Tears spilled from that face almost immediately.

Lena Orso approached Ines with an expression pitifully on the verge of tears, but she was stopped short by Cecile, who had smoothly and naturally stepped in front of Ines.

“Miss. The head maid told you to stay in your quarters until the imperial soldiers depart, didn’t she?”

Cecile asked coolly. It was hard to believe this was the same Cecile who had been all smiles in front of Ines. She was ice cold.

Lena seemed to wilt slightly under that force. But only for a moment. Lena’s temper flared briefly in a vicious upward glance, and then her knees buckled.

Thud. Cecile let out a short, humorless laugh as Lena sank to the floor with a sound that must have hurt. The vicious expression she had shown for an instant, which anyone with less than sharp eyes would have missed, was startling enough, but the way she instantly switched to a face dripping with wounded innocence was nothing short of impressive.

“Your Highness, please just hear me out. Please?”

Cecile was frowning at the shameless behavior when Ines spoke.

“Cecile, it’s fine. Come here.”

“But, Your Highness……”

“She doesn’t seem to mean any harm.”

Cecile hesitated, then stepped aside at Ines’s voice, which was gentle but carried a subtle line drawn within it.

Lena, who had sensed the same thing, gave a small twitch.

It looked at first glance like Ines was stopping the maid and giving Lena a chance to speak, but by using the word “harm,” she had drawn a clear boundary.

Pain shot up from the nails scraping the floor. Lena swallowed it down hard and let the tears flow.

“Your Highness…… how can you look at me like this? I’m so wronged! To be dismissed for something I didn’t even do……”

The cheap tears came easily.

Ines looked at Lena without a word, watching her shed thick tears and plead her innocence. Lena seemed to take the silence as wordless permission.

“Your Highness, I came all the way to the North leaving my family and hometown behind, thinking only of serving you! How could I ever speak badly of you…… please? Sob, I’m so wronged and heartbroken……”

“……Is that so?”

“Even when the head maid was questioning me, hic, all I could think was, what if Your Highness really believes I did it. I couldn’t sleep for worrying that you might be hurt by it……”

Ines had been watching to see where this was going, and quietly swallowed a laugh.

To go on at such length about things she did not mean a word of. If she had become an actress, she would have been a great one.

If Ines had not known Lena’s true nature and real intentions, she might have been completely taken in. As she had been in the past.

‘……Well. The part about feeling wronged is probably somewhat genuine.’

It was Sana who had been speaking disrespectfully about Ines.

The official reason Lena was being dismissed along with her was that she had been present at the time, and since Lena was someone who saw everything in terms of herself, it was not strange that she would feel wronged.

On top of that, Lena could not even imagine that Ines already knew her true identity.

“Your Highness, was there anything lacking in my service on the way to the North? While I was confined, I couldn’t even drink water properly, thinking about it. What if Your Highness fell ill because of some failing of mine, I was so worried……”

During Ines’s silence, Lena seemed to have decided to appeal to sympathy.

In truth, Ines found the whole situation a little funny.

The relationship between Ines and Lena was simply that of a princess and a maid, nothing more.

Lena had not even served Ines from her time at the imperial palace, and on the way to the North, Ines had kept both maids at a distance beyond the minimum necessary attendance. There was no friendship between them, let alone anything that could be called a bond.

So where did the idea come from that if she came running and cried like this, Ines would feel sorry for her and take her back? Who did she think she was?

‘……I really was quite foolish, wasn’t I.’

The reason all of this was possible was that Ines had spent twenty-two years living quietly without ever asserting a single opinion. In plain terms: a dim, foolish, spineless half-princess. That was what Ines had been.

The unfortunate thing for Lena was.

“Thank you for thinking of me like that.”

The pushover Ines, who she could have held in her hand and swung around freely, no longer existed.

“Your Highness……”

“You’re a clever girl. You’ll be put to better use somewhere else. I hope so too.”

Lena’s face, which had been brightening at Ines’s gentle tone, crumpled miserably at the words that followed.

The manner was kind, but the meaning was clear: she was being dismissed.

Lena trembled in disbelief, then snapped her head up. The expression on her face was unmistakably fury and a sense of betrayal.

Why?

‘Betrayal? I was never on Your Highness’s side to begin with. How could this be betrayal? I was just doing my job. Even now, you’re still so foolish.’

Had she not laughed and said exactly that, standing before a Ines who was shaking with a sense of betrayal?

Of course, the Lena who had said those words was not the Lena standing here now. But it was a future that would come again if Ines did nothing.

Ines smiled with contempt at the absurd two-facedness and withdrew her gaze. Just then, Marisa appeared from behind with two servants in tow.

The servants arrived and lifted Lena to her feet with stiff expressions.

“Let go of me……! What did I do wrong!”

Grabbed, Lena twisted her whole body and raged. Then she shot a sharp glare at Marisa.

“It was you. You’re the one who told Her Highness to dismiss me! How dare a mere head maid……”

Glaring with vicious eyes and shouting at the top of her lungs, it was difficult to find anything kind to say about the sight.

Marisa, who had been watching Lena with a faint look of contempt, gave a glance.

“Take her away.”

“Yes, Head Maid.”

“Your Highness, Your Highness! Your……”

Lena kept calling out to Ines until the very end, then lost consciousness at a strike to the back of her neck.

Ines watched the figure being dragged away like a sack of goods.

There was no particular sense of relief, no feeling of a long-standing burden finally lifting. Lena was someone she despised, but she was not the root cause of everything.

That satisfaction would probably only come at the moment the Emperor drew his last breath.

“I apologize, Your Highness. It is my fault for not managing them properly.”

Ines stopped Marisa from bowing deeply.

“Not at all. She was not under lock and key. How could anyone stop someone determined to get out?”

“……I am grateful for your words. I will assign someone to watch them so this does not happen again. Please do not worry.”

“Good. I’m fine, so don’t trouble yourself and go on.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Then I will take my leave.”

Marisa left with a straight-backed bow.

The library she had originally been heading to was just ahead. Ines let out a shallow sigh.

“Your Highness…… are you all right?”

“Mm, I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

Cecile looked as though she wanted to offer some comfort, but in the end could not find the right words and pressed her lips together. The way she kept glancing at Ines’s face suggested she was trying to read her mood.

“Cecile. You look more miserable than I do. Were you very shaken?”

Ines noticed easily and spoke with deliberate lightness. Only then did Cecile’s face show a measure of relief.

“……I’m just upset that someone like that was attending you all the way here to Rupert.”

“Someone like that? Ha ha ha.”

The unexpected word choice made Ines laugh before she could stop herself. Out of habit, Cecile giggled along with her.

Ines came to a stop in front of the library door.

“I’ll just browse for a bit and then head back to my room, so go enjoy yourself.”

“What? But……”

“I thought you’d be bored with me just reading the whole time.”

Cecile’s expression said she found it boring but did not really want to leave either, and she only nodded after Ines told her to come back in an hour.

“Then I’ll come get you later!”

“All right.”

Ines gave a light wave and took hold of the elegant gold door handle.

Click.

The heavy door swung open with nothing more than a faint whisper of friction, quiet enough to miss if you were not listening.

Ines stepped through the door, which opened with the smooth ease characteristic of well-maintained furniture.

She had come to the library partly to pass the time while she had not yet taken on the duties of the mistress of the household, but more than that, she wanted to learn more about mages and their ancestor, the black dragon.

‘There were fewer books than I expected in the imperial palace’s archive.’

And the ones that were there had all been nothing but insults barely disguised as commentary. From that fact alone, Ines could tell that the imperial family’s feelings toward Rupert went back further than she had thought.

“Still, there should be something here.”

Ines murmured that and turned fully around, and in that very moment.

Tap tap, a sound like knocking on wood thinner than a door.