“You know it very well.”

“I……”

Blair stepped closer to Lady Miller. The pallor spreading across her cheeks came into view.

“Siana Miller. Because you’re from Valia.”

Blair whispered it quietly close to her ear, and Lady Miller’s eyes went wider than Blair had ever seen them.

“Wh, what do you mean by that…… me, from Valia, I can’t imagine why you would think……”

She was losing her composure in a way that was entirely unlike her.

“Lady Miller. I’m going to ask you a few questions. You’ll need to answer honestly. If you want to live.”

At Blair’s low, flat voice, Lady Miller’s face went visibly rigid.

“The night of the masquerade, you disappeared partway through. Where were you?”

“……That night.”

Lady Miller bit down on her trembling lower lip once, then continued.

“I went to the powder room and lost track of Miss Tilda. There were so many people, and everyone was wearing masks……”

“Hmm. Is that so?”

Lady Miller gave a small nod at Blair’s hard expression.

“I was looking for you and Miss Tilda and ended up being careless and falling. That’s why I was so late. That’s all, Your Highness.”

“Ah, yes. You came back being helped by a guard. Because you had twisted your ‘ankle.'”

Blair’s gaze dropped to Lady Miller’s feet, and a faint, cold smile touched her lips.

Blair was more certain than anyone that the ankle hidden beneath the hem of the dress and the clumsy bandaging would be perfectly clean, without a single bruise.

“But Lady Miller.”

Blair stepped in close. She reached out and gripped Lady Miller’s left shoulder.

“Hff!”

A pained sound escaped her and Lady Miller’s face twisted in an instant.

“Why are you hurt here?”

“Th, that’s from hitting the railing when I fell on the stairs……”

“Then why did you say only your ankle was hurt? When even this light a grip makes you flinch?”

“……I didn’t want to cause Your Highness any worry……”

“Siana Miller.”

Blair’s voice dropped cold.

“It was you, wasn’t it. The one who slipped out of the palace that night.”

Lady Miller went rigid, frozen solid, and couldn’t make a sound.

“You disappeared under the pretense of using the powder room, dressed in men’s clothing, and slipped out through the garden. But I chased you partway. This injury is from the shoe I threw. Isn’t it?”

Blair pressed a little harder on the shoulder she was gripping, and a desperate sound slipped through Lady Miller’s teeth.

“If I’m right, you left the palace walls and went to the enclosures where the beasts prepared for the hunting grounds were kept. And you poured that substance into the feed. The one that mutates living creatures into horrifying monsters.”

“I…… I don’t know what you’re talking about, Your Highness.”

Lady Miller averted her gaze desperately as she spoke.

“I don’t know why you would think that, but I have never been near any boar enclosure, and I have never seen any such substance……!”

She was pressing her defense hard when she stopped abruptly. She seemed to realize her mistake, and Blair let out a quiet laugh.

“I never said anything about a boar enclosure.”

Lady Miller’s face drained white.

“I, I heard you mention it after the hunting competition. That His Highness the Prince had been attacked by a boar……”

“When? Officially, His Highness was said to have been caught in a cliff collapse. Tilda only heard the full details a short while ago. How did you know?”

Lady Miller’s mouth pressed shut. Her trembling jaw showed she had lost her composure long ago.

“The gamekeeper who was on duty that day said something interesting. That the suspicious figure made this gesture.”

Blair raised her fist to her lower lip and extended only her little finger.

“It means praying with the heart rather than the mouth. So it’s also used to mean ‘keep quiet and say nothing.'”

“……”

“I’ve only ever seen one person use this gesture. Siana Miller. You.”

On her very first day in Valia, Blair had seen it clearly. Lady Miller had made that gesture at a young page boy who was running and playing noisily near the royal temple.

Of course, in that moment, she had meant it in the literal sense of praying from the heart.

The wave of betrayal brought a bitter smile to Blair’s lips.

“Once I realized that, I remembered how much you know about Valia. You said it was because a distant relative lives here, but that’s not actually true, is it.”

Who would know the culture and customs of a country inside and out simply because of a distant relative living there?

The news about Ariela becoming a royal alchemist recently couldn’t have come from a distant relative either. As Kalintz had said, anyone close enough to exchange that kind of information was no distant relative.

“Siana Miller, you are Valian. And given that you slipped through the palace walls and made your way to the hunting grounds that night, you must be familiar with the layout of the royal grounds as well.”

Lady Miller had gone silent, seemingly having given up on denying it.

“That’s why Duke Brienne had you do it. To secretly feed that substance to the boar. Along with His Highness’s hair.”

For Lady Miller, who served as Blair’s own lady-in-waiting, obtaining a strand of Kalintz’s hair would have been nothing at all.

“And you still claim you don’t know what I’m talking about, Lady Miller?”

At the cold, restrained formality in Blair’s voice, Lady Miller, who had been staring at the ground, sank to her knees.

“I truly…… truly did not know.”

Lady Miller murmured, looking utterly hollow.

“I had no idea that potion would create such a horrifying monster…… I truly did not know it would push His Highness to the brink of death!”

Fat tears fell and hit the ground one after another.

“And yet you took his hair. You didn’t think for even a moment?”

“He told me it would only frighten him a little. I had no idea something this serious would happen……!”

“Who told you that?”

Blair cut her off sharply. Lady Miller hesitated briefly, then the name Blair had expected spilled from her lips.

“Duke Willer Brienne.”

“……Ha. Of course.”

The knowledge that the Duke’s tail was finally within reach sent a rush of exhilaration, fury, and betrayal crashing through Blair all at once.

Lady Miller sat crumpled on the ground, weeping quietly. No begging for her life, no struggle. It was a reaction entirely in keeping with who she was.

“Kill me.”

Lady Miller finally spoke after a long silence, her voice thoroughly cracked.

“I know I have no right to ask this of you…… but I do not want to die by Willer Brienne’s hand. Please……”

She couldn’t finish the sentence and bowed her head again. Her tightly clenched, trembling hands let something bleed through alongside the fear. Something that looked like anger.

Blair had a feeling she knew exactly who that anger was directed at.

“Lady Miller. Look up.”

At Blair’s quiet voice, Lady Miller slowly raised her head. The dried tear tracks streaked across her face left her looking nothing like her usual composed self.

“What if there were something other than death.”

“What do you mean……?”

Blair leaned down and whispered to Lady Miller, whose expression was full of bewilderment.

“Instead of Willer Brienne, you pledge your life to me.”

In that instant, a spark flashed through Lady Miller’s brown eyes, which had gone murky and dim.

❀❀❀

“I hear Ariela has gone out to track down the alchemist who made that potion using forbidden alchemy.”

Kalintz shook the water from his hair with his hand as he spoke. Thanks to the ointment Ariela had made herself, the wound on his abdomen had healed quickly, and a light shower was no longer a problem.

“She said you gave her an important lead. The royal alchemist’s insignia.”

The alchemist’s insignia Lady Miller had used to intimidate the gamekeeper. Blair had received it from Lady Miller and passed it on to Ariela.

“I’m very curious how you got that out of her.”

Kalintz poured wine with a faint golden tint into a glass as he spoke.

The clear smile that touched his lips as he took a sip made Blair feel, for a moment, that even the warm night air of Valia had been pushed back.

“Oh, I just talked it through well. That’s all.”

Blair had been momentarily dazed by Kalintz’s looks and fumbled out an answer. But Kalintz pressed the point anyway.

“You don’t have to make it so obvious, Blair.”

“What do you mean, obvious? I wasn’t being obvious about anything.”

“You like my face. Oh, and my body too, I suppose.”

He murmured it with a lazy curve of his eyes, and Blair’s face went red as she raised her voice.

“Honestly, no. Maybe at first, but I see your face every day. Why would I still—”

She did, though. Despite what she said, Kalintz’s face was the kind that made her heart flutter every single time, no matter how many times she saw it.