“Ah, Dora.”
“……”
“I’ll call you Dora. That’s alright, isn’t it?”
When Achim asked, Dora tucked her orange-tinted hair behind her ear and answered softly, “Yes.”
Achim stared at Dora. Perhaps sensing his gaze, her pale teal eyes rolled off to the side.
“Twelve. Is that about right?”
At that, Dora’s face fell for some reason. As Achim blinked in confusion, Dora glanced at him as if gauging his reaction and said, Fourteen.
Achim nodded without making much of it, then was startled when Dora suddenly scrunched up her fair little face.
“I’m sorry……”
“For what?”
Seeing Achim shoot back immediately at the apology she’d thrown out, Dora seemed surprised instead and rounded her eyes.
“Th-the others say I’m getting…… special treatment……”
“……”
“So they…… don’t like me……”
“Special treatment?”
What Dora was saying amounted to this.
One of the maid recruitment requirements was age — and several of the maids, upon finding out that Dora, who was not only far from her twenties but considerably younger than all of them, was receiving the same treatment and conditions as the rest of them, had expressed their resentment.
Dora hesitated, then slowly let her gaze drift away from him.
“I’m…… from Maaconi, you see……”
“……”
“My older brother is from Maaconi too……. He’s been working and earning money since last year. Um…… I want to earn money too, but nowhere would take me because of my age. So…… I had asked the director personally……”
Dora confided carefully, as though making a confession.
Asking her age in the first place hadn’t been meant with any other intention. It had been a passing remark, offered because Achim found it admirable that someone so young was working.
It was all entirely unrelated to Achim, who had entered the estate with a different purpose from the other maids. But perhaps it was the sense of kinship stirred by the mention of growing up in a facility. Before he knew it, Achim found himself listening closely to what Dora was saying.
A moment later, Dora whispered with a shy flush on her cheeks.
“Michael is……. He’s truly like an angel.”
At those bashfully murmured words, Achim glanced down at his own chest.
“……”
……Right, well. Even angels have their preferences.
When Dora said that once she’d earned money here, she would absolutely give Michael a gift, Achim shook the thought from his mind and gave a small nod.
He felt a warmth at how endearing she was — though why there was also a faint unease on the other hand, he couldn’t quite explain.
For a week, Achim spent his time familiarizing himself with the layout of the estate.
It was so vast that no matter how many free moments he used to look around, the end of it never came into sight. Of course, since he couldn’t afford to look suspicious, Achim kept his movements to a minimum throughout.
The dormitory where Achim was currently staying was in the building to the left of the main hall. This was the servants’ quarters.
Just as the butler had said, each room had a bell. Each bell had the name of the respective room attached to it, so that whenever a call came in, it was immediately clear which room was summoning.
Beyond that, the two-story servants’ building was packed with spaces divided by purpose — among them a kitchen, a laundry room, and others.
The first and second floors of the estate’s main hall were shared quarters. Of those, the first floor housed the hall — situated just inside the grand staircase, it was a space used for banquets, recitals, theatrical performances, and the like. With ceilings dizzyingly high, it was also said to serve as a reception room.
The second floor, unlike the first, had a variety of rooms. A breakfast room was situated on the east side, with a dining room on the opposite end.
To the left of the grand staircase was the library, and across from it, an elegant gallery. He hadn’t managed to peer inside all of them, but for the time being, he’d at least gotten a rough sense of where things were.
Beyond that, the stables — maintained for Michael, who was said to enjoy horseback riding regularly — stood as a separate annex, close to the main hall. Turning around and a few dozen meters off to the left was a cellar, which was connected to the butler’s quarters so that one could move between the two.
The one place Achim had yet to explore was the third floor of the main hall. It was also where Michael’s bedroom and study were located.
That floor was entirely off-limits to ordinary house maids like Achim, even for cleaning purposes. Only the closest attendants — the “Lady’s Maid” and the “Housekeeper” — were permitted to clean there on designated days, and even then only under the butler’s supervision.
Achim was certain that the item was on the third floor. There had to be a reason for such thorough control over that space.
“……”
He had just come out after cleaning the second-floor dining room. As his fellow maid left the spot, Achim pretended to tidy the cleaning supplies while looking around the corridor.
Today as well, guards were stationed like fixtures at both the central grand staircase leading to the third floor and at the staircases at either end of the corridor.
Given that not once in nearly a week had their positions gone unmanned, they appeared to be working in shifts.
Achim moved on, keeping a disinterested blank expression on his face. The low heels of his flats clicked steadily down the corridor.
He had walked a few more steps and was just about to round the corner.
“It wasn’t me, I’m telling you?”
A voice ringing out in hysteria made Achim halt.
“I’ve already told you so many times — it wasn’t me.”
From what he could make out, it sounded like a conflict had broken out among the maids.
Achim felt a wave of exhaustion. He was burning with the desire to finish work, get back to the dormitory quickly, and rest.
Going around by another route would put too much distance between him and the dormitory, and pushing straight through meant risking an errant spark catching on him — so Achim decided to stand in place for a moment and bide his time.
He leaned his back against the wall with his arms crossed.
“Like I care about your stuff, Dora Gleisner!”
Achim’s eyes widened slightly at the familiar name.
“Stop sniveling, it’s disgusting to look at!”
The unknown maid began hurling an indiscriminate torrent of abuse at Dora. At the loud voice — shrill enough to hurt the ears — Achim uncrossed his arms and pressed his palm to his forehead.
Haa. Looking up at the ceiling, Achim closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath.
Achim wasn’t particularly the righteous type. He wasn’t someone who unconditionally couldn’t walk past injustice either. On top of that, he had all the more reason to keep a low profile here, so Achim had been living as quietly as a mouse. He knew he couldn’t afford to stand out — both because he needed to slip around the estate undetected, and because the moment he drew attention, his target would slip further from his grasp.
“Blaming an innocent person and making a scene?”
So he was supposed to stay out of everything that happened here, as much as possible.
“So annoying, honestly.”
He was supposed to stay out of it……
“An orphan, at that.”
But at the last words of the maid — whoever she was — Achim’s mouth set hard in an instant. In the very next moment, as if all that hesitation had been meaningless, his foot was already stepping out from around the corner.
Achim walked over without hesitation.
“Hey. You.”
The maid, catching sight of Achim, showed a flash of surprise before quickly smoothing her expression over. Dora, on the other hand — who had been completely deflated — opened her eyes wide as if they might pop out.
Achim walked closer, softened the sharp edge of his eyes, and asked, turning toward Dora:
“What’s going on?”
Dora hesitated to answer. In that gap, the maid swooped in and cut her off.
“Ha, honestly. I was saying that her things——”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
