Even the king, lost in the sweetness of his new marriage, ordered Prince Henry to confine himself to his quarters and commanded that the headquarters of the Daily Minerve be found.

But since Andrea himself was the one tasked with carrying out that order, all he had to do was pretend to look.

Either way, he had succeeded in cornering Fabienne’s only son, and Henry, unable to shed his reckless habits even under house arrest, kept creating new incidents that only helped Andrea’s cause.

Stories broke almost daily, of pr*stitutes being brought in, gambling dens being run, palace attendants being assaulted, and Riley was kept busy illustrating every chapter.

Behind all of it lay Andrea’s calculation to wipe out every trace of Fabienne’s line.

“But is it really necessary to attach illustrations to each of these chapters and drag down the royal family’s own authority? However you look at it, Prince Henry is still of the Aurelion bloodline.”

Nina spoke with a note of dissatisfaction, but the rest of the team was not as invested in the matter as she was.

“He needs to be crushed thoroughly while he has the chance.”

“To me it feels like…… he’s undermining royal authority just to give Miss Riley something to do. This is not a sound strategy.”

As Nina’s complaints continued, Edwin called her name quietly.

“Nina.”

“Yes?”

“You shouldn’t expect too much from His Highness.”

“……”

“Your loyalty as a subject will be repaid more than generously. But don’t want more than that from him, Nina.”

Nina was momentarily speechless.

Edwin added one more thing in the same even tone.

“And there’s truth in what you’re saying, but honestly, isn’t it that you just don’t like Miss Riley being involved?”

The question Edwin tossed out while leisurely turning the pages of a newspaper cut straight through Nina.

She flinched, but she did not back down.

“If His Highness crosses a line, don’t we have an obligation to correct him?”

Edwin scratched his forehead, sensing that those words themselves had crossed a line.

Did Nina believe she could control Andrea with her pen too?

Edwin himself had felt, this time around, that Andrea was toying with Henry for his own amusement. But even so, the truth was that Andrea would not take kindly to anyone trying to control him.

Edwin had no choice but to warn Nina once more.

“Don’t you see? To His Highness, this isn’t politics right now. It’s entertainment. And the one who can speak up when entertainment goes too far isn’t a loyal subject. It’s a wife. Do you understand?”

Nina’s expression stiffened at those words.

It felt like a needle had been pushed straight into the desire and jealousy buried deepest inside her.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Queen Fabienne was confined far from the capital, in a villa the Blanc family had long owned.

Even so, she had never let go of her intelligence network, which was possible because the Blanc family’s private assets had not been confiscated.

She sent bribed informants to the capital in a steady stream to gather the latest news, and was in the midst of devising a strategy for Prince Henry.

She believed that even having lost her status and honor, as long as she held onto her wealth and endured, there would be a way to rise again someday.

But reading through the recent newspapers, an unbearable fury rose in her.

Her pale knuckles tightened.

“Hah…… look at this.”

Fabienne bit down hard on her red lips.

The gaze she turned on the Daily Minerve in particular carried something close to murderous intent.

The illustrations printed there featured her only son, the child she would do anything for.

Henry, dead drunk at his own birthday banquet with his arms around ladies. Henry, overturning a gambling table in disgrace. Henry, surrounded by undressed pr*stitutes……

She turned the pages one by one, feeling as though cold water had been poured over her from head to toe.

The raw illustrations and the article that mocked Henry’s behavior in a tone of unrelenting ridicule were cruel in their thoroughness.

Flames rose in Fabienne’s eyes.

Seeing her son’s shameful failings in print was one thing. Seeing them in pictures was something else entirely.

And to draw her son as the very symbol of depravity and stupidity with such needlessly precise detail!

Reports had come in that the impact was enormous, reaching even commoners who could not read.

At this rate, Henry’s disgrace would be burned into the minds of every subject in the kingdom, and even if Andrea were brought down later, Henry might never get his chance.

Blood welled from the lower lip Fabienne had been biting.

The king had protected Henry only because there were just two heirs, but there was no telling what might come next.

If the current queen Esena were to bear a late child…… Henry would truly be left with nothing.

“Hah…… so this is how far you’ll go, Andrea.”

After handing his own betrothed over to his father to drive her out, he was still coming at her this viciously.

Grown thinner and sharper from her long confinement, Fabienne looked down at the newspaper in her hands again.

The needlessly skilled illustration style had captured Henry’s arrogance and his somehow vacant expression with uncomfortable accuracy.

“How dare they, to a member of the royal family……”

Fabienne felt a thorough, burning rage toward the illustrator who had dared to humiliate royalty in this way. It was obvious that Andrea was the ultimate hand behind it, but a mother’s instinct was to cut off the hand that had drawn this first.

Only then could she settle her fury and begin to think of other ways to stand against the crown prince.

“But this style…… I’ve seen it somewhere before……”

She had spent her life appreciating fine art, so there was no reason a crude pen illustration like this should feel familiar, and yet it did, strangely.

She tilted her head with a cold look in her eyes, but nothing came to her.

Just then, a shadow slipped quietly into the queen’s room.

It was one of the informants she had planted in the capital.

He happened to have brought something rather significant.

“The crown prince has been visiting a residence at 1 Meymond Street frequently of late. A woman lives there with a maid.”

“A woman?”

The thought that she had just caught hold of a thread to unravel the situation made something flicker in Fabienne’s eyes.

“Yes. And from time to time, the carriage of Royal Arts Institute director Parnelli Radonel is also seen parked in front of the house.”

“……The director of the Arts Institute……? The husband of the Count of Radonel?”

“Yes, without a doubt. There seemed to be someone keeping watch around the house, so I could not get close, but I followed the carriage and confirmed it was unmistakably Parnelli Radonel.”

A faint crack appeared in Fabienne’s smooth brow.

“……What is this? What are the three of them to each other…… Is the woman some popular new actress?”

It was not uncommon to see the absurd spectacle of several noble men competing over a popular actress.

“I attempted to investigate the woman, but her history is nowhere to be found. There is no record of any previous registered address, as though she appeared out of thin air. I looked into it with other information guilds as well, but someone appears to have scrubbed her identity clean in advance.”

Fabienne narrowed her eyes.

Her instincts told her that this woman was the key to breaking through her desperate situation.

She had fought so hard to find Andrea’s weakness, and yet everything around him had always been clean and flawless.

The rumors of his womanizing had been false, and there had been no one close to him to take hostage.

And now, of all times, she had come into possession of this.

Fabienne gave her next order without delay.

“Then bring Parnelli Radonel here.”

She placed a heavy bundle in the informant’s hand.

Satisfied by the clink of gold coins and the weight of it, the informant bowed deeply and withdrew.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

“I hear the director of the Arts Institute has been coming by often lately.”

“How did you know?”

Riley turned to ask, and at that moment a gust through the carriage window sent her newly bought hat flying.

“Oh no, my hat!”

She was about to ask the coachman to stop when Andrea cut in with a bored tone.

“Leave it. I’ll buy you a new one.”

“But……!”

Riley watched helplessly as the hat she had bought with her first paycheck from the Minerve rolled away along the ground.

Then, still watching, she saw a group of street children snatch it up.

“Oh…… that was the hat I bought with my first paycheck……”