Chapter 154

The 7th floor found its usual composure after things had settled down. The Delrose maids were still lighthearted and Etra was again chatting often with Ilyin. But this morning, Ilyin’s conversation was with someone else.

“What happened to the people of Elo?” The Lady of Mille asked. Odd, Ilyin thought, she seems more curious about what happened to Elo than the people of Elo in the mansion.

“There were many wounded,” Ilyin said simply, understanding the full breath of her understatement.  The Yesters had flooded into the city, and had fallen upon the regular citizens as they fled.

“What about the Yesters?” Rippo asked, though she had some inkling. The Duke of Winter had returned safely. That could only mean the Yesters had fled or had died.

Ilyin regarded Rippo quietly, this girl who’d fled Green Mille to avoid being married off to the Yesters. That marriage now seemed to have been annulled, at least until the Yesters established another base, repopulated, and increased their influence again.

Not that any of that meant Rippo could go back.

The Green Mille was an ally of the Yesters, it seemed. There was no way they hadn’t noticed that Rippo had disappeared, and no way they hadn’t noticed that Setoze had disappeared with her. And since the Delrose knights had moved around the same time, they’d surely know Rippo had spoken to Delrose.

The girl had nowhere to go. But she had made no pleas for help from Delrose.

“Ilyin,” a familiar voice from the door interrupted her thoughts, “it’s Den.”

Etra normally opened the door for Ilyin, but she was nowhere to be seen. Just in the next room, most likely, staying out of sight to let her and Rippo have time together without other ears in the room.

“Welcome, Den,” she called, and Aden stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. He looked more relaxed than the last time she saw him. There was a sliver of red cloth in his hand.

“That’s . . .,” she asked.

“I found a . . . way,” Aden said, smiling as he showed her the cloth. He sat next to her.

“And that is?” she asked. She examined the cloth in his hand. It reflected the light oddly. She’d seen other things made with this fabric.

“Ah,” she said. Her gaze jumped to the ceiling, to the mobile hanging over her bed. Etra had hung it for her there, and the fabric of its ornaments was a twin to the fabric she saw in Aden’s hand now.

“Is this cloth used often in the winter region?” she asked, already knowing the answer. She was familiar with the fabric, of course – she was Mistress of the mansion. She’d seen all manner of fabric used here, especially in the winter months, but nothing like this with its strange light.

“No, not at all,” Aden answered. “I haven’t seen anything like it other than the Blue Nos’ cloth and . . .”

His eyes shot up to the mobile for a second, then back down to the red cloth in his hand.

“The Mollys had this,” he added.

“The Mollys?” Ilyin asked. She hadn’t seen all the monsters in the winter region, but she knew what Mollys looked like. They were the ones that attacked the carriage when she’d first arrived in the winter region – not something she would forget.

She could still hear their claws scratching against the carriage, easily sharp enough to cut through a human body. That’s why the thought of this fragile cloth in their possession was so strange.

She grabbed the other end of the cloth to look at it again. It felt the same as the Blue Nos’ cloth that she wore, so fine and sheer that it felt as though it would rip if anything with even a blunt edge touched it. She held it up near the mobile, and the light that shone through it and the ornaments left no doubt. They were made of the same fabric.

“How did the Mollys have this?” she asked. They couldn’t have made it – that they could even keep it with their sharp claws seemed impossible.

“If it’s truly the same fabric as Blue Nos’ cloth,” Aden said, “then it won’t rip easily. Also, I’m cautious but . . . I believe it’s a divine object.”

Ilyin stopped short.

“Whose?” she asked. Only four divine objects were known in the winter region so far, one from each of the four families of Biflten. Then whose divine object could this be?

From its color, it would seem to belong to Delrose, but then Aden would surely have known about it. But there was perhaps another possibility.

“Is it perhaps the Molly’s divine object?” she asked. She covered her mouth as soon as she said it, as though she’d blurted out a curse. But Aden looked thoughtful.

“It’s a possibility,” he said. “I eradicated the Mollys, but they were trying their best to get this away from the battlefield.”

They’d been very desperate to do so, he thought. He frowned.