Working at a Haunted Mansion Chapter 98

It couldn’t be helped. She was living a life that was little different from imprisonment.

As a result, Lily was losing her vitality at a pace even Wolfram found alarming.

At first, her eyes had shown flashes of disappointment that had never been there before. By now, her expression had shifted into one of detached indifference, as though she no longer expected anything at all.

It was a troubling change, yet Aiden did not alter his course.

The only thing that mattered was the safety of the woman he loved. That was his conviction. From the time he had existed only as a soul, he had wanted this: to shield her from even the smallest speck of concern.

The Manus affair had been unavoidable—she had already known of it, and so such a situation had arisen.

But once it was over, he intended to make sure that no such tidings ever reached Lily’s ears again. Only harmless things would remain within her sight.

Any hurt feelings she accumulated until then—he would repay them when all was finished. However much, whatever it took.

“Have the rumors been confirmed?”

“There were witnesses in the slums. They say he’s searching especially for young men.”

“Any tangible results?”

“So far, only one reported case of someone abducted.”

A disturbing tale had spread: an unknown figure roaming the slums, buying the bodies of the unconscious and gravely ill.

They had come across this rumor while gathering information about the comatose and possible connections to heretics.

The report had come from a mother asking them to find her son. He had fallen from a roof and lain unconscious. While she briefly left the house, he had vanished.

The mother claimed to know the culprit. Hours before the abduction, someone had come offering to buy her son. She refused, and now she was certain those people had stolen him away.

“In addition, there are statements that several young men from the slums have gone missing recently. They were healthy, but their disappearances happened to coincide with activity at the western forest.”

The hunting lodge in the western forest had been uncovered during their investigation into Count Contania’s secret gatherings. Only a select few members had access to it.

The forest had been heavily guarded from its entrance, but they had identified the main paths and were secretly monitoring comings and goings.

They could not hastily conclude that Manus was involved in the missing men, but Aiden kept the possibility open.

Manus had always been obsessed with the body—its structure, how the soul resided within it, how the scriptures’ theories might be realized.

The secret chambers of the Solmonist stronghold where Manus once dwelled had been revolting enough to make even Aiden, who had trudged across battlefields, frown.

It seemed Manus had resumed that old habit. His reason for coveting Lily was clear as well: he needed someone to compensate for the body’s shortcomings.

Aiden regretted letting Manus set eyes on her.

He should have waited until everything was over before letting them meet. The knight-commander could have been persuaded by other means.

But he had insisted, again and again, on asking her to deliver Julius’s words—only because he had been too eager to entwine himself with her, even one day sooner.

It was all his fault. Pride and recklessness had brought them here.

And if—by the slightest chance—Manus ever laid hands on Lily? If she were taken and he could not win her back? Or if, wearied by the ordeal, the brightness of her heart dimmed even a little? Then…

Wolfram spoke.

“Count Oetz continues to refuse meetings. He cites his health as the reason he cannot grant a private audience.”

To refuse entirely was to declare he would not help, even at the cost of enmity. The situation was most inconvenient.

Not long after arriving in the capital, they had learned that the heretic leader’s body displayed on the city walls was actually that of a prisoner.

With Grey Payne’s cooperation, Aiden had pinpointed the location where Manus’s true body was hidden. But only Count Oetz could guide them there.

If the count refused, matters would grow complicated.

They could attempt to sway him using his connection to Julia Dienta, but Aiden did not want to make Lily a tool for leverage.

So he made his decision.

“Today, I will make contact with Grey Payne.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Their original plan had been to secure Manus’s body and use it as a resource.

Its uses were many: a means to threaten or restrain him, to rally the nobility, or to denounce him before the temple.

But even without the body, they had other ways. They already held the imperial successor, as well as the list of members tied to the western forest gatherings.

Those could have been used to secure the temple’s cooperation—the proper course of action.

But since Manus was after Lily, any method that required time was no longer viable.

They would reverse the order, and by the most extreme means, strike him down at once.

 

 

 

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Two days had passed since the emperor’s warning had arrived.

Lily had no idea what had become of the carriage that was supposed to wait for her at six that morning, nor how the emperor had reacted when he learned of her refusal.

Choosing seclusion to avoid being thrown into the dungeons might have been a mistake. Even someone as good-natured as she was reaching the limits of her patience.

Learning scraps of what was going on was worse than knowing nothing at all. To be honest, she felt like she was about to lose her mind. At this rate, she didn’t know what she might do.

I shouldn’t have burned that talisman. It would’ve been invaluable proof to hand over to the temple.

Maybe if she waited, another one would come? When it did, she would act on her own, without showing Aiden this time. She was grinding her teeth when—

“Lily, let’s go get some fresh air.”

Aiden suddenly appeared, smiling brightly as he suggested it.

Lily was taken aback. He was dressed in a pair of worn trousers that looked more suited to a cattle herder.

His shoes had lost their shine, and on top of that he wore a wide-brimmed hat and an old, weathered cloak whose origin was impossible to guess.

“What on earth…?”

At his gesture, the servant who had followed behind handed clothing to Mari. It was a woman’s outfit that seemed to match what Aiden was wearing.

“You’ve been cooped up too long. I thought a day to breathe might do you good.”

He said it with an apologetic look. Lily stared straight at his face.

Even today, he seemed to have no intention of explaining anything to her.

But Lily only sighed inwardly and smiled.

“Really. I was going crazy.”

Aiden’s face brightened even more at her answer.

Mari brought Lily to the dressing room to help her change. Holding up the blouse so Lily could slip her arms in, she whispered,

“Every time His Excellency speaks to you, I get startled.”

Lily whispered back,

“Really? I’m used to it—he’s been like that with me from the start.”

Her words carried a bit of exaggeration.

It was true Aiden had always been gentle with her from the beginning. But that had only been a façade to draw her in, not his true heart—so it was only half-true.

Thinking about it, though, the Aiden of now cherished her not as someone useful, but as a whole person in her own right.

The look in his eyes, the way his body leaned ever so slightly forward, the warmth that touched the back of her hand—his feelings showed plainly in those things.

Thanks to that, Lily could endure so much. Simply because his heart had not changed. That was the most important thing to her.

“Wait. When you say ‘from the start,’ what exactly do you mean? You don’t mean from the castle, do you?”

“Mhm. But back at the castle there wasn’t really… any special relationship, so…”

“And you never told me? I’m disappointed!”

Mari scolded her, then immediately gasped in awe.

“Wow… so His Excellency couldn’t forget the woman he fell for at first sight and chased her all the way to the capital?”

“Well, um… yeah, I guess.”

Lily hurried to finish putting on the rest of her clothes. At this rate, she was bound to blurt out something careless.

She glanced at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were embarrassingly red. At her side, Mari tilted her head and studied the reflection too.

In the mirror stood an ordinary-looking common woman, her hair styled neatly for the rare outing. Mixed into the crowd, no one would look twice. To Lily, it was a very familiar appearance.

“Wandering around in disguise as commoners—it’s romantic. You look kind of cute too.”

“That’s such a noble’s way of thinking.”

Lily agreed.

“Exactly. Honestly, with his face and build, even in rags he’d still look every bit the noble. I wonder if anyone would really be fooled.”

“Maybe that’s why he brought the hat and cloak.”

“At least he’s putting in the effort. It shows how much he wants to take care of you.”

Lily nodded. The timing was perfect. With today’s outing, she felt she could endure a few more days.

When they left the dressing room, Aiden was deep in a hushed conversation with Wolfram, his face serious. But when he caught sight of Lily, he frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

It was the outfit he had chosen himself—so why was he looking at her like that?

He got up and walked over.

“It put me in a bad mood.”

“What? Why?”

“Seeing you like that makes me remember the day you ran away and came back.”

She looked down at her clothes.

“That was ages ago.”

“To me, it’s as vivid as yesterday.”

He sighed and stretched out his arm. He must have meant to draw her into an embrace, but the cloak got in the way and only flapped noisily. Smiling as if to brush it off, he withdrew his arm.