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There were couches for visitors in the study, which was where I chose to sit. Myalo and Tillet both sat down on an opposite couch.
“What happened to my mother and father?” That was the first thing I wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” Myalo replied. “We spent half a day lying low in the royal capital after our escape, but we learned nothing.”
Since I’d survived, the enemy might’ve considered Rook and Suzuya important bargaining chips. Rather than killing them and treating their bodies with disrespect, they might’ve even given them medical treatment.
My hopes for Rook were incredibly slim given how bad his condition had been, but Suzuya might’ve still had a chance. I’d declared them both dead for the sake of rousing my soldiers, but I didn’t know it for sure.
“And what happened to Carla?”
“In the end, Her Majesty couldn’t kill her,” Tillet answered. “I believe Carla still lives.”
“Great...”
I didn’t want to criticize the dead, but Queen Shimoné had created a real headache for us there. I could guess how she had felt, given that Carla was her daughter, but now I was the one who’d have to kill her to put the kingdom in order. It felt like the queen had dumped her responsibilities on someone else.
“Tell me how you escaped.”
“Her Majesty called Tillet over and instructed her to lead the royal swords to safety. She wanted them to survive and serve Carol. Someone had to stay behind to hold Carla as a hostage, though. Henrique took that role.”
She stayed behind? Sounds awful.
“As I mentioned a moment ago, there was a third-story window directly below the balcony. You probably hadn’t noticed it, since the balcony extended outward, but I knew it was there because I’d seen it from outside on my eagle.”
I’d looked down from that balcony countless times, but not once had I spotted a window. Maybe if I’d leaned farther over the edge, I might’ve seen it.
“Henrique held a dagger to Carla’s throat while we climbed a rope down to the third floor, then we fought our way to the kitchen. The kitchen is only two doors away from where the dinner took place. It’s on the third floor, which ensures outsiders can’t reach that area, at the cost of inconvenience. Since carrying ingredients and charcoal up the stairs would be a lot of work, there’s a hand-powered elevator that connects to the first floor. We used that elevator shaft to reach the ground, then we climbed out of a window and broke through the soldiers surrounding us to reach the river.”
I hadn’t imagined an escape route like that.
“Then why did we go up to the sixth floor rather than escaping that way in the first place?” I asked Tillet.
“The shaft was too narrow. You wouldn’t have fit.”
“I barely made it through myself,” Myalo added. “I’m not sure Carol would’ve made it.”
Carol did have fairly broad shoulders compared to Myalo, but Tillet wasn’t any smaller.
Tillet guessed what I was thinking. “I can dislocate my shoulder. That’s how I got through.”
“Okay. Can we be sure that the seven witch families were behind the assassination?”
Myalo’s expression was heavy with regret. “There’s no way to justify my failure. If only I’d learned of their plan...”
It was hard to argue with her. Maybe I should’ve blamed myself for visiting the royal castle without taking precautions, but if Myalo or the royal swords had realized something was up, none of this would’ve happened.
Still, I couldn’t criticize Myalo over this. I’d given her the task of misleading people about our discovery of a new continent, which hadn’t really left her with any time to gather information about the witches. The royal swords, however, had no such excuse.
“It was definitely the seven witches who organized this plot,” Myalo said. “But they left the Gudinveils out of it. I’m sure the witches realized that the information might leak to me via my family connections.”
I see...
I’d been assuming that Luida, the old woman in charge of the Gudinveil family, was heavily involved in the plot. She knew how Myalo operated and could see through her tricks. I’d imagined that she’d been somehow keeping Myalo distracted, preventing her from learning the truth even as she monitored the government’s inner workings.
“Is it common for one family to be excluded like that?” I asked.
“It’s the first time such a thing has happened in Shiyalta’s history. The seven witches are bound by a pact.”
I’d never heard anything about that.
“The Seven Witch Promise states that the seven families must strive for coexistence and mutual benefit. If one family could be excluded while the others conspired, it would lead to suspicion and a breakdown of trust. There would be no end to the infighting,” Myalo continued.
Coexistence and mutual benefit... It sounded like they’d all promised to play nice with each other. By agreeing not to fight over the juiciest prizes, they ensured there’d be no competition between them, making the group akin to a cartel.
“But how come you didn’t notice anything? Was their planning too well concealed?”
“That’s right. It was completely secret, in fact. I think the plot was only known to ten or so people until the afternoon of the assassination, and that’s including heads of families. Still, I overlooked signs...”
“What sorts of signs?”
“There were witches serving at the castle who constantly supplied me with information, but half of them weren’t there on the day before the assassination. They weren’t killed, just sent off to carry out business elsewhere. I had a feeling something wasn’t right, but I never expected to be blindsided.”
It sounded like they’d identified Myalo’s intelligence sources before anything else. Once the individuals had been identified, they’d simply been allowed to carry on with their duties. It meant that the witches hadn’t worried about their assassination plot leaking out during the planning phase. If they’d been determined to destroy her information network, their behavior would’ve tipped Myalo off. They must’ve had full confidence that nothing would leak out until the day they executed the plan.
The surest way to keep information confidential was to avoid consulting with anyone. Fewer informed people meant fewer mouths that could speak to outsiders. No level of espionage was enough to uncover a plot formed within the mind of a single person who kept it to themselves.
“I didn’t realize anything was wrong until you were already in the castle. I learned that a certain witch had been told she couldn’t work overtime as normal. I’d been too much of a fool to suspect anything until then. I decided I’d head to the castle myself to get to the bottom of it, only to discover that the second order had blocked off the bridge.”
That must’ve been when she’d hurried over to White Birch Dormitory.