Chapter 199: The Young Miss’s Sweet Talk
The three of them walked for a while.
The mirrors were still the same mirrors, and the light was still the same light. Rex supported Lillian as they moved very slowly, every step taken with extreme care, afraid of pulling at her wounds. Lillian leaned against him, her face pale, her lips pale as well. She looked terribly weak.
Ryan followed behind them, watching that golden figure.
In the mirrors, countless versions of him watched that same figure too.
The light was dizzying.
Then he spoke.
“By the way.”
Lillian’s shoulders moved, just slightly.
It was a very small movement, very quick, something like an instinctive reaction. Under normal circumstances, Ryan might not have noticed it.
But this was a maze of mirrors.
Everything here was magnified.
“Weren’t the two of you taking the path on the right?” Ryan said. “How did you end up over here?”
Rex froze for a moment and looked toward Lillian too.
Lillian did not turn around. Her voice came from ahead of them, hoarse and fragile, as if she had cried her throat raw.
“We walked a full circle on the right side too,” she said. “Just like you predicted, it was a closed loop. We walked for a very long time and just kept going in circles.”
She paused, then sniffled.
“After that, we thought maybe we had to try a different route. So from the second fork, we turned into the middle path, and then turned right again... We walked like that for a very, very long time before we found that exit.”
She turned her head and looked at Ryan. There were still tears in her eyes, but they looked clear, so clear that it seemed as if nothing at all was hidden inside them.
“And then she attacked me.”
Ryan ran the route through his mind. A full loop along the right, then cutting across through the middle—in theory, that could indeed bring them over to this side. The structure of this maze was too complicated. Anything was possible.
He nodded.
“Then let’s go,” he said. “You lead the way.”
Lillian gave a quiet sound of acknowledgment, turned back, and continued leaning against Rex as they walked forward.
After a few steps, Ryan spoke again.
“With this many mirrors,” he said, “can you really still find the route you took?”
This time, before Lillian could answer, Rex spoke first.
“Ryan.”
His voice was a little hard.
Ryan looked up. Rex had stopped and turned to face him. The arm supporting Lillian was still wrapped tightly around her, while his other hand gripped his sword, the knuckles faintly white. His eyes were a little red—not red from anger, but the kind of red that came from holding too much in for too long.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
Ryan paused.
“You’re suspecting the young miss?”
Rex’s voice trembled. He looked down at Lillian in his arms, then back at Ryan. In his eyes was something Ryan had never seen there before. It was not anger. It was something deeper than anger, something like: If you dare say one more word, I’ll stake everything against you.
“She’s hurt this badly,” Rex said, his voice low, but every word squeezed out through clenched teeth. “She almost died. And you still want to doubt her?”
Ryan fell silent.
He looked into Rex’s eyes. They were red to the point of burning, and something was turning there at the rims. Suddenly, Ryan remembered what Allen had once said—That big fool from House Holden, the whole academy knows it. That idiot likes his young miss so much it’s hopeless.
Yes.
An idiot.
But even an idiot had his own line he would not let anyone cross.
“Of course it was that Vera,” Rex said through gritted teeth. “She had bad intentions from the very beginning. Why did she insist on following us? Why did she choose us? She wanted to use us as cannon fodder, to scout the path for her, to take the blows for her!”
He lowered his head and looked at Lillian. The redness in his eyes deepened further.
“The young miss got hurt... it’s all my fault. I didn’t see through that woman’s true face. I let her walk a route alone with the young miss...”
His voice caught.
Ryan could see it clearly now. Rex’s eyes had gone red. That Rex—the one who usually acted simple-minded, grinned foolishly, and never seemed to take anything to heart—was now standing there, supporting a bloodied Lillian, his eyes so red it looked as though they might bleed. As if tears were hotter than blood, and if they fell, they could burn a hole straight through the heart.
Ryan suddenly did not know what to say.
He walked over and patted Rex on the shoulder.
The motion was light, but Rex’s shoulders stiffened for an instant before slowly relaxing.
Ryan did not know what to say. What Lillian meant to Rex was something only Rex himself understood. As an outsider, nothing he said would really fit.
So he only patted his shoulder once more.
Then he said,
“Let’s go. We’ll find that Vera and ask her directly.”
He paused.
“If it really happened the way Lillian said, then I’ll attack alongside you.”
Rex looked at him and froze.
Ryan said nothing more. He only nodded once.
Rex ground his teeth, then turned back around and continued supporting Lillian as they walked on.
He held her even tighter now.
Lillian leaned against him, sniffling softly. The sound was very light, very faint, as if she were afraid of being heard—and at the same time, as if she wanted to be heard.
Rex’s heart genuinely ached.
Ryan followed behind them.
In the mirrors, countless versions of him followed too.
The light flashed and reflected through the mirrors over and over, dizzying the eyes. It made it impossible to tell whether the golden figure ahead of him was real, or false.
The three of them walked on for a while longer.
The mirrors around them were still the same mirrors, and the light was still the same light. As he walked, Ryan counted the turns they took. Three, four, five.
Lillian remained leaning against Rex, walking very slowly. From time to time, she would raise a hand and point. “That way.” “Turn left here.” Her voice was soft and weak, and it tore Rex’s heart apart every time he heard it.
Each time, Rex obediently turned in the direction she pointed, not daring to make a single mistake.
Ryan followed behind them and said nothing.
But his hand remained on the hilt of his knife the whole time.
In the mirrors, his hand rested on the hilt too. Countless versions of him, in countless corridors, held their knife hilts and stared at the figure ahead.
The light leaped, refracted, split, and rejoined across all those mirrors.
Like something’s eyes.
Blinking.
Again and again.
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