“Then let’s go right away.”

“Really?”

Roina clutched her skirt, not knowing what to do, seemingly unable to believe that Elena would readily agree to her request despite not knowing her well.

“Do you know why I asked if we were meeting for the first time?”

Elena gently took her bewildered hand. Perhaps because she didn’t deviate from the character Elena knew, she liked her even more.

“Because I met you at the ball.”

Tears welled up in Roina’s eyes, as no one had treated her so kindly since she came to the capital.

“Thank you.”

Elena was also pleased that a connection had formed this way.

“Did you happen to greet His Highness the Crown Prince at the ball?”

She wondered if they might have been talking and ended up near the Crown Prince’s palace.

But Roina shook her head vigorously and waved her hands.

“How could someone like me greet such an important person? Just seeing the Crown Prince’s face that day was an honor.”

“Is that so? Oh, Roina. My skirt is fine, so please sit on the sofa.”

Elena urged Roina to sit again while organizing her tangled thoughts.

‘Even if they didn’t meet at the ball, they were destined to meet. The palace where the ball was held wasn’t close to the Crown Prince’s palace.’

“You went quite far from the hall.”

“I tried to make connections at the ball, but it wasn’t easy. I must have wandered far while feeling frustrated.”

Elena pretended to brush water droplets from her skirt as she looked away from Roina.

She strongly felt that Roina’s visit was due to her role in the destiny that would connect the two of them.

She didn’t care about herself, but one person immediately came to mind.

Her thoughts turned to Grand Duke Rudfelix, whom she had been with until this morning. Now she disliked the idea of him dying as a villain.

‘Now that I know he’s a wonderful man, it would be sad if he died so early.’

“Elena?”

“Huh? Oh, Roina.”

“You don’t look well.”

Concerned about Roina’s worry, Elena stroked her chin with the back of her hand.

“I’m just sleep-deprived. Wait here for a moment. I’ll change and come back.”

Before she could say more, Elena rose and went outside.

Though she hadn’t eaten, her chest felt tight as if she had indigestion.

She pressed and hit her chest, but the dull ache wouldn’t go away.

* * *

Roina hunched her shoulders at the high walls, the disciplined movements of the restrained soldiers, and their sharp vigilance as they surveyed the surroundings.

Covering her mouth, she quietly looked around, but her rabbit-like eyes were filled with fear.

“Can you tell me what the item is? Wouldn’t it be faster if we looked for it together?”

As soon as they entered the palace, Elena asked in a small voice what item had been lost, trying not to startle Roina.

“It’s a brooch. It was my grandmother’s keepsake that I always kept with me, but I attached it to my dress that day and lost it.”

Roina’s voice trembled with emotion as she explained the circumstances of losing the brooch.

“It’s the only item with memories of my grandmother, so I must find it.”

“We’re here to find it. Don’t be sad already.”

As tears began to form in Roina’s eyes, Elena tried to comfort her and knocked on the carriage wall.

‘I hope we find it before meeting the Crown Prince.’

Though she thought it unlikely to meet someone so difficult to arrange an appointment with by chance, she felt uneasy. If Roina’s coincidence with the Crown Prince became inevitable and their meetings overlapped, they might meet him today.

When the carriage stopped, Elena got out first and extended her hand to Roina.

“My carriage doesn’t have a separate step.”

As she would need to jump down slightly, Elena extended her hand in advance, and Roina expressed her gratitude with a small smile.

From a certain distance around the Crown Prince’s palace, carriages couldn’t be used without permission. Since they could walk around the area, Elena scanned the ground with a piercing gaze.

“What color is the brooch? Does it have any gems?”

“It has a purplish gem. It’s called amethyst, and it’s surrounded by gold decorations.”

That much information was enough to find it without difficulty.

Elena walked alongside Roina, searching for the brooch.

‘Please appear.’

That way, she could reassure Roina and go to work with a lighter heart.

Now they were less than three steps away from the Crown Prince’s palace. In other words, if they entered without the Crown Prince’s permission, they might be caught by a knight watching from somewhere and face immediate punishment.

While Elena slowed her steps, reluctant to approach closer, Roina was so focused on the brooch that she didn’t notice she had moved ahead of Elena.

“Roina, wait a moment.”

Elena, who happened to look up and spotted something, called out to Roina.

“Is it about two finger joints in size?”

“That’s right.”

Roina turned to Elena with delight, then followed her fixed gaze.

“My brooch.”

Discovering the sparkling brooch between decorative stones placed for landscaping, Roina couldn’t contain her joy and ran toward it.

“Roina, wait.”

The place where the brooch was located was inside the boundary classified as the Crown Prince’s territory. Having reached out to Roina too late, Elena couldn’t catch her as she ran off.

“I finally found it.”

Roina scurried to where her brooch was. She had to reach between the stones placed side by side, but it was close enough to grab the brooch.

Just as her fingertips touched the brooch—

“Huh?”

Someone picked it up.

“What’s this? And what is this little thief cat doing entering my territory without permission?”

Suharto’s sharp canines gleamed between his parted lips.

* * *

There was something Elena had forgotten.

The fact that the female protagonist created by the author was a very innocent young lady but equally naive about the ways of the world.

She lacked the thoroughness to check whether the place where her brooch had fallen was somewhere she could enter before happily rushing over to find it.

‘Well, does she even need to? She’s the beloved protagonist, so what does it matter what trouble she causes.’

Even if she entered a forbidden area, there would be plenty of people to save her, and strong ones would be right by her side.

‘But this isn’t right.’

This situation—trespassing into the Crown Prince’s territory before even sharing a spark of emotion with him and getting caught red-handed—was truly not ideal.

Sure enough, Roina froze with tension under Suharto’s intimidating presence.

She seemed to recognize the man standing before her. So she couldn’t take any action and was just pitifully rolling her eyes around.

“This is the Crown Prince’s palace. Anyone who enters without permission will have their head cut off immediately.”

“Hic.”

“So you have nothing to say even if you die?”

At the low rumbling warning, fear appeared in Roina’s eyes. She covered her mouth with both hands, trying to stop her hiccups.

‘You should say something.’

What will you do if you completely block your mouth?

“Should I call the commander of the guards?”

Suharto was threatening her while rolling the brooch in his hand. He was like a witch scaring a child.

‘This is taking a strange turn.’

That’s how it seemed to Elena. There was no subtle, tingling tension characteristic of a man and woman. If anything, it was more like a genuinely frightened rabbit and a tiger hiding its claws.

“I’m sorry.”

Roina squeezed out her voice with her eyes tightly shut.

“Is that all? You sneak in trying to steal something, and you think ‘sorry’ is enough?”

Suharto was acting leisurely, but in reality, he was looking for an opportunity to bare his claws at Roina. He had the look of someone who would tear her to pieces when she could no longer entertain him. Or perhaps he was using her as bait to catch bigger prey.

Elena didn’t like having to intervene in this situation, but she couldn’t wait and trust Roina.

“Your Highness.”

Elena deliberately raised her voice to divert his attention from Roina to herself.

“Finally stepping in, I see.”

As expected, Suharto had been waiting for Elena, who had come with Roina.

“This is Roina from the Cecil barony.”

First, she introduced which family Roina belonged to. Then, facing Suharto’s gaze that seemed to say ‘so what?’ with dignity, she walked forward.

“She’s not a thief cat, but Roina, as I just told you.”

“Even if she’s from a great bloodline, isn’t she the same as a thief cat if she enters without permission?”

“Roina didn’t enter Your Highness’s palace.”

Only the brooch did.

Elena answered with her actions by standing next to Roina. This was as far as one could come, she implied.

Suharto looked back and forth between where he stood and where Elena stood. One step. Elena had stopped exactly one step before entering his territory.

If Roina had taken one more step in, Elena wouldn’t have been able to speak like this.

“Perhaps I should have appeared a little later?”

“Thank you for appearing early.”

He brushed back his hair and laughed away his incredulous feelings.

“We came to find Roina’s belonging.”

“Is this the item?”

Suharto examined the brooch from various angles before smirking.

“A worthless thing.”

It was an expression he used particularly often, familiar yet uncomfortably jarring depending on the situation.

‘It would be worthless by his standards.’

He was completely different from someone who had been satisfied with receiving a towel yesterday. Realizing this made Elena slightly ashamed of her own disappointment with the towel.

“The degree of worthlessness varies from person to person. For Your Highness, it may be just an item picked up by chance with no emotional value, but for Roina, it’s a precious treasure.”

“Should I give it to you?”

Why are you asking me?

“Please give it to me!”