Several peaceful months passed since Lilly and Ayano’s little day trip to Belfort, after which it became obvious to everyone in the manor that the two were incredibly smitten with each other. Lilly and Ayano tried to hide how obviously lovey dovey they were, but of most interest was how quickly Lilly seemed to be improving as a maid. The flowers grew healthy and beautiful and Lilly was attentive towards them, so when she was informed that she could have a larger patch of land, she dug the soil herself. She now grows a collection of lilies, roses, orchids, and a variety of different crops.
Then there was Hugo, who raves to me all the time about how well Lilly is learning to cook.
“Once she started following instructions, she really picked it up! She cooks with such efficiency, grace, and joy. She insists on cooking all of Lady Ayano’s meals. And you know what? Heh… I actually let her. Can’t believe that monster turned out to be such a good maid. Can you believe it?”
Lilly was getting better at the cleaning aspect of being a maid too. Working quickly and properly, trying to fit as much cleaning, laundry, and odd chores into the day as she could. Even when she responded to Ayano’s handbell, she would fulfil Ayano’s request for tea, biscuits, documents, or maybe a quick kiss or a fellatio session for all I knew, and once done Lilly would then be right back to work, and still get more done than anyone else. As spring passed into summer, Lilly even started to cover other’s shifts as people started to fall ill from heat stroke or hayfever. This year seemed to be particularly hot, as a heatwave passed over Selicia. There was a two week period where it felt like there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the oppressive sun completely beat down on us. I had to carry around a parasol outdoors for shade, and I had to resist the urge to beg Ayano to let me wear less stuffy clothes. Still, I was playing the part of an obedient head maid, who set an example and never complained, so I didn’t do so, and simply suffered in silence.
Lilly, on the other hand? I was beginning to wonder if temperature was even a concept for her. She seemed to thrive in the sun, I couldn’t help but wonder how she would feel about the cold once winter rolled around. I was happy to have her here. Not just because I thought she was good for Ayano, but because she made my life easier, too. Everyone was starting to like her. I don’t think she had formed any other close friendships yet, aside from maybe with Hugo, but everyone liked her. She’d crack jokes with the other Maids and Butlers, the nobles would compliment her on her good manners. She was still the same feral, excitable and naive rascal who had joined us back then, but she was evolving into a better version of that same self. It warmed my heart.
Even if I was still jealous of her and Ayano.
Early summer, Ayano announced a global pay increase, too. A flat 5 extra silver crowns per week would be added to our salaries across the board, regardless of the profession of anybody working at the estate. Ayano claimed that she could afford the wage increases via excess wealth offered to her via the donations required to maintain Lilly’s slave contract. Even though I didn’t know how much the slave contract cost, I still had to be suspicious. Either people were donating money they didn’t need to donate, extra deals were happening besides the scenes, or there was something else besides Lilly that they wanted to fund. Perhaps she had acquired the excess cash from somewhere else entirely. It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if she was syphoning cash for herself from the monthly taxes, given the recent tax increase to the upper classes. I wasn’t entirely sure, but still, everyone appreciated it. It was a shame that this was something I was going to have to investigate as part of my spying duties. The extra wealth being directed away from the nobles and towards Ayano had to be causing some tension. Tension that Zeer would probably like to exploit.
~~~
It was around midsummer when Ayano approached me with a proposition.
“Regarding Lilly… As a maid, a handmaid, chef, gardener, Monstra ally and, uhh…”
“Lover?” I interjected with a cheeky giggle.
“W-Well… I-In any case, Priscilla, the point is, I think Lilly is getting along just fine as she is. So I would like to give back to her. Now, you are welcome to refuse, but, a few nights out of the week, I would be willing to offer you additional pay if you serve as Lilly’s tutor. She’s illiterate, has a tenuous grasp on basic maths, and knows little about world history, events, and art. I don’t have the time for it myself, but…”
“I understand, Lady Ayano. I would be happy to take you up on your offer- Education is an important human right, and Lilly very much seems to be in a state of mind where she is eager to learn. Would you like us to begin tonight?”
“Sure. I wasn’t going to impose a schedule on you- Three or Four nights a week, you can choose the days.”
“The library is closed after dinner, around 7. So would 7 until 10 be reasonable tutoring hours?” I asked.
“Yep. That should be fine.”
“I’ll ensure that she’s up in your room by 10:30, your grace.”
“S-Sure… Whatever. And again, don’t worry about that ‘grace’, or ‘your majesty’ stuff. You know I prefer Lady.”
“I’ve known you for years, Lady Ayano. I already know that. I was just trying to tease you!”
“Hmph. I’ll add two gold crowns to your weekly pay. Thank you very much for doing this, Priscilla, but now I must be off.”
“Thank you for trusting me with the responsibility, Lady Ayano,” I replied, bowing as Ayano strided away.
I wish someone cared for me the way she cared for Lilly.
~~~
I was served a slice of Hugo’s pie whilst I witnessed Ayano consuming a bowl of a dish called ‘Ramen’, a Jishian specialty which Lilly had made. I had heard of it before, but I had never actually seen it in person. It smelled divine. She really had learned to cook quite well in a very short space of time, hadn’t she? Not that my meal was bad. I always looked forward to Hugo’s summer pies, the meaty flavour was so delicious when combined with the ripe fruity flavour of the seasonal berries he stuffed inside the pie. It was sweet, savoury, spicy- Overall just delicious. I did get to have a taste of Lilly’s cooking for dessert, though. She had made a batch of ice cream with Hugo’s guidance. The cool, refreshing, sweet cream was just the thing one wanted on an otherwise sweltering summer day.
Dusk arrived, the last flecks of daylight streaming in through the windows as I led Lilly to the library. As she was being tutored, and was doing such a good job with the cooking, she had been let off from washing up duties.
“So… Tutoring! How exciting! Planning on teaching me magic, Priscilla?” Lilly asked not long after leaving the dining hall.
“Sadly not, Lilly. I am skilled as neither a mage nor a scholar,” I lied, having actually been taught quite a lot of scholarly concepts by the Zeerian government, “And besides, Ayano and I, we… Want to give you a more basic education than that. You were taken away by the Leywoods before you had an opportunity to go to school, yes?”
“Pretty much. From what I remember, the school the orphanage would have sent me to wouldn’t have been that helpful anyway.”
“Right. So, even though you are an Adult, you will be… Essentially receiving a child’s education.”
“Fine with me, I guess! Lots of important stuff I missed out on.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Still…” She trailed off, looking a bit downcast, “I guess with tutoring, that’ll be a bit less time to spend with Ayano per week…”
As if you didn’t spend enough time with her already!
“... It’ll just make the time you do spend with her that much more special. Besides, whilst I’m sure that Ayano would love to spend as much time with you as possible, Selicia needs her to be focused on political and domestic affairs.”
“I guess…”
“And… She’ll be less distracted by thoughts of work when she is with you, as well.”
“... Yeah.”
I turned to offer Lilly a sympathetic smile, but given how she was listlessly staring out of the window as we walked, as though in a daydream, I supposed that I wasn’t going to get her back into a more energetic mood by talking about Ayano.
We didn’t talk much more until we reached the library. I simply complimented Lilly on her cooking and commented on how beautiful the sunset was. Lilly seemed to respond well to compliments.
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Since me and Lilly would be using the library after closing time, I had been given a spare set of keys, so that I could access the library and lock it up myself. Norman, the librarian, a pale and thin man who spent all his time in here would normally handle the library, but since me and Lilly would be here, he was nowhere to be seen as we entered.
Lilly had spent some time in the library cleaning it, but I don’t think she had spent much time using it. The space was practically its own wing of the manor, set across two storeys of the building, the bookshelves as tall as both floors. A staircase led up to the second floor, and sliding ladders were placed everywhere to allow people to climb to any level of the book shelves. The carpet was soft and green in colour, large windows on the far walls allowed in plenty of sunlight during the day, and the place overall had a clean and premium feel to it, largely thanks to how well we maintained it.
Lilly went to go sit down on a nearby table, picking up the first book she saw. ‘A History Of Selician Economics’ by A. Riverwood. Someone was probably reading it because they were curious about the recent pay increase.
“This book has a picture of money on it? Is this some kind of guide on how to become rich?” Lilly asked.
It did, indeed, have a picture of a gold selician crown on it, the cover had even been glossed to make the coin shine and shimmer in the light.
“It’s an economics textbook, Lilly. So no.”
“Oh.”
She put the book aside, looking a bit disappointed.
“Say, why are there like, different coloured coins? You call them crowns right? You have the bronze, silver and gold ones right?”
… She really was uneducated, wasn’t she?
“Um… Yes, that’s right. The metals used to make them determine how valuable they are. 100 bronze crowns are worth 1 silver crown, 10 silver crowns are worth 1 gold crown.”
“Ooooh I see. That makes a lot more sense. Hey, do you think Ayano would let me make a purple crown when she becomes Queen? It could be worth 100 gold crowns.”
“... You’d have to ask her…”
The subject desperately needed to be changed.
“... I-In any case, Lilly, the first thing we should work on for the next few weeks should be reading and writing. It’ll be difficult to teach you about other things if I’m not able to give you textbooks after all, right?”
“Yeah, sure, makes sense.”
“... Let’s start with the alphabet.”
I sat down next to her, took a pencil and a blank sheet of paper that the library kept around if people wanted to write letters to mail to distant loved ones. I decided that I would write out each of the letters, one by one. I would first start with the upper case version of the letter, then the lowercase version. Beginning with ‘A’, of course. All that I had to do next was tell Lilly what sound the letter represented before moving on to the next one.
“So, to go over the basics, all words are constructed of individual letters, each of which represent a specific sound. This letter is ‘A’. It has an ‘ahh’ sound, as in Apple-”
“As in Ayano! A for Ayano! Hey, what are the rest of the letters of her name? There’s a ‘Yah’ sound next, right?”
“... Not quite. The letter you’re thinking of is Y, which, unfortunately, is at the very end of the alphabet.”
“And how long is it?”
“It has 26 letters… Y is the 25th.”
“Are you kidding me? Can’t you just tell me Y now? I wanna be able to read and write her name!”
“... Patience, Lilly. You’re not going to be able to learn properly if Ayano is all you can think about whilst you’re trying to learn.”
“Next is ‘B’… It makes a ‘bee’ or ‘buh’ sound.”
“Oh, B as in Belfonse, right?”
This was going to be more tedious than I thought.
~~~
Eventually, we got through the Alphabet. Next I would have to teach her the concept of syllables, which might be a chore in and of itself. It wasn’t that Lilly was stupid or a bad learner. It just felt a bit frustrating for me to go back to something so basic. I considered myself a good teacher, but if I was going to work in schools, I realised that I would definitely prefer to teach teenagers rather than young children.
Thankfully, Ayano started to come up less and I began to relate each letter to other things Lilly cared about, such as ‘C’ for ‘Cooking’. With this process I think I managed to get her to memorise the letters.
“We’ll be doing this tomorrow as well. Take the sheet with you, and try to spend some time memorising it and refreshing your memory if you can. Try to recite the alphabet in your head, too.”
“Gotcha…” Lilly muttered, stretching out her arms and yawning.
“You sure are tired! It’s half an hour before we’re supposed to stop, but… It’s our first day, and there’s no point in starting something new right now…”
“Mmm. Thanks for that. I’ll get used to it soon I’m sure, but right now I’m really tired... I was gonna go see Ayano after this but… She hasn’t rang the bell and I’m really tired, so I might just have a quick shower and go to sleep…”
“... Actually, Lilly…”
A thought formed in my head.
“Hmm?”
“Do you want to have a soak in the communal bath together? It’ll probably be empty around this time of night. I think it’s good that you get used to it. Only you, Ayano, and the guest rooms for nobles have your own personal bathrooms. The rest of us have to use the communal baths. It’s a good place to get to know your fellow workers.”
“... I mean… I’m tired and… If I’m gonna bathe with other people, I’d rather bathe with Ayano, so…”
“I’ll wash you for you. It’ll be my treat, a reward for you being such a good student.”
“... Okay. Can’t hurt to try once.”
So, with that, we left the library and headed to the bath.
There was a key reason why I wanted to bathe with Lilly- It was because if Ayano was going to spill her secrets to anyone, it would be Lilly. And as a spy, I needed to get as much dirt as I could on the Princess. Dirt such as what plans she has for her relations with Zeer, her plans to combat the Monstra, her domestic decisions for Selicia, and more specific stuff such as what exactly went down in the forest all those months ago. I and pretty much everyone else knew that Ayano had been lying about what had gone down that day, and Lilly was the only other person who knew what had happened.
I wasn’t going to try and extract information from her today, but building up a relationship of trust with the naive girl was exactly how I would obtain information from her in the future.
Of course, there was another reason. Ayano basically didn’t let me anywhere near me in a sexual context anymore, even though I had gone to see Cedric recently. Since she had begun dating Lilly, sexual contact with me was now totally off the table. Which was fine, but, some skinship with another girl was something I had been really craving these past few months.
If Lilly was going to be suspicious of me, I wanted her to think of me as someone who was sexually interested in her, rather than as a spy. Not that I actually wanted to get in the way of their relationship… It was just… If I leaned into the sexual angle, that would serve as a suitable distraction from my real motives.
There were two communal baths, a men's and a women’s section. The men’s were on the ground floor, whilst the women’s baths were on the floor above it. The changing rooms were pretty open, with hooks and shelves lining the walls for people to store their clothes, and a central wooden bench in the middle of the room to help people undress. Since you were expected to be naked in the baths anyway, and everyone employed at the manor knew each other, privacy wasn’t much of a concern.
Lilly’s eyes certainly seemed to linger on my naked form for a few moments longer than necessary for someone who was supposed to be in a committed relationship. But since it was just the two of us here, and since I was very beautiful, I supposed that was only to be expected. Lilly herself was also quite reserved with her body, shy to undress in front of me, her posture shrinking and covering her breasts with her arm.
I didn’t comment on her embarrassment, and it didn’t last long anyway, once she was certain that nothing was going to happen between us. Yet. So we simply moved into the bath proper.
It was a large room centred on a circular bath, with a fountain in the middle continuously pouring hot water into the bath. There were tiny windows high up in the room next to the ceiling, and there were a few benches lined up near the walls, situated opposite some mirrors, with shampoos and brushes present to help people wash their hair. We each slipped into the central pool of water, not sitting too close to each other as the steamy heat rose up to meet our chins.
“Ahh…” The silence was finally broken as Lilly relaxed into the water, “This is really nice… I like my bath but… There’s a lot of space to move, and I think the water is a bit hotter… Plus there’s the sound of the water falling into the water and… Hey, Priscilla, do people often fall asleep in the bath?”
“Yeah!” I giggled, “Every week! But we don’t typically allow people to come in alone for that reason. If someone falls asleep, we can wake them up to make sure they don’t drown.”
“... Not the worst way to die, I suppose…”
“Sure, but it is a silly one!”
“Hmm. Yeah.”
More silence. There was soap that was always kept near the water, so I handed Lilly a bar of soap and watched as she cleaned herself off, but she ignored me as I did the same. I did want her to pay more attention to me, but… Building trust was more important right now.
Then, finally, she spoke up.
“Hey. Priscilla. You have a good relationship with um… Your fiance… Cecil?”
“Cedric.”
“Oh, yeah, him. You guys are gonna get married, right? So you love each other a lot?”
“... That’s right,” I lied, “Why do you ask?”
“Well… Hypothetically speaking… Imagine if… Cedric knew you had done something really terrible in the past. Maybe you were justified in doing it, maybe not, but… He knows you did it, and… He says he understands and that he doesn’t judge you and still loves you but… What do you do, if… You’re still afraid that they might secretly still be judging you? Is there a way you can ask them about it and know that you’ve received an honest answer? Is there any way to know for sure how they feel?”
“... Well…”
“And and!” Lilly interrupted, “What if they had also done something bad as well, but, in your heart of hearts, you don’t judge them for it? Do you assume that because you don’t judge them that they don’t judge you? Is it okay if it’s asymmetrical like that? Do we both have to feel the same way about each other’s misdeeds?”
“... This is… A lot, Lilly. Where is this coming from?”
“... Oh! Um… I-I don’t know, I just thought… U-Um… It’s a thought experiment I heard before so I uh… I thought I’d ask…”
“Is this to do with Ayano?”
Lilly flashed me a glare before receding back, blushing and looking guilty as she then looked away from me and tried to hide in the water.
“... Doesn’t matter if it is or not, I guess. Now come on, what’s your opinion?”
I needed to tread carefully. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. That would break trust, which would be bad for my mission, but more importantly, it would make me feel bad if I hurt her. On the other hand, this was a prime opportunity to gather information. There was about a minute of silence before my response.
“... Well… Depends… On the bad thing, I suppose…”
“... If… If you had each… Killed… Someone…” Lilly muttered.
Now this is getting interesting.
“... And… The killings were… Justified?”
“As I said… Maybe… Maybe not… Maybe we ourselves dunno… If they’re justified…”
I had to wonder if this had something to do with the Leywoods. The slave contract between her and that family had broken, right? Maybe Lilly had killed some of them? That seemed to be the most likely, but I decided not to ask Lilly about that. As for Ayano, though? When would she have been directly responsible for someone’s death?
“... If… Someone judges you, Lilly, then… They… Will make that known to you. But my personal opinion is that… Everyone deserves chances at love… If they’re willing to be better than the person they were yesterday.”
“... What if they make it known to me that they want nothing to do to me.”
“Then you wait for someone else.”
“... There… I dunno if… There’s such a thing as… Someone else…”
She still had her head turned away from me. Poor girl. She really was completely devoted to Ayano, wasn’t she? My stomach churned and twisted. I didn’t want to be their enemy. But at this moment, I had to be. I knew for sure now that Lilly knew things. She knew secrets that I had to uncover. My feelings also propelled me. I wanted to comfort her. Entice her. Do something unhealthy and underhanded to make her feel better.
I glided through the water to sit next to her, wrapping my arms around her, pulling her head against my neck and stroking her hair.
“... Waiting can be hard, Lilly. I know that. So… If it really comes down to it… If you really want, as a last resort, I… I can be ‘someone else’ whilst you wait for a new special someone… How… H-How does that sound?”
She didn’t wrestle away from my grip. She stayed there in my arms. Despite the hot water, she was shivering. Small whimpers escaped from her lips, though I couldn’t see her eyes, so I wasn’t sure if she was crying. Even so, she was fragile. And here I was, ready to capitalise on that. It was quite a while before she finally responded.
“... It… It won’t… It won’t come down to that, Priscilla…”
But, knowing Ayano, it very well might.
I hated myself.