“I’m going to talk to Emma about something extremely important now. Do you think you can have fun by yourself in your room?”
“Yup! I’ll go back to my room like a good little girl, so make sure you win her over, Brother!”
“Leave it to me.”
“Pfft.”
It was the first time in her life that Emma had spat out tea so disgracefully. She was already nervous enough, but she wished they wouldn’t say such strange things on top of that. How was she supposed to control her reactions?
As usual, Glen’s expression remained calm and confident. Once Brigitte left the parlor, he recrossed his legs and spoke again.
“She’s the daughter of one of my paternal uncles, but she doesn’t get along with her sisters. I had the same experience as a child… Anyway, I used my graduation from the Magic Academy as an opportunity to ask her if she wanted to live with me for the time being. So that is what I meant by ‘complicated circumstances.’”
“Wow, I had no idea… Honestly, though, ‘win her over.’ I didn’t know she was such a jokester…”
“It wasn’t a joke. I have every intention of doing exactly that.”
Emma was so blindsided that the teacup in her hand crashed with a loud klink onto its saucer. Her mind stopped functioning, but once it started working again, she realized the ramifications of Brigitte living here with him.
“We…are talking about my becoming Brigitte’s maid, yes? Now I understand why you refused to act as an intermediary for the employer. Because you are her guardian. But there’s no need to win me over for that. You already know it’s what I want to do.”
“No, that’s not what Brigitte and I meant, and I think you know as much. I brought you here to ask you to live your life with me.”
Emma again froze in shock. Though Glen’s modus operandi when it came to her largely involved a great deal of teasing and mischief, he was always sincere about his feelings for her. She should have been used to this side of him, but her efforts on that front were meaningless in the face of his ridiculously straightforward declaration.
“I own this estate. You said you wanted to be Brigitte’s exclusive maid, but… If you do, you would live here with me. So, I invited you here to make sure you would be comfortable in such a situation.”
Glen spoke feverishly as Emma remained motionless, her face flaming. To her, his amethyst eyes took on a deeper hue for some reason. She wanted to look away but couldn’t. Despite her shock, she already knew her answer to his proposal. Had known for years. Happiness steadily rose within her; she could finally voice her feelings after all this time. Except Glen continued speaking at a fast clip, not giving her a chance to respond.
“I… The truth is, Emma, there’s something I haven’t told you. Only answer after you’ve reflected deeply on what I’m about to tell you. Please, can you do that for me?” Glen’s eyes were uncharacteristically earnest.
“What do you mean…? But strangely enough, you just reminded me of something that’s been on my mind for some time… The first time you and I met was the night of that dinner party…wasn’t it?”
Glen closed his eyes and folded his arms, leaning back against the opposite sofa he sat on. “…No. We met twice before that night.”
What?! She didn’t know. Then, instantly, she realized why. Time travel.
“I… I’m not sure I remember. But I always thought it strange why you went to such great lengths for me… Will you tell me more?”
“Yes, of course. I invited you here to lay everything bare, after all.” Glen straightened, sipped his tea, and resettled comfortably into his seat before he spoke. “The first time we met was in your first life, during our third year at the Academy. As usual, you were cleaning up one of Miss Annette’s many messes, and the two of us were sent into town on an errand to correct her blunder.”
“I… I remember dreaming about that right before I returned to my life at fifteen. I think we had a lot of bags to carry…and we rode in a carriage?”
“Yes, you basically described what we did at the time. It’s one of my most precious memories, you know. So it’s possible it slipped into your mind when I transferred my power to you.”
He hesitated for a moment, then continued.
“Unfortunately, it was also the day we witnessed something unfortunate—Miss Annette and Bernard’s secret liaison. You said you would pretend you never saw it because you wanted to allay your family’s worries about you. That was why I reversed time to the day before and made sure you never chanced upon them. That way, I could erase your memory and your resulting sadness.”
“Oh…!”
He was confessing to breaking the cardinal law of time travel and rewriting history. For her sake. She couldn’t hide her surprise, and Glen’s expression didn’t change since he had expected this reaction, so he continued calmly.
“Two years later, I met you again… Well, again for me, but as far as you were concerned, it was our first meeting. In a rare move for me, I accepted a request from my father to visit the Monarchy of Reauxvil on official business as a member of Ulster’s imperial family.”
In her mind, Emma gasped, and she knew exactly what he was talking about.
“Could it be… Three months after the dinner party?”
“Correct. You guessed right away that I had an affinity with time. Then you told me how, despite losing your own ability, you had finally accepted your destiny as one who only traveled into the future. You accepted your lot in life as a result of your power. But you sounded so unbelievably sad when you talked to me.”
The point three months after the dinner party was the farthest moment in the future Emma knew of. Because traveling there had been her last mission for her country, the morning of the dinner party. As usual, she had been in the palace library doing research with Ian. She vaguely recalled the commotion outside and Ian mentioning to her that it was the result of a prince from Ulster on an official state visit.
“Glen… It was you. You were the prince part of the delegation.”
“I was. And that marked the second time I met you. I also learned then that you had become Prince Victor’s fiancée.”