3. An Ominous Rumor

A strange atmosphere hung over the queen’s palace reception room. Nothing like the last time, when the Leaves of Tamira had been presented.

“Miss Blair.”

Queen Rhea set her teacup down with a sharp click and spoke.

“Do you know why I’ve called you here?”

Her grey-blue eyes had gone cold and still.

“……I believe it is regarding the rumors circulating within the palace about me, Your Highness.”

Blair swallowed and answered.

“Yes. Since you’ve already guessed, I’ll ask you plainly. Blair, is there any truth to the rumor. Did you use robetaine on Anais Brienne?”

“No, Your Highness. I would never do such a thing.”

The queen looked steadily into Blair’s eyes. Then she let out a quiet sigh.

“Haah. Looking at your eyes, I feel somewhat reassured. I wonder if Miss Olivia has simply gotten something wrong.”

“Oli…… via?”

The name sent a cold chill crawling up the back of her neck.

“She came to me last night and said something troubling. That someone had seen you slipping into that room on the night Miss Brienne fell ill.”

“Who could possibly say something so—that cannot be true, Your Highness.”

Of course it couldn’t. She had left the palace before sundown that day.

“Apparently her own maid saw it clearly. I told Miss Olivia several times that you would never do such a thing, but she was quite insistent.”

“……”

Blair clenched her jaw without letting it show.

After the confrontation at the riding competition, Olivia had gone suspiciously quiet. She hadn’t expected her to stoop to something this outrageous.

“Given the circumstances, I had no choice but to ask you directly. Blair, where were you on the evening Miss Anais Brienne fell ill?”

“I was……”

The moment she had been dreading had arrived. For the first time, Blair let her gaze drift slightly away from the queen’s.

“I was walking in the garden alone.”

That was her official account of her whereabouts. Whenever she slipped out to Lake Rafen, she always told Lucia she was going for a walk alone before leaving the palace.

“……A walk?”

The queen’s eyebrow went up immediately.

“I apologize for saying so, Your Highness. There are times when I find life in the palace rather stifling…… so I sometimes take walks alone or visit the library.”

“And you went alone that day as well.”

“Yes.”

“Without encountering anyone along the way?”

“……Yes.”

At that answer, the queen narrowed her eyes and looked at Blair.

Blair knew how her answer must sound, but there was nothing she could do.

She could hardly confess to sneaking out through a gap in the wall.

If it came out that a frons had left the palace grounds without permission, she would be stripped of her status and expelled. That much was certain.

The piercing gaze made her mouth go dry, but Blair forced herself to keep her expression steady.

“Blair.”

After studying her face in silence for a while, the queen spoke slowly.

“Is there something you cannot say.”

“……!”

Blair faltered for just a moment. The queen seemed to see straight through her.

“Since coming to this palace, I have lived through a great many things.”

A shadow of years past moved briefly through the queen’s eyes.

“All manner of political strife and scheming, and more bloodshed than I care to remember. It has given me something of an eye for people.”

Blair swallowed and looked at her.

“When you turned back without hesitation for Miss Tilda that day, I saw no pretense or falsehood in it.”

“……”

“The same is true now. I do not believe you would poison an innocent young lady for your own gain.”

The queen took a sip of her lukewarm tea and continued.

“But whether others will think the same, I cannot say. The king, in particular, will place weight on visible evidence and the testimony of witnesses.”

“His Majesty the King…… already knows.”

Something heavy settled in Blair’s chest.

“Duke of Brienne has been demanding that a formal inquiry be held. Given that he has lost his daughter, that reaction is understandable, but…… I am concerned.”

Blair flinched at the name of Duke Willer Brienne, the man said to have the royal family in the palm of his hand.

“Whether or not you are the one who killed Miss Anais, he will do everything in his power to bring you down. He is not the kind of man to stand by while someone else takes the princess consort position after losing his daughter.”

“But I haven’t been selected as princess consort……”

“You are the closest to that position. Surely you aren’t going to tell me you don’t know that, Miss Blair.”

She knew. She knew all too well how relentlessly the prince had pursued her these past weeks.

The attention had been intense enough to border on obsession, and rumors about Kalintz and herself had already spread throughout the palace.

“I don’t know what it is you cannot say, but without a witness who can account for your whereabouts that day…… tomorrow’s inquiry will be very difficult.”

“To, tomorrow?”

The timeline was far sooner than she had expected, and Blair asked with a startled expression.

“When dawn breaks tomorrow, you will be summoned to the central palace. Prepare yourself. You could lose your life if things go wrong.”

The queen looked at Blair steadily with a grave expression.

“I hope it does not come to that. I have no wish to see anyone else lost unjustly.”

The deep loneliness in her eyes made Blair speak up before she could stop herself.

“Please don’t worry, Your Highness. It won’t come to that.”

The queen seemed mildly surprised by the answer’s quiet confidence, but she smiled warmly and said.

“Then rest a while before you go. With all these rumors, you haven’t had a peaceful moment to sit and have tea.”

Blair bowed her head in gratitude for the queen’s consideration.

Left alone at last, she sank heavily onto the sofa in the empty reception room.

“……It won’t come to that, she says.”

King Rubens conducting the inquiry himself was bad enough. Duke of Brienne on top of it. The thought of someone that powerful moving against her made Blair sigh without meaning to.

This was no longer just an unpleasant rumor. It was, as the queen had said, a matter of her life.

But if she told the truth about her whereabouts that day, she would be expelled from the palace. That was equally certain.

And even if she did confess, the only person who could prove it was……

“Oh.”

There was one person. The only person who could verify her alibi.

The man she had met at the lake that day. The one who had been caught hiding behind a tree, spying on her, wearing a wig. The one who had been turning her thoughts upside down for days.

“Kalintz…… haah…… this is truly maddening.”

She was pulling at her hair and sighing hard enough to sink the floor when a familiar voice came out of nowhere.

“Now you’re just saying my name outright.”

“Eek!”

Blair let out a startled shriek at the voice.

“And maddening, no less. I had no idea I had such an effect on you.”

“I, I pay my respects to Your Highness the Prince.”

Blair leapt to her feet and bowed hastily toward Kalintz.

He was smiling at the corner of his mouth again, for whatever reason he always seemed to find amusing.

“What brings you here…… ah, Her Highness the Queen stepped out a little while ago.”

“I know.”

“Pardon?”

“I came to see you.”

“……Pardon?”

Kalintz watched her brow crease further and further and finally let out a short laugh.

“I always think this, but your expressions are genuinely entertaining, Miss Blair.”

What kind of manners are those, calling someone’s face entertaining.

Blair looked at him with an even more disgruntled expression.

“How did you know I was here.”

“I know more than you might think. Anything involving you, I tend to pay particular attention to.”

There he goes again. That face with that easy smile was already enough to rattle her nerves.

“……What did you come to see me about.”

“Ah. I thought you might be having quite a headache.”

Kalintz sat down on the sofa and crossed his long legs.

“Olivia Lorentz. I expected her to try something, but what she’s done is dirtier than I anticipated.”

“You’ve already heard.”

“I told you, I pay particular attention.”

He gave his characteristic easy smile and gestured for Blair to sit.

“Ha…… then you also know—”

“That I’m the only one who can prove your innocence?”

He pulled the corner of his mouth up with a smile.

He has one more card to play now. That’s what this is.

He looked not just pleased but downright relaxed about it, and Blair wanted very much to pinch his cheek.