I looked back at Cho without flinching. Cho let out a long sigh, then opened the jewelry box sitting on the table and took out a ring.
“I’ll take my retainer up front.”
She had it down to a routine by now.
“Yes. Please take good care of it.”
“I’ll look into it, but don’t expect much. If it does go to auction, are you planning to take part? It’ll cost quite a bit.”
I wanted to buy it before the auction even started — an auction brought too many variables. Still, if it came to that, I’d take part.
“That much is nothing to worry about.”
I smiled and saw Cho off. She shook her head and vanished in an instant.
I stared at the spot where she’d disappeared for a moment, then turned my attention back to the documents.
One word kept catching my eye.
“Phoenix Bank, is it.”
The name of the bank holding Twilight Manor as collateral looked familiar.
Let’s start from there.
Julia was resting in the sunlight.
The balcony of the Queen’s palace, bordering the most beautiful garden in the royal grounds, was a spot Julia loved dearly.
“Your Majesty, Count Kolkos has come to see you.”
A crack ran through Julia’s expression at having her sweet rest disturbed.
Lena, maid to Her Majesty the Queen, bowed low. A teacup came flying over her head.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. I’ll tell him to leave at once.”
Julia, of sensitive temperament, loathed having her rest hours disturbed above all else. Lena knew it well, and still she’d had no choice but to report it.
A few days earlier, Julia had given the order that she be told without fail the moment Count Kolkos appeared.
But telling her that now wouldn’t have changed Julia’s reaction in the least.
If anything, she’d only be scolded harder for talking back.
Lena’s bow, forehead nearly touching her own thighs, would not straighten for a while yet.
“Tell him to wait in the parlor.”
Julia stretched out long and languidly, her face gone mild again, as if she had never thrown a teacup at all.
Lena withdrew, still bent at the waist.
Julia rose slowly. At a flick of her hand, the maids who had been clinging to the walls like cicadas on an old tree swarmed forward all at once.
“Let’s get ready to receive a guest.”
Dozens of hands moved in perfect unison.
Even with so many hands at work, Julia’s preparations took a long time.
Julia never wore so much as a single small accessory carelessly, and so dozens of earrings were put on and taken off in turn.
By the time she finally finished, dressed in all her finery, and left her bedchamber, a full two hours had passed since Lena had first delivered the news.
“Your Majesty, you’re as beautiful as ever today.”
The moment Julia appeared in the parlor, Count Kolkos rubbed his hands together and poured out flattery.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“Not at all, Your Majesty.”
Count Kolkos, who had in fact waited two full hours, only smiled.
Anderson, Julia’s advisor and secretary, let the corner of his mouth lift in a faint smirk.
Julia put on a false smile and began the conversation.
“It’s been a while, Count Kolkos. I’d begun to think you’d forgotten me entirely, you’ve stayed away from the Queen’s palace for so long.”
Count Kolkos, who had until recently come to pay his respects without fail, had been noticeably absent these past few days. He bowed his head as if about to strike it against the table.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. Family matters have grown tangled…”
The way he let his words trail off carried an unmistakable plea for help. Julia’s cheek twitched. Count Kolkos, thoroughly tense, swallowed.
“Has some difficulty arisen in House Irenber? Oh, dear. Misfortune striking House Irenber, a pillar of this kingdom. What’s happened, Count Kolkos?”
Reassured by her gentle tone, Count Kolkos poured out everything that had happened.
“The matter of appointing a guardian keeps being put off, day after day.”
Tsk. Julia clicked her tongue and stopped her hand just as it was reaching for her teacup. In an instant, the air around her turned icy.
Count Kolkos had lived long enough to know better, and yet he was still afraid of Julia, a full ten years his junior. Whenever she looked at him with that cold expression, he felt, absurdly, as though he’d been stabbed by a blade.
Seeing Count Kolkos’s spineless manner, irritation surged up from deep within Julia.
House Irenber is nothing but trouble to the very end.
Julia had worked for a long time to bring House Irenber under her control. It had never been easy.
The late head of House Irenber had been so unbendingly upright that neither gifts nor threats had ever won him over to Julia’s side.
If it had been some trifling house, or one with an easy substitute, Julia would have simply ignored it — but Irenber was a house even the Queen herself couldn’t afford to dismiss.
If Irenber alone stood on her side, her goals would come so much more easily within reach.
Getting House Irenber into her hands meant she could hand Dayson a throne that was stable and unshakable.
And yet Irenber had refused to budge an inch. Julia had had no choice but to keep the foolish, greedy Count Kolkos close at her side. He was, after all, of Irenber blood.
And now that the former head of House Irenber had died, and she’d thought she might finally get her hands on the house, Count Kolkos’s handling of things was proving thoroughly unsatisfactory.
What’s so difficult about talking one young niece around?
Julia’s eyebrow rose slightly, and Count Kolkos drew in a sharp breath.
Trying not to show his fear, Count Kolkos stroked his arm and explained the situation.
“My young niece has taken a sudden, stubborn turn, Your Majesty. The matter will ultimately be settled in a house council, but as you know, appointing a guardian absolutely requires the agreement of both guardian and ward, so…”
Growing tired of Count Kolkos’s rambling excuses, Julia raised a hand to cut him off.
“Didn’t you say your niece was thirteen?”
“That’s correct.”
“You disturbed my time because you couldn’t manage one little girl?”
Count Kolkos, at a loss for words, let his eyes dart about.
“How much more help do you expect of me?”
“Your Majesty…”
“I brought you to the capital, when you were content to manage some backwater fief. I lent you my support when you said you wanted to make something of yourself in your house.”
Count Kolkos’s eyes trembled. For a brief instant, guilt flickered across his face.
“Is that all? I even cleared the way around you so you could be made guardian.”
Every word out of her mouth sent a chill down the back of Count Kolkos’s neck. He recalled, in vivid detail, the methods Julia had used to tighten her grip on House Irenber.
And naturally, his body trembled at the memory of her cruelty, her viciousness, her meticulous care.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. I, I have simply fallen so short…”
“Good, as long as you know it. Now that you’ve realized your shortcomings, go back and work harder. Trying harder alone won’t be enough, mind you. As you well know, I have no shortage of people who could replace you.”
Count Kolkos’s face went white. The word “replace” didn’t simply mean losing his role.
For a man who knew part of Julia’s secrets, being replaced meant—
Death.
Count Kolkos drew in a great breath.
The effort Julia had poured into obtaining House Irenber had been truly immense.
Dealing with Count Kolkos was only one part of that effort.
She had put in the work, and now she ought to be reaping the fruit of it, but the people meant to bring her that fruit were proving utterly useless.
Can he not even think to move on his own?
Then she would simply have to force him to move.
“Did you come here only to whine?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
Count Kolkos had, in fact, meant to whine and beg for help, but Julia showed no sign of wanting to help him.
Whining for help would only earn him Julia’s displeasure. He needed to offer up something useful…
Count Kolkos grew increasingly anxious that Julia might simply leave as things stood.
I have to say something. I can’t let Her Majesty leave like this.
Perhaps because he was desperate enough, something a spy he’d recently planted in the Irenber mansion had told him surfaced at just the right moment.
“My niece, Your Majesty.”
“Yes. The clever niece you, past forty, still couldn’t manage to win over.”
Forcing himself to let Julia’s sarcasm slide past him, Count Kolkos leaned forward over the table.
“She’s been slipping in and out of the royal palace.”
“What?”
Julia’s eyebrows rose like twin peaks. For the first time since greeting her, she looked Count Kolkos straight in the eye.
“I’ve received no report of this.”
She was satisfied with nothing less than knowing the royal palace’s every move, down to how many times the King coughed. If there was one place such a woman paid no attention to—
“The Third Prince’s Palace?”
Julia looked at Kolkos as if to ask whether she’d guessed right.
“I don’t know that much, Your Majesty.”
Idiot. Julia said, her expression displeased.
“Very well, Count Kolkos. You may go now.”
“And the matter of the guardianship…”
“I’ll look into it once more.”
Only then did Count Kolkos smile and leave the parlor.
Once he was gone and the surroundings fell quiet, Anderson stepped close to Julia’s side.
“That girl — didn’t you say she was just an innocent little noblewoman?”
He meant Diana.
“So she was. Nothing unusual about her at all. An ordinary young lady who liked fairy-tale books and dresses.”
“And yet she’s putting off being assigned a guardian, and slipping into the royal palace in secret?”
Anderson silently bore Julia’s rebuke, her implication that he hadn’t looked into things properly.
“Look into it again. I think I’ll pay a visit to the Third Prince’s Palace myself.”
“…This is a place that reeks of death. It’s always been that way, hasn’t it. Your Highness has always been someone who summons death.”
What on earth is this?
I had come to Cassion’s palace to tell him how things stood with Twilight Manor, and the words drifting out into the corridor stopped me cold.
“On the day Your Highness was born, hundreds died of plague. Did you know that?”
There was no way I wouldn’t know. It had been the talk of the whole kingdom — that the prince born of a deposed queen had brought disaster with him.
“And you know, too, that everyone who ever formed a bond with Your Highness met some mysterious death?”
Had that really happened? That part I didn’t know.
“And yet here Your Highness is, the sole survivor, clinging to life in a luxurious palace.”
That part was wrong. Calling the palace Cassion lived in luxurious was something no one with working eyes could say.
Someone with poor eyesight has come to call, it seems.
Who, though?
Who would come all the way to Cassion’s palace just to torment him? A grown woman, no less. The only person who came to mind was Julia.
But at this point in time, Julia had no interest in Cassion at all. To Julia, Cassion was nothing more than a weed growing by the roadside.
Someone not even worth a speck of attention.
But that voice really does sound like Julia.
Half in disbelief, I crept toward the door. Through the gap left by the half-open door, I peered inside.
I saw the back of a woman accompanied by a maid. Her clothes were lavish, her hair piled up high!
That really is Julia! Why on earth is she here, out of nowhere?
Cassion stood before her, trembling. He endured Julia’s harsh words with a face that looked ready to faint at any moment.
“I hear a sweet little lady has been coming and going, Your Highness. Do you intend to get a girl with such a bright future ahead of her — an Irenber, no less — killed too?”
