Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Still, if this was a trap, it was a strange one—there was no clear motive behind it.

What exactly was she hoping to achieve with some mysterious mark that only he could see?

If she intended to escalate things, perhaps she expected a scandal about the head of Dautryche Company deflowering a maiden. But neither the company nor James himself were naïve enough to let such gossip spiral out of control.

That was why he had sent her the marriage registration form in advance, wasn’t it?

What continued to bother him, though, was the paper flower.

It was folded in an uncommon way, the exact same flower that had etched itself vividly into his memory—that day, fifteen years ago.

James had been eleven years old at the time.

Proudly declaring himself grown-up, he’d acted exactly like the cautionary tales in morality books and had ended up kidnapped in the most pitiful way possible.

He had scoffed at his governess and nanny, insisting he wasn’t a child anymore, and now look at him.

When he came to, he was in a dark basement.

“Help! Someone help me!”

The dim sunlight that leaked in through a gap no wider than a child’s hand, the stale moldy smell, the creeping cold—everything about that place was horrible and terrifying.

James was trapped there for fifteen days straight.

What allowed him to keep up the appearance of composure, to preserve a shred of dignity despite his fear, was the presence of a girl—someone who seemed to have been kidnapped before him.

Clutching a filthy, worn-out stuffed rabbit, the little girl patted James’s slumped shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, big brother. My mom and dad are really important people, so they’ll come find me soon. We’ll leave together then, okay?”

Stupid. Don’t you realize we were kidnapped precisely because our parents are important?

Soon, a ransom will be demanded, and negotiations will begin. And if things go badly…

He almost said something cynical, but bit his tongue. There was something striking about how this girl, younger than he was, had the nerve to comfort him.

She was so oddly serene, so unaffected by their grim situation, that James couldn’t help staring at her in a daze.

If a child could be this brave, how could he fall apart?

Days passed.

Seeing James still downcast, the girl let out a sigh.

“Jeez… I guess I have no choice. Wait a sec.”

She dug into her front pocket and pulled out a crumpled square of colored paper.

What kind of kid carries something like that around?

She kept surprising him with her unexpected words and actions. Before he knew it, James had stopped trembling and was simply watching her.

Her small fingers moved swiftly—folding, unfolding, creasing again.

It was such a complicated pattern that James found himself mesmerized by the motion of her plump little hands.

“There! Pull the sides!”

She handed him a paper flower.

“The sides?”

“Ugh, dummy! You’ve gotta pull here and here, like this.”

James did as she instructed and gently pulled the two ends of the flower’s petals.

And then—

Pop!

“Whoa!”

A burst of finely shredded confetti exploded from inside the paper flower.

It felt like magic.

Bits of colored paper floated down, landing softly in James’s honey-blonde hair and on his nose.

“Isn’t it pretty?” she beamed.

“Feeling better now?”

Even now, he could still hear her voice sometimes, like an echo in his mind.

The only clues he had to find her were the tattered stuffed rabbit and that unusual paper flower.

But the rabbit had been a mass-produced bestseller that year, impossible to trace.

All that was left was the flower.

No one—not even in the deepest corners of the library—knew how to make it.

It had been more than ten years. He’d convinced himself that maybe he’d misremembered it.

Until now.

“Olga Blavatsky, from Morgenia…”

If the paper folding technique had originated in Morgenia, then it made sense that no one in Endor knew it.

Still…

“She said her real hair color is brown, and her eyes are violet.”

James murmured as he slipped into his jacket.

That coloring wasn’t typical for a Morgenian, most of whom had silver or platinum hair.

So she was using a false identity too, then.

He recalled the eyes he’d seen last night—eyes that were innocent and bold, unafraid of desire yet untouched by the world.

“That girl’s eyes were violet, too.”

“Pardon?”

“Talking to myself, Philip.”

“Ah… right.”

In any case, he needed to find her—whether to right a moral wrong or to solve the mystery of his childhood.

“Ha! So she ran off?”

James’s voice echoed through the empty third-floor office of the Buren Building.

Too late.

He pressed his fingers against his forehead, frowning at the sight of the vacant room.

“Philip.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was the state of this office when you visited it yesterday?”

“Well… it was a little cluttered, but it was still an operating business.”

Philip looked just as shaken.

Every item aside from the reception couch and a single desk had vanished, leaving behind only dusty plywood floors.

How could someone empty out an entire office and disappear in an hour and a half? It wasn’t magic—was it?

“It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours, and she’s vanished.”

The absurdity of it made him laugh.

Was this her plan from the start? Sleep with him, then disappear?

How dare she—how dare she take James Dautryche’s night and vanish without a word?

“Search everything.”

Philip immediately began rifling through every drawer, shelf, and closet.

If she had left in such a hurry, surely there had to be something left behind—some clue to her identity or destination.

“Cough, cough! I even checked hidden drawers, but there’s nothing—cough—left.”

James, now irritated, used the tip of his walking stick to stir the ashes in the fireplace.

All he found were scorched paper scraps, with not a single readable word.

Then—

“Excuse me, sir. Were you here to see the office? I haven’t put up a lease notice yet.”

He turned to see a neatly dressed elderly man at the doorway.

“Are you the owner?”

“I’m Buren. I own this building.”

James’s eyes gleamed.

“Perfect. Mr. Buren, how about this—I’ll purchase the building at one and a half times the market price, cash. That includes tenant records.”

Buren’s jaw dropped.

And he wasn’t the only one.

Philip Bonard, James’s secretary, stared in disbelief.

Why in the world would he buy this rundown building—and at an inflated price?

Philip almost missed James’s next order.

“Philip. We’ll need to notarize this. Call in Attorney Kings immediately—and bring two or three sharp staffers from the office.”

“Pardon?”

“We’ll need to check the tenant records. Track down her information.”

James’s expression was stone-cold as he added:

“We have to find Miss Olga Blavatsky.”

The very next morning, at Linden Central Station.

After a wave of early morning workers had cleared out, Rose finally collapsed into one of the hard benches in the waiting room.

“Ugh… I’m dying.”

She hoisted her two heavy suitcases onto her lap, clutching the handles like her life depended on it.

As much as she wanted to set one down, she couldn’t afford to lose her remaining possessions to a pickpocket.

Linden—the industrial city.

The birthplace of mass production, powered by coal-fueled machines; the fastest-growing city of the age.

And now, her new home.

“Huff… cough, cough…”

The air was so thick with smoke she couldn’t stop coughing.

She’d been warned about the air quality, but this was worse than expected. She’d thought it was fog—but it might just be soot.

Rose looked up at the giant wall clock in the station.

A little past 6 a.m.

Normally, she’d still be in bed.

Linden was a two-hour train ride from Romberton, which meant she’d had to leave before sunrise.

And this was after packing up both her office and her boarding house in one day.

She dug around in her bag and pulled out the Linden Travel Guide she’d marked up the night before, flipping it open to check the address of the inn she’d chosen.