Rummaging beneath the table, Lucius found a small stone glued to it.

  Hmm, just as I thought.

  He removed the stone and inspected it. It had an irregular shape and a dull black color—a lodestone, the kind that pulled iron as if it had a will of its own.

  “I already told you that you can’t mess around there!”

  The stall owner, anxious and irritated, rushed toward Lucius and tried to snatch the stone from his hands, only to be knocked to the ground by a slap Lucius delivered straight to his cheek.

  “You—”

  The man stared at him in disbelief, one hand covering his mouth, which was bleeding from the force of the blow.

  “Young master…”

  Stunned, Mira hurried to Lucius’s side.

  “What’s going on?”

  “See for yourself.”

  Lucius tossed the stone to the maid, who deftly caught it and focused her gaze on it, frowning in confusion before finally realizing the truth—confusion giving way to indignation.

  “You!” She pointed at the stall owner. “You were cheating us!”

  The man averted his eyes.

  “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Liar!”

  Mira puffed out her cheeks in irritation.

  “So you’re certain that if I open this bear, I won’t find another one of these stones inside it?” Lucius asked with a cold smile.

  The stall owner’s expression went pale, but he still tried to feign ignorance.

  “Then let’s call the guards and see what they have to say,” Lucius threatened.

  What little color remained drained completely from the man’s face.

  “T-there’s no need for that,” he said hastily. “You can keep the prize.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Lucius snorted disdainfully before handing the bear to Mira. “Let’s go.”

  “Ah—r-right.”

  Clutching the stuffed bear, she hurried after Lucius.

  “Thank you, young master,” she said as she walked beside him.

  Lucius frowned.

  “That was nothing.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” she replied with a small smile.

  Lucius didn’t quite understand what she meant, but assumed it was just another one of the nonsensical things she liked to say, so he let it go.

  Her gaze drifted back toward the stall.

  “But are you sure it’s fine to just leave him like that?”

  That man was probably using the same trick on the other toys, so Mira wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to actually call the guards.

  But Lucius shook his head.

  “There’s no need,” he continued. “For a petty crime like that, the punishment would only be compensation. Just the stuffed bear he lost is worth more than whatever fine he’d have to pay.”

  Not to mention that, with the slap Lucius had given him, the man would probably spend the next week unable to eat properly.

  “Hmm, that’s surprisingly magnanimous of you, young master,” she said, impressed. “I thought that, if it were you, you’d want the guards dragging that man into the dungeons—or whipping him in the town square.”

  Lucius looked at Mira.

  She has quite an… interesting image of me, doesn’t she?

  “That would be too much trouble.”

  Mira furrowed her brows.

  “But if you just leave it as it is, isn’t there a risk that he’ll keep cheating other people?”

  “Unlikely. Several people saw what happened. I doubt he’ll get any more customers today. And if he does, then it’s their fault for being idiots,” Lucius said with a scornful smile.

  “Ugh, that’s such a terrible thing to say, young master.”

  They walked toward an animal performance taking place at another corner of the square. On a small improvised wooden stage, a young woman stood with an iron hoop planted into the ground in front of her and a short whip hanging from her left hand.

  At her signal, a gray-furred dog leapt through the hoop, drawing applause from the nearby children. Next, two small monkeys, secured with thin leather straps, climbed a narrow pole she placed at the center of the stage and began imitating human gestures—bowing, clapping, and pretending to argue with each other.

  “Wow. Young master, look—it’s a tamer,” Mira said, impressed.

  A tamer, is it?

  Lucius regarded Mira’s words skeptically.

  Tamer was the title given to mages who specialized in controlling Magical Creatures and Monsters through magic. What the woman in front of them was doing was nothing more than a pathetic trick.

  “Isn’t it even more impressive that she’s doing all that without using any magic?” Mira asked.

  Shaking his head, Lucius disagreed. “She’s controlling—if you can even call it that—ordinary animals. It’s completely different from controlling a Magical Creature or a Monster. If she could do that without magic, then I’d admit defeat. But that’s not the case here.”

  Mira had nothing to say to that, only puffing out her cheeks in dissatisfaction. But even that didn’t last long—when her gaze landed on another attraction, she immediately ran off toward it.

  “Come on, come on, young master.”

  Lucius followed after her at an unhurried pace.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  They continued walking through the square, moving from stall to stall under the afternoon sun. The crowd grew denser, and the heat caused the smells of food to mingle heavily in the air.

  Mira seemed incapable of deciding where to look first—simple games, candy vendors, artisans displaying colorful trinkets, and lively musicians all competed for her attention. From time to time, she stopped to examine something more closely, tugging at Lucius’s sleeve or pointing excitedly at some curiosity.

  Lucius simply accompanied her, unhurried. Time passed almost without him noticing, marked only by the sun slowly moving westward.

  Suddenly, as the tower bell rang, Mira’s stomach growled.

  “You’re hungry.”

  “I-I’m not,” she said awkwardly, hand pressed to her stomach.

  “Choose.”

  Lucius pointed toward the food stalls.

  “If we eat now, we should finish before the magic show begins.”

  Mira’s eyes widened.

  “A-are we staying to watch it?”

  Lucius frowned.

  “Wasn’t that your plan from the beginning?”

  From what Lucius had heard, the magic show would be the final and largest spectacle of the afternoon. He had assumed that, among all the events and attractions, it was the one Mira most wanted to see.

  “Well, I just didn’t know if the young master would want to stay until then…”

  She gripped the hem of her dress, embarrassed.

  “We’ve already come this far, so leaving now would be inefficient,” he said indifferently.

  “O-okay,” Mira nodded, then turned her attention back to the food stalls. “Let’s go to that one.”

  “All right.”

  The stall Mira chose sold lamb skewers. Lucius wasn’t accustomed to eating this kind of street food, and after a single bite, he could tell it was far from the meals prepared by his family’s chef.

  But that’s an unfair comparison.

  Lucius acknowledged that and decided to let it go.

  “You seem quite fond of that bear,” he said, pointing at Mira.

  Ever since she’d won it, she’d kept it firmly by her side. Looking at the scene, Lucius was reminded of his younger sister—though the image was far less cute when reproduced by a woman nearing twenty.

  “Well, I always wanted one of these when I was a child, but I didn’t have the money to buy it,” she said shyly. “A-and it’s not like I’ll carry it around everywhere. It’s just that there’s nowhere to store it here. When we get back to the mansion, I’ll keep it in my room.”

  The more she spoke, the redder her cheeks became. In the end, she pushed Lucius’s face away with her hand.

  “P-please don’t look at me like that, young master!”

  Lucius removed her hand.

  “That’s fine,” he said indifferently.

  “Hm?”

  “This is something you wanted, isn’t it?” He pointed at the bear. “So just enjoy it without worrying about others or feeling embarrassed.”

  Mira pouted.

  “That… sounds like something you’d say, young master.”

  Lucius gave a crooked smile.

  “I suppose it does.”

  Mira lowered her gaze.

  “It’s impressive, actually.”

  “What is?”

  She hesitated for a moment, hugging the stuffed bear to her chest as if gathering courage.

  “You… seem to live at your own pace,” she finally said. “Always.”

  Lucius frowned, but didn’t interrupt.

  “You don’t seem to care whether people approve of what you do or not,” she continued. “If you like something, you do it. If you don’t, you ignore it. That’s it. You don’t try to please anyone, or justify yourself.”

  She lifted her gaze to him.

  “Even when people look at you strangely. Even when they comment. Even when they think bad things.”

  “That’s nothing special.”

  To him, his way of acting was as natural as breathing, so he couldn’t understand the reason for the light in her eyes.

  “It is,” Mira replied quickly. “At least to me.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “I’m always thinking about what others will say. What they’ll think. Whether I’m being strange, childish, inconvenient…” Her fingers tightened around the fabric of her dress. “Sometimes, I don’t even know anymore whether something truly makes me happy, or if I’m just trying not to draw attention.”

  Her words made him think. Humans—how interesting they were. Who would have imagined that behind that lighthearted, playful demeanor lay so much fear and insecurity?

  “You worry too much,” he said at last.

  “I know,” Mira laughed softly. “But when I look at you, it seems… easy.”

  “Easy?”

  “Living without asking permission from the whole world,” she replied. “It’s like you’re always one step out of sync with everyone else, but without being lost.”

  I suppose so.

  What one sought in life determined how one acted toward it. Lucius’s goals were different from most people’s, so he supposed his path—and his pace—were simply reflections of that.

  The bustle of the square continued around them—laughter, distant music, the clinking of coins. Even so, for a brief moment, everything felt far away.

  Mira smiled.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Lucius said nothing. He simply turned his attention back to the lamb skewer, as if that conversation had held no importance.

  But for some reason, the silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable.

  Soon after, the sound of applause began to echo from the center of the square.

  “Oh!” Mira perked up immediately. “Young master, it looks like the magic show is about to start!”

  Lucius followed her gaze to the crowd forming around a larger stage, draped in dark fabrics.

  “Then let’s go,” he said, standing up. “If we’re going to watch, we should get a good spot.”

  “Right!”

  Mira stood quickly, holding the bear even more carefully, and tugged at Lucius’s sleeve once again.

  They moved quickly, but still ended up squeezed among the crowd. Lucius found the scene amusing: the duke’s son competing for a few inches of space with lowborn commoners.

  But when an explosion of smoke covered the stage, the crowd immediately fell silent, impressed gasps echoing all around.

  “Dear citizens of Notwen,” a voice spoke from within the smoke. “Are you prepared to behold… the secrets of magic?”

  A gust of wind swept across the stage, clearing the smoke and revealing a male figure. He wore a black suit, a red handkerchief hanging from its pocket. A tall black top hat—nearly two spans high—sat atop his head, and a white mask with silver engravings covered his entire face except for his mouth. In his right hand, he held a black staff topped with a red gemstone.

  A murmur rippled through the crowd.

  The man bowed slightly, resting the staff against the ground.

  “Magic,” he said, his voice strangely amplified. “A word many use, few understand… and very few can touch.”

  Raising his left hand, his fingers slowly spread apart.

  Nothing happened.

  For a moment.

  Then small red sparks began to appear between his fingers—not like ordinary fire, but like fragments of solid light, floating in the air. They gathered, spiraling together until they formed a small, pulsing sphere.

  The crowd held its breath. And under their watchful eyes, the magician tossed the sphere into the air.

  Everyone cried out in surprise, eyes following the sphere’s trajectory as, after reaching its highest point, it began to fall at ever-increasing speed.

  “It’s going to land here!” someone shouted.

  Surprise and excitement gave way to panic, but at that moment, the magician’s voice rang out again.

  “Behold!” He pointed his staff at the falling sphere.

  In the same instant, the sphere exploded, dispersing into thousands of brilliant points of light.

  There was silence. Then applause and cheers erupted. Staying true to his persona, the man made an exaggerated bow.

  “Don’t get too excited,” he said as he straightened. “That was merely the opening.”

  His gaze swept across the crowd.

  “For the next act, I require an assistant.” His finger pointed at a young woman standing at the front. “You.”

  “M-me?”

  The young woman looked around nervously. Laughing, the magician clapped his hands.

  “Yes, you.”

  He extended his hand toward her, which she accepted with an embarrassed expression before climbing onto the stage.

  “Now,” the magician said theatrically, “observe the wonders of magic—a power that turns illusion into reality, and reality into a dream.”

  With a simple gesture from the magician, and under the stunned gaze of the crowd, the girl vanished. Only her clothes remained—the last proof that she had been there—dragged away by the wind.

  “Ohhhhh.”

  After a brief silence, the crowd exploded into thunderous applause and excited cheers.

  The magician welcomed the crowd’s enthusiasm with open arms, bowing again and again.

  “Who else would like to participate?” he asked once the voices calmed.

  “Me, me!”

  Many hands went up. Young women, elderly men—everyone wanted to be part of the spectacle.

  The magician smiled, his gaze scanning the crowd, finally stopping on… Lucius—no, on the person beside him.

  “You!” He pointed at Mira. “Beautiful lady, would you like to participate? To see the mysteries of magic up close?”

  “Eh? M-me?”

  Now the center of attention, panic washed over Mira’s face as her gaze darted between the magician, the surrounding people, and Lucius.

  “Young master…”

  “If you want to go, go. If you don’t, don’t,” Lucius said indifferently.

  “O-okay.”

  Mira nodded, excitement mingling with nervousness.

  “Then… I’ll go.”

  Making her way through the path the crowd opened, she climbed onto the stage.

  “What is your name?” the magician asked.

  “M-Mira.”

  “Oh, what a beautiful name. A name worthy of such beauty.”

  The magician clapped, prompting the audience to do the same.

  “And now, Mira, are you ready to witness the wonders of magic up close?” he asked pompously.

  Mira nodded.

  “Just don’t make me disappear too.”

  Her words sent the audience into peals of laughter.

  “Hahaha. No need to worry—I won’t make you disappear. For you, what we will do is—”

  The magician’s voice was cut off. No—Lucius was certain the magician finished his speech without issue. It was him who could no longer hear.

  When several events occurred in too short a span of time, the brain struggled to separate them. To Lucius, everything seemed to happen at once: a sharp pain in his head, a ringing in his ears, and his vision fading to black.