A few minutes had passed as they sat there, and the sun slowly began to set. They would have to travel again in the early morning hours, for this was the border of the Lodden Empire. They were nearing their destination now.

"I had to lie down earlier today, but I heard from Nelson what happened on your way."

"Nelson?"

"The overseer who helps me a lot with the Territory," her grandfather explained, "I was worried when I heard what happened, but they said only a maid was hurt in the crash."

'Crash?'

"It's so terrible. To think that an axle would just break like that. Alan explained what happened."

'Did he, huh?' She had to hold back a snide remark. "Right, they check the carriages before they take them on a ride. It was unfortunate."

"When I think how badly it could have ended..."

At that moment, she realized why her first brother had decided to lie about the incident. "But nothing bad happened. Ava was hurt, but the doctor said she would be fine."

"Is that your maid?"

"Yes."

"Is she important to you?"

A little taken aback, Rowena had to think. No one had ever asked her a question like that before. Was she important to her?

Blinking, her eyebrows furrowed. "I guess she is."

"I thought so. You should keep her close then."

'Is that what a noble should say?' she wondered, thinking of the arrogant nature most nobles had in the novel, "She's just a servant."

"Hm..." There was a moment of silence. "I believe it's good that you have someone you want to keep by your side. Does it matter who it is?"

"I guess it doesn't."

He laughed a little and then rose slowly, not quite steadily, from the edge of the fountain. As Rowena grabbed his arm to prop him up a bit, disguising it as her taking his arm for a walk, she was still thinking about his words.

He seemed like a good grandfather to have. 'Did Rowena push him away too? But why?'

The young noble tucked a strand of lavender hair behind her ear as she said goodnight to her grandfather and turned to walk back down the hallway.

However, she had to stop soon after, as she almost ran into someone who was frantically moving down the corridor in front of her, heading for the stairs to the main hall. They didn't collide, but Rowena had to stop and wonder for a second when she saw who had been so careless and hadn't even noticed who was in front of her.

As her frizzy blonde hair bobbed in time with her hasty movements, she looked at her mistress in shock, bowed briefly, and shuffled out of the way. "I am so sorry, my lady, may I leave the mansion for a moment? A maid from the house of Nerena is looking after Ava."

She hadn't seen this coming, but it wasn't as if Rowena desperately wanted Norina to stay with Ava. Having someone else take care of her would have been perfectly fine, she just needed the time to get rid of the VAULT jacket.

In fact, the lady would have checked in on her injured maid anyway, trying to figure out if she should leave her behind in the Territory after all, sending Norina to bed in the process.

She nodded slowly and looked at a nearby clock. "Yes, but you need to tell me where you want to go, as you will need to be picked up in case you are late for our departure."

"I definitely won't be late," she said with determination, "I just want to visit my home for a while; see how my sister is doing."

"Oh, right, you mentioned her. Why didn't you invite her so she could say hello?"

Caught off guard, Norina widened her eyes and took half a step back, blinking. "What?"

"I thought it would be nice to meet her once," the noble replied, walking further into the hallway away from the stairs, "If you don't want me to meet her, I understand. Be sure to return on time."

She wasn't hurt or anything. At least she told herself that. But there was this stinging feeling that made her wonder if maybe her behavior was too strange for her, that she didn't want her younger sibling to adapt it? It must have been something along those lines, she imagined.

But it wasn't her decision to make and it wasn't her place to complain. It was simply the way it was.

"No, my lady, it's not that! It's just..." For a second, Rowena was sure it was one of those "It's not you, it's me" situations she'd seen on so many soap operas over the years, but when she turned to look at her youngest maid, there was a troubled expression on her face.

It wasn't the kind of troubled look one would show when trying to make excuses to their annoying employer, but more of a pressurized kind of troubled. One that would make you anxious and giddy.

"What's wrong? You can tell me."

"No, it's fine... Really. I just need to check on her and I'll be right back."

It seemed like that wasn't entirely true, but instead of arguing about it, she merely nodded and walked on, while Norina bowed for a polite goodbye.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

What Rowena did not see was a small envelope, crumpled and damp from the sweat on the maid's hands, as she hurried out of the mansion.

The letter had been handed to her by Nelson, the overseer, as he had always been the one to encourage her to find a well-paying job, even referring her to the Grand Duke in the capital.

Her delight at seeing the man again, even though it hadn't been that long since she'd left, didn't last more than two minutes after she'd read what the letter was about.

It took about an hour, after a stranger from the mansion had kindly helped tuck Rowena in, before footsteps in quick succession approached her bedroom door. Wide awake within a moment, she listened, trying to understand what was going on.

Contrary to her expectations, the door opened slowly after a short knock. Carefully entering the room, lit only by the moon from the tall windows and the light coming in from the corridors, she saw a mob of hair, which she would recognize anywhere by now, approaching her bed.

"Norina, what are you doing here?"

A little jumpy, the maid in question stopped in her tracks. "I'm sorry, I wasn't sure if I should wake you." Her voice was shaky and there was desperation in her tone.

Sitting up, Rowena turned on the light on her bedside table, trying to get a good look at the girl she had spent every day with since she had opened her eyes in this world. And what she saw confused her even more.

The young girl's eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks a tad puffy as if she had rubbed them too hard, and her overall expression was one of distress. Her heartbeat quickened as she looked at her maid, imagining all sorts of things that could have caused her to look like this, but not acknowledging any of them, hoping that she Norina actually fine and had simply had a bad dream.

"What happened while you were away?"

"I... Nothing happened to me. I'm fine. But Charlotte... I need help."

"Who's Charlotte? Your sister?"

"Yes." A tear formed and rolled down her cheeks as he sniffled at the same time. "There was a letter from her caretaker, but they couldn't get it to the capital in time, so they left it with the overseer because he said I would be on the envoy to Lodden. You know... Servants talk a lot."

'Gossip a lot, you mean.' With a raised hand, Rowena freed herself from the blanket and got to her feet, throwing on some simple clothes as her maid watched her in shock.

"I understand," she said, though she was truly confused, "just take me to your sister."

Norina immediately shook her head fervently at the idea. "No, I can't do that. I just... I need help. But you don't have to go that far."

"Then what else can I do to help you?"

"I..." the maid began, trailing off in shame, "I need a Mana Stone."

"A Mana Stone?"

"Yes, apparently my sister's health has reached a state where she needs one just to keep her alive. But my salary won't allow it. I can't even afford a High Priest to use the Stone to its full capacity once I have one, but I need a Stone first."

"Wait, you said she needs it to live? What exactly is wrong with your sister?" Normal illnesses wouldn't require a Mana Stone.

If she was injured and needed immediate and intensive medical attention, that would be understandable, but if it's a disease and the Mana Stone is just "keeping her alive," what comes after that? A Mana Stone for the rest of her life?

'Nothing is more potent than that, so if that wouldn't even cure her, what in the world would?'

First of all, she didn't even know if the girl was sick or injured. Putting a hand on her shoulder, Rowena met her frantic gaze and tried to encourage her to tell the truth. It might have taken a minute, but it worked.

"She's been ill for about half a year now. I have been trying to raise enough money to have someone take care of her and pay for her medicine, but the costs have grown too high for me to handle."

"So that's why you needed a well-paying job."

"Ah," she let out in response, "that is correct. It's not that I don't like working for you - I really do! But I needed the money too."

"Sure enough." With a sigh, the noble pondered what to do next as she walked over to her luggage, opened the treasure chest she had just recently opened to take out two of the Mana Stones inside, while trying to hide the jacket on top from Norina's view.

"What are you doing, my lady?" The maid was shocked to see the clear, light bluish stones in her mistress's hands.

"What do you think? You said you needed help."

"But I didn't-" she started, then stopped herself, "That's not what I was going for. I mean, I thought I could get help from you, but I was going to ask for a loan, not the Stones, I can't afford that right now."

"Then what did you think you could get from a loan from me?"

Defeated, her blonde locks fell into her face as her head dropped forward. "I don't know."

"See?" Rowena replied, locking the chest again, "And I never said you had to pay for them."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not saying they're for free, you still have to work for them. Let's say... you can't resign your position for the next twenty years, how does that sound?"

"I don't understand." She seemed genuinely lost in the situation, so Rowena shrugged her delicate shoulders.

"Sign an exclusive contract, then you can make yourself useful in return. After all, I never paid for them and I haven't used them until now. What for, anyway? Just take them." Suddenly her head popped up, as if a light bulb had gone off under her lavender hair. "Besides, I need to see your sister's condition."

Unable to say anything, Norina nodded, her lips quivering, her throat feeling dry and burning. Instead of answering, she simply turned and motioned for her mistress to follow her.

And she did follow, even when a knight who accompanied them on their late carriage ride asked what they were up to, the noblewoman had to answer very vaguely. When they reached a small house outside the shopping district where the middle-class citizens lived, Norina knocked on the coachman's window to signal him to stop.

"We're here," she said in a soft voice. She was scared and worried.

She didn't even know what her sister was suffering from - only knew that it wasn't contagious because her caretaker and herself had never shown any symptoms. But no common doctor she knew had ever seen this disease before, and she couldn't ask a High Priest about it.

Rowena wasn't sure what to expect, but the way her maid reacted the closer they got to the room where her sister presumably stayed, she had a very bad feeling. And that feeling would soon become reality as they reached the door and something thick in the ether gripped the ducal daughter's heart.

Mana spread through the room like air freshener as they opened and stepped through the door. But it seemed that Rowena was the only one who really noticed.

Norina winced as she entered and heard her sister breathing heavily. Her chest tightened and her eyes burned even more than before. Charlotte wasn't going to make it, that much she knew.

Even though she knew that, she couldn't help but try. It was her only family, how could she not?

But Rowena thought differently. There was a thin veil hanging from the ceiling to shield her from the rest of the room, probably to block out anything harmful outside the bed. Early stages of understanding about bacteria and infection were shown at the beginning of the novel as well.

The moment Charlotte was revealed to her, she couldn't breathe either, but for reasons other than that of her maid.

In front of her was a small child. But it wasn't clear if it was a child, in fact she only knew because it had to be, according to what she remembered about her age.

What was lying on the bed didn't look like a child at all, it seemed to be a raisin, vaguely shaped like a human being. Or an ancient person the size of a young girl? It made her stomach churn, felt grotesque and wrong to look at, and generally gave the impression that even nature rejected what had happened to her.

"Sis...ter," Charlotte managed to whisper, sounding as if every syllable might be her last, as she struggled to turn her head even an inch.

'Shit,' Rowena thought, 'how is that even possible?' What she saw was unmistakably the result of a contract gone wrong between a human and a high-ranking Numbered.