So he was careful, instinctively.

“Is, is this Queen Fabienne?”

Parnelli could not bring himself to address her as Lady Blanc and kept the honorific, treading carefully.

Fabienne curved her eyes gently and gestured for him to sit.

“Director, thank you for accepting this rather sudden invitation. The journey must have been quite taxing.”

“Th, the carriage moved on its own, so I was fine.”

She had practically abducted him and was calling it an ‘invitation,’ and Parnelli could only blink, struck dumb.

Fabienne studied him with a measured gaze and offered the customary pleasantries.

What a shame she had not had the opportunity to socialize with the distinguished director who led the artistic trends of the Kingdom of Arvel, how was the Count of Radonel keeping, and so on.

Then she moved to the point with a hint of impatience.

“The reason I asked you here is that I learned you have been visiting 1 Meymond Street quite frequently. It happens to be a house the crown prince visits almost daily. I found myself curious about what connection might exist there.”

The cold, probing look in her eyes made Parnelli blink.

Then, belatedly, he realized the 1 Meymond Street she was referring to was Riley’s house, and let out a small ‘oh.’

Watching his reaction, Fabienne’s expression shifted, and she asked directly.

“Can you tell me what is going on between the woman who lives there, yourself, and the crown prince? What is the connection between you all?”

The commanding tone made the timid Parnelli swallow hard.

He still did not fully understand why he had been brought here, but he sensed he had been caught up in the unfinished war between the crown prince and the former queen.

But I can just tell the truth about what I know.

Lacking the cleverness to evade this kind of interrogation, Parnelli began talking at length about everything he knew, hoping not to get crushed between two great forces.

As he talked, he found himself wanting to boast that the crown prince might soon be marrying his daughter.

He also hoped that Queen Fabienne might perhaps mediate between him and Riley, who kept refusing to acknowledge him as her father. She had lost her power, but her vast fortune seemed to keep her covert influence quietly intact.

And the Blanc family might yet rise again, or so people said.

He spoke to Fabienne almost pleadingly.

“You ask what proof I have that Riley is my daughter? One look at her face will tell you. She looks exactly like me. No one could deny it. But if that is not enough, please look at this.”

His thoughts had drifted entirely to proving their connection, and he reached into his jacket’s inner pocket and produced something.

“This is a postcard she sent me when she was sixteen. She drew her mother on it and sent it to me. I treasure it so much I carry it in my wallet everywhere.”

He held out the postcard Riley had sent him, the first and last she ever would, with all the pride of a doting father.

“Look, Your Highness. She inherited my talent, and she has a gift for drawing too. At the time I was more startled than proud, it was so unexpected…… but I have always carried it with me, as something my daughter drew…… Of course, this is a secret from the Count of Radonel…… because it has her mother drawn on it.”

“……”

Fabienne was no longer listening to Parnelli’s oblivious chatter. Her gaze was locked intensely on the postcard he had held out.

The delicate pen illustration of a young, gentle-looking woman was strangely familiar.

She tilted her head, then realized it was not the subject of the drawing but the style itself that she recognized, and her eyes flew open.

This is……!

This was the very illustration style she had been searching for with burning eyes.

At first, she had been the one to use that illustrator to attack Crown Prince Andrea, and now somehow the same illustrator was being turned against her to expose Henry. That damned artist.

Without that piercing illustration style, Henry’s misdeeds would never have stirred this much uproar.

The thought that she had finally found the thread made her whole body shiver. Her teeth ground together.

How many informants had she sent out trying to track down this one illustrator?

And now she had stumbled onto the clue from the most unexpected place.

Daring to publicly humiliate her son, blood of the Blanc family and the Aurelion royal house, in a newspaper read by every subject in the kingdom, commoners included?

Rage boiled inside her, but Fabienne drew on her cultivated composure and forced it down.

So 1 Meymond Street was the illustrator’s home, and the crown prince was constantly coming and going from it……

Just as she had suspected. The crown prince was behind all of it.

Then the illustrator must also be employed by the Daily Minerve, whose headquarters remained impossible to locate.

Her informants had reported that a few covert guards seemed to be stationed around the small house on Meymond Street, making close observation difficult. Getting too near or lingering too long risked getting caught themselves.

So she had ordered them to investigate everyone who came and went instead, and before long this arts director had been brought in.

Fabienne’s complexion shifted between white and pale as her thoughts raced, but Parnelli, oblivious, kept talking without any sense of what he should and should not say.

“His Highness the Crown Prince and my daughter Riley are, in truth, quite close to being lovers.”

He stroked his own cheek with a self-conscious air and continued.

“I expect there will be happy news before the year is out, so I intend to establish myself as a proper background for the girl beforehand. The persuasion, however…… has not been easy. Which is why I wondered, Your Highness…… forgive my impertinence, but might you happen to know a good way to handle this? I humbly seek your wisdom and insight.”

Fabienne watched Parnelli with a strange look in her eyes as he complained while quietly boasting about himself.

Her thoughts were entirely elsewhere.

So the illustrator and Andrea are lovers on top of everything else?

Everything was clear now.

She had been taking blow after blow with no way to fight back, but the point of counterattack had finally come into focus.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

A short while later, Fabienne sent the endlessly chattering Parnelli on his way and called her informant into her room.

“Keep 1 Meymond Street under constant watch. If that proves too difficult, abduct whoever comes and goes. A grocer will do. A maid will do.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The informant answered with ‘my lady’ and vanished. Fabienne stared at the empty space he left behind with cold, sharp eyes.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

“Pardon……?”

Riley blinked, wondering if she had misheard. But one look at Nina’s calm, composed expression as she sipped her tea told her she had not.

Riley asked carefully.

“……You think I should quit…… What do you mean by that?”

Nina repeated her thoughts without any wavering in her eyes.

“Yes. This is my personal opinion, but the Daily Minerve is heading in the wrong direction. From the very beginning, we fought against distorted reporting. The Minerve’s only weapon was objective coverage and the exposure of truth. But lately we have been far too focused on mocking public figures.”

The words hit Riley like a pang of guilt, and she lost her voice.

She could not deny that political cartoons and satirical editorials had taken root as a full-fledged genre in the Minerve precisely since her illustrations began to appear.

Nina held Riley’s gaze with a subtly reproachful look and continued calmly.

“Of course, political cartoons and satirical illustrations were effective for keeping the anti-royalist nobles in line, but they have gone a bit too far. The second prince is, whatever anyone may say, of the Aurelion bloodline. With Queen Fabienne already removed from power, pushing Prince Henry further will only intensify the backlash from the old power faction.”

“……”

Riley swallowed.

Her heart was beating for no good reason, and a creeping guilt had taken hold of her, making her feel like a child being called out and scolded by a teacher.

“And it seems His Highness the Crown Prince intends to maintain this strategy solely for your pride and sense of achievement, but if that continues, the Minerve itself will not last long. It may face an enormous counterattack before too long.”

For a moment Riley felt as though she had been struck.

She had only ever thought she was being helpful. It had never occurred to her that Andrea might be deliberately holding to this strategy for the sake of her pride and sense of achievement.

Nor had she thought that the arrows of retaliation would come flying back at Andrea and the Minerve like a boomerang. She had been too naive, in a word. Or, put less kindly, a little self-centered.

Nina kept her gaze fixed on the dazed Riley and continued.

“The exposé articles and opinion pieces I write based on facts are fine. The problem is that Miss Riley’s illustrations carry too strong a satirical edge.”

Riley managed, barely, to concede.

“……Yes…… I see.”

Her mouth had gone dry, but her thoughts kept moving.

She’s saying we’ll make deep enemies……

Regret came crashing in like a storm.

Right. Exposing Prince Henry’s weaknesses in front of the whole kingdom and making sport of them was too much. Royal blood or not……

And to think that the newspaper she had come to love so dearly might one day be caught in a brutal political storm.