Adelaide’s mind was a tangle of thoughts as she climbed into the carriage. The dense scars covering the Crown Prince’s body. The retching that had begun the moment her bare hand touched him.

‘Things have come to this point, so if the Crown Prince has any sense, he won’t summon me again.’

Adelaide decided to think positively.

‘But why didn’t the curse activate when the Crown Prince was sick?’

The curse unfailingly manipulated Adelaide into meddling whenever the person before her was in pain, suffering, or despair.

No one vomits happily. Even if you enjoyed a delicious meal with pleasure, bringing it all back up is an ordeal.

‘It seems like a fairly complicated curse. I can’t figure out the criteria.’

Adelaide turned the problem over in her mind all the way back to the Berthier estate, but in the end she couldn’t arrive at any satisfying answer.

“My lady!”

Lionel was standing there when she stepped out of the carriage. The evening glow had flushed his face red.

“I fell! I scraped my knee!”

Lionel rolled up his trouser leg to show the wound. Adelaide reached out a hand to steady him as he limped. Lionel took it happily.

“It hurts, my lady.”

Watching Lionel beam and smile even as he said it hurt, Adelaide formed a hypothesis. Perhaps the condition for the curse to activate was the desire for help.

“You come to me and show me your scrape, and it heals on its own?”

“It seems to hurt less when you look at it, my lady.”

“Don’t whine over a little scratch like this, Lionel. Next thing I know, you’ll be hurting yourself on purpose just to come running to me.”

Lionel, who had deliberately gone limp and let himself tumble to the ground in a situation where he could easily have stayed on his feet, quietly avoided Adelaide’s gaze.

Adelaide made a show of glancing at the scrape, which was barely more than a faint mark, and stood up.

The wound wasn’t serious enough to warrant sitting down to treat it or tying a handkerchief around it.

“What is the Crown Prince like?”

Noticing that Adelaide seemed to be in low spirits, Lionel quickly changed the subject. Since he kept on limping, Adelaide couldn’t shake him off and had to support him all the way inside.

“His Highness is His Highness.”

“Amy said the Crown Prince is incredibly handsome. Do you think so too, my lady?”

Cyril was handsome. Lionel, perhaps because he was still young, had a delicate, androgynous appeal, whereas Cyril carried the unmistakable air of a grown man and the imperious bearing of royalty, the kind that drew admiration without effort.

“Passing judgment out loud on someone else’s looks, whether they’re handsome or not, is ill-bred behavior, Lionel. What exactly are you learning in your etiquette lessons?”

“I’m sorry. I only meant…”

“Never mind. I’m tired today and I don’t have the energy to listen to your nonsense. Amy.”

Amy, who had been following behind, hurried over.

“Even if the Duke starts in again about a warm family dinner or how a proper family ought to share a table, don’t come and get me. I’m going to my room to bathe and sleep, so have the bathwater ready.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Amy had noticed since Adelaide stepped out of the carriage that she was not in the best of moods.

Lionel bit his lip and looked away as Amy quickened her pace without adding a word.

“I won’t bother you any further either. Please rest well, my lady.”

“All right.”

Lionel finally caught on at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor. Adelaide was left alone and climbed the stairs slowly, one hand on the railing.

‘If the condition I’ve identified for the curse to activate is correct.’

Then it meant Cyril had not genuinely wanted Adelaide’s help. And at the same time.

‘It means that little imp Lionel has been playing me for a fool all along.’

Adelaide spent the whole night racking her brain over how best to deal with Lionel, and her sleep suffered for it.

‘D*mn it. I’m going to keel over from stress and sleep deprivation at the bright young age of seventeen.’

The morning star still hung in the sky when Adelaide, having already finished her bath, lay down early, but sleep would not come. It was Lionel’s fault for being so infuriating.

“How dare he play me.”

“Pardon? Play you?”

Amy, who had been curled up asleep beneath the bed, startled awake along with her.

“Why are you coming out from there? I told you there’s nothing to attend to at night, so go sleep in the adjoining room!”

Hair disheveled and eyes barely open, Amy gave a drowsy smile.

“How could I sleep comfortably in my room and leave you here alone, my lady?”

“Why couldn’t you! You can! Stop whining about your back all day tomorrow and go to the adjoining room!”

“My lady, how did you know my back would hurt…”

Amy’s rose-tinted view of Adelaide held firm even half-asleep. Adelaide ruffled her own hair in frustration and climbed out of bed. She shoved Amy’s back, ignoring her protests, and pushed her through the small door.

“My lady! You can’t do this! Please open the door!”

“I’ll open it at sunrise, so stay put in there and get some proper sleep!”

From inside the room came something along the lines of “Our dear sweet lady, honestly…” and then, in under five minutes, thunderous snoring came rolling through the gap under the door.

Adelaide flopped face-down and pressed a pillow over her ears. Sleep had long since fled, and she had skipped dinner so her stomach was empty, but the mental stress had killed her appetite.

“I need to break the curse. I can’t let that little imp Lionel keep me dancing in the palm of his hand.”

Draco’s tail struck the cage in its sleep, sending a loud clatter through the room. Adelaide lifted the cloth draped over the cage slightly, worried the baby dragon had woken.

Fortunately, despite the racket, Draco was fast asleep, blissfully unaware of the world, even puffing out tiny flames.

“How adorable. You’re adorable when you’re awake, so what am I supposed to do when you’re even adorable asleep.”

Adelaide satisfied her itching urge to pet Draco by silently smacking the wall instead.

“Phew. Seeing something cute makes me go a little feral without meaning to.”

Whether the midnight wall-smacking jolted her sluggish brain cells into action, a promising thought surfaced.

“Violet. Violet said her cousin is a mage at the Mage Tower.”

Mages were precious talents the empire held in high regard.

It was also nearly the only profession where equal treatment was guaranteed regardless of background, provided one had the talent. In exchange for compensation beyond what ordinary people could imagine, they were subject to equally strict surveillance and control.

Every mage, from the moment their magic manifested, had to leave their family and spend the rest of their life in the Mage Tower.

There they conducted research at the empire’s request, and if war broke out, they fulfilled their duties on the front lines.

“It’s not easy to meet a mage who lives in the Mage Tower, even if they’re family.”

The fact that Violet had been able to send letters was probably because she was the daughter of Count Armetia.

Count Armetia owned a vast mine, and word had gotten out that buried within it was an undisclosed resource more precious than any ore. Count Armetia had offered the mine for research purposes in service of the empire’s prosperity.

“Violet said it’s been a long time since she’s even managed to send a letter, let alone see her.”

Adelaide kicked at her blanket furiously.

“Kyuu?”

“Draco.”

Draco, who hadn’t stirred even when Adelaide raised her voice, snapped its eyes open at the flapping sound. The noise Adelaide made kicking the blanket was similar to the sound of pigeons taking flight, which happened to be Draco’s favorite meal.

“I woke you up, didn’t I? There’s no pigeon. That was just me making noise.”

“Kyuu kyuu!”

Draco didn’t believe Adelaide and spread its small wings, demanding to be let out of the cage. Since the adorable Draco was already awake, Adelaide decided she might as well shower it with all the affection she pleased and opened the cage door.

“Kyuu!”

The moment the cage door swung open, Draco launched itself into the air, but Adelaide snatched it and pulled it into her arms.

“Kku, kkuk!”

“Oh, you precious thing. Who told you to be this cute, hmm? Our pretty Draco, the most adorable dragon in the whole world, isn’t that right? Who else could possibly be this cute? No one! Our Draco is the cutest little thing!”

“Kyuu, kku, kyu, kyuu…”

Draco let out pitiful cries as it was being squeezed. Adelaide only released it when Draco was on the verge of losing consciousness. The thoroughly rattled dragon shot up to the ceiling, well out of Adelaide’s reach.

“I’ll have to at least ask Violet about it.”

Refreshed by her time with Draco, Adelaide collapsed into sleep. The baby dragon circled the ceiling a few times before quietly burrowing into the gap under Adelaide’s arm.

Its owner did strange things sometimes, but even so, the baby dragon loved the first person it had ever laid eyes on after being born, the one it had imprinted on.

Regardless of Adelaide’s low spirits, another new day dawned.

“My lady, Lady Vivian has sent another invitation.”

Amy carefully held out the invitation to Adelaide, who was in the middle of washing her face.

“Has she not heard the rumor that I hold a burning ceremony with these every morning?”

“She may have heard, because this time she’s sent…”

Adelaide’s expression curdled at the sight of a stack of invitations that clearly numbered over twenty.

“Revolting. Why has she suddenly become so fixated on me?”

“Well, it seems she heard that you have a dragon, my lady. It says she absolutely hopes you’ll bring the dragon along to her birthday banquet.”

“Draco?”

Draco came zipping over at the sound of its name. It kept licking Adelaide’s cheek after she finished washing her face, and Amy had to go fetch fresh washing water.

“Wouldn’t it be good to start setting some boundaries? You dote on it so much that it thinks the whole estate is its playground and causes trouble every day.”

“Babies do things like that. Children always grow up causing trouble. Isn’t that right, Draco?”