Chapter 38: Nonexistent

There was still some time before noon. Once Roy left the lower city, he quickly went back to the House of Cardell and slipped inside quietly. The students were listening to Miss Cardell’s history lessons calmly, while Vivien was sitting alone in the back.

Great. I came back just in time. Everyone’s in class except for me and the kitchen lady. Roy scurried to Miss Cardell’s office on the second floor, but the door was locked. He went to the leftmost part of the corridor and leaned out to look at the window closely.

The window was open, and it wasn’t far from the corridor, nor too high up from the ground. Roy took a deep breath and hunkered down on the guardrail. He squatted a few times, estimating the strength needed for him to reach the window. And then he sprung to the side, his arms spread open like wings, and he grabbed the windowsill. He moved his upper body and leaped into the room, agile like a cat. It wasn’t too hard for Roy to do that, since his body was on par with that of an adult’s.

The room was in the same condition it had been in during Roy’s first day. He went toward the desk behind the bookrack and tugged on the drawers and cabinets. Alas, everything was locked, but he didn’t want to leave without any clues, so he searched the rack, the sofa, and even the pencil case. Half an hour later, Roy surprisingly found a bronze key in a book called ‘Time of the Moon.’ When he tried using it to unlock the cabinet near the desk, the door opened for him, revealing a few stacks of neatly sorted papers.

One of them recorded Roy’s information. As Cardell had said, every new student had gone through the same process, recording their date of entry, name, gender, age, address, family, and simple description, like hair and eye color, birthmarks, as well as scars. Roy thought that if Vivien’s brother did exist, and if he’d attended the House of Cardell, then there must’ve been records of him. There should be traces if he’s a real person. Even if nobody remembers ‘him,’ the records should.

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Cardell had sorted out the papers according to the students’ year of entry. Roy counted the stacks and realized there were thirteen of them. In other words, the House of Cardell had existed for at least thirteen years. There were only a couple of registration forms in 1248, presumably when the school started operating. More students had enrolled over the years. Since around four years ago, the number of new students had been staying at thirty per year.

Most of the new students would enter around May — the same time the older students had their graduation. Almost nobody joined in the middle of the year like Roy. These papers are the House of Cardell’s historical records. They talk about the story of a school that serves the poor because its founder had a dream. It talks about how they grow in an era where chaos, triads, and revolutions are rife. The papers were light, but they held great weight.

Roy flipped through them carefully, but he didn’t read them word by word. It would be too inefficient, and he didn’t know how to read some of the words. All he looked for were the year of entry, name, and family of the students. And he only searched the records that were within six or seven years, as the House of Cardell only allowed a student to stay for five at most.

“Hill… No. Flick… No. Vivien’s not his sister. Kars… No. The address doesn’t match.” He finished flipping through two hundred registration forms in fifteen minutes. There were a few empty forms in between — perhaps used by Cardell to motivate herself — and he double and triple checked them.

After his third check, Roy heaved a sigh and stacked the forms before putting them back into the cabinet. He had a complex look on his face. He didn’t find anything on Vivien’s brother. That made him think that his investigation was nearing its end. He thought the conclusion was logical, but also hard to accept. Is Vivien really going mad?

Some of the records held names Roy was familiar with, names that belonged to children who were still in the school. Two of them left an impression. One was Miguel, the child who got into a fight with ‘him,’ and the other was Helheim, the boy with a scar under his eyes — the one Cardell had drawn a portrait of.

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Roy looked at the clock. There was still an hour until twelve. He was planning on asking Miguel some questions after lunch to gather some final evidence. Before he left, Roy hesitated and opened some other drawers out of curiosity.

“Hm. Books, quills, ink… “ Roy rummaged through the drawers. “Huh? Makeup products? Didn’t expect the stern Miss Cardell to be someone who cares about her appearance. Huh? This is… ?” Roy found a wrinkled pamphlet in the third drawer near the corner by accident.

“Vernon Ryan, the great leader of the Aldersberg revolutionists, was fighting for the people’s rights when Baron Tavik, in all his cruelty, incarcerated him for three months. The just revolutionists who went to the protest march were defeated by the baron’s forces, but the revolution shall not wane. A new team is assembling…”

Roy finally had the answer to one of his questions. He finally realized who Helheim — the valedictorian — was. The man with the scar was one of the revolutionists — the one in the cape he’d bumped into when he and Letho were leaving Seville’s residence.

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Cardell’s hiding this pamphlet in her drawer, but she said she sent the great students somewhere else to work. But obviously, she has a lot to do with the revolutionists. Roy made a daring presupposition and thought that Cardell was important for the revolution. He thought she might’ve founded the school to raise new revolutionists.

And then, he was reminded of his first day, when he’d overheard her lessons. Back then, he had a strange feeling that Miss Cardell was biased toward the revolutionists. She criticized the nobles of Aldersberg, and even the whole of Aedirn.

Wait, this makes sense. House of Cardell’s backers are the revolutionists. If I keep this up and stay for a few more years, Cardell’s going to persuade me to join the revolution.

Roy took a deep breath, unsure of what to feel. He was there to find out more about Vivien’s brother, but he didn’t expect to find Cardell’s skeleton in the closet. So does she have anything to do with Vivien’s brother? Did she take him into the revolution, like how she did with Helheim?

Roy dismissed that idea quickly. No matter how powerful Cardell was in the revolution, she was still human. It was impossible for her to erase Vivien, her family, and her neighbors’ memories. Even Helheim had a portrait, but Vivien’s brother didn’t.

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Bob’s testimony and the missing form were enough evidence that Vivien’s brother did not exist. If Miguel denied the boy’s existence too, then…

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