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Chapter 7
Meanwhile, Celeste seemed not to recognize Giles properly. She screamed a sound he had never heard before, struggling wildly, but Giles pinned her down with his body and froze for a moment.
Even that, however, was a luxury he could not afford in that instant. His men were running toward them from afar. He had to make a decision. Giles laid the muzzle of his pistol against his sister’s forehead.
The world around him slowed. The men were no longer running to help him. They were watching him. The operation itself was a large trap centered on Giles.
Now he understood why the men had wasted time failing to catch a single woman. It wasn’t just any woman — it was Celeste Hessen. A target Giles was meant to kill himself. The reason he had led unfamiliar troops all the way to Mainhebach.
Stopping the fugitives from crossing the border was a secondary concern.
This mission had been meticulously designed to measure Giles’s value. Could he really kill the sister he loved?
Giles had arrested and executed many of his own kind to survive. It had not been only for his survival but also for his sister Celeste’s. Up to that point, the choice had not been difficult. There was no doubt that his and his sister’s lives were worth far more than a hundred other lives.
But what about the revolutionary leadership versus his sister?
Now he had to make a new choice.
Would he survive, or would he sacrifice himself for his sister?
Giles glared at Celeste’s ruined face with bloodshot eyes, shivering from the cold. Something — sweat or tears — ran down her face.
Pull the trigger. No, don’t.
There was little time. The men — witnesses to his loyalty — were watching him. He regretted having taken off his scarf.
Would it have been better not to have seen this?
Celeste did not wait long either. She bit down hard on Giles’s hand, which she held, and as he screamed, she threw him off and tried to flee again.
Before she could rise, Giles pressed his whole body onto her. A familiar voice echoed in his head: this mission could change your fate. But… what use was that now?
“I can’t do it.”
Giles whispered into Celeste’s ear as she writhed beneath him.
“I can’t do it. Celeste, please….”
Half-sobbing, he suddenly realized Celeste had stopped moving, and he looked up. She was no longer moving. Giles hurriedly turned her body over.
A small knife that his sister had been holding was stuck in her abdomen. Giles looked in stunned despair at Celeste, who had chosen death herself.
The worst ending nobody wanted closed the final curtain.
She had been a quiet-natured girl. Someone who preferred to shut herself in a room and daydream rather than enjoy parties or social gatherings; a person who would react more passionately to a fine fountain pen than to dresses, shoes, or ornaments.
Giles wished only that his sister might be free. If someone guaranteed her freedom, he believed she could soar away anywhere.
He had thought the same for himself. One life for freedom, one life for the future, one life for the faint dawn of tomorrow….
After countless victims spared him another day, could he have truly believed his sister would come back?
He sat down in a corner and chain-smoked. His adjutant, Charlie, approached. Giles gave him an unfriendly look, but as always, Charlie didn’t care.
“You did the right thing.”
Charlie’s words scraped open Giles’s fresh wounds. Giles exhaled cigarette smoke without speaking.
“The leadership has decided; she was a woman who would have died anyway. If you hadn’t finished it yourself, she might have died even more horribly….”
“I want to be alone.”
“No.”
“…Charlie. I’m tired.”
“But General Harrington ordered me to stay right by the captain, sir. He said you might be thinking all sorts of things alone.”
So they sent Charlie even though they knew. If he thought for even a second more about the leadership’s decision and the last operation, his head would surely burst. Giles closed his eyes and tried desperately to hold back his temper.
After returning from Mainhebach he scrubbed his hands until his skin turned red. No matter how clean he washed, he felt as if his sister’s blood would never come off.
He muttered to himself in the bathroom sink. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t do it.
I did it.
“By the way, sir, this is something General Harrington said… I thought you should know as well.”
Giles nervously put a cigarette to his lips.
“The higher-ups are suspicious that you didn’t use the gun.”
“…….”
“According to another subordinate’s report, you were definitely aiming the pistol at the target, but when they checked the body afterward the cause of death was a stab wound. To me, it’s not that strange. Perhaps you changed weapons during the struggle.”
Giles, who had been staring into empty air, couldn’t bear it any longer and rose from his seat. He left his adjutant without a word.
“You did kill her, didn’t you? I believe that!” Charlie called out from behind, but Giles ignored him.
He even wished the leadership would immediately order someone to blow his head off with a bullet. Not because he clung to life, but because his head ached so terribly.
His life had been a string of errors and wrong choices. Even the thing he’d thought was his best decision had turned out like this. Now he felt he should make no decisions at all.
However, if there was one remaining ‘right choice’ left…
There was one person who came to his mind.
“Lily Belmore. Take care of her for me.”
Lily. Lily Belmore. My refuge, my living paradise.
Thoughts of her swelled inside Giles and consumed him. He had promised himself he would never visit the abandoned house in Solsbur again because it would draw suspicion. Yet at that moment, he felt as if he would go mad unless he saw Lily’s face immediately. The Mainhebach operation had pushed his mind to its limits. He could no longer endure.
Seeing Lily, he thought, might let him forget everything. He could dismiss what happened at Mainhebach as a passing nightmare. Lily was exactly that kind of presence for him.
Someone who made him forget what kind of man he was.
Giles got into his car and, hands trembling, managed to start the engine. He drove without thinking. He had only one goal.
The house he stumbled to in a half-mad state was the same as ever. No one was around; the empty mansion felt as if ghosts might appear.
He went straight to the room with the piano. The door was closed. Without thinking, he knocked loudly. After a while, the big door opened slightly.
“Giles!”
Lily peeked through the crack in the door and came up smiling. This time she wore the coat he had given her loosely over a white chemise.
Seeing Lily in far better health than when they first met, smiling, Giles felt both his heart settle and an unbearable tightness in his chest.
“Lily.”
He stood there, dazed, unable to say anything or smile back. Lily, hesitating, approached and then hugged him.
It was brief, but he felt the warmth of her body — a great comfort. Unable to think straight, he made no response, and Lily, embarrassed, quickly let him go.
“Sorry. I just— I’m grateful you came again.”
“…May I?”
“Hm?”
“May I hold you?”
The words slipped out tremblingly, unplanned. Lily glanced at his unusual appearance, then nodded.
Giles tentatively reached out. But he could not bring himself to embrace her. Lily was pure and unspoiled. If he hugged her, all the filth he had buried would soil her.
“…Next time I’ll bring you some proper clothes.”
“I already have one.”
“Not that one. Proper clothes.”
“I like this one. It’s warm.”
Lily, as if worried he might take the coat back, loosened the front.
An awkward silence hung in the air. Lily finally broke it.
“Giles, do you play the piano?”
“A long time ago.”
“So you’ve played before? I knew it. You can tell someone who knows music by their eyes. I have a favor… could you play the piano for me today?
