Chương 410: 189.New Roommate

Coming back to No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street, I'd originally only planned to do three things. One: take off my shoes. Two: sit down. Three: let my soul abandon the building for twenty minutes, provided nobody bothered me. After last night's night-shift incident and this morning's miniature trial-by-hearing in the duty room, my expectations for life had dropped to something bordering on mercy. I didn't even dare hope the rest of today would treat me kindly.

I just asked that it not come back and finish me off on its own initiative. The moment I pushed the door open, I knew I'd been dreaming. There was someone in the living room. Hedwig was sitting on the long sofa at No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street — the one no respectable person had ever really made proper use of — with the posture of someone who wasn't crashing at another person's home but waiting at a temporary meeting seat in some diplomatic mission for a low-ranking official like me to return and give his report.

There was a cup of hot tea on her lap. Behind her the curtain hung half drawn, and cold white winter light leaked through the gap, making the whole living room look emptier than usual. And what made it emptier wasn't just the light. It was the people. I stood frozen in the doorway for two seconds before slowly realizing what was wrong. Too quiet.

At this hour, even when everybody else was out, there was always some residue of lived-in sound left in this house: dishes clicking somewhere toward the kitchen, the young maids' carefully lowered footsteps at the far end of the hall, occasionally the extremely professional presence of guards or bodyguards shifting positions around the entrance, the back garden, the stairwell. Not today. Today, No.

22 Platinum Bridge Street was as quiet as if every staff member had collectively terminated their labor contracts with the building.

"... I'm home." I said it slowly, pulling the door shut behind me. Hedwig looked up.

"Welcome home." She said it naturally. Even flatly. So flatly that I almost wanted to add the next line for her — "also, something's happened at home" — just so the sequence matched my mental preparation. But then she went ahead and added it herself.

"My apologies," Hedwig said.

"Since it's year-end, the bodyguards have all been recalled to the homeland." I'd just pulled my scarf halfway off. My hands stopped dead.

"... Huh?" It wasn't that I was overreacting. It was that the sentence itself deserved a full, well-formed "huh." The bodyguards were all recalled to the homeland. Year-end. Listen to that. Is that the reason a normal person gives for "the living room's a little empty"?

The utter calm of that phrasing was practically telling me: oh, because the year's about to turn, the household security systems and the foreign guard detail just took their annual leave first — about as significant as an ordinary family putting away its Christmas decorations. I kicked my shoes straight at the door, then couldn't help taking an extra sweep of the living room. Really. Not one of them left.

"Wait," I frowned.

"So even the maids—""They've been temporarily sent back as well." Hedwig set down her teacup, tone still steady.

"They've worked hard all year. They deserve the rest." For a moment I honestly didn't know which part to complain about first. That the maids apparently counted as rotating, overseas-deployed security assets— That your family's year-end benefit package was a full recall to the homeland— Or that an arrangement which cut this house's defensive capability in half could be announced with the same tone as a staff-trip notice.

"But your safety—""Ah, speaking of that." Hedwig seemed to remember something, lifting a hand to point at the side of the living room. Near the entrance to the basement on Harvey's side, in the shadow, two large crates sat side by side. Not ordinary cardboard boxes.

That silhouette, those metal-reinforced corners, that worn surface with its own combination locks, that heaviness — one look told you they weren't for winter clothing, and there was no way they were home-organizing bins hauled back from a department store's anniversary sale. That was a shape that made law-abiding citizens' hearts pick up entirely on their own.

"These are from the maids—" Hedwig paused, and corrected herself very seriously.

"The head of the security detail left them for you." I slowly turned my head to look at her.

"For me?"

"Mm."

"... Why me?"

"Because you're the person in this house the most right now." That made so much sense. So much sense that I wanted to flip the table on the spot. I walked over and crouched in front of the two crates. Light fell in from the window, and against the metal surface it made the wear look more genuine, more like the crates had been loaded and unloaded, shoved into armored vehicles, or simply used for work that wasn't meant for the year-end report. I put my hand on one of them first. Cold. Very heavy.

And not "full of books" heavy — the kind of heavy that said the contents probably weren't covered by any ordinary household fire-insurance policy.

"Has anyone opened these?" I asked first.

"No," Hedwig said.

"Good." That "good" was pure reflex, really. Because before actually confirming the contents, people can't help clinging to a little unrealistic hope about the unknown. Maybe they were recording instruments left behind by the security division. Maybe alarm equipment. Maybe the Imperial system was just excessively dramatic, and had built an ordinary emergency kit to look like it could stage a coup directly. Then I opened it. Hope died on the spot.

Inside, several high-energy submachine guns and a full row of power cells lay quietly in the foam, arranged with a neatness bordering on elegance. My first reaction wasn't even shock. It was slamming the lid back down. That fast — impressive even by my own standards, as if by closing it quick enough, what I'd seen in those few seconds could still be ruled a hallucination from eye fatigue. I slowly raised my head to look at Hedwig.

"... Isn't your Empire's year-end souvenir a bit heavy on the specs?" Hedwig blinked.

"It's for emergency self-defense." I was quiet for two seconds. Then I turned to the other crate. That one was heavier. With the first crate I could still half-lie to myself that the weapons were just densely packed. The second one left no room for self-deception. It had that weight that made you instinctively think: whatever's in here is either very valuable, very illegal, or both. I pried open a corner. Thump. Thump. What slid out first were several stacks of bills. Not a few bills. Stacks.

The kind of currency you'd never see as change at a convenience store — Galactic Empire Imperial Marks, banded into neat bundles, like a direct provocation against civilized financial order, sliding out bundle after bundle, hitting the wooden floor with more presence than my blood pressure right then. I stared down at the money, suddenly seized by a very bad feeling. So I flipped the whole crate open. The next second, I knew my feeling hadn't been wasted at all. Lying inside was a recoilless rifle....

A recoilless rifle. Not a model. Not a souvenir. Not a scale display piece for some Imperial aristocrat to flaunt his military taste. A genuine piece, the kind that looked perfectly capable of solving a problem while being equally capable of creating several more. I crouched in front of the crate without speaking for a full three seconds. Because when the brain receives information that exceeds its daily disaster tolerance by too much, the first step isn't usually a scream — it briefly refuses to cooperate.

Like someone shoving aside "night duty," "borrowing spare clothes," and "morning social execution," things already heavy enough for me to digest for half a day, and setting a portable regime-correcting device directly on my living-room floor. I slowly raised my head and looked at Hedwig.

"What is this for?" She looked steadily back at me.

"Just in case."

"What kind of in-case needs a recoilless rifle?"

"Large targets." I drew in a sharp breath.

"You make that sound like bringing a long umbrella on a rainy day!" Hedwig tilted her head slightly, seemingly genuinely searching for where my analogy didn't fit.

"If the other side has armor, ordinary firepower may not be enough."

"I know!" I kept my voice low, terrified that some wall upstairs would suddenly grow ears.

"My question isn't a performance analysis — it's why this thing is sitting at the basement entrance next to the living room of No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street!" Even I couldn't help drawing in a breath after saying it. Because once that sentence was fully spoken, the scene only got more absurd. What was No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street now? A student dormitory with an expansion pack? A secret safe house? An illegal annex of an Imperial outpost?

Or some sort of temporary gang hideout ready to put local crime news on the galactic front page in one go? I stared at the recoilless rifle in the crate, and an extremely unhealthy image surfaced in my mind: if one day Kushima Maki came by the house looking for me, opened the basement door, and found this thing under the stairs, she'd probably sit in silence for three seconds, then calmly ask me: "Shimo, are you planning on overthrowing something lately?" No. Even imagining it was fatal.

I immediately pressed the lid back down, frantically stuffing the spilled Imperial Marks back inside. There were too many bills, and a few disobedient ones sprang back up as I shoved, making my scalp crawl. If Jess ever walked in on a scene like this, she could improvise three seasons of spinoff material on the spot.

"Hedwig."

"Mm?"

"These crates. Has anyone really opened them?"

"No."

"Good." This time, my "good" had a genuine bit of good in it. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. At least it hadn't escalated into a housewide conspiracy yet. I pushed the two crates toward the storage cabinet under the stairs. That spot normally held the less presentable odds and ends of life — spare cleaning supplies, seasonal storage bins, a few bags nobody wanted to deal with right away.

Stashing ordnance there wasn't elegant, but under the current circumstances it counted as one of the few moral luxuries No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street still possessed. The problem was that the crates were heavy. Heavy in a way that didn't feel like moving things, but more like I was tucking the charges against my own life, one by one, into the shadows. Seeing me pushing them alone with no grace at all, Hedwig very naturally stood up, walked over, and bent down to lift the other end.

"Careful," she said. I nearly laughed.

"The thing that most needs care right now is the scope of this house's criminal liability."

"Shimo, you're too tense."

"Hedwig," I stopped and turned to look at her.

"A normal high-school girl pushing a recoilless rifle under the stairs of her own residence — what margin do you think I have left not to be tense?" Hedwig looked at me. Her expression was extremely serious, so serious I nearly thought she was genuinely about to argue that this was actually fairly standard. Instead she just said, very calmly:"You're not a normal high-school girl." That line was bad. Because part of it was actually true.

I choked a little, decided not to wrestle her over that dangerous topic, and focused on cramming both crates into the storage space under the stairs. Only after the door was finally, barely shut — swallowing those two monsters capable of turning the neighborhood into a combat zone — did I slowly straighten up and dust off my hands. Then I turned and looked at Hedwig.

"Don't tell anyone." She nodded.

"All right."

"Not an 'all right, fine' all right. The very serious kind."

"I know."

"No one."

"Mm."

"Not even Jess." This time, Hedwig paused. I added quickly: "Especially not Jess."

"... Understood." Good. At least she knew what "especially" meant. The living room went quiet again. Outside the window, the winter light stayed just as cold; the steam above the teacup had thinned a little. All that moving around had added another strange layer to the air of this house: not plain domesticity, not plain crisis-awareness, but a clear premonition that said "from today on, this really can't count as an ordinary residence." I leaned against the wall by the stairs and let out a long breath.

"So," I looked at Hedwig.

"You're staying here for a while, then?"

"If it wouldn't trouble you." From Hedwig's mouth, that sentence landed strangely. Because she was polite and matter-of-fact at the same time, having wedged two crates capable of opening a regional conflict into the middle of my daily walking route. Like someone barricading your front entrance with siege equipment, then sitting back down on the sofa to ask, very politely, "is it convenient for me to stay a few days?" And the worst part was, I genuinely couldn't say no. I looked at her.

Hedwig sat back down on the edge of the sofa, both hands around the tea that wasn't so hot anymore; her cream-blonde hair caught the window light and went silver-white, looking very still. The bodyguards, the maids, the head of the security detail — all gone.

The order and the protection that ordinarily orbited her had retreated all at once, and what remained in this house was a Hedwig who sat very correctly, spoke very steadily, and clearly hadn't fully registered what scale of thing she had just handed over to me. It suddenly struck me that the real new crisis might not be the two crates under the stairs. It was that this person really would be moving in starting today. Weapons can be locked up. Money can be hidden. People are different.

People sit in your living room. They talk to you. And after you've been through a shameful night-shift incident, a public execution at morning, and ordnance entering the house in the afternoon, they still look at you with those very clean eyes and ask:"Shimo, you look pale. Do you want to eat something first?" I closed my eyes. Good. First half of the day, I handled the Disciplinary Committee chair's dignity problem at school. Second half, I come home and handle the Galactic Empire's firepower deployment problem.

And now Hedwig, sitting between those two problems, asks if I want to eat first. It occurred to me that the most underestimated thing in this world really wasn't weapons. It was the person who puts the weapons aside and then, with a perfectly innocent face, asks whether you'd like an extra bowl of soup with dinner. I pressed a hand to my brow.

"... Fine." Hedwig blinked.

"To eat?"

"No," I looked at her, drained.

"About you staying. And starting today, No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street gains three new house rules."

"I'm listening."

"One: anything larger than a desk, heavier than I can lift with one hand, or likely to make a police officer take a very keen interest at first glance — gets reported to me before it enters the house." Hedwig nodded very seriously.

"All right."

"Two: before your head of the security detail leaves anything for me again, an itemized list comes first."

"Agreed."

"Three," I drew a breath.

"If another piece of 'just in case' equipment shows up that could take out the neighbor's wall along with the target in a single shot, I will mail it straight back to the Empire with a note reading: 'Shimo's mental state is not equipped to handle this.'" Hedwig was quiet for two seconds. Then she actually smiled. Very faintly. The smile was slight, nearly gone the instant it appeared — and yet, somehow, visible.

"All right," she said.... Damn. I suddenly felt this house's trouble level had just gone up another notch. Because if Hedwig was starting to find these situations amusing, that meant the days ahead probably wouldn't be much tamer than tonight. I looked down at the shut storage door under the stairs, and the first thought that surfaced wasn't safety. Wasn't peace of mind. Wasn't how to explain this to everyone later. It was: Please. At least don't let Jess find out. That evening, once No.

22 Platinum Bridge Street had more or less finished collecting everyone who was supposed to come back, I briefly allowed myself to think my disaster quota for the day had just about been settled. Maki was back. Jess was back. D was in his usual spot. Harvey was there too. Akari was moving between the kitchen and the living room, like the last conscience in this house still willing to keep up the appearance of daily life. Roy and Lan were on night duty tonight, so they weren't in.

Normally, that should have counted as good news. Because with Lan absent, the air would at least lose one very refined, very mature kind of pressure that specialized in nudging other people's ordinary conversation half an inch toward the dangerous; and with Roy absent, nobody would, just by being seen, drag my thoughts back to certain night-shift aftereffects I was better off not examining. The problem was, today's living room already had a different kind of pressure in it.

Maki sat in the armchair by the window, cup in hand, with an expression of calm that was calm in a deeply questionable way. Not ordinary calm — more like the calm of a file that had already been archived, but hadn't yet decided when to pull the case back for review. Just thinking about this morning's underwear incident in the duty room, I fully understood why she currently looked like she could summon me at any moment to write three self-criticisms plus a personality-analysis report.

Jess, meanwhile, sat on the sofa armrest, wearing her standard look of delight: "as long as I stay alive today, I'm guaranteed to see something funnier than yesterday." Unfortunately, she really was right. I stood in the center of the living room and drew a breath.

Originally, I'd planned to wait until Jess wasn't around, until Maki's mood no longer looked like it was about to open a case file on me right there, until the whole house's entertainment index dropped to a level where communication was safe — and only then bring up the matter of Hedwig. But that was obviously impossible. Because Hedwig couldn't just stay in her room forever, like some high-risk exotic species I'd casually smuggled out of a royal auxiliary warehouse. So I resigned myself.

"Hold on," I said.

"I'm introducing one thing first. Don't interrupt." Jess's eyes lit up instantly.

"Shimo, a sentence like that deserves interrupting all on its own." I ignored her, walked into the hallway, and opened the door of the room where Hedwig had been temporarily settled — just a crack.

"Hedwig. Come out." There was a moment of stillness behind the door. Then Hedwig stepped out. She'd changed into something a little softer than her school clothes, yet still very much her own style — hair down, shoulders straight, that same expression clean to the point of being unguarded. And precisely because this person stood so properly, with such a calm face, the whole scene became that much more absurd.

After all, it isn't every day you return to your shared residence and discover you have to announce to an entire living room: Sorry, everyone — our household is currently housing an Imperial Princess. Jess, as expected, did not disappoint. She looked at Hedwig, then at me, the corner of her mouth curling up — the expression of some court painter specializing in gossip and misinterpretation who had finally gotten the model herself to step out from behind the screen.

"Woooow—" She drew the sound out.

"Shimo, you went straight to hiding a beauty in a golden house this time?" I closed my eyes for exactly one second. Good. Here it comes.

"Jess," I said.

"If you manage to finish dinner alive tonight, I suggest you treat that sentence as the last irresponsible thing you ever say."

"Hey, but with a scene like this, how am I supposed not to think it?" Jess laughed happily, gesturing back and forth between me and Hedwig.

"Intimate-grade supplies handed over in the duty room this morning, someone led out of your room tonight. Shimo, don't you think your plot pacing is a little disrespectful to the audience's hearts?" The instant those two words — "intimate garments" — came out, I clearly saw Maki's eyelid twitch very lightly. I immediately decided that from now on, in this house, any statement made while sharing a room with Jess for more than thirty minutes should not be allowed to retain its optimism.

"It's not that kind of thing," I said.

"You can switch off the drama in your head."

"I've got three running right now," Jess said honestly.

"One is a palace-refuge drama, one is a cohabitation comedy, and one is—""Shut up," I said. This time, even Maki added, flatly:"Jess. Shut up." Jess blinked, looking thoroughly satisfied that she'd stirred the air to just the right degree, and actually shut up. At least on the surface. I brought Hedwig to the center of the living room, standing beside her, physically wrenching the whole scene in the direction of "official announcement."

"In any case, here's the situation." I said.

"It's year-end, so the bodyguards, attendants, and maid staff Hedwig originally brought have all been temporarily recalled to the homeland for rest." Harvey had been leaning off to one side looking at a terminal; now he finally looked up.

"The whole lot?"

"The whole lot."

"An openly declared rotation?"

"I think so." I paused.

"At least by appearances, yes." Harvey was silent for half a second. That half-second was very Harvey — meaning his brain had already begun automatically populating the situation with a few possibilities too unsuitable to make public, before selecting the one version that could be voiced in human society for now.

"So what's Hedwig's security arrangements now?" Harvey asked.

"For now, here," I said.

"Here with us?" Jess instantly revived.

"Wow, Shimo, you're making those four characters — 'hiding a beauty in a golden house' — more and more literal." I turned to look at her.

"Jess, do you know what it means for silence to be a contribution?"

"I do," Jess leaned back against the sofa arm, all smiles.

"But I don't feel like contributing today." D sat at the other end, barely moving the whole time — he looked at Hedwig, then at me, then dropped very flat:"More trouble." That line was short. Short as a verdict. And the frightening part was, completely correct.

"Yes," I admitted with utmost sincerity.

"And not by a little." Akari poked her head out of the kitchen, still holding a half-dried plate, her expression far simpler than everyone else's.

"Where is Hedwig sleeping tonight?" Akari asked.

"I can help make the bed." I nearly felt like standing at attention and saluting Akari right there. See? This is what civilization looks like. While everyone else was watching the show, harboring doubts, or gearing up for risk analysis, the person who actually kept a household running was always thinking first about whether there were enough blankets, enough hot water, whether the room needed the heater on. Hedwig looked at Akari too, and nodded.

"Thank you."

"No need," Akari said.

"Have you had dinner?"

"Not yet."

"Then let's eat something first."... Good. The Imperial Princess housing crisis, in Akari's hands, had already been processed into a domestic problem of "eat first, talk later." This house's level of civilization really was mostly held up by her. I was just about to steer the conversation toward ordinary arrangements when Maki finally put down her cup and spoke.

"So," she said.

"Shimo is saying that from today onward, Hedwig will be temporarily staying at No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street."

"Mm." I looked at Maki, inexplicably guilty in advance.

"Temporarily." Maki looked at me. That look was flat. So flat that I had the sudden illusion her next question wasn't going to be "why the temporary stay?" but "so — is there anything else you failed to declare on your own today?" Honestly, that illusion was dangerous. Especially with the two crates still lying quietly under the stairs. I immediately warned myself: Hoshino Shimo, you're only handling one crisis today. Don't let your own mouth slip and shake out a second one.

Maki's gaze stayed on my face for two seconds before slowly shifting to Hedwig.

"She can stay," she said.

"But I need to know first — is this a simple temporary stay, or is it going to bring trouble along with it?"... This was the frightening part about Maki. She never asked only at the surface level. She asked about weight. Not "is something wrong?" but "how big is what's wrong?" Hedwig seemed to understand this, so her answer was very direct.

"There is risk," Hedwig said.

"But no immediate problem at present." Jess had still been smiling, but at the word "problem" her expression finally turned a shade more serious. Harvey sat up a little straighter."'At present' means no guarantee about later," Harvey said.

"Yes," Hedwig nodded. The living room went quiet for a few seconds. This wasn't one of those funny pauses from the comedy. This was real calculation going on. In the house right now — Maki, me, Jess, D, Harvey, Akari, and on top of them all, Hedwig, sitting in the gap of her year-end security window. Roy and Lan were on duty and absent, which meant the whole house's firepower, brains, sense of order, and common sense now all rested on whatever each person present could spare.

And of those people: Jess manufactured atmosphere, D delivered facts, Harvey turned facts into risk, Akari kept everyone remembering that humans need to eat, and Maki maintained the shell of "at least it still looks like a meeting" before everyone wrecked the room entirely. As for me— I was apparently responsible for bringing the princess out of her room, then praying that nobody casually opened the storage cabinet under the stairs tonight.

"In other words," Jess said, leaning against the armrest, for once almost leveling her tone, "this household has officially been upgraded to a shelter."

"If that's how you want to put it," I said.

"Wow." Jess lit up again.

"Then hasn't Shimo basically turned into the golden—""Jess." Maki called her name. Short. And cold. Jess swallowed the rest of the sentence at once, giggling like a repeat offender who'd nearly crossed the line but managed to pull her foot back in time. I privately breathed half a sigh of relief. Maki's current low-temperature state was terrifying — but at certain moments, extremely useful. Hedwig, standing beside me, seemed to sense the layer of tension that had genuinely begun operating in the room.

She didn't back away, didn't over-explain — she just added, very quietly:"If I'd be a burden, I can—""No." I caught it almost before she finished. Everyone looked at me.... Damn. That came out a little fast. I cleared my throat and hurriedly completed the sentence.

"I mean — you'd cause more trouble going out than staying here. There's nobody to receive you outside, your guard detail is empty, and you can't exactly go check into a hotel by yourself. Even I'd start feeling pressure on this city's behalf about public safety." Hedwig looked at me, and blinked. The blink was very light. But for some reason, it was more unsettling than her entire formal explanation just now.

"... Mm," Hedwig said. Maki glanced at me. Not a very noticeable glance. But I could just tell there was an unspoken sentence in it. — Hoshino Shimo. That one you caught quite quickly. Good. The underwear incident from this morning really hadn't left her mind yet. I decided to wrench the meeting back toward the practical immediately.

"In any case, here's where we leave it," I said.

"Hedwig stays. She'll use the room next to mine — Akari, it'd be best if you could help sort it out. Harvey, think about where this house's worst gaps are if someone actually comes after her. D—""Windows," D said. I looked at D.

"... Have you already thought this through?"

"Mm," D said flatly.

"This house has too much glass." Good. Trust D. While everyone else was still reeling from the plot development of "a princess moved into the house," he'd already jumped straight to the fortification review stage. Harvey nodded.

"The sightlines from the stairs aren't great either," Harvey said.

"If we're really going to plan for contingencies, the basement entrance and the back-door routes both need reworking." My heart skipped. Basement entrance. Right. Stop. That word had better end here for today.

"Fine," I cut in immediately.

"Details later. Getting the people settled comes first tonight."

"Shimo," Jess said, chin on her hand, grinning with pure mischief.

"That interruption just made me feel like the basement is definitely worth a look." A chill ran down my back. It was over. That woman's sense for incidents was basically a spirit that had refined itself out of sheer disaster-olfaction.

"I'm forbidding everyone from looking at the basement today," I said immediately.

"Wow," Jess raised an eyebrow.

"A restricted zone too? Shimo, you've really gone and turned the 'golden—'""Jess." This time, Maki and I called it together. The living room went still for one second. Then Jess laughed so hard she nearly collapsed off the sofa. I stood where I was, suddenly gripped by a strong desire to travel back to last night and strangle the version of myself who decided to pull that ghost act in the bathroom.

Because it was obvious now: certain incidents, once they happen, chain automatically — into the next day, into the night, into every normally talkative person in your living room. Maki pressed a hand to her brow, finally looking too done with Jess to litigate further, and stated a very flat conclusion.

"She can stay," she said. The living room hushed for a moment.

"But from today on, Shimo handles all explanations and all cleanup." I stiffened.

"... Why me?" Maki looked at me.

"Because you're the one who brought her back."

"But Hedwig isn't an object— no, what I mean is, this fundamentally isn't really my—""And also," Maki added the next cut, very calmly, "if anything like this morning ever happens again, or anything even harder to explain than this morning, Shimo writes the report herself." Jess burst out laughing on the spot. Hedwig tilted her head slightly, as if she hadn't quite worked out which domestic incident "like this morning" referred to. Akari, kindly, pretended not to understand. Harvey and D exercised selective silence.

And I could only stand in the middle of the living room, wondering at which invisible step I'd walked into some slow-acting trap designed specifically for Shimo.

"... Understood." I said. Maki gave a soft "mm," like someone finally stamping an invisible document. And as I watched Jess on the sofa, Maki who'd nodded with a cold face anyway, Harvey lost in thought, D already redrawing window lines in his head, Akari preparing to reheat the dinner, and Hedwig standing beside me, quieted by that one "she can stay" — I suddenly realized, with complete clarity, one thing: From tonight on, the trouble at No.

22 Platinum Bridge Street would no longer occur at the scale an ordinary residence was supposed to have. It would operate under the name of a student dormitory. It would exist with the contents of a temporary safe house. It would spread at the speed of a gossip hotbed. And I, the unlucky Shimo, would stand at its center cleaning up.... Just lovely. At school by day, handling the Disciplinary Committee chair's dignity incidents. At home by night, handling the Imperial Princess's housing crisis.

With a complimentary Jess attached, on hand to subtitle everything with the least appropriate words possible. It suddenly occurred to me that, compared to the two crates under the stairs, the thing that really needed locking up first might well be every mouth in this house.