Even after they were gone, Blair stood rooted to the spot for a long moment.

“So…… it was about a wig?”

Embarrassment and deflation hit her at the same time. Why on earth they had come all the way into this maze of a garden just to have that conversation was beyond her.

Of course, the greater fault lay with her for jumping to conclusions and eavesdropping in the first place, but Kalintz’s insufferable attitude had left a sour taste in her mouth.

But why go so far as to put a wig on Sir Werner and have him pretend to be the prince?

Blair tilted her head in puzzlement for a moment, then shook it off. The prince was known for the occasional odd behavior, and this was probably just one of those things.

More importantly, it had nothing to do with her.

Blair put it out of her mind and headed back to the Great Hall.

❀❀❀

That had been well over half a year ago.

After that night, Blair had not exchanged a single word with Kalintz. Even when they happened to cross paths at official events, they never made eye contact, and neither paid the other any particular mind.

On top of that, her one and only goal since then had been to keep her head down, stay invisible for six months, and make it to the western annex. There had been no reason to get tangled up with him at all.

But why is he suddenly acting like this now. Surely he’s not doing this over something that happened half a year ago.

Even if he had wanted to pick a fight, he should have done it then. Saying nothing all this time and then behaving this way out of nowhere made no sense.

“Haah. I can’t figure this out.”

Blair exhaled a breath full of unease and frustration. She could only hope that all of this was nothing more than a passing whim, one of the prince’s eccentric episodes.

But unfortunately, Kalintz’s strange behavior did not end that day.

❀❀❀

Blair stared at the invitation sitting on her nightstand.

The gold-leafed card bore the seal of the prince’s palace, plain as day.

Apparently crashing the luncheon hadn’t been enough. Kalintz had sent around invitations expressing his wish to enjoy an evening banquet with the frons.

He never even bothered with a casual tea, so what’s all this about a banquet?

A bad feeling settled over her, and Blair sent word that a severe headache would prevent her from attending.

He was persistent. The moment she declined, Kalintz postponed the banquet, saying he wished to dine with all the frons together.

The next time, and the time after that. Blair kept making excuses about one ailment or another, and Kalintz postponed the banquet twice more, each time adding a note wishing her a speedy recovery.

By this point, Blair found his intentions deeply suspicious. His target was clearly her. The problem was that she had no idea what he actually wanted.

In the meantime, the situation had made it impossible to avoid a visit from Mediang, the royal physician.

On the verge of being exposed for faking illness, Blair had no choice but to drink milk that had been sitting out for days and make herself genuinely sick. It earned her a full two weeks bedridden, fighting through the ordeal.

Fortunately, her suffering seemed to have been worth something. The banquet was never brought up again. She had no idea why he had pushed so hard in the first place, but she was relieved that her approach had worked.

“He’s completely out of his mind……”

“Pardon?”

Lucia, her personal maid, looked up at Blair’s murmur.

“Lucia, do you happen to know anything about the prince?”

“Prince Kalintz? Hmm, what sort of thing do you mean?”

“You know, like…… whether he has some kind of mania. Or an unhealthy fixation on something.”

“What? No, I haven’t heard anything like that…… I have heard that he sometimes sneaks out of the palace without anyone knowing, but……”

Lucia trailed off, looking mildly bewildered.

“Haah…… I don’t know what to make of any of this.”

Blair sighed heavily. Lucia narrowed her eyes and leaned in with a whisper.

“I may not know the details, but one thing is clear. The prince has taken an interest in you, Miss.”

“What? An interest?”

“Yes. Why else would he postpone the banquet so many times just to wait for you? There’s already a rumor spreading all over the palace.”

“A, a rumor? What rumor?”

Blair asked, alarmed.

“That the prince has set his heart on you, Miss.”

Lucia spoke in a low, meaningful voice, looking quietly pleased with herself.

“And if you were to become the next princess consort…… eeek! What would we do!”

She let out a small, high-pitched squeal and fussed with barely contained excitement.

Blair, however, had gone pale at the word princess consort, looking as though she had just lost everything.

Princess consort? Princess consort? No. No, absolutely not.

Things kept drifting in directions she had never anticipated, and her mind was in full eruption. The repeated string of inexplicable events had worn her patience to nothing, and frustration and irritation surged up together.

Part of her wanted to march straight to Kalintz and grab him by the collar and demand to know what he thought he was doing.

“Haah…… if I actually did that, getting expelled from the palace would be the least of my problems.”

“Pardon? What would?”

Lucia blinked at Blair’s out-of-nowhere remark.

“Nothing, never mind. I’m going out for some air.”

Staying cooped up in her room any longer felt like a genuine risk of doing something reckless, so Blair changed into her riding clothes and headed for the stables.

“Hey, Fitz. Have you been well?”

The brown horse grazing quietly lifted its large eyes to look at her as she approached.

Whenever the walls of the palace closed in on her, Blair would climb onto Fitz’s back and gallop across the meadow that led to the royal hunting grounds. It was the one time she found any real comfort within the palace.

“Shall we have a run? It’s been a while.”

Whether Fitz understood her or not, the horse snorted with enthusiasm and began pawing at the ground.

Blair mounted and cut across the fields in full spring bloom in one swift stretch. A breeze carrying the green scent of grass and new growth brushed her cheek.

“Haah. Now I feel like I can breathe again. You too, right?”

She ruffled Fitz’s mane playfully and leaned back against a willow tree.

She closed her eyes and listened to the wind for a while. Then, faintly in the distance, she heard the sound of hoofbeats.

From the direction of the hunting grounds. Strange. Hardly anyone comes this way.

Blair tilted her head and looked toward the wooded hunting grounds.

A black horse burst out from the entrance. Carrying on its back the very last person she wanted to see right now.

“……Hah.”

The moment she confirmed the rider was Kalintz, she darted behind a tree.

But Fitz kept blinking and tracking something’s movement, which made it clear enough that he was heading this way.

“What a rare sight to find out here, Miss Blair.”

A smooth voice came from the other side of the tree. With nowhere left to hide, Blair stepped out from behind it.

“I pay my respects, Your Highness.”

She offered a bow with a practiced smile on her face. He was watching her with an expression she couldn’t read.

“You said you were ill, yet you look quite worn down.”

“…… Thanks to your concern, Your Highness.”

Yes, and whose fault is that.

On the first day Mediang had come to examine her, he had said it plainly. There had been a special directive from Prince Kalintz to examine her thoroughly.

Blair’s stomach turned, but she kept her composure and smiled politely.

“Ah. Here I was thinking Miss Blair might be pretending to be ill just to avoid me. I apologize for the misunderstanding.”

There was a barb in those words. His eyes and tone carried the unmistakable air of someone who knew everything, and Blair found herself momentarily speechless, lips pressing together and parting in silence.

“In any case, it seems you enjoy riding.”

His strange manner of speaking, hovering somewhere between formal and informal, between statement and question, grated on her nerves. But her nerves were irrelevant. He was the prince.

“Yes. It helps when I’m feeling stifled and unsettled.”

“That happens often, does it?”

“Not so often until now, but lately there have been a number of unexpected things happening.”

Blair bit down slightly and put some force behind her words. Her head was telling her to behave, but her mouth was already saying something to needle him.

Kalintz let out a short laugh. Not a scoff, not a sound of disbelief. A genuine laugh.

Blair had been half-worried she had gone too far with the sarcasm, and now she just stared at him, baffled.

“Ah, you really are interesting, Miss Blair.”

Kalintz said it with the smile still on his lips.

Interesting? This? What exactly is funny here?