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Beatrice did not accept out of curiosity.
That was the first lie she told herself that morning, and like most useful lies, it sounded fairly convincing as long as no one looked at it too closely. She had not accepted because the stranger with complete horns interested her. She had not accepted because that anomaly with a mixed scent, clumsy mana, and a second red nature that belonged to no known race had made a request far too specific for someone who supposedly understood nothing about his own body. Nor had she accepted because the name "vanilla ice cream" had gotten stuck in her mind with a persistent irritation, like a sweet crumb caught between the pages of a clean book. Betty did not move for sweets. Betty did not teach for bribes. Betty did not open the door of her archive because some idiot with horns decided to look at her with a mixture of broken pride and badly hidden desperation.
Even so, when breakfast ended and the others began to disperse through the mansion, Beatrice did not immediately return to the Archive of Forbidden Books. She walked toward the kitchen with her book pressed against her chest, keeping a distance dignified enough to pretend she was not following anyone. Link walked ahead with Rem, carrying a small list of ingredients he had requested under Roswaal's far too interested gaze. Subaru followed behind, talking with Puck about the historical importance of dessert in diplomacy between species, while Emilia tried to understand which part of that sentence should be taken seriously. Ram brought up the rear with an expression suggesting that, if the universe were fair, Barusu would have been born without a tongue.
"Betty does not understand why everyone is walking toward the kitchen as if this were an important event, I suppose," Beatrice said, though no one had asked her.
Subaru turned around immediately, his eyes shining in that irritating way that, with him, always preceded verbal recklessness.
"Because it is, Beako. Today we witness the birth of a new gastronomic era in Lugunica. A cold, sweet, creamy era."
"Do not call me that. And Betty does not need a new era. The previous one was already annoying enough."
"That's what you say now, but wait until you meet vanilla."
Beatrice looked at him with measured contempt, the kind that was normally enough for a human to remember their place. Subaru, of course, did not have enough survival instinct to read it. Link, however, did notice and gave him a light tap on the shoulder before he could say something worse.
"Don't pressure her," Link murmured. "If she decides to turn us into library decoration before the day ends, it'll be your fault."
"That would be unfair. I'd be charismatic decoration."
"You'd be a warning for other visitors."
"That would also be useful."
Rem watched them calmly, but did not intervene. Beatrice, seeing that absurd normality between the two of them, felt the same discomfort she had felt during breakfast. Those two walked like newly awakened guests, but spoke like soldiers who had already shared a defeat. It was not simple friendship. It was not trust born in a single day. There was too much coordination in their silences, too much information hidden behind clumsy jokes, too many glances toward doors, hallways, and windows, as if every corner of the mansion could remember something only they knew.
And then there was Link.
The dark-haired one was not like Subaru. Subaru was noisy even when he tried to hide fear. Subaru scattered, exploded, held himself together with words because if he stayed silent, something inside him would probably break more easily. Link, on the other hand, compressed. He stored screams in his shoulders, questions in his hands, rage behind his teeth. He had shown two complete horns in the dining room without asking permission, had retracted the flow when Rem ordered him to, and then had negotiated with Betty as if he knew he did not have enough time to learn through normal methods. That was not the behavior of an ignorant person. It was the behavior of someone who had already been punished for his ignorance.
The kitchen was ready before they arrived, because Rem was efficient to a degree Beatrice found almost offensive. There was milk, cream, sugar, eggs, a dark pod with an intense scent that Link called vanilla with an exaggerated reverence of culinary respect, several metal containers, ice brought by Puck, and an amount of cloths Ram declared insufficient if Subaru intended to participate actively. Link washed his hands carefully, rolled up his sleeves, and asked permission before touching each utensil. That caught Beatrice's attention. Not because it was polite, but because he did it like someone who had learned to measure his strength after breaking things he had not wanted to break.
"I did not know monsters asked permission to use spoons," Beatrice said from a chair she had taken without anyone offering it to her.
Link did not take offense. That was annoying too.
"I'm trying to be a monster with manners."
"That sounds contradictory, I suppose."
"My entire existence seems to have that problem."
Subaru, who had tried to approach the main container, was moved aside by Ram with a precision Beatrice silently approved of.
"Barusu will observe from a safe distance."
"Safe for whom?"
"For the recipe."
"That hurt more than expected."
Link began by heating the milk and cream with patience. It was not a technique from this world, or at least not one Beatrice had seen used in that way. He did not measure with exact instruments, but he did not improvise randomly either. He smelled, watched the texture, removed the container before the heat ruined the mixture, and spoke quietly about not stirring too quickly so as not to turn a promise into a dairy disaster. Subaru tried to translate that as "emotional dessert alchemy," and Ram ordered him to be quiet before the milk became offended. Emilia laughed softly. Puck asked to be allowed to cool the mixture and then complained that his immense power was being reduced to a kitchen tool. Link promised him a small portion. Puck accepted immediately, proving, according to Subaru, that corruption by sugar was universal.
Beatrice kept watching.
Not because she wanted to.
Because there was something irritatingly orderly in the way Link worked. His hands could have been dangerous. Betty had seen the reaction of his body when something invisible had been touched in the library. She had felt that red root, not like mana, not like a gate, not like a simple racial blessing, but like flesh with borrowed will. And yet, those same hands mixed egg yolks with sugar with almost ridiculous care. There was no violence in them. There was tension, yes. There was control. There was fear of pressing too hard. But there was also an honest intention to create something that would not hurt anyone.
When the container was placed inside another colder one and Puck blew an icy breath that made the surface of the cream tremble, the smell changed. First it was sweet milk. Then vanilla. Then something softer, rounder, as if the cold had silently arranged the flavor. Beatrice pretended to read. She did not turn a single page.
"It's ready," Link said after a while.
"That looks like frozen mush," Beatrice commented.
"Frozen mush you could taste before insulting it with more precision."
"Betty does not need to taste something to know it is inferior."
"That explains a lot of your opinions."
Subaru's eyes widened.
"Link! Don't provoke the dessert judge before the verdict!"
Beatrice stared at him.
"You do not help either, I suppose."
The first spoonful arrived in a small white bowl, without unnecessary decoration. Link did not place it in front of her like a servant or a merchant. He left it on the table beside her and stepped back half a pace, as if respecting that Beatrice might reject it. That detail was more irritating than any insistence. It would have been easier to despise him if he had smiled too much, if he had tried to convince her, if he had watched her reaction with Subaru's noisy anxiety. But Link only waited.
Beatrice took the spoon.
The cream yielded softly. It was cold, but not hard. The scent of vanilla rose with the nonexistent steam of something that should not have warmth to feel alive. Beatrice brought the spoonful to her mouth without changing her expression.
And went still.
It was not too sweet. That was the first thing that annoyed her. It would have been more convenient if the dessert were cloying, clumsy, excessive, some human thing trying to compensate for lack of technique with sugar. It was not. The vanilla did not scream; it spread. The milk and cream left a clean softness, the cold made the flavor take a little longer to open, and when it did, it disappeared before becoming heavy. It was simple. Terribly simple. Precisely because of that, it was difficult to despise.
"And?" Subaru asked, incapable of tolerating someone else's silence for more than three seconds.
Beatrice took a second spoonful.
"The evaluation requires repetition, I suppose."
Link lowered his head.
Subaru raised both fists in silent victory.
From the side, Ram commented that Barusu celebrated others' achievements with the dignity of a dog in front of an open door. Rem looked at the bowl, then at Beatrice, then at Link. Emilia smiled. Puck requested his share before Betty confiscated everything in the name of research. Beatrice confiscated nothing, of course. She simply pulled the bowl a little closer to herself, because if they were going to speak of research, the main sample should not be interrupted by incompetents.
"One session," Beatrice said after the fourth spoonful.
"That was our agreement," Link replied.
"One session today. If you do not understand, it is your fault. If you get hurt, that is also your fault. If Betty gets bored, it ends."
"I accept."
"And tomorrow, you will bring more."
Subaru opened his mouth.
Beatrice pointed her spoon at him without looking.
"Do not say anything."
Subaru closed his mouth with the solemn obedience of someone who had just witnessed a miracle.
The first lesson did not happen in the kitchen, but in the Archive of Forbidden Books, where the rules belonged to Beatrice and the air smelled of old paper, clean dust, and secrets humans were not prepared to touch. Link entered without pretending amazement. That irritated her. Not because he did not look at the books, but because he did so carefully, with contained hunger. He did not know how to read the characters; that was obvious. His eyes passed over the spines without understanding them, but his face showed the frustration of someone who had already lost too much because he did not understand foreign symbols.
"Do not touch anything," Beatrice said.
"I wasn't planning to."
"Breathing near some shelves might also be too much for you."
"I'll try to be a guest with responsible lungs."
Beatrice sat on her stool, opened a dark-covered book, and placed it on a low table. Link remained standing until she pointed to the opposite chair with a minimal gesture. He obeyed. Too quickly. That obedience was not submission; it was concentration. He wanted to learn. Not because he was studious, but because he was afraid of not learning in time.
"An Oni's horns are not decoration," Beatrice began. "If you thought that, you are more of an idiot than you look."
"I didn't think that."
"Good. Then you are an idiot in some other way. The horns are organs. They capture, regulate, amplify, and order mana. In a normal Oni, that organ grows together with the body and mind. It learns before the owner can explain it. In your case, your horns are like a door someone built late in a house that was already burning, I suppose."
Link lowered his gaze to his hands.
"I don't have a normal gate, do I?"
Beatrice looked at him more carefully.
"You knew that too quickly as well."
"I deduced it."
"Your deduction stinks of a lie."
"My life lately has that smell."
Betty closed the book with a sharp thud, but did not throw him out. That was her second mistake of the day. She let him stay.
"You do not have a gate the way a human who uses magic should. That does not mean you cannot move mana. It means your body does it through routes that should not belong to it. The horns compensate for part of that, but you are using them like a child using a sword to crack open a nut. Too much strength, not enough brains."
"That sums up my week too well."
"I do not care about your week. Now bring out the horns."
Link took a deep breath. Beatrice watched the pressure appear beneath the skin of his forehead. It was not perfect. It was not clean. But it was fast, too fast for someone who had supposedly discovered that nature only recently. The horns emerged complete, dark, curved backward. Mana vibrated around them, clumsy but abundant, like water striking a narrow channel. Beatrice felt a pang of discomfort. Not fear. Memory. Beautiful horns dancing in the sky, the color of burned flesh, an old world that should not touch her again. She pushed that thought aside with internal violence.
"You are pushing," she said.
"Am I not supposed to push?"
"No. You are calling the organ as if it were a limb. The horns are not your red appendages. They do not obey the same way. If you force them, the flow responds with noise. If you listen first, they appear with less resistance."
Link closed his eyes.
"I don't know how to listen to mana."
"That is why Betty is wasting her time with you."
The lesson continued for almost an hour. Beatrice made him bring out and withdraw the horns several times, not many, because the expenditure was obvious even though Link tried to hide it. She explained that ambient mana was not only "energy in the air," but movement, pressure, temperature, direction, and will when someone manipulated it. She made him hold a minor crystal between his hands so he could feel the difference between contained mana and circulating mana. She cut the back of his hand with a tiny blade of wind so weak it barely opened the skin, only so he could recognize the change in pressure before the cut. Link did not complain. That annoyed her more.
"You should complain," Beatrice said.
"Subaru complains for both of us."
"Do not use that noisy one as an excuse."
"It isn't an excuse. It's emotional labor distribution."
Beatrice had to look away because almost, only almost, the corner of her mouth betrayed something close to a reaction.
The next day, Link brought more ice cream.
Not exactly the same. He had tried changing the texture with less crystallization, more cream, a little more vanilla. Beatrice accused him of trying to bribe her with successive improvements. Link replied that technically, it was field research. Subaru, who had appeared only to check whether there were leftovers, declared that the science of ice cream should be shared with humanity. Ram removed him from the library through the metaphorical ear of her orders, because Beatrice did not allow physical ears near her books. Puck managed to enter anyway because Puckie always went wherever he wanted, and Beatrice gave him a portion before anyone else, which made Subaru denounce spiritual favoritism.
The lessons changed shape.
In the morning, horns. In the afternoon, reading. Sometimes both things mixed because Link was incapable of separating frustrations. Beatrice discovered that he was not stupid. That was uncomfortable. He was ignorant, which was different. He did not know Lugunica's writing, or the basic rules of magic, or the correct history of the Oni, or the names of most herbs, territories, ranks, or noble families. But when he understood a pattern, he caught it quickly. Too quickly for someone without local education. He traced characters with initial clumsiness that improved after only a few repetitions. He asked about sounds, roots, differences between similar symbols. He did not trust memorization without understanding. That was annoying too.
"This is the short form," Beatrice said, pointing at a character with the tip of her pen. "This is the ceremonial form. This is the one merchants use when they want to write quickly and make everyone suffer."
"Then doctors were merchants from Lugunica."
"Do not say stupid things when you are writing."
"It helps me breathe."
"Then breathe silently."
Link tried to copy a line. The ink pooled too heavily in one spot, and the curve twisted at the end. Beatrice looked at the result severely.
"That looks like a dying spider."
"I'm learning."
"The spider too, I suppose. To die."
Link let out a low, tired laugh and tried again. Beatrice watched his fingers. There was strength contained in them. A lot. Too much for a pen. Sometimes he squeezed until the wood creaked. Then he stopped, breathed, loosened. Less strength. He did not say it aloud, but Betty could see it forming in his mind like an old order. It was not one of her phrases. Perhaps it belonged to the blue maid. Perhaps to experience. Perhaps to a line that no longer existed for anyone else. The idea made her uncomfortable.
On the third day, Beatrice began to think of "that" person.
Not clearly. Not with acceptance. Not with hope. Hope was a vulgar, dangerous word, made for humans who could afford to die before growing tired of waiting. Betty did not wait. Betty fulfilled. Betty remained