Andrea turned to look at the man presenting himself with such smooth self-possession.

“Ah.”

There had been one man hovering earlier, visibly eager to approach while Andrea was surrounded by noble ladies. This was him.

The man bowed again to the crown prince, who was studying him with a curious expression.

“Your Highness, I am deeply sorry for not greeting you upon your arrival. I am the director of the Royal Arts Institute, Parnelli Radonel.”

Parnelli.

A well-known figure who, despite being nearly forty, was said to still turn the heads of countless noble ladies.

Up close, it was easy to see why.

Even to Andrea’s eye, the man was impressively tall, with blond hair swept back stylishly from the forehead, a fine brow, and ivory-white teeth.

Those pale violet eyes in particular, delicate and touched with a kind of melancholy that suited an artist, were the sort that would stir a woman’s heart.

Given that even young ladies had been charmed when this man first entered society, he was perhaps a genuine rival.

Of course, Andrea privately scoffed at the idea that anyone came close to matching him. But the rumor that ‘a commoner had risen this far on looks alone’ did make a certain kind of sense.

That was all.

“Your Highness?”

Andrea had stopped mid-motion, stamp of the royal seal hovering over the patronage certificate, and was simply staring at Parnelli’s face. Parnelli shifted uncomfortably and drew his attention back.

“Mm.”

Andrea withdrew his gaze unhurriedly, completed the final formality, and shook off his idle thoughts.

What did it matter. The man was of no particular interest.

How many people were trying to make an impression on Andrea as he consolidated real power at the center of politics?

Parnelli bowed politely and suggested they move to another room.

“Your Highness, once the banquet concludes, I will escort you to a private room where you may view the expansion plans and material samples for Eli Palace.”

Andrea nodded.

“Let’s see them now.”

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

A short while later, shown into a private reception room, Andrea looked over the wallpaper designs and exterior material samples Parnelli had brought and tapped his temple with one finger.

“Hmm……”

Watching him fail to reach a decision, Alfonso made an unexpected suggestion.

“For things like material designs, Raul might actually do quite well if you asked him to decide.”

The aide had come up with the idea to lighten the load for His Highness, who had the reputation of a fashionista but was in truth entirely uninterested in such things.

The fireplace lambris patterns, the gold leaf inlay designs for the ceiling, the pastel silk wallpapers.

These were matters the interior designer ought to handle, but final approval was still required, and the timid Parnelli had passed the decision upward.

“Raul?”

“Yes. He has a good eye for this sort of thing.”

“Hmm.”

Alfonso had a point. Everything the boy chose and arranged had always sat perfectly well with him.

In the end, Andrea decided to defer to Parnelli’s professional judgment on the overall design while consulting Raul on the specific color choices for the materials and patterns, then rose from his seat.

Realizing this meant he would be invited into Eli Palace at the next meeting, Parnelli’s expression brightened.

“The next appointment will be arranged and communicated to you.”

Parnelli rose as well and bowed respectfully.

“Yes, Your Highness. Once you designate a date, I will consult with Sir Edward the architect and attend together.”

Andrea turned to leave, then found himself looking directly at the man’s face, full of barely contained anticipation. Those pale violet eyes, touched with melancholy.

‘What is it?’

Something about it felt familiar.

But Parnelli blinked, and Andrea turned away, shaking off the odd feeling and quickening his pace.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

As the carriage rolled down the central road toward the palace, Alfonso remarked,

“How unusual, Your Highness. That was the most agreeably you have ever gone along with what someone else proposed, in all the meetings I have attended with you.”

It was a sight never seen in policy sessions or audiences with ministers, which was why he had felt compelled to say something.

The reason no one had ever managed to weaken the crown prince’s position, despite his reputation for indulgence, was precisely that he was meticulous in every regard.

Andrea dismantled the arguments of seasoned political veterans with logic and led everything himself. He had never once been pulled along by someone else’s opinion.

Yet when it came to expanding his own palace, he had simply nodded along like water finding its level, and even then, for the parts he could not decide, he had shown the uncharacteristic indecision of delegating to Raul.

Andrea raised an eyebrow slightly at Alfonso’s remark.

“I’m not an interior design expert.”

“Come now, the kingdom’s foremost fashionista?”

“That’s only because I’ve been wearing whatever that boy puts on me, and it somehow ended up like this, ah.”

Mid-sentence, Andrea frowned as something clicked.

“They look alike.”

He had felt a vague sense of familiarity looking at Parnelli, and now he realized it was because the man happened to share the same eye color as Raul.

No, actually, the overall impression was similar too.

The glossy blond curls, for one.

Though comparing the melancholy gaze of a brooding artist to that boy’s perpetually mischievous eyes was hardly a fair comparison.

Andrea found himself smiling faintly without meaning to and brushed a hand across his lips.

Come to think of it, the boy had looked exhausted this morning. What was he getting up to when Andrea was away?

A few days ago, he had found him curled up asleep on the long sofa in the dressing room, having apparently drifted off mid-task, and had to wake him and send him out.

The boy had been sleeping soundly, snoring softly, and Andrea had tickled his cheek to tease him. That small nose had twitched like a squirrel’s.

He was still smiling to himself at the memory of spending a good while tormenting Raul when the carriage passed through the palace gates.

He had not even reached Eli Palace yet and already felt the quiet urge to go bother the boy. That was proof enough that he had been using him to unwind from the day.

‘Am I the sort of person who picks on small, weak things?’

Hmm…… he had never been like that in the military.

Lost in his own pointless thoughts, he felt the carriage come to a stop at the entrance to Eli Palace.

Stepping out, Andrea thought to himself,

‘I should ease up a little. Or he’ll quit on me.’

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

At that very moment, however, Riley’s expression in the dressing room was dark as she tidied up and polished the jewelry and leather accessories with a dry cloth.

‘……I knew this day would come eventually……’

She had finally received an ultimatum from the magazine last week.

The demand had arrived at last: draw Captain Alain’s ‘that,’ his c*ck, in full, expl*cit detail.

‘Good grief, wasn’t showing his backside enough? Do they really need that…… part too?’

She had known from the start that this was a serial heading straight off the edge, and she had gotten involved anyway, but still……

If it went that far, it would surely be classified as obscene material and banned, wouldn’t it?

Riley was not entirely sure where the current legal line was drawn.

She only knew that the publishing industry in the Kingdom of Arvel operated under fairly lenient restrictions, and that various kinds of literature circulated freely in the market.

‘Even so……’

She had never once thought of herself as an artist.

And yet drawing that felt like crossing a final threshold, the point where even the thin title of writer or illustrator would be stripped away.

But almost immediately, Riley’s mind began constructing its justifications.

‘Right, what kind of standard is it anyway, that stopping at the backside counts as art but showing the front makes it obscene. This was always a dirty serial. I knew that going in.’

It was not as though she was drawing it unprompted and distributing it herself.

The women of Tennetcy were apparently all clamoring for Captain Alain to be fully revealed.

Anonymous letters had been pouring in by the hundreds, apparently……

In that case, showing everything was really just doing everyone a service……

Of course, all of that was still happening quietly in the shadows, and she never sensed any of it during her weekend outings from the palace.

The truth was that Riley still had very little grasp of what was happening in the outside world.

She had to take the publisher’s word for it.

And given that the publisher had remained untraceable all this time, presumably to evade censorship, there was no way the palace’s censorship office could track her down either.