"Duke Edgar de Grace...?"Pop!Do I call this a reporter’s spirit or what.Even so, Thomas, as if bewitched, pulled the camera he’d been hiding behind his back and fired a flash at Edgar."Ha-ha, ha ha! I had a hunch, but this is remarkable."Unable to suppress the thrill on his face—the certainty of a scoop—Thomas ran his mouth."A romance between the noble Duke of Grace and a witch who lays curses with dolls. If the kingdom hears of it, Eclaire will turn upside down! And if it’s a romance wrought by a witch’s curse, all the more a sensational exclusive!"His expression brimmed with a rapture and sense of achievement beyond description. Seeing the in-progress doll modeled after Edgar sitting behind Thomas, I could guess why he was babbling about curses.Honestly, him or the other one, what’s the difference. With steam locomotives and trams in service, cameras in use, even automobiles hitting the market, they’re still prattling about witches casting curses.It wasn’t as if he’d never had an education, yet Thomas’s primitive inability to keep up with the times was simply astonishing. And he didn’t stop there; the madman kept going, convinced the fiction he’d written for himself was fact."I was on the fence myself until I saw this doll. But after seeing it, I can’t deny the witch’s power. For a moment I wondered if she’d snatched Your Grace’s very soul! Indulge an old man’s caution… are you fully conscious right now?"On the wall over the workbench behind Thomas hung several photographs of Edgar, clipped from newspapers, arranged by angle. Among them were some Thomas had taken himself.Anyone who knew nothing about Angela would have thought only, She’s making a doll that looks exactly like Edgar. The craftsmanship is incredible.But Thomas—who had clearly changed careers from reporter to novelist—saw the Edgar look-alike doll as nothing more than a magical tool to entrance him."Ha. Unbelievable…."So this reporter jumps to fantasies before checking a single objective fact.He looked pitiable, having thrown away any sense of duty or professional ethics as a journalist."A-ahem. I understand you won’t be pleased for such a scandal to get out, but as a reporter I hope you’ll understand that I’ve done my job for the public’s right to know. I’ll be going now…."Watching Edgar’s sardonic smile, Thomas crab-stepped toward a possible exit, eyes flicking for a line of retreat.Edgar had never intended to let him go. In a blink he closed the distance, then clamped the handkerchief he’d been holding in his left hand over Thomas’s mouth and nose."Mmff, mmgh…!"Thud.Edgar was an efficiency-minded man who despised pointless scuffles and wasted effort.Just as Timothy’s report predicted, there’d be no gentle talk or amicable agreement once he ran into reporters. The sleeping agent he’d prepared for contingencies did its job quite well."Timothy."Leisurely, Edgar unlocked the door and called the secretary waiting outside."Did you get him?"Following Edgar’s nod, Timothy shifted his gaze—and there lay that face he was sick to death of seeing, sprawled on the floor."Take them and toss them in the holding cells at police headquarters. As for Infamer, use the dossier we compiled before and shut them down immediately.""Understood.""I’ll tidy up here, so go on ahead.""Yes, sir."Having dealt with Infamer’s reporters—adept at running and irritatingly [N O V E L I G H T] tenacious—more than once, Timothy’s preparations were thorough. The moment they loaded the two, the prepped freight wagon vanished from sight with Timothy aboard."Whew."He’d tried to handle it quietly, but even with this much commotion there was no trace of Angela’s presence."Not home?"It would be better if that were the case.Contrary to expectations, there’d been little grappling or struggle, so the interior hadn’t been ransacked. But when Thomas gulped the sedative and went down flailing, some things on the workbench got swept to the floor."Great, even this one fell."Among them, the doll modeled precisely after him—Eddy—was rolling on the floor, which Edgar found thoroughly displeasing. He picked it up at once."Did she refine it further? It looks even more precise than last time…."Unlike a few days ago, the Eddy before him had all its joints connected and even wore clothes, striking a figure that truly looked like a scaled-down Edgar."You’re coming with me for a bit."Maybe the habit had rubbed off from the homeowner. Edgar chuckled as he spoke to Eddy, tucked it under his arm, and began picking up scattered scraps of cloth and various implements, returning them as closely as possible to their original places."This should go unnoticed, right?"Good thing he’d swept his eyes over the workbench while exchanging that so-called conversation with Thomas. Fortunately, Edgar’s memory far outstripped other people’s, and in this situation it proved quite useful."By the way… is all this unused?"At last taking a moment to look around, Edgar began inspecting the things strewn across the bench. There were several bunches of golden hair with subtly different shades lined up, and half a dozen torsos set out as well."Looks like she wasn’t satisfied with the results."Bending over a workbench far too low for his height, he examined them closely. His eyes, peering along the torsos laid out in a row, were nothing but serious."I can’t see what’s different…. Aren’t they all the same?"Edgar was known for his discerning eye—keen sight and sharp taste that let him match most professionals when running his businesses.Even so, he couldn’t tell what was wrong with the abandoned torsos that hadn’t made the cut for Eddy. More surprising still: not only the bench, but the boxes beneath it were piled high with discarded bodies.For all these failed torsos, there wasn’t a single failed face. That, too, was intriguing.Faces had abundant reference materials, so success on the first try made sense. But with no materials for the body, she couldn’t render it properly. Thinking that, Edgar found the image of Angela struggling over Eddy’s body oddly endearing.Human bodies look the same, yet differ in subtle ways. Without precise reference, perfect reproduction isn’t easy.And the sheer number of rejects showed just how strong her perfectionist streak was."I can’t exactly show my body to your creator… what should I do."What first looked identical began to reveal minute differences the longer he stared.So even this tiny variance changes the way clothes hang this much. He already knew it, but the fresh realization had him study every inch of Eddy’s body with avid eyes.Creak."Yaaawn…."Just then, the old staircase sounded, together with the unmistakable trace of Angela in the house—when he’d been sure she wasn’t home."Wh-who…?"So much for assuming she was out just because she hadn’t stirred at the commotion."Ah…."I’m screwed. At that instant, nothing else came to Edgar’s mind but that crude line.A strange standoff stretched between Edgar at the workbench and Angela on the stairs. Seconds oozed by, feeling like minutes.Come to think of it, this was the first time he’d faced her squarely and heard her voice properly.Her sleek black hair fell to her waist; though her eyes were veiled by bangs, they shone with a luminous gold. Skin pale to the point of looking bloodless, a tiny face, an unusually sharp nose tip, and small, pretty lips—none of it fit the nickname “witch.”"Why is Edgar here… Is this a dream…?"Creak, squeak.Perhaps thinking this was a dream, Angela came down the stairs with a dazed face.As the distance between them shrank, Edgar grew anxious. To accomplish his aim he needed amicable relations with Angela; an encounter like this was… inconvenient.Watching her draw closer one step at a time, Edgar racked his brain—and suddenly, unthinking, remembered Eddy hidden behind his back.If only you could really become him.Words he’d heard from Angela not long ago brushed his ear like an auditory hallucination—so guilelessly pure it was hard to believe a grown woman had said them.Among dollmakers there’s a story like a legend: if you pour your heart into a doll and craft it with devotion, a fairy may breathe life into it."It’s me, Angela."And with that, Edgar made the most reckless, absurd gamble of his life.

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