“See, we’re not asking you to read out the whole thing! If you’ve got nothing to hide, then open the letter and give us a quick overview—that’s all we want!” Fey added with a giggle. “But if you don’t get this under control soon, there’s gonna be someawful new rumors added to the legend of Allen Rovene—and I’dhate for that to happen.”

“Nearly every one of those stupid rumors about me has started thanks to you lot! Give me a break... Fine. I’ll open it, all right? So don’t spread any more weird crap about me!”

Seriously, what did I do to deserve this? I was trying to protectthese guys by refusing to introduce them to Rosa... I sighed. I could probably safely read them the first page, and if it was normal enough, maybe the second as well. Then I could just pretend she’d written about how busy she was these days and hope the kangaroo court would be satisfied. I slipped my fingernail underneath the sticker sealing the envelope and tore the letter open.

At that point, I still hadn’t realized the full extent of Rosa’s anger—anger held at bay by a single heart-shaped sticker.

◆◆◆

“Man, I can’t believe we get to meet your sister! I’m kinda nervous!” said Al, cheerful as ever—a shining beacon of light in my newfound darkness.

Compared to Rosa’s normal missives, the letter I’d reluctantly opened earlier had been...unusual, to say the least. Instead of her customary tightly packed handwriting, each stroke no bigger than a grain of rice, today’s letter had featured giant words, scrawled across the pages in an ominous, deep-red ink—a color so similar to blood, I swore I could smell the metallic tang of iron rising from the pages. This was what the letter had said.

Page one: “I’ll be waiting at the estate today, okay?”

Page two: “If you ignore this letter,”

Page three was blank—not blank white, but blankred. The page was entirely coated in a deep, bloody red, and it felt sticky to the touch. I’d gulped when I’d seen it.Red papers used to mean you were being conscripted in Japan... Sure feels like I’m being called to war now.

I was terrified. Absolutely, positively terrified. The moment I’d seen the letter, I’d lost all capacity to worry about my classmates’ safety. I wasn’t brave enough to face Rosa alone—and I wasn’t brave enough to ignore her either. There was every chance my Class A compatriots would get caught up in the cross fire (if she didn’t just straight u