The Weight of Legacy

As it turned out, when research became necessary as opposed to something she did for fun, it grew harder and harder to enjoy for its own sake. She’d started having to distract herself by thinking of the dumbest things—which, to be fair, wasn’t that much of a novelty.

Had she been a nosier girl, Malwine would have gotten the truth out of her uncle and his friend already—the glares Alaric kept shooting Theo were just too persistent for nothing to have happened. But she was turning over a new leaf, and wouldn’t pry into that type of thing.

Not within the next five minutes, at least. Learning Otto was an asshole even by this family’s standards had her uneager to learn anything about anyone for a while, if only to avoid being even more disappointed by the people around her. For someone who tried to keep her expectations about as low as floor height, that probably said a lot.

She similarly refrained from addressing the tiny fact that she probably would have ended up researching on her own, anyway. Malwine wasn’t about to deny the fact that not being the sole person handling these things was efficient.

“Nothing on this one,” she said with a pout to hold back a yawn, tossing the latest book she pretended to skim through over her shoulder. Johann Fastēn—the estate’s antiquarian—had some sort of Skill affecting all books in the room, so she knew it’d be fine. She’d checked. Not that any of that stopped the man from all but stomping over just to grab the book from the sofa it had landed on, as if such a light impact would have done anything to it. Pfft.

Adelheid’s smile was fleeting—apparently, even she had the restraint to not giggle in this context—but annoying the antiquarian clearly amused her too, regardless of how she felt about the man. Personally, by now, Malwine just did things to bother him for the principle of it, given Fastēn’s tendency to somehow say something suspect every time he opened his mouth. Alaric had made the mistake of asking if he knew which of two books on Debuffs would be a better starting point, and the man went on a minutes-long rant about how both were likely worthless because the authors were Lizanąn—if nothing else, the fact that he didn’t seem to have thrown any books out probably stood for the only shreds of professional integrity he actually had.

Between the four of them, they’d probably gotten through… maybe a tenth of what the estate’s library had, by the time The Snow came about. The matter of just how many books were in it hadn’t really crossed Malwine’s mind much, since she hadn’t bothered to revisit it since finding Beuzaheim’s library, but it felt slow. Enough to justify complaining like the grumpy child she technically was. “Ugh! This is taking so long.”

“Not everyone here’s grasped the utility of reading Skills,” Theo noted from where he sat in a nearby chaise. There was more than enough space here for everyone, but—in practice—the teenagers got their choice of spots on the furniture. Adelheid had been absolutely correct about the floor being comfy. “Shame, shame.”

“Not everyone has so little going on in their lives that they can grab a situational Skill whenever,” Alaric countered, from the opposite end of the room. Those two were clearly still at odds, but Malwine had to commend them for sticking to the commitment and still showing up to—wait, they lived together. It wasn’t just about visiting the library and seeing each other every day, they were already roommates. Devils, that must have been awkward.

Nope. Malwine shook her head. That wasn’t curiosity, that was the tiredness getting to her, after a whole day in the library. And she had already promised herself she would postpone nosiness for as long as she could. Flipping through more pages, she focused on the book currently in her hands. [Remote Reading] was just infinitely more efficient than actually reading, but staring at a closed book would have been an unhinged look, and as tempted as she’d been to try multitasking a little and just do two books at once with it, Veit’s warning about splitting her consciousness had sort of become an intrusive thought.

Veit, I’m still mad at you. Wherever the fuck you are.

As time went by, the conclusion that something must have been wrong grew inevitable, but Malwine had more immediate concerns. Her old teacher was a grown man and, like, literally half-demon, in a world that treated Devils like its supreme authority. He could handle himself. Probably.

The same could not be said for Thekla and Abelard. If there was one mitigating factor there, it was how—assuming stasis worked like she thought it did—they probably hadn’t even had time to realize anything was up yet. Stasis seemed to be some form of time magic, not just a biological pause or anything like that. It could be flawed—which to this day still brought her a bit of trouble, since it meant she couldn’t be sure of her own birthdate—but whatever had affected her aunt and her husband was no doubt stronger than her own mother’s work.

She was dragged out of her ruminations by the book she was looking through, a glimpse of one of its many illustrations—portraits—enough to have her backtracking and actually looking at the page properly. This book would have been interesting under normal circumstances, had she not been looking for something both specific and urgent. It did seem to discuss some noble families in a genealogical context, though she’d wholly glossed over whatever the point of all the politics in it was. Oh, right, it’s a book about nobles throwing Curses at each other.

Except that guy really reminded her of someone.

The illustration was colorless and somewhat reliant on crosshatched strokes, yet remarkably lifelike. A man with only the faintest traces of a stubble was depicted, wearing a doublet and what appeared to be a bonnet.

Bartholomäus fon Grēdôcava, Second to Gerd fon Grēdôcava, 4902-4911.

Malwine squinted, turning to look at Theo. The widow had been terrible at facial recognition—not in the ‘everyone looks alike’ sense many of her peers were prone to, but in the sense that she could see two twins in the same room and still wonder if she was imagining the similarity. But Theo really looked like this guy.

Is this seriously happening to me right now?

She further squinted. “Hey, Theo.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The boy in question looked up from the book he was skimming. “Malwine?”

As tempted as she was to just flip to the page she’d seen and ask him ‘Do you know this guy?’, Malwine figured she could have a little tact. “You ever see someone and immediately think they remind you of somebody else?”

“…Yes?” Theo gave her an odd look, as unable to grasp why she would be asking him for his experience with something like that. The second he spoke, he seemed to start wondering whether he should expect a response or just get back to reading, because he started looking between her and the book with what had to be growing uncertainty.

“Same,” Malwine nodded, maintaining eye contact as she did go on to reach that page on the physical book, before lifting it up for him to see—unless Adelheid decided to teleport behind his shoulder right then, it would be for his eyes alone. “Same.”

She didn’t even bother to wait and see how he reacted, because she was all too sure she might just burst out laughing, and just got back to skimming the book, if only not to discard it immediately. To the surprise of no one, it contained no insights on stasis, but they had agreed to leave no stone unturned as soon as it became clear that finding a book specifically about stasis seemed unfeasible.

Malwine sent the book to her inventory the second she reached the last page—she didn’t want to give Theo time to hide it, or worse. The next book was on her hand within a moment, just as she caught sight of Fastēn starting to pace around the room, looking for something. She had approximately zero regrets.

This one was something about a kingdom cursed by a witch, and likelier to be fiction than not. Still, it did involve fields being frozen in time so that crops could never be harvested, so she took the time to walk over to their ‘vaguely related’ pile and gently set it down there. A dozen or so books had made the cut for that one—if they truly found nothing else, they’d go through those again before moving on the Beuzaheim.

As much as Malwine wouldn’t have had a problem with skipping the family library entirely, the teenagers who were nominally in charge of this ‘project’ weren’t exactly eager to get into the logistics making the trip every day. Especially not with two children under ten in tow.

“Adelheid? Malwine?”

Hildegard’s voice almost had her jumping in place—she hadn’t even noticed the woman walking in. “It is time for your next meal.”

Malwine clung to that like a lifeline, already up on her feet. As much as she liked research, in general, their breaks were getting few and far between, and this would be as good a chance as any to call it a day.

The elderly butler had been surprisingly understanding when they made it clear that they would, in fact, be ditching her lessons in favor of just trying to find something to help Thekla with—in her defense, she didn’t seem to have recovered from the utter chaos the wedding she helped organize had spiraled into, and being free from the responsibility of teaching them was probably a blessing. Still, Hildegard insisted on fetching them for their meals, instead of letting them have them elsewhere.

“Boo,” Adelheid closed the book she’d been looking at with a frown. For someone so fond of claiming not to like reading, she’d done well for herself over the past weeks. “Why can’t we have our meals here?”

“Because this is a library!” the antiquarian interjected, sliding closer from behind the bookshelf he had presumably last been searching for the missing book. Considering how many others Alaric had started sending to his inventory the moment Hildegard announced the meal, the man would soon be having even worse luck finding anything. “How unedu—”

Hildegard gave Adelheid a smile before Malwine could start visualizing how she might get Fastēn to trip on an invisible shield, somehow. “Because food is messy, dear, and books are delicate. Remember how some things can’t be fixed easily?”

“Mhm.”

“That applies here—if you get food on a book, there’s no fixing it. And most of these books are one of kind. We can’t just get another one if something happens.”

“…Okay.”

With a grumble, her little sister stood up. She didn’t look too convinced preserving the longevity of books was worth the effort of having to go to a different room just to eat, but she took it with all the calmness of someone who wasn’t even going to walk there in the first place, disappearing the moment she finished straightening up.

Malwine glared at the spot where she’d just been—dammit, I should have asked for a ride. Instead, she had to walk down the stairs like a normal person, too old to be carried anymore. Despite the lack of any real exertion today—she had been reading, for the most part—now that she wasn’t hyperfocusing on the task at hand, she felt like she could close her eyes and immediately fall asleep. As if on cue, a yawn escaped her at last.

“We’re almost there,” Alaric reassured her with a pat on the back.

She didn’t have the heart to correct his misconception—she was tired, not actually interested in the meal.

Mealtimes hadn’t exactly stopped growing stranger and stranger. Despite Hildegard’s attempts at getting them to remain on schedule, the adults of the household seemed to have just started eating elsewhere. Otto avoided this entire area like it was holy ground he was barred from, Kristian had rarely been consistent about family time in the first place, and she wasn’t even sure if Anselm ate at all. Her current theory was that he relied on all that alchemy she’d yet to see him perform, for all Alaric had made an attempt at convincing her that was what her older uncle did for a living.

And what was this about Thekla and tiles? She’d gotten hints of it at the wedding, but Malwine suspected she was missing something. Even Theo had snickered when Alaric brought it up.

Speaking of Theo…

If Adelheid exposure hadn’t rendered her immune to being disturbed by unexplained displays of magic, she might have been concerned when the condensation droplets on the outside of her glass had started forming words on the tablecloth like busy little ants.

A WORD.

After checking to be sure Hildegard wasn’t around, Malwine started grabbing single grains of the barley on her plate, laying them out under the message to form her reply. It was, frankly, not as thrilling as the two ‘conversations’ she’d had using panels, but it was a enough novel experience.

TWO WORDS.

The look of utter confusion on Theo’s face confirmed what she already knew—of course he was the one doing this. [Nosy Old Lady] was oddly reticent when it came to him, the feedback strange, but Adelheid had already confirmed he’d let it slip that he wasn’t mortal, when she was around. This wasn’t how Malwine would have expected to learn more, but she’d take it.

IT MEANS: WE NEED TO SPEAK.

She couldn’t help but wonder if Theo thought she’d been legitimately confused, instead of just messing with him. As she saw it, she had two options—either give into the urge to come up with another snide response, or take it seriously. The latter was the most boring of the two, but she did have to set limits for herself.

Honestly, she’d probably pushed a bit far in going out of her way to annoy Johann Fastēn, as it stood. Not having Veit around to match her energy was making her deal with her frustrations more unhealthily than usual.

Malwine sighed. Fine, she’d just address him. …Even if it meant she might find her meal a bit smaller by the end of this.

CAN I TAKE A NAP FIRST?

Okay, his reaction was worth it. But she was completely serious. Quickly, she amended her response.

I’LL BE BY ALARIC’S DOOR BEFORE OUR USUAL START.

Whether it was her Skills or just a feeling, she wasn’t sure, but Malwine got the impression that Theo didn’t actually want to talk about this with Alaric around. Else, he would have just said something then and there.

With that meeting arranged, she reached for her napkin, sweeping the watery letters away before wiping the moisture off the glass. For all she knew, that wouldn’t actually be enough to stop him if he truly wished to send another message, but he made no such moves.

Malwine was almost disappointed.