After a brief silence, her voice rang out all the clearer.

“I told you it was not me. Are you still suspecting me?”

“Finding evidence does not change anything. Not unless you find decisive proof, like the culprit who set up that magic circle, or a magical tool with residual magical power.”

“Of course. I would expect nothing less.”

A sarcastic remark slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.

He must have already known that she had been running herself ragged day and night chasing down clues. And yet he had simply watched in silence, as though testing her. The thought of it made her blood boil.

Luna gritted her teeth for a moment, then lifted her head sharply as though something had just come to her.

“Wait. A magical tool… is there something like a magical power detector? Something that can read the traces left behind by magical power.”

Caesar gave a short answer.

“There is something that tracks the trail left by magical power.”

The Travata Empire, once called the Empire of Magic.

There had been a time when anyone with talent, noble or common, could learn to wield magical power.

Magic cities flourished in the west, and at the center of the capital a rainbow-colored fountain made entirely of magic had been a breathtaking sight.

But voices of fear arose alongside it, and those who wielded that formidable power came to be treated as heretics and were persecuted, until by now the tradition had nearly died out entirely.

As the years passed, only the remnants of that former age remained.

The number of mages currently existing in the empire did not even reach ten.

Some of them belonged to the imperial household, while others lived in seclusion under imperial supervision, or else devoted themselves entirely to serving the empire.

Luna brightened at Caesar’s words confirming that a magical detection tool from the days of the heretic persecutions actually existed, and spoke to him.

“Then please get me that tool. This time I will truly prove my innocence.”

“It will take about two or three days. It requires the Emperor’s approval.”

The only way for Luna to break through this situation was to use the magical tool he would bring and examine her bedroom door handle.

There was no physical trace left on the door handle, but with that tool, something that could serve as a clue might yet be found.

Feeling hope stir inside her again, Luna answered him with eyes alight.

“All right. I will wait.”

It seemed the saying that sincerity in any endeavor will be rewarded was not wrong after all.

Even the faintest possibility was enough to bring Luna quiet relief.

“If it turns out I am not the culprit… what will you do then?”

“Let me think. Should I throw a celebration party?”

A celebration party. Luna was momentarily lost for words. After all that suspicion and pressure, that was not something he had any right to say.

Whether he had caught that expression or not, Caesar added in a teasing tone.

“I would have been rather sorry to lose such an excellent partner with a talent for performance, after all.”

Honestly, where did he get off saying something like that after pushing her so hard.

There were limits to giving someone grief and then turning around to offer comfort.

Luna’s inner thoughts showed plainly on her face. Out of keeping with the situation, Caesar looked at her and suppressed a smile with some effort.

She stood there with her lips pushed out in a pout, her face full of grievance, and he added one more thing.

“Ah, and one more thing. Our physical compatibility turned out to be better than expected as well. I suppose I would have been a little sorry about that too.”

“What did you say?”

Luna’s face flushed red in an instant.

She did her best to ignore the heat burning in her cheeks, which she could feel herself, and pushed the words out.

“A-anyway. I will make absolutely certain to prove I am not the culprit. You had better be ready to apologize.”

“I too hope you clear your name as soon as possible.”

At that, Luna said nothing more and marched out of his office with a needlessly spirited stride, still bristling.

After she left, inside the office.

Caesar continued signing the approval documents without much thought, a faint smile resting at the corner of his mouth.

She was a woman who never gave him a dull moment, no matter when he saw her. Even as the suspicion that she might be a spy crossed his mind, there was also, on the other hand, a clear desire for that not to be the case.

It felt as though the suspicion had been deliberately arranged to point toward her. The circumstances surrounding the situation were, in that sense, not quite smooth.

As though someone had engineered it all on purpose.

‘Just… what would it take for you to believe me?’

‘I told you it was not me. Are you still suspecting me?’

Caesar recalled the expression on her face, raw with indignation.

The look she had shown just now in the office, and the look in her eyes when she had raised her voice at the party, had been much the same.

He had been swept up in his own emotions then and had pushed her hard, but she too had been someone who wore her feelings openly.

Every piece of circumstantial evidence still pointed at her, and yet his own instincts kept telling him it was not her.

Caesar, deep in thought, rubbed at the space between his brows and gave a small shake of his head.

It was too early to draw any conclusions. All emotion had to be set aside.

Having finished signing the last document, Caesar closed it and set it aside, then leaned back deep into his chair and closed his eyes for a short while.

* * *

Two days later.

After her visit to Caesar’s office, Luna had been counting the days waiting for the magical tool he had mentioned to arrive.

The magic circle secretly installed in the study. And the circumstances pointing at her with suspicious neatness. All of it was clearly a trap someone had deliberately laid to pin the crime on her.

Caesar’s attitude still grated on her, of course, but right now she had to clear her name no matter what. And that was the only hope Luna had.

Inside the room where she was staying temporarily.

Luna sat at the console table by the window, taking a moment to breathe and enjoy a spot of tea.

As the season changed and the weather grew warmer, the ripened limes had taken on quite a fine flavor.

The moment she took a sip of lime tea, a sharp acidity that was enough to sweep away all her stress in one go touched the tip of her tongue. Lime tea had become one of Luna’s favorite drinks lately.

She drained the entire glass of cold lime tea.

“My lady, shall I prepare more tea?”

Setting down the glass, Luna looked absently around the room.

“No, it is all right. But whose room was this?”

“It was the room where the former Grand Duchess, that is, His Highness’s mother, stayed during her lifetime.”

Caesar’s father was already a well-known figure.

He had been the former Crown Prince, a man who had distinguished himself with his abilities from a young age, but had passed away early due to illness. After his death, the imperial throne had passed to his younger brother, who was now the current Emperor.

Because of that, the title of Grand Duke, the only one of its kind, had come to be inherited by Caesar alone, or so it was said.

But about his mother, strangely little was known.

No wonder it felt like a noblewoman’s room. So it had been the former Grand Duchess’s room.

Finding that somehow fresh, Luna looked slowly around the room.

The delicately arranged furniture and decorations, the things that had been fashionable among young noblewomen in their childhood, were all woven into this space.

Judging by her taste, she must have been a woman of considerable discernment.

A flicker of curiosity passed through Luna. She turned her gaze to Noah beside her and asked.

“His mother was still at an age where she should have been in good health… how did she come to pass away so young?”

“I am not entirely sure myself. Only that His Highness lost her in an accident when he was a child…”

“I see.”

The thought crossed her mind that perhaps his sense of loss, having once had something and then lost it, ran deeper than her own, having never had parents to begin with.

Luna found herself feeling a strange pang of sympathy for him.

He was taciturn, not particularly warm, and with that prickly temperament of his, he seemed to have no one close to him at all.

All surface and no substance.

Perhaps he had lived a far lonelier life than she had imagined. It made sense, in a way, that he always walked around with that furrowed brow and that edge of anger about him.

“My lady, it is time to head out.”

“Oh? Right.”

* * *

Inside a silent carriage.

The carriage carrying Caesar and Luna was on its way to a party hosted by a charitable organization.

Whatever the circumstances, as long as nothing had been decided, their contractual relationship remained in effect.

Whatever happened, Luna needed to stay in his good graces, and it was fair to say that her fate rested in his hands.

The impression she had just formed in the former Grand Duchess’s room was still with her, and she carefully brought it up.

“That room I am staying in temporarily. It is so beautifully old-fashioned that the years hardly seem to show. You could tell his mother had put a great deal of care into it.”

But at her words, Caesar’s face stiffened almost imperceptibly.

Not noticing that subtle change, Luna pressed on in an even brighter voice, as though trying to lighten the mood.

“When I was young, I desperately wanted a crystal candlestick and pestered my mother about it for an entire month. But in the end even she could not get one for me. Seeing something like that again after all this time, it felt like coming face to face with something I never got to have back then… and I found myself oddly glad to see it.”

Crystal candlesticks, crafted from expensive crystal and said to hold a flame that never went out, had once swept through noble society as a highly coveted and fashionable piece.

Of course it was Adelia’s story, but Luna spoke on naturally, as though lost in an old memory.

Caesar opened his mouth briefly, his expression cold.

“I would rather not speak of that.”