This fact was apparently only known to a few higher-ups in the Ministry, but because I had a slightly special ability to see through the disguises of people I was close to, I had learned her true identity all by myself. Recently, she had directly admitted it to me, so I was now part of the small circle of people who knew about Larna’s alter ego. I must have been asked to deliver documents to her today because she was visiting the palace as Susanna. Now that I knew why, I felt relieved.
After arriving at the palace, I spoke to one of the servants.
“I have business with Lady Susanna Randall.”
They seemed to have already been told I was coming, as I was smoothly informed where I would find her. It had been a little while since I’d come to the palace, but I’d been a regular visitor there since childhood, so I wasn’t in danger of getting lost.
“We have a visitor from a foreign country here,” the servant cautioned, “so please give him due consideration.”
This reminded me that, at this very moment, Cezar was at the palace. Having been asked to give him due consideration, I was also told more or less where he was likely to be, so I resolved to keep away from him. Considering the risk of doom flags, I thought it would be better if we didn’t meet for the time being.
While avoiding any places where Cezar might be, I made my way to the room where Susanna was. Though I needed to take a slightly roundabout route, I arrived at the room and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said a familiar voice.
“Excuse me,” I said as I stepped inside to find not only Susanna, but Jeffrey, the firstborn prince.
I had only expected to see Susanna, but now that I saw Jeffrey I hurriedly gave him my best curtsy.
“We aren’t in public, so you don’t need to stand on formalities,” he said with a smile.
“Quite,” Susanna agreed. “You may think of this fellow as nothing more than a pebble on the side of the road.”
“L-Lady Susanna?!” I cried.
They may be engaged, I thought, but that’s too rude a way to refer to a member of the royal family!
“Don’t worry,” Jeffrey said with a grin, seeing how flustered I looked, “Susanna and I are always like this.”
The two of them seemed very close. They hadn’t seemed quite so friendly the last time I saw them, but maybe now I was seeing their true selves? At any rate, I decided not to worry, just as Jeffrey said, and handed Susanna the documents I’d been tasked with bringing to her.
After taking the envelope, Susanna checked its contents.
“Thank you. These are indeed the right documents.”
“You’re very welcome.”
I was glad to have completed my errand without running into any trouble. However, I had to wonder why Susanna couldn’t just go from the palace to the Ministry to pick up the documents herself. They weren’t that far apart. I raised these doubts aloud.
“Quite,” Susanna replied. “The truth is that, right now, Jeffrey and I are busy helping the royal from Ethenell who’s studying here, leaving us stuck at the palace. So for the time being I’ll be working here and getting anything I need delivered from the Ministry.”
I see, so Jeffrey and Susanna are in charge of helping Cezar. Well, he is a royal himself, so we need to show him plenty of hospitality.
“Then you must have needed to see these documents fairly urgently,” I remarked.
I figured that it must have been so urgent that she wasn’t able to rely on the regular postal service between the Ministry and the palace, but when I mentioned this, Susanna was silent.
Hmm, what’s the matter with her?
“It was indeed urgent...but not so urgent that I couldn’t have waited for the regular postal service. However, there’s something I’d like to give you, Miss Katarina, and something I’d like to say to you as well,” Susanna said with a deadly serious look on her face.
I realized that I had better listen earnestly myself, and corrected my posture.
“Firstly, Katarina, I’d like to return this to you.” Susanna placed an object about the size of my palm on the desk in front of her. It was shaped a bit like a hand mirror, but without any mirror set in it, and it had a decorative border around its edge.
Ummm, I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before.
“Ah, that’s the thing Prince Jeord bought me at that street stall!” I cried, suddenly remembering.
Susanna giggled softly.
“Yeah, this was the souvenir Prince Jeord purchased for you while we were traveling. And I took charge of this item once I realized it was a tool of Dark Magic.”
That’s right. I saw it at a street stall that time Keith went missing and I went looking for him—I liked it, so I got Jeord to buy it for me.
This mirrorlike thing turned out to be a tool of Dark Magic, and it ended up being the catalyst for my contract with Pochi, my Dark Familiar. After we returned and Larna (Susanna) had a chance to inspect it, she decided to take charge of both the tool and Pochi, but since Pochi didn’t want to leave my side, she ended up only taking charge of the mirrorlike thing. Since the story of Fortune Lover II started right after that, and a lot of stuff happened, I guess I’d tucked the matter of the mirrorlike thing away in a deep corner of my memory.
“You don’t need to inspect it any longer, then?” I asked.
I remembered that, at the time, Larna (Susanna) said she would need to perform all kinds of experiments at the Ministry.
“Indeed. I’ve already inspected it more than enough. Unfortunately, besides the fact that it’s very old, I wasn’t able to learn much about it,” said Susanna, seeming disappointed.
“Is it really that old?” I asked. Though I had to admit it did look pretty old.