Chapter 61
“Of course it’s beating. There’s a heart there.”
Alnazir replied as if it were nothing. Then he suddenly realized what he’d said wrong and lifted his head slightly.
“Come to think of it, I lied.”
“You said you didn’t have a heart! Do you know how seriously I worried about that?”
Feeling wronged after being teased, Fay puffed out her lips. Alnazir burst out laughing and planted another quick kiss on her pout.
“Your shocked face is fun. Like right now.”
“…So you’re saying you’re not a mushroom, at least?”
“What do you think?”
Seeing him suppress his smile told her she was wrong again. Fay narrowed her eyes and glared at him. She wanted to keep staring until he confessed, but impatience got the better of her.
“Tell me already. Why won’t you? Is it some kind of secret?”
“It’s not a secret. I told you, I’m a ruler.”
“That’s exactly it! What is a ruler supposed to be?”
Ruler wasn’t even a type of animal. Frustrated, Fay rubbed her nose against the back of his neck. Apparently it tickled—Alnazir flinched.
She lit up. This was it. She’d tickle him until he surrendered. Using her nose and lips, she attacked his neck more persistently.
Alnazir twitched, lips tightening as if he were holding back, but in the end he grabbed her firmly by the hips.
As punishment for tickling him, Fay ended up being pinned in place and thoroughly overwhelmed where she sat.
Octopus. Jellyfish. Mushroom.
Fay called him every name she could think of, purely out of spite.
“Fay. Say it properly.”
“No—ngh—no way. Mushroom! Jellyfish! Idiot!”
“I’m not stopping until you call me by my real name.”
“Ugh—like you’d stop even if I did.”
For someone who still didn’t know what a ‘ruler’ really was, she was annoyingly sharp. Alnazir smiled faintly as he grabbed her waist and thrust upward once more.
* * *
Fay spent the day repairing the outer walls in preparation for defending against the Golden Army. The damage was extensive, and by the time she returned home, it was nearly night.
Even so, Alnazir was sitting exactly where she’d left him. Apparently bored of reading earlier, he was now deeply absorbed in a book again.
“You’re still reading? What is it this time?”
“Various things. I wanted to look a few things up.”
Fay hummed softly and sat down beside him on the sofa. With war looming, there was something she wanted to settle with him beforehand.
“So, um… I wanted to talk about servitude…”
She carefully searched for a way to explain it without making him uncomfortable. Invokes were, by nature, created for witches’ benefit, bound to serve them indefinitely, an inherently unequal arrangement.
Some witches paid their invokeds properly. Others were cruel, using them freely and banishing them the moment they asked for compensation, summoning replacements without hesitation.
Fay wasn’t like that. She fully intended to treat him properly, to talk with him every night, to call his name sincerely.
Even so, no matter how gently she framed it, it amounted to making him a permanent errand-runner. Knowing that, her words wouldn’t come easily.
“So… what servitude really is, is—”
“You don’t need to explain. I already know what a familiar is.”
“…You do? I mean—wait. What do you mean you already know?”
“A summoned being that stays by a witch’s side even after the contract is fulfilled.”
He lifted the book he’d been reading, as if to show proof.
“You want me to become your familiar?”
Hit straight at the core, Fay’s eyes went wide. She hadn’t even properly asked yet, had she been that obvious?
Embarrassment crept in.
“Uh… y-yes. I mean… if you’re okay with it.”
“Fine.”
“…Fine?”
She asked again, unable to believe it. Her voice shot up in pitch, ears ringing as if she’d misheard.
“You know that a familiar has to obey my commands, even ones not written in the contract?”
Without even looking up from the book, Alnazir nodded.
“If that’s the way to stay here, then so be it.”
He really meant it. Overwhelmed, Fay couldn’t hold herself back. She leapt straight into his arms, tackling him as he read.
Interrupted, Alnazir looked at her in silent confusion. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.
First an invoked, now a familiar!
So happy she could burst, Fay nearly forgot that an enemy army was on its way. She felt like throwing a party on the spot.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for a day like this!”
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