They reached the Twin Castle before long. It should have been a long walk from the lakeside, yet they arrived far sooner than expected.

At the sight of the Twin Castle, Pamona felt a rush of warmth and passed through the gate ahead of Terion Iligen, overtaking even the guards. Driven by the single desire to get out of this state as quickly as possible, she took the stairs at nearly a run. She wanted to fling off these damp clothes and sink into a hot bath.

She pushed open a bedroom door, passing the Twin Castle staff who watched her with oddly startled eyes.

“Oh……”

This was not the bedroom she knew. It was the right place, and yet somehow different……

“Were you going to use…… my bathroom, Pamona?”

Ah.

Terion Iligen had hurried after her and now looked down at Pamona as she spun around in a panic. She was so flustered that the color had drained from her face and her eyes darted about helplessly.

“No?!”

The answer came out far louder than she intended, and the sound of her own voice startled her. The blue eyes that met hers seemed to be testing whether to curve into amusement, mischief flickering just at the edges.

“I apologize for the intrusion!”

Several servants came hurrying up the stairs. Mortified, Pamona slipped past Terion Iligen and walked quickly in the direction of the western bridge.

Behind her, she heard Terion Iligen’s voice issuing instructions to the servants. A few of them ran past her to reach the bathroom ahead of her, asking permission as they went.

The slight chill that had been making her shiver was gone, replaced by a flush of heat, as though the embarrassing thing she had just done had warmed her from within. She felt hot enough that she could have told them to draw the bath a little cool.

“Your Highness, please cross the western bridge. We will take you to the adjoining castle.”

For now, she needed to get somewhere out of Terion Iligen’s line of sight. She kept showing him one ridiculous side of herself after another. She wanted to make at least a decent impression on a guest encountering Masion for the first time. Yet somehow, not a single thing about her clumsy self was to her liking.

* * *

The adjoining castle was an exact replica of the castle Pamona had lived in, right down to the interior. The only difference was that everything was mirrored, every direction reversed. Her bedroom in the original castle was reached by going up the stairs and following the corridor to the right, and the adjoining castle had an identically shaped bedroom, but it was to the left of the stairs.

It felt familiar and yet, because of the reversed directions, strangely disorienting, and even a little uncomfortable. Her body kept moving in the direction it remembered. If it had been a completely unfamiliar space, she would have had no trouble at all and would not have had to double back. This was worse.

Going into the bathroom and coming back out, she walked the wrong way both times before correcting herself. After making the same mistake several times over, it was not only irritating but made her feel like a fool, and that annoyed her.

She had finished bathing with the help of the servants and was nearly done when a servant who had come from Payen Castle arrived carrying clothes and shoes. She felt an inexplicable urge to explain herself, worried they might think she had been unable to hold out even a few days before chasing after the Twin Castle.

But stopping a servant to blurt out that it was not like that would have been absurd, so Pamona pressed her lips together and said nothing.

She put on her freshly dried clothes and had her hair dried enough that she would not catch a chill, then left the bedroom. The sun looked ready to set soon, and she thought about slipping away quietly, but decided she ought to at least say goodbye, and went back up onto the western bridge.

Terion Iligen was leaning against a pillar facing the garden, looking up at the sky. The sun was setting. The light retreated bit by bit behind the overcast clouds.

He had finished bathing as well, and his fine hair, freshly dried, swayed gently in the breeze. The closer she drew, the more a cool, clean fragrance carried from between those strands and reached her.

Or perhaps she was imagining it, bewitched by that blue color. Having soaked in hot water, even the soft breeze drifting across the western bridge felt refreshing.

“Going to get rained on.”

Terion Iligen murmured, still looking up at the sky.

“But you said earlier that you cannot leave the castle? Why?”

She had been approaching to say a quick goodbye and leave, but he spoke to her out of nowhere, and she could not tell when he had noticed her coming. The moment passed, and she missed her chance.

“Princesses cannot leave the castle.”

At Pamona’s answer, Terion Iligen tilted his head as though the words made no sense to him.

“Cannot leave. When?”

“When? Not at any particular time, just always……”

“Pardon?”

“Pardon?”

His eyes went wide, the look of someone who had just heard something they could not believe. That bewildered reaction startled Pamona in turn.

“What do you mean?”

“…… What part?”

Neither answered; they only kept asking.

“That you have always been unable to leave. So you mean, you can never leave the castle? At any time?”

“Yes.”

“…… No. No. So, since when? How long have you been unable to leave?”

“……”

“…… You mean you have never left in your entire life?”

“Yes.”

“Not a single step?”

“Not a single step.”

“The princes too?”

“Only the princesses.”

“Only the princesses.”

“Yes.”

“Only the princesses. But the princes can go out.”

“Yes, that is right.”

Terion Iligen felt something beyond simple surprise. It was only natural that his reaction startled Pamona in turn. That a princess must remain within the castle was a matter of course, a rule no one questioned, yet his reaction seemed to say that this was not a matter of course at all.

“Why?”

Why?

He looked, in a fleeting way, like someone angry, or like someone utterly at a loss. She thought, is it really something to be that shocked about, and yet, at the same time, a thrill ran through her chest. She had finally met someone who agreed with what she had always thought was strange.

Why? As though I had never asked myself that question. She had asked it more times than she could count.

“What reason did they give?”

A reason?

“They must have given some reason for keeping you from going out.”

The gaze that stayed fixed on her, pressing her for an answer quickly, reminded her of her younger self. Terion Iligen had shifted into a slight lean, arms folded across his chest.

Pamona’s heart beat with a kind of excitement, the way it might for someone who had finally found something they had long been searching for. A question she had asked countless times had finally been asked by someone other than herself.

“Are you…… curious about that reason, Terion?”

The loneliness she had not even known she was carrying seemed to ease back a step, knowing that someone other than herself shared the same thought. She felt a warmth at that, and at the same time, a hollow laugh rose in her at the realization that it was now her turn to repeat that absurd answer.

“Yes, I am curious.”

Why would a guest ask a question no one else had ever asked?

“Is Ilion different?”

Perhaps in some other world I do not know, different things are happening. Perhaps not every princess in the world lives the way I do.

For a moment she felt her breath catch slightly, but before she even heard Terion Iligen’s answer, her breathing returned to its usual pace.

What would it matter to me, even if such a world existed?

Things she could want but never have only made her more despondent. That had been true for a long time.

“Hmm…… I am sorry, Pamona, but that is difficult to answer. It is not that I do not want to tell you. It is Ilion’s rule. I cannot let it out to the outside.”

Terion Iligen was genuinely at a loss. The apology showed plainly on his face. But Pamona did not find it particularly strange. The fact that nothing about Ilion had ever become properly known over all these years was only possible because Ilion had kept such strict control. That much was clear.

She could always wait for Heil to come back someday and ask her then. And the fact that he was asking the question at all was already something of an answer in itself.

“You want an answer from me while offering nothing in return?”

“I am sorry. Anything other than talk of Ilion, I will do anything.”

He seemed to want to convey a genuine apology, and he made no effort to hide the troubled look on his face. Seeing Terion Iligen like that, Pamona felt the urge to tease him. Even though she ought not to treat a guest that way.

“Anything, you say?”

“Put it on my tab.”

His eyes, full of distress, wavered, and he looked utterly helpless and guileless, like a lost deer. Pamona laughed.

“I am joking, Terion. I already said I would help you.”

“Even so. Put it on the tab.”

His eyes curved along with her laughter, just slightly, but the apologetic look remained, careful and sincere. He did not need to be that sorry.

“Thank you. For being curious about it.”

He looked at her with a puzzled expression. The unexpected words seemed to catch him off guard, and she could see a slight stiffness settle at the corners of his mouth.

“No one ever thought it was strange. I was always the only one who thought something was wrong……”

Pamona forced a smile so as not to look pitiful.

“Since you were kind enough to ask, I will gladly share the answer I found over the course of my short life.”

“Put two on the tab.”

Pamona gave a small laugh at his joke.

“I will let that one go, so let us call it one. You know that lake from earlier.”

“Yes.”

The answer Pamona had was not one that could meet his expectations, but she could only tell him what she knew.

“I am still water in a lake, Terion. I do not know why I must stay within the royal castle. I was simply born there. Already long stagnant, to remain stagnant still. Whoever it was at the beginning must have known the reason. But there is no need to explain it to the lake.”

The sun dropped below the horizon. The sky, which had held a gray heaviness all day, waited until the sun had fully set before bursting into bright flame, pouring out its red.

“The reasons why princesses must live confined within the castle…… there have been many. Many people gave me answers…… but, well. None of them sounded like reasons worth believing.”