sister Lily had already started steering her own course.

“Drop the ‘lord,’ Artie. The troops are watching,” I said, looking out at a few of the city’s distinctive square towers silhouetted against the sky. Circumstances had kept me in the country for a year now.

“F-Forgive me,” Artie said, with a start. “But I can’t be too cavalier with a duke’s son. My father warned me to mind my manners.”

He had a point. The Leinsters held one of the Four Great Dukedoms of the Wainwright Kingdom, the greatest power in the west of the continent. The duke and his family were customarily styled “Highness,” and foreign powers treated the duchy like a nation in its own right. My own parents, the under-duke and -duchess, got some of the same perks. Me, though?

“Lord Addison never changes,” I said, touching the red hair poking out the side of my hood. “I keep explaining that I ran away to become a humble seeker of swords and sweets, but I can’t seem to get through to him. Now, how many are we up against, and how skilled are they? What elements do they use?”

Artie shrank and hung his head. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, tears welling in his dark-brown eyes. “I couldn’t tell that much.”

Well, magic’s not what it used to be. I can’t hold him to the same standards as a master sorcerer from back home.

“Never mind,” I said, sword and armor clinking as I dusted off my cloak. “We know our target’s here, and that’s good enough. I can tell you’ve improved.”

“Th-Thank you.” Artie’s frown turned upside down. He had talent. With more years behind him, he’d grow into a fine sorcerer, a fine marquess, and a fine leader of his country.

“Captain, how’s morale?” I asked an approaching naval officer—Minié Jonsson, a man high in Marquess Addison’s trust. A tricorn hat crowned his blue uniform, and a saber and spell-pistol hung from his belt.

“High,” he answered. “My second-in-command, Snider, has a force staking out the other exit. We can’t be too free with orb communications, though. Apart from the church, anti-Addisonites could be listening in.”

“I hear you took a hand in the Algren rebellion yourself.”

“Orders are orders.” A bit sheepishly, he added, “The marquess saved me from a court martial, and don’t think I’m not grateful. I want to sail a ship again.”

Lalannoyan artificing had never been better. Some of it even beat anything the kingdom could put together. Spell-guns, which let anyone rapid-fire elementary spells until they ran out of bullets, stood out as the prime example. At the moment, though, the country was split clean in two.

Nearly a hundred years had gone by since the republic won its independence from the Yustinian Empire to its north. The House of Addison and the Bright Wings Party it led had guided the country all that time...until an eastern army faction had rebelled against its anti-Yustinian focus on the western front and formed a secret alliance with the Church of the Holy Spirit. They had not only smuggled spell-guns and other magical weapons to the Algrens but also sent troops to massacre rebel Wainwright nobles on the islets of the Four Heroes Sea.

The marquess had purged the eastern forces as soon as the dust settled and tried to sweep the incident under the rug. But by then, it was already too late. His opposition, the Heaven and Earth Party, had let the cat out of the bag. Public opinion had split east and west, along with the military, leaving the republic on the brink of civil war.

More likely than not, the Heaven and Earth Party had their own backroom deal with the church. Marquess Addison still feared splitting his country for good too much to make any grand military moves, but he couldn’t ignore the apostles getting up to who-knew-what in the shadows either. In the end, he’d recalled the republic’s greatest champion to the capital, begged for my help, and sent the both of us after them. Just the other day, we’d put an end to the fourth apostle, an ancient vampire, with the help of an old martial artist.

All well and good, except I came here to train my pastry skills.

“To be honest,” Minié said, adjusting his tricorn, “I can’t say I’m thrilled about taking on a bunch of monsters, but what can you do? Anyway, better them than another round with the Brain of the Lady of the Sword.”

That nickname takes me back. No one but my cousin called him that back when I fled the royal capital.

“Most things seem that way when you compare them to the continent’s future greatest sorcerer.” I cracked a rueful grin, tapping my armor and scabbard—both white and scarlet.

“We found that out the hard way on the Four Heroes Sea. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” The seasoned naval officer strode off toward a group of soldiers preparing for the assault. His back radiated fighting spirit.

Artie had listened to us talk in silence. “Ridley,” he spoke up hesitantly, “is the Brain of the Lady of the Sword really as great as all that?”

“You bet,” I said. “He made it into the Royal Academy without anything to fall back on but his own skill, and I’ve lost count of the great deeds he’s done since. The Lady of the Sword owes her meteoric rise to meeting him. Rumor has it he’s played a hand in just about every crisis in recent memory.”

Despite her ducal lineage, my cousin Lydia had never managed to cast a decent spell. People had gone as far as calling her “the Leinsters’ cursed child.” Then a new legend in the making had saved her and won the current Hero’s respect. Lord Rodde, the Archmage and veteran of the War of the Dark Lord, had known greatness when he saw it—and so had I, or I wouldn’t have lost my head and challenged my cousin to single combat in front of her “Brain.”

“If he were here,” the republic’s future leader said, clutching my sleeve with both hands, “could he fix our communication orb problems?”

“Well...” I faltered, then fished out a little pocket watch I’d bought in this city of craft.

I guess we have time.

“Artie, let me tell you a funny story—one I’ve never shared with anyone before.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” the boy said.

I felt his gaze on me as I rested a hand on the hilt of my trusty sword. “You see, as far as I could tell, the Brain of the Lady of the Sword—Allen of the wolf clan—doesn’t have any special talent for magic.”

That took a moment to sink in. Then Artie murmured, “What?”

The winter wind rustled our cloaks.

“He was an orphan,” I said, looking the baffled lordling in the eye. “No relation to his wolf-clan parents. And I hear he never had a magic teacher because the eastern capital’s beastfolk saw him as an outsider. Shamed as I am to admit it, anti-beastfolk prejudice in my homeland runs deep. He got hit with the blowback.”

Not even the Leinsters’ intelligence network had managed to identify his birth parents. The beastfolk community had gradually opened up to him, but the chieftains had refused to accept him as one of their own. No one but his adoptive family and a few other beastfolk had stood up for him before he came to the royal capital, where he’d met Lydia, Princess Cheryl Wainwright, and the late Zelbert Régnier.

“I bet Allen practiced magic because he wanted a way out,” I mused. “The knight orders put too much stress on lineage to give him much hope, but the court sorcerers make allowances for skill.”

“B-But...” Artie fumbled for words. “How could anyone but a prodigy hold his own against dragons and devils?”

“I got him to show me his training regimen just once, back in the royal capital,” I said, thinking back to what he’d done while we watched Lydia and Princess Cheryl fight in the Royal Academy training ground. His method had been unremarkable, yet I’d never seen anything like it. “He ran through basic control exercises, just cycling through the eight classical elements over and over again. There was no trick to it. Allen practiced the same routine every single day, more times than you’d think possible. It added up to thousands, millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions of repetitions—more than the rest of us do in a lifetime.”

Artie gaped, speechless.

Sorcerers needed fundamentals every bit as much as swordsmen. Only those seemingly endless drills set Allen apart. Most people couldn’t come down that hard on themselves.

I squinted up at the moon. My brother-in-arms must have been making his own final preparations outside a different abandoned chapel. In the end, we never had figured out why the apostles cared so much about these relics of the cult of the “Great Moon,” whatever that was.

“He didn’t have a talent for magic,” I said. “What he had was determination stronger than most of us can imagine. At the time, I failed to understand that, so I lost to my cousin when she found that same resolve.”

I recalled the heat of her blade at my throat and the blazing fire in her eyes. “You’re strong, Ridley. A lot stronger than me,” she had said. “But I can’t lose while he’s watching. I can’t! I swore I wouldn’t, so I won’t.”

No one would ever get the better of my cousin, Lydia Leinster, the Lady of the Sword, while she had him at her side.

“Remember, Artie.” I clenched my fist and touched it to the young lord’s heart. “Relentless determination beats raw talent. You can’t turn to an enemy and say, ‘Please spare me; I’m not cut out for this!’ And don’t you want to keep Isolde safe?”

The boy’s eyes flashed at the name of the girl a strange twist of fate had placed in his house’s care. Isolde’s father led the Heaven and Earth Party.

“Thank you, Ridley!” he cried, nodding vigorously.

“When this mission’s over, treat me to a pastry I’ve never had before,” I said, taking one last look at my watch before pocketing it. Minié and the other soldiers fell into formation, spell-guns in hand.

I gave Artie a thump on the back. “It’s time. Let’s move.”

“Yes, sir!”

I led the unit down a somber stone passage by the light of antique mana lamps. We had ringed ourselves in silencing spells. Given who we were up against, though, I couldn’t rule out an ambush.

“I had no idea this was here,” Artie murmured, taking in the walls, ceiling, and massive stone pillars, all moss-covered and crumbling in places.

“It reminds me of a place in the southern capital. I used to play there all the time as a kid,” I said. “Halt.”

The group obeyed as one. Skewed stone doors gave on to a large chamber.

Minié drew his saber. “My lord, Sir Ridley, allow us to take the lead.” To the troops—and the tense young male officer behind him—he added, “Remember: not a sound.”

The spell-gunners advanced with a muted chorus of “Yes, sir.” I would have liked to call for detection spells, but knowing Artie’s skill, the enemy would just trace them back to us.

As the doors drew nearer, I felt a slight tremor. Our targets were here all right.

Minié silently raised his hand and pointed his saber at the lamplit chamber ahead. The spell-gunners advanced to the doors in neat formation.

I saw a group of robed men, several in gray and two in pristine white: inquisitors and apostles of the Church of the Holy Spirit.

“Fire!”

Minié’s command unleashed a barrage of light from several dozen spell-guns. Each blast had about the force of the elementary spell Divine Light Shot, but they added up to a serious blow. A crash rang out, a flash engulfed the chamber, and dust filled the air.

“Charge, if you please!” Artie shouted, swinging his staff with dignity, and we all plunged in. The soldiers held ranks, launching even more spell-bullets into the dust cloud.

We managed to catch them off guard, but they won’t go down this easily.

The soldiers gave a start as spell formulae slithered up the pillars to the ceiling. They reminded me of nothing so much as congealing blood. A shower of shadowy chains gouged chunks out of the floor. The doorway closed behind us.

This looks like...

“We’re caught in a barrier!”

“Well spotted. I never dreamed you’d divide your forces and walk into our trap so readily. I only wish our search here had proven as fruitful. Still, one can’t have everything.”

A gust of sinister black wind revealed a slender apostle, staff in hand. His deep hood hid his face.

They knew we were coming?!

The other apostle, a hulking man, appeared behind us with the inquisitors, their single-edged daggers drawn.

“Fire!” Minié barked again, urgency in his voice.

A rapid volley answered, but every shot bounced off a wall of gray: remnants of the great spell Radiant Shield that Gerard Wainwright had leaked into their hands.

“I’ve test-fired a few spell-guns myself,” the thin apostle said. “They pale in comparison to their namesakes from the days gods walked the earth. Those slew wyrms with ease, but yours might as well be toys before Her Holiness’s glorious might. Don’t you agree, Ifur?”

“It goes without saying, Ibush-nur.” The larger apostle swept his cloak aside, drew a magnificent longsword from his belt, and brandished it aloft. The thin apostle touched his staff to it, and dark water sped through the air as an enormous spell formula took shape.

“N-Nothing human has mana like this!” Artie wailed, backing away while the whole chamber shook.

“Defensive positions! And be quick about it!” Minié snapped.

“Y-Yes, sir!” The soldiers unfurled scrolls, raising barriers in rapid succession.

The thin apostle sneered. “A witch who warred against the world five hundred years ago crafted this tactical taboo: Wail of Wasting Waters. The likes of you could never withstand its—”

I stopped listening and sprinted, low to the ground. Flames rose with my fighting spirit, dominating the space around me as I closed in.

“Not so fast!”

“Heretic!”

“Leave the apostles to their great work!”

The gray-robed inquisitors shouted, rapidly conjuring chains. Several hundred soon sought to seize me with their ruthless grasp. I leapt to a pillar, kicked off it for all I was worth, and dove, slipping between them. My trusty sword flashed from its scabbard in a sweeping slash as I landed. An inferno followed in the blade’s wake, annihilating the floating spell formula.

The inquisitors landed near me, lips twisting into grimaces despite their consternation. I laid into them with my flaming sword, slicing through their torsos before they had a chance to react. To the men’s shock, their vestiges of the great spell Resurrection flickered and died amid my flames. I swept my blade around toward the thin apostle—and the screech of steel on steel filled the chamber. The big apostle’s longsword had blocked my strike.

“Well now,” I said, “that’s a fine blade you’ve got there.”

A staff swept down in lieu of an answer. The thin apostle had cast the advanced spell Ocean Orb at point-blank range.

I knocked the longsword aside and fell back, slicing through the oncoming ball on my backswing. Fire met inky water in an explosion of force. Scorching wind from the blast blew our hoods back as we moved apart.

Ibush-nur narrowed his eyes. “Swordmaster Ridley Leinster,” he said, sweat running down his cheeks, “you fled the kingdom. What brings you to this land?”

“I take it that’s one of the flaming swords the Leinsters had the long-lived races forge after the war, as weapons against the Dark Lord,” the big apostle added, adjusting his grip on his longsword amid the growing blaze. “True Scarlet is the most famous, but I had heard that others existed. Yours easily contains more mana than a supreme spell.”

“It’s called ‘Devoted Blossom.’ Nice name, don’t you think?” I said, glancing behind me. Artie and Minié looked pale, but they hadn’t lost heart.

I leveled my flaming sword at the apostles. “Earl Raymond Despenser and Marchese Fossi Folonto—or would you prefer ‘Fifth Apostle Ibush-nur’ and ‘Sixth Apostle Ifur,’ servants of the dubious so-called ‘Saint’?” I taunted as the flames leapt higher, spreading to the actual wards hemming us in. “There are only seven of you—six since we put down your number four, Idris. You should have taken Lalannoyan intelligence more seriously.”

Marquess Addison had left no stone unturned once he’d caught on to the church’s machinations. These fanatics would stop at nothing, but we’d still found out who some of them really were.

The apostles radiated silent fury. Serpentine marks appeared on their cheeks, amplifying their mana. They were no pushovers. Still, I could take them with my companions backing me up.

“So, what now?” I pressed. “I’d be happy to accept your surrender. I’d love to know what brings you here, for one thing. You gentlemen have skill, but you don’t measure up to the old vampire we already— Hm?”

“L-Lord Ridley! I sense powerful mana!” Artie shouted as a twist in space interrupted my appraisal of the lesser apostles.

Without warning, the contorted space blossomed into an eight-petaled black flower. At nearly the same moment, I caught a lightning-quick slash on my trusty sword and locked blades with a new foe: a brown-eyed girl in a hooded gray robe who had just teleported in. Her hands gripped a crimson-stained sword with a single edge on its large curved blade.

A “katana”! I’ve heard a land far to the east forged them in ancient times.

“You make handling that unwieldy thing look easy!” I exclaimed as sparks flew from our blades. Friend or foe, her swordplay was formidable.

I swept my sword to one side, holding off the katana-wielder with a burst of fire. I started to charge through the blaze—then swerved back, Artie’s startled cry ringing in my ears. A long spear imbued with spiraling wind magic shot down from over my head, leaving a gash on my cheek. I’d sensed no trace of mana. I could never have dodged it if not for my Leinster intuition.

Still off-balance, I kicked the ground and spun. My blade slit open the hood of a second gray-robed girl as I fell back. She had teleported in on a delay.

I glared at the newcomers. Both outclassed Ibush-nur and Ifur.

“A katana-wielder out of some old fairy tale and a beastfolk spearwoman,” I said. “Did that last technique come from the old Atlas Kingdom? You must be Viola Kokonoe, the Saint’s agent who appeared in the city of water, and Third Apostle Levi Atlas, who wears an inquisitor’s robe despite her rank!”

The spear-wielding apostle whose hood I’d split was a young cat-clan girl. Her short straw-colored hair faded to white halfway down its length. Her eyes showed no emotion, but hatred swirled in their depths. Viola resheathed her long katana and leaned forward, poised to kill. She was the biggest threat in the room. Even Ibush-nur and Ifur started deploying a dizzying array of spells.

The tables had turned. I needed to make sure at least Artie and the soldiers got away. My grip tightened on my sword. Then my orb blinked.

Really?!

“Throw all you’ve got into magical defense!” I shouted, launching myself backward without a moment’s delay. “Don’t count on him to hold back!”

“What?” Artie gaped. “L-Lord Ridley, y-you don’t mean—”

“Yes, sir!” Minié interrupted, raising the toughest barrier he could manage. The other soldiers followed suit.

A moment later, a ray of light shot through the chapel ceiling, slicing it open along with the wards confining us. While silent screams burst from my allies and flames raged, a lone young knight landed majestically on the central pillar. He wore a fearless grin on an impossibly handsome face framed by gleaming blond hair and silver-gold eyes. Armored in pure white and azure with a gold-embroidered cape, he carried twin white-scabbarded swords: enchanted blades forged in the Old Empire by the House of Shiki at the height of its prowess.

Noting the apostles’ wary looks, I turned to the man who had just made this flashy entrance and said, “You’re late, Arthur.”

“The star always enters last!” Lalannoy’s guardian angel answered, with a loud laugh. “Don’t you agree, my friend? The other site was a decoy, but I cut them all down just in case!”

“Shove it. What if I’d died? Wouldn’t you hate to see my path of swords and sweets end here?”

“You won’t die—not now that I’m here!”

I resisted the urge to argue.

“Lady Elna,” I called to the beautiful sorceress who had landed in front of Artie and the soldiers. Arthur’s cousin and fiancée had short lilac hair and silver-gold eyes. She wore small spectacles and a white-and-purple robe, and she held an ancient staff.

“I beg your pardon,” Lady Elna Lothringen said, with a frown and a sigh. “I’ll discipline him later.”

“What?!” Arthur cried. “I hope you’ll go easy—your ‘discipline’ makes even my heart quail. Now...”

He started to draw his swords. The apostles didn’t—couldn’t—move. If they stirred a muscle, he would cut them down.

“Apostles of the false Saint, thank you for waiting!” the champion shouted, his breathtaking blades flashing amid the rising flames. “I am Heaven’s Sword, Arthur Lothringen of the Lalannoy Republic! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, however briefly. Now that I’m here, your wicked schemes are finished. Have at you!”

Chapter 1

The girls’ blasts of lightning and ice met and shattered, canceling each other out. Glowing mana rained down within the intricate wards that enclosed the Leinster courtyard in the royal capital.

A wolf-clan girl backed off slightly and regained her balance. My sister Caren, vice president of the Royal Academy student council, flashed a daredevil smile. Her silver-gray tail swayed happily.

“Looks like you’re back in top form, Stella!” she called to her opponent while she dusted off her beret and winter uniform. “But you don’t need to push yourself that hard, even if my brother did agree to watch us spar. You can’t be used to that staff yet. Between the raid and examining the Great Tree, we’ve barely had class in ten days.”

Another girl wearing the same uniform, her long, azure-tinged platinum hair tied with a sky-blue ribbon, raised her weapons for another round. The eldest daughter of the northern Ducal House of Howard and president of the Royal Academy student council held a training sword in her right hand and a beautiful staff crowned with a flower-shaped jewel in her left. The latter still held many mysteries. I doubted it could cause any harm while I kept a shallow mana link with both girls, but one never knew.

Stella shot a glance at my seat outside the barrier. Her platinum hair glistened in the winter sunlight.

“I’m just getting warmed up!” she shouted back. “Mr. Allen sacrificed his time off to watch us on a Lightningday—I can’t show him less than my best! But I think you’d better start learning to live without him. I mean, we’ll be going to university next year.”

“I’ll never leave Allen!” Caren roared, conjuring a short lightning spear in each hand and sweeping them through the air. A colossal blade of lightning burst forth, barreling toward the girl with a right to demand we call her “Highness”...only to crash against a thick wall of pale-azure ice.

“You’ll have to do better than that!” Stella shouted, brimming with confidence.

I honestly hadn’t planned to watch them spar. Our lessons didn’t resume until the next afternoon. I had only stopped by to question Sida Stinton, a Leinster maid in training. And I couldn’t forget the unofficial council at the Lebufera mansion I’d been summoned to attend later in the day. But I supposed my luck had run out when I’d bumped into Caren and Stella at the café with the sky-blue roof—they had already parted ways with the younger girls, who still had classes. I couldn’t very well refuse a request from my dear little sister and student.

I would need to thank Duchess Lisa Leinster later. She had agreed, via magical creature, to lend us the venue on almost no notice.

Suddenly, the thin silver bracelet on my right wrist caught my eye. For a moment, I thought I heard the Black-and-White Angel—Princess Carina Wainwright, a legend of a century before—laugh and say, “Look after Stella, won’t you, Allen the kindhearted ‘key’?” I hoped I had imagined it.

Until just a few days earlier, Stella had suffered from an inability to cast any magic except for a select few light spells. Curing her symptoms had sent us well beyond the realm of common sense. That went for the flower dragon, who had sent us through the uncanny Sealed Archive to the sprawling “angel creation” altar below the palace, as well as for Carina, whom we’d found sealed there. Who knew what she’d imbued this transformed bracelet with?

While I grimaced, my sister clothed herself in electricity: Lightning Apotheosis.

“I’m coming for you, Stella!”

“But you won’t beat me, Caren!”

Their clash tore holes in the barrier, but Leinster maids standing by mended it on the spot.

Magnificent! Talk about skill.

“Allen!” A musical voice interrupted my mental adulation. “Both so strong!”

“Whoa there!” I cried as a child with a violet ribbon in her long white hair sprang onto my lap, ears and tail twitching all the while. Atra the Thunder Fox, one of the great elementals, looked adorable bundled up in her fluffy winter cloak.

“It’s good to see you again,” I said. “Did you have fun exploring the mansion?”

Atra beamed and waved her little hands. The maids who had accompanied her waved back cheerfully. Two walked over carrying a tray.

“S-So sorry to keep you waiting, sir,” said the trainee with her lustrous brown hair in pigtails.

“Your tea, Mr. Allen,” added a maid with an air of nobility. She had gorgeous blonde hair, and no one who saw her gem-bright, silver-gold eyes would ever forget them.

I rose and bowed to the girl I’d come to interview and the maid corps’s number eight, who was currently acting as her bodyguard. “Sida, please pardon the imposition. Cordelia, thank you for erecting the barrier. Not many places can stand up to a serious bout between the two of them, so I truly appreciate it.”

“I-It’s no trouble, really!” The tense trainee frantically shook her head and waved her hands. “I o-only hope I can help.”

The maid I could have taken for a foreign princess set her tray on a round table and gracefully began pouring tea. “It’s an honor to be of service,” she said. “Waiting on you, sir, and the young ladies has become quite a popular duty among us. I also volunteered for a post at Allen & Co., but Emma’s team intervened. ‘You can’t come, Cordelia!’ they said. ‘You’ll snatch away Miss Fosse!’ They’re simply heartless.”

I forced a laugh, unable to come up with a better response. The maids assigned to the company did tend to spoil our head clerk.

Caren’s long lightning spear clashed with the icy blades Stella had formed around her staff and training sword. While the wards shuddered, Atra tugged at Cordelia’s skirt—the maid had finished pouring tea.

“Princess! Hug!”

“What? I’m not a p-prin— Mr. Allen?” The flustered maid looked to me for help. I nodded, enjoying this new side of her.

“W-Well, then, by your leave, Miss Atra.” Cordelia tenderly lifted the happy child in her arms. Her eyes held undiluted affection.

The maids standing by burst into a flood of admiration.

“My!”

“Ms. Cordelia and Miss Atra. What a divine combination.”

“N-No. I can’t fall yet. I must press on.”

“Captain Cordelia, so pretty. Miss Atra, so cute.”

Silly me. I ought to know what the Leinster maids are like by now.

“Would you mind showing her the outer gardens?” I asked Cordelia while she petted Atra’s head. “I worry about bad influences here.”

Caren deployed multiple Imperial Thunder Lances, even though I’d only just given her the formula for the advanced spell in the café. Stella countered by bringing out a new advanced spell of her own: Momentary Flash Ray. Atra watched with stars in her eyes until the elegant maid distracted her with a small parcel of cookies.

“Certainly, sir,” she said, bowing so gracefully that I caught myself thinking she might be a foreign princess after all. “I would be delighted to look after Miss Atra once again.”

“I appreciate it,” I said. “Have fun, Atra.”

“Okay!” the beast-eared child piped cheerily, then handed me a star-shaped cookie from the bag.

“Thank you.” I patted her head and sped Cordelia on her way with a look.

I was still watching the maid walk off toward the mansion when a massive impact shook the ground. I bit into the cookie and turned to look, Sida’s squeal ringing in my ears.

The platinum-haired noblewoman was down on one knee, surrounded by countless lightning spears. Caren stood tall, crackling with violet sparks.

“You’ve got nowhere left to run!” she shouted. “I win this round!”

The noblewoman rose silently and resheathed her broken training sword. Amid a flurry of pale-azure ice flakes, Stella shot me a brief look and gave a slight nod. She twirled her staff, leveling the tip at Caren just as crystal clear light shone from its orb.

“We’ll see about that,” she said. “I may not look like much, but I learned from the best sorcerer in the kingdom.”

“And I’m his one and only sister!” Caren shot back while her lightning spears rained down.

“Careful,” I said, steadying Sida with my left hand when she shrieked and nearly fell. Levitation spells saved the table and chairs.

Caren’s magic kicked up a stiff breeze, swiftly clearing the air and restoring our view of the courtyard. Ice crystals danced. Mana beyond anything thus far made my skin tingle.

I’d call that a success.

“Are you all right?” I smiled at the rigid, red-faced young maid in training.

“I’m s-so sorry,” Sida mumbled, pulling out an emblem. “O G-Great Moon, what should I do at a time like this?”

I maneuvered her into a chair and looked up at the sky, where an angel with two wings of pale azure—Stella Howard—hovered on clean, icy gusts.

My sister’s eyes widened as she connected the dots. “Don’t tell me you tapped into angelic power. You look just like Lydia and Tina when— Allen?”

I raised my teacup as a shield against her glare. “After what happened the other day, I managed to reconstruct a small portion of Carina’s spell formulae,” I explained. “Stella had just gotten better, remember, so I thought a celebration was in order.”

“That’s no excuse to keep secrets from your lovely little sister with her birthday right around the—”

“The tables have turned, Caren!” Stella cut in, launching her counterattack. Icy winds turned to razor-sharp blades, closing in on Caren with unerring precision—until she vanished in a scatter of sparks.

“A lightning illusion? I’ve never seen anything like—”

The noblewoman jerked around and blocked an overhead strike from Caren’s cross-tipped lightning spear with the advanced spell Imperial Snow Blade. Arcs of electricity and shards of ice threatened to cover the whole courtyard.

Locked blade to blade, Caren bared her canines in a grin. “You’re not the only one Allen cooked up a new spell for!”

The pale-azure angel groaned and gave way, retreating. The lightning wolf cast Heavenly Wind Bound and gave chase. I turned back to Sida, who couldn’t seem to take her eyes off their mock combat.

“It looks like they’ll be at it for a while yet,” I said. “Now, would you mind telling me about the worshippers of the Great Moon?”

“O-Of course!” the trainee answered with a start. Then she slumped and hung her head. “Only, well, I don’t think I’ll be much use.”

I took a sip of tea and replaced my cup on its saucer. “I’d still love to hear what little you can tell me as your religion’s only adherent in the city. I’m told the Great Moon is an ancient deity worshipped in quite a limited area east of the League of Principalities, that the dragons are their messengers, and that the faith has roots in the age of gods. It seems as though only a select few adherents possess scriptures. Do I have that right?”

I poured tea into a spare cup and set it before Sida. A pleasant fragrance filled my nostrils.

No authority in the city had known more than I’d just said. Even so, I’d caught glimpses of the cult of the Great Moon behind the apostles who had taken a shadowy part in so many incidents on their false Saint’s orders. Their leader, Aster Etherfield, the Sage, and their second-in-command, Io “Black Blossom” Lockfield, had both invoked unknown spells that seemed to derive from the faith. I couldn’t afford to ignore it any longer.

Sida trembled slightly as she drank her tea. “Y-Yes, sir. We pass down most things by word of mouth. Even the scriptures only have abstract pictures in them. And I heard we lost the originals after big wars left fewer and fewer believers. A-All the faithful are normal as can be. I don’t think any of us know any special magic or anything like that.”

I took a notebook from my pocket and jotted down notes.

So, the cult has dwindled practically to nothing. It doesn’t sound like an organization with any practical influence.

“Lynne mentioned that the scriptures show a wolf cloaked in lightning,” I continued after checking my pocket watch.

“The Divine Wolf who follows the Great Moon to do really big magic,” Sida confirmed. “Oh! They say the Great Moon was an incredible magician who saved the world.”

“I see. Next, I’d like you to look at something.”

An “incredible magician”? I thought, looking down to see the ring on the third finger of my right hand flash crimson. That bears investigating.

I sketched a design of seven crooked crescents arranged to resemble a flower and passed the notebook to Sida. Fear entered her gaze.

“M-Mr. Allen...” She faltered. “Wh-Where did you find this mark?”

“Among the effects of the late Atlasian general Robson Atlas,” I said. “Impressed on the cover of a thin volume titled Apocrypha of the Great Moon. Do you know something about it?”

Sida drew her insignia from the neck of her dress, squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her head. “I...I’m s-so sorry. I don’t know much about the Apostate said to have made that mark. It’s forbidden knowledge. I closed my eyes the other day too, when it appeared in the sky over the city. I’ve seen my father railing against him in the chapel. ‘The faithful would never have fallen on such hard times if not for him!’ He’s always such a gentle man, but, well, he scared me.”

Tina and Stella’s mother, the late Duchess Rosa Howard, had written words to similar effect in the city of water: “Master’s nemesis: the Apostate of the Great Moon.”

I glanced at Caren and Stella’s raging battle, scribbled another note, and tore two pages from the notebook.

“Forgive me,” I said. “I didn’t mean to dredge up unpleasant memories.”

“O-Oh, no!” Sida protested, suddenly bursting with enthusiasm. “I’ll try to ask my parents next time I write to them! Without letting on!”

She reminds me just a little of Tina. I can see why Lynne took a liking to her.

“Please do,” I said. “It looks like they’re almost done.”

I pocketed my watch just as a little bird with black and scarlet plumage alighted on my shoulder and vanished.

“Hurry up and get yourself to the Lebufera house.”

Lady Lydia Leinster sounded less than pleased. We had barely gotten to see each other since the apostles’ attack on the city, although we exchanged messages via magical creatures morning, noon, evening, and before bed.