Annabella stared at Cedric, at a loss for words. Faced up close with his powerful build, the masculine line of his jaw, his deep-set eyes and the clean bridge of his nose, she forgot entirely what she had been meaning to say.

“I find myself wondering what became of the young lady who used to tie notes to stones and throw them.”

“That was… there was no other way at the time…”

“Was it a matter of method?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Annabella blinked slowly.

“I rather enjoyed it — I was finding it quite lonely that no stones had been coming my way lately.”

Before Annabella could manage a reply, Cedric raised a small whistle, no bigger than a finger, that hung around his neck and blew into it.

A sharp whistle of wind cut through the air — and before long, a great black falcon appeared —

— circled him once and landed squarely on his outstretched arm.

“This is better than a stone, I’d think.”

Fwump — the black falcon spread its great wings wide, as though agreeing.

It was her first time seeing a falcon this close. Even with both arms stretched out, Annabella felt she could not match the span of those wings.

“Are you afraid of birds?”

Noticing Annabella had gone slightly rigid, Cedric swept his arm upward and the black falcon returned to the sky.

“I trained this one myself. As you can see, he keeps his talons sheathed when perching on a person.”

Cedric rolled up his sleeve to expose his bare forearm by way of demonstration. At that, Annabella found herself looking anywhere but at his arm.

“Here.”

He reached into his pocket and held something out.

“Take it.”

Annabella extended her hand, wondering what it could be. Cedric placed in it a small whistle — identical to the one hanging around his neck.

“Blow this and the falcon will come to you anytime. You could tie a note to his leg. Rather more convenient than throwing stones, wouldn’t you say?”

Cedric kept bringing up their first meeting, and embarrassment crept across Annabella’s face. She had shown him her unguarded, impulsive side without any idea they would come to know each other like this — and now he was going to tease her about it endlessly.

“I’m well aware you enjoy being roguish — but I think that’s quite enough teasing.”

“Teasing? I’m merely stating facts.”

“I’ve enjoyed watching your swordsmanship. I’ll be taking my leave now.”

An unbidden feeling of reluctance rose in Cedric before he could stop it. There was no reason for it — and yet why did it always feel this way, dissatisfying and faintly forlorn, whenever this woman said she was leaving?

“When you find yourself dreadfully bored, blow the whistle. This fellow is a clever bird — he even knows how to knock.”

That great bird, knocking — it was difficult to picture.

“Then I’ll be on my way.”

Annabella gave a light curtsy to cut the conversation short and turned away. But the moment she did, there was nothing she could do about the heat rising in her cheeks.

She disappeared back down the narrow path.

“A shame.”

The words slipped out of Cedric, left alone.

“…Not that there’s any particular reason for it to be.”

Cedric had yet to understand what it was he was feeling. And yet his heart had already swung wide open toward Annabella — and was growing impatient besides.

“Your Highness — has the young lady gone?”

Rohan appeared from behind him, and Cedric gave a nod.

“Ah. Yes.”

“By the way — where is the whistle you were going to give me earlier?”

“That is…”

The whistle he had pressed into Annabella’s hand on a whim — it had originally been meant for Rohan.

“I forgot. I thought I had it, but it seems not.”

Cedric told the lie with perfect ease.

“I’ll have to remember to bring one when we return to the North.”

“Yes.”

Cedric, feeling inexplicably sheepish, turned and headed briskly into the detached palace. Rohan followed, none the wiser that anything was amiss. They were, in every sense, a pair of thoroughly oblivious men.

***

Annabella returned to her chambers, but Cedric’s swordsmanship still drifted before her eyes. She hadn’t known until now that a sword could look so beautiful — and so powerful.

It drew an involuntary comparison to Alexis, who recoiled at the sight of even a small blade, and she found it rather amusing.

‘Indeed — no wonder he carries himself as the rightful owner of the throne.’

The difference in caliber between Alexis and Cedric was unmistakably clear. The memory surfaced of scratching Alexis’s face with nothing more than a hairpin in her past life. He had made such a scene over a wound from a mere hairpin — she couldn’t help but wonder what expression he would wear facing Cedric’s sword. She wanted dearly to see it.

“My lady, you have another engagement with Her Majesty the Queen tomorrow — you should get some rest.”

Annabella, lost in her wandering thoughts, came back to herself at Hilda’s words and nodded.

“Yes, I will.”

She changed into her nightgown and lay down, and Hilda tucked the blanket around her with quiet care before slipping out of the room. But left alone, sleep was the last thing that came — her thoughts kept chasing one after another.

‘If the usurpation had never happened…’

Annabella’s fiancé had been the Crown Prince of the Empire. Without the usurpation, Cedric would have been the rightful Crown Prince. What if he had been her fiancé instead? Something stirred — whether curiosity or something more, she couldn’t quite tell.

“They say there are no ‘what ifs’ in history — but my fate might have turned out differently.”

Cedric teased her about their first meeting, but beyond that, he had shown himself to be a gentleman. He had even helped her on more than one occasion. She had expressed her gratitude, but every time they happened to cross paths, her cheeks kept flushing and she found it difficult to say what she meant properly.

“Perhaps I really should have tied a note to a stone and thrown it.”

Thinking of how he kept teasing her, she almost wanted to tie a letter of thanks to a stone and hurl it at him.

“No. If I did that, he’d never let me hear the end of it.”

Annabella shook her head and tried again to sleep. But every time she closed her eyes, his fl*id swordsmanship floated up before her and sleep simply would not come.

“…Giving me a strange whistle, of all things.”

She muttered softly and drew the whistle from her pocket. It was too simple a shape to call it much of a whistle — and yet that wretched curiosity of hers stirred again.

“If I blow this, will that bird from earlier really come?”

Annabella deliberated for a moment, then raised the whistle to her lips and gave a short blow. But nothing happened.

“Well… it’s nighttime, and it’s raining, so…”

Just then, something tapped lightly against the windowpane. At first she thought it was the rain —

— but when it came at regular intervals, Annabella had no choice but to sit up in bed.

She followed the sound to the window, and there was the great falcon from earlier, tapping the glass with its talon — tap, tap.

“Goodness.”

At first the enormous falcon had startled her, but the sight of it standing on one foot and knocking so politely was rather gentlemanly, and not nearly as frightening as before.

“It actually came…”

Tap, tap.

The bird looked at Annabella and knocked again, as though insisting. Outside, a sudden shower had begun to fall. The sight of the bird knocking in the rain made her feel sorry for it, and she had no choice but to open the window. The falcon swept gracefully inside and landed lightly on the table.

“Surely it hasn’t come to deliver something?”

The bird seemed to refute her murmuring by lifting one leg. Tied to it was a letter.

“…Goodness.”

Annabella repeated the same words and carefully untied the letter from the falcon’s leg.

To the young lady of insatiable curiosity.

Cedric had known she would blow the whistle. She felt rather outmaneuvered — but there was no undoing it now.

If you are reading this, it means you blew the whistle and called the falcon.

Frustrating — but true.

The bird seemed to frighten you earlier, given its size — but he takes after his owner and is quite the gentleman, so there is no need to be afraid.

The bird was certainly gentlemanly. Whether the same could be said of its owner was another matter.

Tie anything you like to his ankle and it will reach me far more accurately than any stone — why not give it a try?

Cedric’s handwriting carried the same quality as his swordsmanship earlier — sharp, but flowing with effortless ease.

To the owner of the bird.

Annabella wrote the first line, hesitated briefly, then moved her hand again.

Your bird takes after its owner and keeps pressing me so insistently that I write this reply simply because I have no other way to send it away.

This was not written out of any desire to write it — but out of the pressure the bird was putting on her. She found herself drawn to this peculiar bird, and Cedric’s face rose before her with vivid clarity — but regardless, this was how it had to be framed.

Also — a gentleman does not bring up old matters to tease a lady.

Having written that much, she found it difficult to continue.

“Well — why not.”

Annabella signed the letter at the bottom and looked at the falcon. It extended its leg toward her as if to say hurry up and tie it on. She hesitated and hesitated, finding even that oddly pressuring, but had no choice in the end — she tied the letter on in a somewhat awkward fashion and let out a breath.

“There… now please, will you go?”

Whether it understood her words or not — the falcon fluttered its wings and moved to the window. Annabella went over and opened it again, and the bird flew off without a backward glance.