Private Tutor to the Duke’s Daughter: Volume 12 [Parts 1 to 3] by Riku Nanano

Author:Riku Nanano
Language: eng
Format: epub

A short while later, the three of us had turned all our ingredients into yellow cookie dough. Atra peered into the bowl and asked, “Done?”

“Not yet,” I said. “We need to cover this with paper first.”

I stretched thin paper over the bowl, deposited it into a wooden box, and cast a minor ice spell. We didn’t have an icebox, but this would do as well. Then I took out the pocket watch that Lydia had generously returned to me, checked the time, and patted the child on her scarf-covered head.

“Now we let it sit for a little while,” I told her. “After that, we cut out shapes and bake them. Then they’ll be done.”

“Cut?” Atra repeated, confused.

“Yes. So we’d better get ready to—”

Just then, Saki and Cindy peeked in at the kitchen door. Behind them stood the maids whom Lydia had chased out earlier. They must have waited in the hallway.

“Mr. Allen.”

“Please let us take it from here!”

“We couldn’t be more ready!” the whole group chorused, each maid producing a wooden cookie cutter. Atra left her chair and raced to the door in excitement.

Saki and Cindy shot Lydia and me the briefest of looks.

“Well then, if you’d be so kind,” I said, removing my apron with a nod.

“Think nothing of it!” the maids chirped in unison.

Out in the long hallway, Lydia and I walked silently...into our private room. It held a timeworn bed and sofa, a small table, and several chairs. Even the mana lamp on the wall was antique. According to Zig, decades had passed since a traveler had drifted in from who-knows-where, bought the half-submerged mansion, and renovated each room to their taste. Upon departing the city, they had donated the dwelling to the beastfolk in gratitude for assistance rendered.

I sank onto the sofa, and Lydia poured a glass of ice water. “Mm,” she grunted, handing it to me.

“Thanks,” I replied and gulped down about half of it. Then I set the glass on a round table littered with memoranda and leaned back in my seat.

The young woman’s warmth seeped into my left shoulder.

“Lydia,” I said slowly, “what do you think of Zig’s story?”

“I think he’s got the gist right. It’s safer to assume something is sealed away underneath the Old Temple,” she replied in her Lady-of-the-Sword voice, taking nothing for granted.

I gazed up at the ceiling and found it covered in geometric floral patterns. “At first,” I murmured, “I felt sure that the water dragon’s corpse was the Cornerstone. I supposed the legend must have grown distorted in the course of history. But...”

“It looks like you were wrong.” Lydia stood up and paced forward. With her back to me, she continued, “Twin Heavens laid the dragon to rest during the age of strife, but the Old Temple was built long before then. And whatever is sealed there earned it that name. The note you found in the Nitti archive fits that theory too.”

“In which case...we have trouble.”

Duchess Rosa Howard—mother of my students Tina and Stella, whose ducal house governed the north of the Wainwright Kingdom—had most likely written that note.

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