Thinking she’d said enough to make herself understood, Julia lifted her hand from Diana’s shoulder.
But Diana didn’t shrink back in the least.
“No need to worry about that. My eyesight happens to be excellent.”
The Queen had expected that further needling would gain her nothing, and had meant to drop the battle of nerves there, but Diana had no intention of letting it go yet.
The girl ignored the pressure to leave and stayed right where she was. Not only that — treating Julia as if she weren’t even in the room, she walked up to Cassion and asked him a question.
“Your Highness, did you hear about it?”
“Hear about what?”
Cassion tilted his head, bewildered at Diana suddenly striking up conversation out of nowhere.
“Phoenix Bank!”
“What about it?”
The topic that followed was just as out of nowhere, and Cassion’s brow furrowed. Diana raised her voice, as if wanting to be overheard.
“There’s a huge uproar at Phoenix Bank, apparently!”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Ugh, just listen quietly for once.
Diana was speaking to Cassion, but her words were aimed at Julia.
Phoenix Bank was a subject Julia couldn’t afford to ignore.
Phoenix Bank had some kind of arrangement with Julia.
“What do you mean by that?”
Sure enough, Her Majesty the Queen approached with a sour expression and asked Diana directly.
Diana put on an “oh, I shouldn’t have said that” look and murmured.
“Oh, I wasn’t supposed to mention this.”
“Lady Diana. I am the queen of this country. There’s nothing you can’t tell me. Go on, speak.”
Julia coaxed her. She expected that, as a member of House Irenber, even a child like Diana would be well informed.
“Then you have to be the only one who knows, Your Majesty. Because I’m telling you this in secret.”
Saying it with a playful wink was fitting for a girl her age. Julia thought that her impression of Diana had changed quite a lot in just this one conversation.
“They say Phoenix Bank is about to go under. People are lining up to withdraw their deposits.”
The corner of Julia’s smiling mouth trembled faintly. She gripped the fabric of her skirt tight.
“You certainly know a great deal, Lady. Wherever did you hear such a— oh my, is it really this late already? I think it’s best we save the rest of this conversation for another time. I’ll be going now.”
Feigning surprise at the hour and promising to continue another time, Julia straightened her back and turned away.
She’d kept up a calm front, but Diana, with her sharp hearing, could tell that the moment the door shut behind her, Julia had broken into a run.
“Hah — you, honestly!”
The moment Julia left, Cassion swayed on his feet. He braced himself against the desk and let out a deep sigh.
I’d gotten Julia out without a major fight. Relieved, I reached out a hand to support Cassion. But a thin arm came up and pushed me away.
The prickly-cat mode is back.
I understood — he must have been startled and shaken by Julia. Her venomous stare could make even a grown adult’s knees go weak. Just the fact that someone as frail as Cassion hadn’t collapsed in front of her was impressive enough.
“Sit down. No — lie down, Your Highness.”
Cassion drew in a deep breath and followed my words. I tried to help him again, and again he pushed me away.
He’s refused me twice now!
I have pride too, you know!
…But pride isn’t something you stand on with a sick person.
On top of that, his drooping shoulders looked exactly like a rain-soaked cat’s. And on top of that, the back of his head was round and adorable, which made everything worse.
Maybe I’d simply grown fond of him over these past few days, but his prickliness only struck me as cute now.
Despite his refusals, I kept helping him anyway. The third time I offered my hand, he didn’t push it away.
Having quietly accepted my help, Cassion lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
“Were you very shaken, Your Highness?”
“Of course I was shaken. Who wouldn’t be?”
I suppose that was fair — even I had flinched hearing Julia’s voice from the corridor, so how much worse must it have been for Cassion, hearing that venomous curse up close.
Still, I was glad she’d withdrawn quietly.
I’d half expected her to grill me relentlessly about why I’d come to the Third Prince’s Palace, and what exactly I knew about Phoenix Bank.
Good thing I pushed forward with the Phoenix Bank business first.
I remembered how unsettled Julia had looked, hearing that something was wrong with Phoenix Bank.
It was a shame I couldn’t land a real blow just yet, but it was the best I could manage for now.
If Phoenix Bank goes down, Julia takes a hit too.
Let’s focus on that.
Phoenix Bank was where Julia kept her secret funds managed. And that same Phoenix Bank was holding Twilight Manor as collateral.
Julia. Twilight Manor. Phoenix Bank.
Something smelled off. Very off.
“What are you thinking about?”
When I went quiet, Cassion asked, sulky.
“Hmm, I was thinking of planting someone inside Her Majesty’s palace. If we know ahead of time when she’s coming, Your Highness can at least get away before she arrives. I’d love to pay her back for what she did to you just now, but I don’t have the power for that yet.”
“What are you even talking about?”
Cassion’s brow furrowed, apparently displeased at the suggestion of simply avoiding her.
“Think of her as a gnat, Your Highness. She doesn’t bite, but she’s unpleasant to look at, so we avoid her.”
Actually, that comparison wasn’t quite right. Unlike a gnat, Julia did bite. She was worse than a venomous insect. I considered correcting myself, then let it go.
“I don’t care about Julia.”
“Aren’t you upset because of Her Majesty?”
Cassion clicked his tongue. His eyes swept over me, up and down.
That look is seriously irritating.
I held back a sharp retort and asked instead.
“If it’s not because of Her Majesty, then why are you in such a bad mood, Your Highness?”
“You…”
A moment ago he’d been snapping back without any trouble, and now his words trailed off. His voice grew so quiet I could barely make it out.
“What? What did you say?”
“You! Be careful around Julia!”
Cassion snapped the words out loudly. A fit of small coughs immediately burst from his mouth.
He pressed a hand over his mouth, coughed for quite a while, and then burrowed straight down under the blanket.
I waved away the little cloud of dust he’d kicked up and looked at the round mound the blanket made.
“Be careful around Julia, you say? Not that you should be careful, but that I should be…”
As I turned his words over, my face flushed with sudden heat.
So you’re saying, right now, that you—
“Were you worried, Your Highness? You were worried about me, weren’t you? Right? Tell me I’m right.”
A grin spread across my face and refused to leave.
“Stop smiling, Diana.”
“How can I not smile. Your Highness worried about me!”
Cassion narrowed his eyes into a scowl. I did my best not to smile, but the corners of my mouth kept twitching upward on their own.
At that, Cassion spoke in a genuinely annoyed tone.
“Is it really that funny, that I’m worried about you? Me, sickly as I am, worrying about you, who looks like you could knock out a bull? Is that what’s so funny?”
“…”
The smile dropped off my face instantly at that. The room went as quiet as if cold water had been poured over it.
Cassion huffed, and I just blinked.
Cassion had misread what my smile meant. And the misunderstanding ran deep enough that I couldn’t just toss out an easy correction.
I knew he’d been sick for so long, and hated by everyone else enough to turn this twisted, but still.
I’d thought we’d grown close enough these past days that it would be fine. But apparently not. He still couldn’t bring himself to trust people.
Well, he’s still a child.
I decided to be generous about it and started talking.
“Listen carefully, Your Highness.”
“To what?”
As I softened my expression and spoke gently, he sat up and leaned his weight back against the headboard.
His face and tone said he didn’t want to hear a word I had to say, but his actions told a different story.
The gap between the two was so endearing that my hand moved on its own. My fingers brushed lightly through the hair over Cassion’s forehead before passing on.
It happened so fast that Cassion didn’t even have time to defend himself. His face reddened — belatedly annoyed, perhaps — but he didn’t actually get angry.
I really need to break this habit of mine.
A habit where, the moment something strikes me as cute, my hand just goes for it.
I clenched my hand tight and went on.
“Your Highness. The reason I smiled — it’s because I was happy that you were worried about me.”
Cassion looked at me as if he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
Honestly, it’s like trying to talk to a foreigner even though we speak the same language.
Summoning my patience, I explained it step by step.
“Your Highness, think back to when you first met me. You wouldn’t even look at me, would you?”
“That’s because you were rude and overconfident, and insufferably arrogant.”
So that’s how you saw me.
I pressed down the urge to let my eyes narrow and went on.
“Yes, you were entitled to think that. And when I came to you and asked for your help, what did you say? You said you didn’t care whether I lived or died. And since you really don’t care, you still don’t want to marry me, and—”
As I trailed off deliberately, Cassion straightened his back.
“I never said you’d die.”
“It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to expect. That’s just what succession struggles in a house like ours look like.”
I paused to catch my breath. Cassion waited for me to go on.
“Our house isn’t exactly an ordinary one, you know.”
I felt a little strange saying it myself.
When I smiled, Cassion lowered his head. It seemed the weight of my possible death was only now sinking in for him — even though he talked about his own death so easily.
“Say it more plainly.”
“My fighting for succession is no different from fighting over a throne. Like the Princes’ Rebellion you read about in history books. You know how it goes when people who all want to become king face off against each other. Someone ends up killed, or nearly so. Surely you didn’t think we’d sit down over tea and politely discuss who should go first?”
“No, that wouldn’t happen.”
Anyone who’d studied even a little history would know how these desperate fights over a seat of power ended.
“Do you know what the easiest way is for Count Kolkos to take House Irenber for himself?”
It was a question, but I didn’t actually need to hear his answer. Cassion pressed his lips shut.
“Killing me.”
There were plenty of softer words I could have used — remove, eliminate — but I said it plainly. It lands harder that way.
“He could just let you live. If you gave up your claim.”
How naive.
“If there were even the slightest chance of that, do you think I would have come to you in the first place?”
Count Kolkos had sold me off to Dayson to seize the house for himself, and in the end, he’d framed me and had me killed.
Cassion’s expression darkened, little by little. At last, he seemed to grasp the real weight of my proposal.
His eyes, as he gripped the blanket tight in his fists, darted back and forth violently.
He seemed to have only just realized how serious my situation really was.
Should I have appealed to his sympathy from the start? Told him I’d die if he didn’t marry me?
I shook my head where he couldn’t see it.
This conversation only worked because we’d built up some goodwill between us. If I’d laid out my situation to him the moment we met, all I would have gotten was something like, “I’ll be dead before you, so it’s none of my concern.”
“And so?”
Cassion asked.
What were we even talking about? Oh — right, the smile. I smiled because I was happy he was worried about me, and he took it the wrong way.
“As Your Highness knows, I don’t have my parents anymore.”
…Ugh, I could feel tears coming on all of a sudden.
Even for an adult, bringing up deceased parents isn’t an easy thing.
“So there’s no one who worries about me from the heart.”
Aunt Cho and Janice flickered through my mind, but they couldn’t fully share in my grief and pain, not a hundred percent.
The situations and circumstances they lived in were plainly different from mine.
And they were adults. If I poured out how hard things were for me, they’d try to fix it rather than simply sit with me in it.
But Cassion was different.
He’d been tormented by political enemies for a long time now. He knew exactly what it felt like to have powerful adults turn their blades on him, the fear of standing before them.
And he was a child, just like me.
“But just now, you did it — you worried about me. And you meant it, too.”
That was such a happy thing for me. More than he could possibly know.
