Chương 32: Regards

After I sobbed into Cinderella's lap for who knew how much time, her poor work dress was probably soaked through. I raised my head and looked at her.

"You… you know?" I managed, "what happened to me?" Now that I thought about it more clearly, this looked like the start of a cycle. But weirdly enough, it didn't start with Cinderella apologizing to Lucifer for his early breakfast. Oh, but she held the Journal… so I guess it actually worked?

"I read about it all," Cinderella said quietly.

"In my own handwriting. I know something horrible has happened to you." Oh, this I knew.

"But how am I… alive?"

"According to… well, to what I wrote," she said, "the Fairy Godmother refused to heal you at first. She said that to heal you she needed to touch your soul, but she couldn't because it was… corrupted. But apparently I cried and begged and wouldn't take a refusal. So in the end, she did some magic she called a Suspend spell. She said it would freeze your body until midnight. And since a new cycle will begin, that should be enough. And… I think it worked." It worked? I felt my chest; I felt my neck wound.

I looked out of the window to make sure I wasn't in hell. I touched Cinderella's hair and face to make sure she was not a Mimic-Many-Tongues. I think It did work! I was really alive. And I was… angry. Someone did a terrible thing to me! This young blond assassin called me ugly before murdering me! And some stupid time-looper faction probably sent him… oh, this was so unfair! I needed to talk to Juliette. She would know what this was about, maybe identify the assassin.

If this was from that Julian group she told me about, we must do something about it. Or it could happen again. I finally got up.

"I will go to them," I said to Cinderella, "to Juliette… I need to get answers."

"Are you sure…" Cinderella said hesitantly, "this is…"

"It's alright," I said. Oh, I really hoped it was alright.

"I… I will come with you." she said resolutely. I took both her hands in mine and smiled. This was the start of the loop, and it seemed Cinderella already liked me! I was so happy that the Journal worked.

"Thank you," I said, "but it's better that I go alone. I promise to come back soon with a fruit tart, so we can eat together!"

"Oh... okay then," she smiled with concern.

"Just, be careful." Lucifer then walked lazily into my room. He approached me and started… sniffing my leg. More sniffing, more sniffing. Then he suddenly stopped. He hissed at me and scurried away. Did he smell the fairy magic on me? Oh, but that was from the last cycle… oh whatever, stupid cat. I walked out of the house, headed all the way to Widow Clair's house, and got my gold. Now I wanted my pistol too. Oh, but it was too early in the morning; Bastien's night shift wasn't over yet.

I went to the bakery and bought myself some cream puffs. Found a secluded spot where I could keep watch on Bastien's usual route home, and sat down to eat and think. I had some thinking to do. Someone had murdered me, after all, and that required some serious deduction. Let's start looking at it all in a logical manner. What did I know? First, someone called me ugly and then murdered me. Oh… How dare he! I did nothing to him! And… he looked so smug about it too! That bastard! A pox upon him! Rot his bones, I will…

I will kill him! Well… thinking about that wasn't helpful. Try again: When he stabbed me in the throat, he said that he didn't want me holding up until midnight. So he was a time looper. He could be an assistant, but I had a feeling he was the former. Time loopers have this smug confidence spilling out of them. And… he knew where I lived. That was important too. Was it related to my palace heist? Probably. Well, I had been told first not to get involved with them, then to be careful about the palace mission.

I listened to none of that. But still, even if I wasn't careful and time loopers knew about me, why kill me? There was this horribly uncomfortable thought... that I was betrayed by Juliette's group. But… after the palace heist job, I turned to leave, and Juliette stopped me and offered to hire me for the rest of the loop. So why should she do it if she wanted me dead? And anyway, Juliette probably had a million easy opportunities to get rid of me. No… I don't think it was them.

Could it be because I was known as a time looper but wasn't officially part of any organization? So… like, there was no real consequence to killing me, like starting a war with a faction… Ugh! This thinking was leading me nowhere! I did absolutely nothing wrong to these horrible people! It was so incredibly unfair! I wanted to strangle them all! I waited some more until I finally saw Bastien walking tiredly along the dirt road toward his house. Finally.

I could wait for him to go to sleep, make a show so the housemaid would make me tea, and steal the pistol like last time, but I thought I had a simpler method.

"Oh, officer! Excuse me, officer!" I walked purposefully toward him.

"Please, you must help me!" Bastien looked at me, bewildered.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Oh, it's my father!" I began, my voice thick with distress.

"He is about to fight a duel today with a most vicious, devious scoundrel! But Papa insists on using an army-issue pistol—stubborn as a mule—and told me to find the first officer I could and pay this for a proper, military pistol!" I held out my hand, showing two Louis gold coins.

"Miss," Bastien's eyes were slightly wide at the two coins, "this is… possibly five times the price of a secondhand pistol such as this. And… well… I need it for tomorrow's shift, I…" But his eyes didn't leave the coins. As chivalrous and gentlemanly as Bastien was, two gold coins worth forty francs was probably his monthly salary.

"Oh please, sir," I pleaded, "if it's not for this pistol, my father will fight with a sword, and I am so afraid for his life!"

"F-fine, if that is so," he mumbled. He unbuckled his belt, handing the heavy pistol over to me as I pressed the gold into his palm.

"But it is best if you try to talk him out of this foolish duel altogether! Even if it is legal today, it's a barbaric custom, and causes the unnecessary loss of many good Frenchmen."

"Oh, thank you, sir! I'm sure my father will win!"

"That is not really…" he started. But I had already loudly thanked him again, spinning on my heel, and hurrying away before he could change his mind. This was a better method, definitely. Now I didn't feel bad about stealing Bastien's gun. And I got to talk to him too, which was nice. I could also meet him again in this loop and start working on the B. M. P. for him to fall helplessly in love with me! If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I didn't have Juliette's private bell in this new cycle, so I had to walk to Widow Clair's house to ring the bell that summons a meeting. Afterward, I headed straight to the time loopers' secret base, which wasn't far away. I found the back alley house soon enough and headed to the basement entrance. I could already hear the muffled murmur of voices drifting up from the basement. Good, they were already here. But as I walked down the steps into the center of the room, I found more people than I had expected.

Beside Juliette, Victor, Roger, and James, there were three others: a tall man with brown skin, a woman with red hair in a beautiful velvet dress, and the cute-faced young blond man who had murdered me. The blond man was sitting beside Juliette on a wooden crate, and it seemed they were chatting but a moment ago. Now, each and every one of those present was looking at me, wide-eyed and pale. Very pale, as if they had seen a ghost. But I looked only at the young blond.

And when I looked at him, a sudden, violent rage surged through me. It was him. He did it to me. And he was sitting less than two meters in front of me. I drew my pistol, it was already loaded. I leveled it at my killer's face and squeezed the trigger. Flint struck steel. The young man threw his hands up protectively in front of his face—and CRACK! The heavy lead ball tore through his raised fingers and struck him dead center in the face. It wasn't like splitting driftwood.

A wet, horrific spray of warm crimson splashed across the room. Small, gooey red chunks and jagged splinters of white bone flew everywhere. Juliette's face, in particular, was instantly coated in a thick layer of blood and gore. Mercifully, the force of the impact shoved the remainder of his body backward behind the crate, sparing me the worst of the sight. A deathly silence followed. The first to react was James, who with two quick steps, caught me by the shirt and threw me behind a row of large wooden crates.

What came next was total chaos. Juliette, James, and Victor jumped and joined me behind the crate row. I heard two more shots— Crack! —and the crate in front of me shook violently. Some wooden planks behind us broke. Oh… they were shooting at us! Victor pulled out his musket, aimed between two crates, and Crack! —let out a shot. Juliette wiped her face with her dress, looking at all the gore.

"Disgusting!" She looked at me accusingly. She then pulled out a pistol and tried to peek between the crates to find a target, only for another CRACK! that shook the crate, making Juliette sit back down again.

"What are you doing!" Victor shouted at me while filling his musket with powder.

"Reload NOW!" Oh, that's right. This was a shootout. My hands shook violently. I pulled out a paper cartridge, brought it to my mouth, and desperately tried to bite off the edge. Just as the paper tore and I tasted the bitter tang of the powder, another loud crack rattled the room. I jumped, my fingers slipped, and the black powder spilled uselessly onto the ground. This is so stressful! Why couldn't I load the damn pistol! Now Juliette seemed to find a gap between two crates and shot her pistol, and "AHAAA!"

a shout. It seemed she hit the redhead woman. Then, through the thickening smoke, I saw the tall, brown-skinned man emerge from his cover and run toward us, pistol in hand. He probably guessed we didn't have any loaded weapon between us, and he was right. I saw Victor stop loading his musket and pull a long knife, getting ready. The tall man darted around the edge of our barricade, stepping just far enough to the side to get a clear line of sight behind our row of crates. But he didn't aim at Victor, or Juliette.

He aimed at me. Am I really going to die two days in a row!? It was ridiculous! But then something incredible happened. Instead of pulling the trigger, blue flames suddenly erupted directly from the fingers gripping his pistol, devouring the metal and his skin alike.

"AAAAAAHH!" he screamed, throwing the pistol and trying to muffle the flames from his fingers. But the flames came from inside his hands, and he couldn't put them out. He kept screaming until Victor stepped forward with one quick motion to shove a knife into his throat. Oh, I think it was James's bone flame magic. I looked at the Englishman. He was hyperventilating, eyes narrowed in fierce concentration. It was a horrific, horrible magic, but it saved me. Then, BOOM!

A deafening explosion shook the very foundations of the room, instantly filling the basement with a choking, thick black smoke.

"She's escaping!" Juliette shouted, then coughed. I couldn't see anything in the black smoke, but I heard hurried footsteps on the wooden stairs, then the door. Immediately, Juliette ran after her. Victor and James hurried after, and me too, just to escape from the choking smoke. But by the time I rushed out of the basement and joined the others in the main house, the redhead was already long gone. We all just stood there and said nothing. Then, we looked at Juliette.

She looked back at us for a long moment, her chest heaving, her face and dress still covered in the blond man's blood.

"I need a bloody shower!" she finally shouted, wiping a streak of gore from her cheek.

"Then we will call the boss." She turned her fierce glare directly onto me.

"Some unexpected change of events…" and she took off. Victor then looked at me seriously.

"You should practice reloading, Drizella. With enough repetition, muscle memory takes over even in the utter chaos of battle. Then you won't be completely useless in a shootout."

"Yes," I nodded. He was obviously right. But right now…

"Why… why were you sitting and talking with… with them?"

"Oh, they were from the Julian faction," Victor said with a heavy sigh.

"They weren't sure if you were of our faction or not and claimed they didn't want to start another bloody, all-out faction war. They offered compensation for your death, so we had no reason not to listen. We believed them when they described your assassination; they supplied all the details." Compensation for my death was an annoying thought, but right now, that wasn't what bothered me.

"Why target me?" I asked.

"They said something about a new time looper in the area being a breach of the status quo. That is… admittedly an odd explanation," Victor said, looking at me before adding quietly, "We did not anticipate this. We honestly thought we were in an armistice with them. And now, well… things will get much more complicated." Victor sighed.

"And complicated means bloody." James then came to me, and without looking smug, gestured to me.

"OK?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," I said.

"Thank you… er… for saving me." In response, James looked smug again. Um, maybe he understood enough of what I said. And maybe… as weird as it sounds, I think James likes me. I turned to Victor. I thought I had more questions I needed to ask, but I really didn't know what to think about it all. I didn't even know if I should be angry with Juliette and Victor.

"The one I killed," I asked what was really on my mind, "was he a time looper or an assistant?"

"His name was Nicolas," Victor said.

"He was a time looper, and considered a very capable assassin."

"Good," I smiled then, and looked down toward the basement. Enjoy hell.

"Your first kill," Victor asked quietly, "how did it feel?" Um, I had to genuinely think about that for a moment. When I saw him, the blood rushed to my head so fast I didn't think at all. My body just moved on its own. And after the trigger was pulled, it was all just the chaos of the fight.

"I don't feel anything special," I admitted, looking at my hands.

"I'm only glad that he is dead, gladder still for him to go to hell, and… gladder still to know that I am the one who put him there." Victor took a moment to consider my answer, and then nodded with a small, understanding smile. Juliette then came back, clean and all pretty again in a new turquoise day dress. She came straight to me.

"Oh, I knew you were trouble from the moment I met you!" Hey, that was hardly fair. I didn't understand what it was all about, sure, but I got a feeling that I earned some kind of apology here.

"I… died!" I started, raising my voice.

"I mean, nearly died! And just after you offered me a job! I…"

"We told you a million times you shouldn't get involved with us!" countered Juliette.

"Those are just words!" I said.

"You said them and then showed me a sack with 1, 000 gold coins!"

"Drizella is right," said Victor.

"We… we do owe her an apology."

"Ahem, ahem!" said James.

"Oh my, oh my!" It was Roger, who suddenly peeked through James's waistcoat pocket.

"Is it over? Oh dear me! Is it safe already?"

"Oh, Roger, you're such a coward!" said Juliette.

"I'm not suited for a firefight, I'm afraid," Roger said, straightening his tiny hat.

"My fortes lay with a more refined set of skills."

"Yes, yes," said Juliette, then turned to me again.

"And what was it again, the reason you are alive? Nicolas swore he shot you and stabbed your neck."

"Oh, that Nicolas was just a lousy assassin, really," I huffed.

"Barely gave me a scratch. If I'm honest, the large bowl of pudding I ate at the ball came much closer to making me meet my maker. Then again, I ate quite a lot of it."

"You said you nearly died just a moment ago," Juliette reminded me, her eyes squinting so tight I wondered how she could even see like that.

"Well, a scratch can be dangerous too," I countered.

"His knife was hardly hygienic. I could get all kinds of disastrous infectious diseases from it!" Juliette stopped squinting and let out a small chuckle.

"Fine," she said.

"I should know you by now. You have your secrets. And that's fine; heaven forbid I have some of my own too."

"So… what now?" I asked.

"Now you meet the boss," Juliette smiled. She went to the basement door, opened it, and immediately took a step back from all the smoke that still hung from the smoke bomb. She shot a pleading expression at Victor.

"Fine." He sighed.

"I will get it." Victor trudged downstairs into the smoke. Several moments passed, marked only by his harsh, hacking coughs echoing up the stairwell. He eventually emerged, waving to clear the air. In his hand, I saw a tiny human doll. On closer inspection, I could see that it was completely made of small, blood-stained bones, and the head was a tiny, creepy, human-like skull. Of course. I wasn't expecting anything less creepy.

"Is your boss a doll?" I asked. They all gave me a bewildered look.

"What?" I said.

"Am I not allowed to joke?" Juliette then took a sharp knife and made a small pierce on her finger above the doll. The blood droplet hit the doll's head. A few seconds after the blood absorbed into the bone, the tiny skull's empty eye sockets suddenly lit up, glowing with two dots of eerie blue light. Then a human sound emitted from the skull's mouth. It was so strange, like someone tiny was inside and talking!

"This is Thomas Thomas," said the voice.

"Who am I speaking to?" The voice sounded young and spoke fluent French but had a weird accent. Not like the clunky, potato-eating English accent. Something much more exotic and flowing.

"This is Juliette," said Juliette.

"I'm here with Victor, James, Roger, and Drizella."

"Oh, Drizella is there? Good," the tiny skeleton doll said.

"I just got a message from Azearothiel. He sends his regards."