“I’m… sorry…” she managed in a strangled voice, but she did not offer her hand again.
Lawrence could do nothing but curse himself.
The sound of the appalling thing he had done pressed in on him.
“… I’m going back to the inn,” announced Holo quietly, walking off without a second look at Lawrence.
Holo could hear conversations within the next building, so she had certainly heard Lawrence’s exchange with the master.
Of course, she would feel responsible and want to get away – she had been worried enough about him to accompany him, after all.
Yet just because her actions had backfired, she hadn’t lightly apologized or acted confused; instead, she had been genuinely concerned for Lawrence. He knew it was the most appropriate response. He knew that, which made his treatment of her all the more reprehensible.
He couldn’t find the words to speak to Holo, whose back was disappearing into the crowds – and he didn’t have the courage, either.
Lawrence cursed himself again.
If the goddess of fortune existed, Lawrence wanted to punch her square in the face.
Lawrence finally returned to the inn only after the stalls that had permission to conduct business past sunset had closed their doors for the day.
He wanted to drown himself in wine, but he had no money and sensed that it would be a kind of betrayal.
Standing drunkenly before Holo – that was something he simply could not do.
It was his visits to the various trade companies that had kept him out so late.
If he abandoned pride and dignity altogether, he reasoned they would give him a bit of money simply to be rid of him.
In the end he’d gotten three lumione from four people. Three of them had told him he didn’t need to bother returning it. They knew who was borrowing, after all.
His goal of forty-seven lumione was still clearly distant. He had to take this small amount and multiply it significantly in the little time that remained. It was not as if his situation had improved. The relationships he had destroyed in order to raise even this much money were important, even necessary, for doing business.
There were essentially no legitimate opportunities that remained for making more money.
And in any case, there was something that had to be considered before that – something that had to be regained before he could even think of making more money – which is why he had gone thither and yon asking after loans with no care for the consequences.
The memory of how Holo’s hand felt when he unwittingly drove her away came back to him. Pain swirled in his chest, seeming to pierce his very heart.
When Lawrence entered the inn’s lobby, the sleepy innkeeper stood behind his counter, enduring a large yawn. The city required that the innkeeper remain awake until all the guests had returned to the inn. If a guest hadn’t returned by the next day, the town guard had to be notified.
It was a precaution against thieves and criminals entering the city and perpetrating foul deeds.
“Well, you’re back early” came the sarcastic greeting from the innkeeper. Lawrence waved it off and headed to his room.
It was a single room on the third floor. Lawrence didn’t want to consider the possibility that Holo had simply gone off somewhere else.
For the second time that day, he took a deep breath and opened the door.
Whether he opened the door slowly or quickly, the creaking would have been the same, so he did it briskly and entered.
Between the terrible building conditions and the huge number of travelers who passed through Ruvinheigen, a room with a bed was already fairly luxurious. This room, with its crude bed in the center, had a simple table by the window and still cost a pretty penny.
But now Lawrence was grateful it was so small.
If it had been even a little bit bigger, he probably would have hesitated to speak.
Holo was curled up on the bed, illuminated faintly by the moonlight that entered through a crack in the shuttered window.
“Holo.”
The brief utterance diffused in the small, dark room, and Lawrence was beset by the illusion that he had never said anything at all.
On the bed, Holo did not so much as move.
If she had never wanted to see his face again, she would not have come back to the inn. The fact that she was curled up there on the bed soothed him that much at least.
“I’m sorry.”
Those were the only words he had, all he could think of to say, but Holo remained still.
He could not imagine that she was sleeping, so he took one step toward the bed and gulped.
Instantly, he felt a sharp sensation at his feet. He stepped back quickly as a sweaty chill ran up his spine, and the frightening feeling vanished.
He looked back and forth between Holo and his feet.
When someone is truly angry, Lawrence thought, just getting close to them can almost feel like being burned. Disbelieving, he slowly reached his hand out; it was met by an overwhelming aura. Her anger was literally palpable. There was a distinct layer of air that felt strangely hot and cold at the same time.
Lawrence steeled himself and reached his hand out again. It felt as if he were plunging his fist into burning sand laced with blades. His senses told him that his flesh was charring and being cut into pieces.
He remembered his first glimpse of Holo’s true form in the underground passageways.
He willed himself to take a step forward.
And in that moment.
“–!”
There was a rustling sound, and just as Lawrence thought he saw Holo’s blanket move slightly, his hand was deflected by something hard. He saw her bristling tail had been flicked away, but a pain lingered in his hand, distinctly enough so that he didn’t have time to wonder whether it was illusory or not.
Then he realized that Holo had felt the same pain when he struck her hand. Lawrence had been prepared for this reaction, whereas his rejection of Holo came utterly without warning. The surprise alone must have hurt her.
Again, he cursed his own mistake.
Lawrence took a leather pouch out from underneath his shirt and tossed it onto the bed.
It was all the money he had spent the day burning bridges to acquire.
He had cashed in all the relationships he’d built up in this city.
“This is all the money I was able to get on my own. Three lumione. I still have to raise over forty more, but I’ve no way to do it. I can think of no way to use that as capital to raise what I need.”
It was like he was talking to a cobblestone, so complete was Holo’s lack of reaction. Still, Lawrence cleared his throat slightly and continued.
“All I can think of to do is take the money to a gambling house and hope for luck. But if I give it to the person who really should have it, I feel it may yet increase. So I entrust it to you.”
Drunken singing could be heard from the street outside the window.
“And if everything goes bad, well, adding three lumione won’t make a difference anyway.”
Lawrence had sacrificed possibilities for cash half in the hopes that Holo would be able to use her wits to find a way to increase their funds and half because he wanted to leave her some money in the event that the worst happened.
Though it was only a verbal contract, Lawrence had promised to take her to the northlands, and parting on such bad terms would leave a bad taste in his mouth.
He felt that the least he could do for Holo, as a merchant, was to give her some coin.
Still, there was no response.
He backed up a step, then turned, and pulled the door open, going into the hall.
He couldn’t stay in the room when it was like that.
Lawrence descended the dark stairs and went outside, ignoring the rebuking voice of the innkeeper.
Off to his right, he heard the drunken singing that previously had filtered through the room’s window.
The town guard
would soon be making the rounds. Having no particular place to go, Lawrence thought of going to see Jakob, who was quite involved with his problems at the moment. Since Lawrence had gone around practically forcing his request on every merchant in the vicinity, Jakob had undoubtedly received a flood of complaints.
But he stopped after taking a step.
The realization that tonight could well be his last opportunity to walk around as a free man seized his heart.
He looked up unconsciously. He started to angle his sights toward the room on the third floor where Holo was. Holo, who surely had some terrible knowledge that could help him now; Holo, who he couldn’t possibly ask a favor of now.
His gaze didn’t even reach the third floor before he stopped and lowered it.
Just as he resigned himself to go to the guild house, something hit him on the head.
Lawrence’s field of vision swam from the sudden shock, and he fell to his knees. The word robbery came to mind, and he reached for the dagger at his waist, but there was no assailant. Instead came the distinctive clinking of coins jingling against one another…
He searched around and saw the bag containing the three precious lumione he had left on the bed.
“You fool” came the words above his head.
He looked up to be met with Holo’s scowl, as cold as moonlight.
“Get back in here, then,” she said and immediately disappeared into the room. Just as she did, the innkeeper opened his door and emerged.
If a traveler staying at an inn were to perpetrate any misdeeds, the innkeeper could also be held responsible. As someone going out in the middle of the night had to be up to no good, the innkeeper had come to bring Lawrence back in.
But Lawrence no longer had any reason to stay out.
He calmed himself and picked the purse up, holding it up lightly to the innkeeper.
“My companion threw it out the window, you see,” he said with a rueful smile.
The innkeeper made a put-upon face. “Try to keep it down, please,” he chided, opening the door.
Lawrence nodded cursorily and headed back up the stairs to the room.
In his hand was the purse with the three lumione.
He stood before the door to the first room on the third floor and opened it without much hesitation.
Holo had taken off her robe and sat cross-legged on a chair by the window.
“You fool!” was the first thing she said.
“Sorry.”
Lawrence could think of no better reply. It accurately reflected what was in his heart but was too brief.
Yet no other words came.
“The money…” said Holo with equally short words, a displeased expression on her face. “How did you collect it?”
“You want to know?”
Holo looked away, as though presented with her least favorite food. “What was I to do, run off with your precious money?”
“That’s half the reason I collected it. If my failure means I can’t fulfill my end of the bargain, the least I could do is leave you some travel money–”
He swallowed the rest of the sentence.
Holo still averted her gaze, her lips tight – but tears welled up in her eyes.
It was as if the emotion within her was overflowing, and she was trying desperately to hold it back.
Then a single tear sparkled as it fell. The dam had broken. ‘“Travel… money’…?”
“Well, yes…”
“Of all the absurd…”
Defiantly, Holo wiped her tears with both her sleeves, then stood, glaring at Lawrence, her eyes still blurry.
“It is my fault, is it not? If I were not here, you’d shoulder no debt! Why aren’t you angrier? If I were… if I were…!”
Her small fists quivered as the words within her became tears, overflowed, and fell.
Yet Lawrence did not understand.
Holo had come with Lawrence to the trade guild because she was worried about him. She certainly had not known that he would be turned down for loans because he had a woman with him.
And though it had been but a moment’s passion, he had slapped her hand away.
No matter how he considered it, he was the one at fault. He couldn’t find a reason to be angry with Holo.
“But I was the one at fault. You came along because you were worried about me. I can’t be angry at you for–”
She looked at him sharply. The moment he started speaking, Holo turned and grabbed the back of the chair.
“You–”
She picked the chair up–
“–fool!”
Alarmed, Lawrence winced, but Holo did not throw the largish chair.
Soon he realized it took all her strength to lift the chair, and she couldn’t throw it.
“Urgh… damn this…” she said, perhaps cursing the heavier than expected chair – or perhaps Lawrence.
But there was one thing he knew. Holo’s thin arms could not hurl the chair by force of emotion alone. Her moonlit body leaned toward the window, hands still on the chair, eyes still glaring at Lawrence.
“Look out!”
Just as the chair leg clattered against the window frame, Lawrence sprang forward, grabbing the chair with his left hand and Holo’s thin wrist with his right.
Despite the fact that she had nearly fallen out the window, chair and all, Holo continued glaring at Lawrence.
Unable to bear that gaze, he looked away.
Not knowing what else to say, he pulled the chair away from her to set it back on the floor and Holo relinquished it unexpectedly readily.
Then, as if that chair had been the entirety of her anger, the strength drained from her small body.
“… You…”
Her eyes dropped as tears hit the floor; her voice was low.
“You’re so naive…”
Lawrence put the chair down as she said it.
“I’m… naive?” he asked reflexively, so unexpected was her statement.
Holo nodded, childlike, her hands still balled up into fists.
“But… you are… are you not? No one would loan you money because I was with you, yet… yet…”
“I hit your hand away! I was mad at you – unjustifiably mad!”
Holo shook her head and hit Lawrence’s chest with her free hand.
Her face looked like she wanted to be angry, but she had forgotten how.
“I… I… I followed you because I was selfish. When it went awry, of course you were angry. But I never thought you’d hit my hand away like that, so I wanted to be angry – I wanted to, but…”
Lawrence started to understand now.
“H-how could I be angry at you when you looked at me like that?”
Holo wiped her tears again with her free hand.
“I became so foolishly vexed…”
She had been angry when he slapped her hand away, but looking at Lawrence’s face once he realized what he’d done had caused that anger to subside.
Lawrence thought he must have looked quite pathetic.
But that didn’t mean the rage inside Holo had entirely vanished. She had still been irritated at having her hand slapped.
And wanting to be truly furious but not being able to – that was only more frustrating.
She hadn’t responded to him when he returned to the inn because she had not known what to say. Her mind worked far faster than Lawrence’s, yet it had been thrown into confusion without a clear object for her anger.
Then, completely misunderstanding her, Lawrence left her at the inn with the three precious lumione.
That was like throwing oil on a fire.
Holo was already upset at herself for not being able to be properly indignant, and him leaving the coin with her only made it harder to be angry.
“I’m sorry… No, what I mean is, when I hit your hand away, I thought I’d done something I’d never be able to take back, no matter how much I apologized,” said Lawrence slowly.
Holo looked at him with ey
es that seemed tired of fighting.
She probably was tired. Despite her quick mind and quicker tongue, she had been angry enough to try to pick up and throw a heavy chair. Her wolf form notwithstanding, Lawrence did not think that her small body could sustain such ferocity for long.
“Anyway, I… I just wanted to undo what I’d done. And if it didn’t come across, well… I’m sorry.”
Lawrence inwardly cursed his limited eloquence. Holo lightly hit his chest again with her raised right hand.
“… Right, you.”
“Hm?”
“Just answer me one thing.”
Lawrence had no reason to refuse, so he nodded at Holo, whose hand clutched his shirt.
But Holo did not say anything immediately. She hesitated several times before finally speaking.
“Why… why are you so…”
She glanced up at him only for a moment.
“… softhearted?” she finished and then looked immediately away, as if to escape.
Nonetheless, the whole of her attention was focused on Lawrence and Lawrence alone.
It felt like she was anticipating something.
Her wolf ears, which until a moment ago drooped dejectedly, now pricked up slightly, and her tail swished just a bit.
Her small body was illuminated by the moonlight that fell through the open window.
The truth was the reason he had been so stunned by his own actions when he hit her and the reason he had so frantically gathered travel money for her were one and the same: Holo was very special to him.
And that was surely the answer she wanted to hear.
Lawrence looked down at her and tried to answer.
When he opened his mouth to speak, he realized that what emerged was something other than what was in his heart.
“Just my personality, I guess.”
He was afraid of the reaction he would get if he answered honestly.
There was no telling what would come of a frontal assault on the unassailable Holo.
He feared her response, hence his answer. It seemed unfair.
It seemed a consequence of his own weakness.
However.
“Y-you…”
Just as he realized her hand was shaking, Holo smoothly slipped her wrist from his grasp, delivering a punch to his gut as she spoke.
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