Chương 94: Chapter 92: Opening (Part 1).

The orphanage did not look like any other orphanage in the city. That made sense. This place was, after all, a fortress pretending to be a home. The stone walls I saw were thick enough to repel a battering ram. All of its windows were reinforced with iron lattice, and the Magical Implements at every entrance hummed. Count Calloway had repurposed a warehouse at the edge of the District. What had emerged from the renovation was a building that said very loudly, that whatever was inside would not be taken.

This place was, in other words, exactly as I had hoped. It was worth every single coin put into its construction. Two guards stood at the entrance. They were both professionals who would qualify as high class adventurers, hired specifically for this. With Gifts suited especially for this. Their Veyne armor was clean and their expressions were alert. They saluted as I approached, which felt faintly ridiculous. I had arrived early and very deliberately so.

Count Calloway had stepped inside first to make his final checks. I was not sure what he was checking. Everything looked more than in order to me. Violet was beside me, her warhammer slung across her back. She wore a tinged red coat over leather armor, which was her idea of dressing up. It was, I had to admit, a mild improvement over just showing up in armor. It had taken some fighting to make her wear the coat.

"Doesn't look like much from the outside," Violet said, squinting at the building.

"It's bland, I guess?"

"That's rather the point. It's supposed to look bland."

"I guess so." She cracked her knuckles.

"So... when does the doll get here?"

"Don't call her that." I looked at her.

"Hey, you said you called her that first." I winced. She had me there.

"That was…different."

"Sure it was." Violet tugged at her braid and said nothing more. Sere was here too. Or rather, she was somewhere. Her Gift had been active since we'd left the Manor. Every now and then, I caught the faintest disturbance in the air beside me. There was a small note on the bench near the entrance that hadn't been there a moment ago. Exactly in my line of sight. Click. Click. I glanced at it. It was a small doodle of a building with a flag on top and a stick figure standing in front of it.

The stick figure had messy hair and what I thought was supposed to be a sling on one arm. It was a self-portrait, apparently. Why she drew herself like this when she could draw something far more detailed, I did not know. I smiled, walked over, tucked it into my coat pocket, and went inside. Count Calloway met me in the entrance hall. He was just as I'd left him. Short, thin and almost sickly. Despite that, I couldn't help but notice that he stood a little straighter than when last I'd seen him.

He gave me a short bow and launched immediately into his report.

"We have eleven children housed as of last night, My Lady. All of the ones you asked for. Their ages range from five to twelve. A few of them share rooms. The rest have their own, though two of the younger ones refuse to sleep alone and have been moved together." He gestured down the corridor.

"The kitchen is through there, the dormitories are on the upper floor. We have a rotating guard of four. Two outside, two inside. The shifts change every six hours. I believe we can house up to twenty more children, in time."

"And the staff?"

"There are three caretakers. Two women, and one man. All are vetted through channels I trust." He paused.

"The older children are wary of the male caretaker. We're working on it." The statement settled into me with a weight I hadn't anticipated. Of course they were wary. Why wouldn't they be? I nodded, said nothing. Calloway continued walking, and I followed. The interior was warmer than I'd expected. Whoever had handled the renovation had taken care to make the place feel like something other than a barracks from the inside. The walls were painted in soft cream.

There were drawings tacked up in the hallway, crude and colorful, the kind only children produced. A rug ran the length of the main corridor, its pattern faded but warm. It was a good space. The kind of place I wished I had lived in my other life, though I could not give that compliment aloud. Violet trailed behind me, unusually quiet. Her eyes moved from one detail to the next. She stopped at one of the drawings on the wall. She stared at it for a long moment, then kept walking.

"The guests should be arriving shortly," Calloway said.

"I've arranged seating in the main hall. It's nothing elaborate. The children are…adjusting. Crowds make some of them nervous."

"Keep it small, then. I want no more people than necessary. Let any crowd form some distance away from the building itself." He nodded.

"As you say, My Lady." Cordelia Greenward arrived precisely on time, because of course she did. Four guards in Greenward livery flanked her, each in polished green-and-gold armor. A maid followed a step behind, carrying a small case that I suspected contained emergency supplies for any social catastrophe -a spare hairpin, a fresh pair of gloves, that kind of thing. They were not just protection, and I was sure we both knew it. These were her father's eyes, and they reported everything.

Cordelia herself wore a gown of deep emerald silk, with a modest pearl brooch at her throat. Her dark hair fell in careful waves. Her smile was warm and utterly fabricated, and she curtsied as perfectly as she always did. In comparison, I wore a dark fitted coat over a simple dress in Veyne colors, black with blue accents. It was high collared. Apparently, that was becoming a signature of mine. Compared to Cordelia, I might as well have been a member of the orphanage we stood in.

Cordelia's face didn't show any of this, of course.

"Lady Veyne. What a wonderful endeavor this is. You must be so very proud."

"I'm glad you came," I said simply. Calloway greeted her with the same measured courtesy he gave everyone. He shook her hand, explained the layout, and moved on. Cordelia's smile never wavered, but I saw her blink at the handshake. She had expected a bow, I think. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Violet stood near the far wall of the entrance hall, arms folded. She had been watching Cordelia since the moment the carriage pulled up.

Her expression was perfectly neutral. It was perhaps the scariest she had ever looked. The Greenward guards arranged themselves at the entrance. Cordelia's maid hovered. I saw the woman's eyes sweep the room. Her eyes flicked over every little thing here. Let her see. There was nothing here worth hiding. Let her go back and make her reports. There is nothing here worth reporting. The main hall was dominated by a long table, a few chairs, and a podium that looked like it was made out of salvaged wood.

Only a few had been allowed to come today. The first was a merchant who had donated materials to the orphanage. Then, there were two District officials who Count Calloway assured me had been instrumental in getting everything done. There was a woman from the local chapel who was here for... some reason I did not understand, but the Count had said was important. There were two reporters, both from Dorothy's paper, but not Dorothy. The woman herself was too busy writing.

Neither of the two reporters were allowed to bring in a Scrylens. Today, just this small handful of people was our crowd. The children sat along the far side of the hall, arranged in two loose rows. A few of the children I saw fidgeted, while others sat perfectly still. I saw a girl who couldn't have been older than six swung her legs beneath her chair, humming something. A boy of maybe nine stared at his hands. I suspected he hadn't looked up in some time. I looked at them.

These were the children the Blue Vipers had taken. Stolen from the streets of a city that didn't care if they lived or died. I had read their names in a report. Had approved the budget for their housing, had signed documents and told myself that the doing was what mattered. Now, with faces in front of me, the doing felt like very little. I stepped up to the podium and drew a breath.

I projected just enough mana that my voice would carry clearly without scaring a small room full of children who flinched at loud sounds.

"Thank you all for coming," I said.

"I will try to be brief."

"This building is a home. A home, for as long as it is needed." I looked at the children directly. Most did not meet my gaze but two did. One of them -an older girl- stared back at me with an expression I recognized all too well. It was suspicion.

"I won't tell you it will be easy, because that would be a lie, and I dislike lying." I paused.

"What I will tell you is this. You are owed safety. You are owed meals, and warmth, and love, and a bed that is yours. You are owed adults who do not hurt you." My throat tightened and my hands clenched. I breathed through it. Vaelin hummed in my mind, some warmth running through my hands.

"Those things should never have been taken from you. I am sorry that they were." The silence that followed was fragile.

"That is all." I stepped down from the podium. The merchant clapped politely. A few others followed. I did not bother to look to see who did and who didn't. The children sat in their rows and watched me with expressions I could not fully read, and some of them I did not try to. The formal portion ended and people milled. Calloway moved through the room, talking to the officials. They did not try to approach me directly. That was an odd benefit or negative of being Lady Veyne, depending on how you looked at it.

The caretakers began ushering the children off the benches and into the open space of the hall, where a few tables had been set with food and simple activities. I walked through the dormitory. Calloway led the way, explaining the arrangements. Which children shared rooms. Which ones couldn't be near windows because the sound of rain against glass sent them somewhere else entirely.

Which ones still woke up screaming in the middle of the night, and how the caretakers had learned to leave a Magical Implement burning low beside their beds because the dark scared them. He said all of this the way he said everything -practical and matter of fact. That was what made it bearable. We passed through the sleeping quarters. They were small rooms, each with a narrow bed and a trunk for belongings. The walls were the same soft cream. Some of the children had started to personalize their spaces.

A few drawings here, a small stuffed animal there. One room had nothing at all. I stopped in the doorway of that room. The sheets were pulled straight, and the corners were tucked perfectly with not a single wrinkle. There was not one fold out of place. The children all did their own rooms here. A child had done this room., perfect I knew what this meant. A bed made this neatly by a child was not neatness. It was fear. I knew that almost as well as I knew my own face -both of them. Something inside me seized.

I had stopped the Blue Vipers. I had killed Duke Indri. I had saved these children, and yet, something inside of them might have been broken anyway. Something no amount of speeches or warm dinner could fix. I was one such girl myself, after all. The guilt wasn't new. It had settled into me weeks ago. Yes, this was the reason I had refused to see any of their faces since that day. For fear that I might see them, and find eleven Ellaine's staring back at me. My smile didn't falter. May I?

The sword seemed to consider and only slowly relented. Click. Some of the guilt faded. The tiniest portion of it, the only one I thought I deserved. I supposed this was a mask too, not unlike Cordelia's. Mine was far rougher, built from cheaper materials. It held. It always held. I nodded at Calloway's explanations. I asked a follow-up question about the rotation near the dormitories. My voice was steady.

My hands were still at my sides, because I was making them still, because if I didn't they would shake, and I could not afford that. Nobody noticed. Violet was a few paces behind, looking through a window. Calloway was consulting a note. The Greenward maid was inspecting a wall sconce, probably checking for listening devices or some other absurd thing. Cordelia was three steps behind me. She hadn't spoken since the formal address. She'd been performing polite interest.

Nodding at the right moments, making the appropriate sounds of approval when Calloway mentioned something. I looked at her every now and then, and found her gaze always roaming. I turned, and found her staring at me. I shivered. It was a searching gaze. Like the kind that Goddess had given me. Her green eyes moved from my mouth to my hands and back again. Then she looked away, and I might have imagined the whole thing. We moved from the dormitory into the common room.

As we crossed the threshold, Cordelia stepped beside me. Close enough that our sleeves nearly brushed. She didn't look at me. Her gaze was straight ahead, her own mask perfectly in place.

"Count Calloway has done well," she said. Her voice was even and conversational.

"These children are fortunate to have someone who acts, rather than someone who merely deliberates." She paused. The pause was deliberate too, I think.

"Even if the action comes later than one wishes, it is still the action that matters. Not the wishing." A person listening casually would have heard nothing but a polite compliment. I heard everything. Cordelia looked straight ahead as she said this, but as we crossed the threshold into the next room, her gloved hand brushed mine. Just the backs of her fingers against the knuckles of mine. Her touch was brief and light.

The kind of touch that could have been an accident of proximity, two people passing through a narrow doorway. It wasn't. Then she drifted back to her previous position, a half-step behind me, as if nothing had happened. My mask slipped into surprise. Unguarded surprise. In that moment, I might as well have been completely naked. Nobody saw through my mask. Violet didn't. Damian didn't. Sere didn't. Cordelia had, somehow, noticed the weakness inside me. She hadn't used it, or filed it away for later.

Instead she had… shown kindness. In a subtle way. A needless way. I recovered. Of course I did. It took three seconds and then my face was steady again, and my hands were still, and my smile was in its proper place. I did not look back at Cordelia. I wasn't sure what I would have found if I had. It was best if I didn't know. Whatever type of attack this was, I truly had no defense against it.