“Do you think the Grand Duke is upset with me?”

“Huh? Why would you think that?”

“Because I went out on my own yesterday.”

“Oh, come on. No way!”

Emma waved her hands as if to dismiss the notion entirely. The idea of Grand Duke Eustace being angry with Lila was so absurd that even a passing dog would laugh at it.

“I told you earlier, didn’t I? He’s just busy with meetings.”

“Do you think so?”

“Of course! I mean…”

Emma’s words trailed off as her gaze shifted to the raindrops tapping against the window.

“Emma?”

Lila tilted her head, puzzled by Emma’s sudden silence.

“…Maybe it’s because of the rain,” Emma murmured in a low, subdued voice, her expression clouding over.

“The rain? Does the Grand Duke dislike rain?”

“Ah!”

Realizing she had spoken out loud, Emma hurriedly covered her mouth with her hand. A retainer was never supposed to reveal their lord’s vulnerabilities or weaknesses.

“Well… I can’t give you details, but yes, he dislikes it,” Emma mumbled awkwardly, avoiding Lila’s gaze.

“I see,” Lila muttered weakly. While she had learned something new about Grand Duke Eustace, it didn’t make her feel any better. Instead, she felt guilty for making him come all the way to Eastern Street in the rain yesterday to find her.

“He got soaked in the rain because of me yesterday…”

“Lady Lila…”

Emma was flustered and unsure of what to do as Lila became visibly more dejected.

“…Oh, I know!”

As if struck by inspiration, Emma let out a soft exclamation.

“If it bothers you that much, why don’t you go see him yourself?”

“Go to the Grand Duke?”

“Yes!”

Emma raised her voice cheerfully, trying to encourage Lila.

“If His Grace doesn’t have time to come here, then you can go to him instead!”

“But would that be okay? He’s busy—what if I disturb him?”

Lila hesitated, unable to make up her mind. Grand Duke Eustace was in a meeting, so much so that he had skipped breakfast. She didn’t want to interrupt him, especially now that she knew how much he disliked rain.

“By now, the meeting should be wrapping up. Why don’t you give it a try?”

Unlike Lila’s reluctance, Emma was eager and full of determination. She even came up with a plausible excuse for Lila.

“Besides, you still need him to adjust your eye color, don’t you? You can use that as a reason to visit!”

“Now that you mention it…”

At Emma’s words, Lila glanced at her reflection in the window. Grand Duke Eustace had been changing the color of her eyes every morning and evening. Since he hadn’t visited that morning, Lila’s eyes were still black.

“I’ll go see the Duke,” Lila declared, standing up abruptly as if solidifying her resolve. Once she made up her mind, she felt an urgent need to see him right away.

“You’ve made the right decision!” Emma beamed with joy, as though this were her own matter.

“Thank you, Emma.”

Lila expressed her gratitude to Emma for encouraging her and quickly dashed out of the room.

“His Grace should be in his office!” Emma called out loudly to Lila, who was already running off. Lila simply raised a hand in acknowledgment as she disappeared down the hallway.

***

“…What do you think? What’s your opinion?”

“It seems your suspicions are likely correct,” Anseir replied with a grim expression. He had suspected that the Grand Duke’s urgent summons that morning wouldn’t be for good news, but the situation was far more severe than he had anticipated.

“How could something like this…” Huon, standing beside Anseir, muttered with a look of despair. The others in the room were no different. Both Elvin and Evan, present in the office, looked equally stricken.

“It’s not certain yet,” Grand Duke Eustace said, sighing heavily at the oppressive atmosphere in the room.

“There’s only circumstantial evidence. We have no proof.”

At the Grand Duke’s words, Anseir nodded. Yet no one in the room seemed to truly doubt the grim possibility.

The Emperor might be a dark sorcerer.

When Grand Duke Eustace first spoke the words, Anseir had thought he’d misheard. It was that shocking.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Last night, we captured one of the Emperor’s shadows alive.”

“What?”

“He claimed that the Emperor secretly brought someone versed in ancient sorcery to the palace last year.”

“That can’t be…”

“And yesterday, during my private meeting with the Emperor, I saw it for a brief moment—his magic glowed red.”

“Good heavens.”

Every word out of the Grand Duke’s mouth was more shocking than the last. If it had been anyone other than his liege saying these things, Anseir might have accused them of lying on the spot.

“You really saw his magic turn red?” Huon asked again, as if she still couldn’t believe it. While she had firmly argued that Lila might have been affected by dark magic, the idea that the Emperor himself was a dark sorcerer was too much to accept. Using dark magic and being a dark sorcerer were worlds apart.

“I’m certain,” Duke Eustace affirmed without hesitation.

“I saw it clearly with my own eyes.”

He had seen the Emperor’s body momentarily radiate dark crimson magic, reacting to his own power.

“The Emperor’s magic is no longer golden.”

The Emperor may have tried desperately to conceal it, but there was no hiding it from Duke Eustace.

“It was as dark and red as blood.”

“Good heavens,” Anseir and Huon both sighed in unison at the confirmation.

“If only I’d managed to capture it on a recording crystal,” Grand Duke Eustace lamented, clicking his tongue in frustration.

“How much has he consumed?”

The magic of a dark sorcerer grows by consuming human flesh and blood. That’s why the power of dark sorcerers is always a dark crimson hue.

After the treaty banning dark magic was enacted, the Tower of Magic had been able to hunt down hidden dark sorcerers precisely because of their unmistakable crimson power.

“Filthy bastard.”

Just recalling it brought a wave of unpleasant sensations, and she couldn’t help but curse. The strange unease she had felt until now, the inexplicable sense of incongruity—it all made sense when she considered the possibility that the Emperor was a dark sorcerer.

“You all know that using dark magic and being a dark sorcerer are entirely different matters,” Grand Duke Eustace said, and everyone nodded in agreement.

Not all magic can be neatly divided into black and white. Although dark sorcerers had disappeared, remnants of their magic still lingered. Among those remnants were spells like Huon’s deadly technique, which, though classified as dark magic in nature, were allowed under extremely limited and exceptional circumstances.

If the Emperor had merely used dark magic, there might have been a way to navigate around it.

But being a dark sorcerer was a different matter entirely. If it was revealed that the Emperor had truly become a dark sorcerer, he would immediately be targeted for elimination by the Tower of Magic and declared a public enemy of the continent. The Esteban Empire itself would inevitably suffer collateral damage.

“When on earth did it start…” Huon murmured in shock, feeling utterly stunned. The more she thought about it, the more absurd it seemed. If the Emperor had already been a dark sorcerer when he drained Lila of her magic, it meant they had unknowingly served the continent’s greatest enemy as their Emperor for nearly twenty years.

“It’s likely that he became a dark sorcerer only recently. As recently as a few years ago, his magic was still intact,” Grand Duke Eustace said, easing Huon’s concerns.

When one practices dark magic, their natural magical color fades and eventually turns crimson-black. However, as of two years ago, the Emperor’s magic was still golden, just like Eustace’s.

“He must have been secretly studying it for some time, but I believe he became a full-fledged dark sorcerer last year,” the Grand Duke speculated based on information he had obtained from Mau.

“That’s also when I started sensing something off about him.”

“I see,” Huon nodded, uncertain whether this should be considered fortunate or unfortunate.

“What should we do now?”

Evan, who had been silent until now, finally spoke. His face was unusually tense, more rigid than usual.

“We start over from the beginning,” the Grand Duke replied.

“From the beginning?”

“We need to uncover why Lila’s magic disappeared in the first place.”

Grand Duke Eustace suspected that the Emperor’s dalliance with dark magic had begun around the time he drained Lila’s magic.

“We need irrefutable evidence that the Emperor cannot deny.”

“Do you think we can find it?”

Anseir voiced his doubts. Over the past several years, he had conducted thorough investigations into the Empress and Lila, but to no avail. The overly cautious Emperor had purged everyone connected to the deposed Empress and destroyed all evidence.

“Let’s stay optimistic. We’ve captured one of the Emperor’s informants—a shadow,” Eustace said.

“Can we trust that shadow?”