DEEP beneath the palace lay a strange, cluttered room.
Pieces of various dried meat hung from the ceiling, and the shelves were lined with dubious-looking herbs and plants. A silver cauldron filled with pink liquid bubbled away in the middle of the room, while a glowing, red, corked flask stood on the table next to it.
This was Celestine’s workshop, a place that no one would dare to enter unless they had to. The man himself was sitting on a rickety chair, leaning back with his nose pointing at the ceiling. A hot towel covered his eyes, and steam leisurely wafted into the air. He let out a groan of pleasure.
“Mmm… Ahhh… There’s nothing quite like a steaming hot towel after completing a project.”
“You sound like an old man, Celestine,” a young girl with black, bob-cut hair snickered.
“Because I am an old man!” he scoffed. “Just let me have this,” he said, shooing her away with a flick of his hands. She gave a deep sigh in response.
On her head sat the crow that had delivered Sirius and Marialite Celestine’s message a few minutes ago, cawing in disbelief.
“Prince Sirius and the Jade Saint will be here soon!” the girl reiterated. “You can’t give them a proper welcome like that!”
“Ya think I care? I’m always my authentic self, no matter who’s visiting.”
“Ugh, whatever. You’re not my problem. I’m going to change clothes, okay?” she huffed.
“Mm-hm, gotcha.”
“You’re useless,” she muttered as she turned to leave the room with a roll of her eyes.
At that moment, a pillar of light appeared right in front of her—the sign of an incoming teleport. The color of the light depended on which color of feather the teleporter possessed. This time, it shone white, which meant…
The girl gasped and promptly swiveled around to shake the “old man” awake. She grabbed him by the shoulders and said, “Wake up, Celestine! His Highness is already here!”
“Oof, that didn’t take long…” he mumbled. “All right. I’ve heard that Sirius has grown considerably, but I’d like to see it for myself.”
A silver-haired young man emerged from the light with the whites of his eyes showing.
Celestine and the girl’s faces immediately fell.
“So, this is his workshop? It certainly looks like one…” the woman that appeared with him mused. “Wait, Lord Sirius? Are you okay?”
The woman had his neck in a vice-like grip. It looked like she was completely cutting off his blood supply.
“Nooooooo! Your Highnesssss!” the young girl cried out, her scream echoing through the whole workshop.
✦ ✦ ✦
AT first, Marialite was holding Sirius’ waist, but he had the sudden urge to hold her closer. He asked her to wrap her arms around his neck instead, to which she agreed. After the moment their faces came together, Sirius had no recollection of what happened next. His senses were overtaken by a sweet, mellow scent.
Now that he’d been saved, he was at least alive to tell the tale. He’d certainly learned his lesson; his own self-indulgence nearly killed him.
“I’m so sorry, Lord Sirius,” Marialite apologized, her tone heavy with guilt. “You told me to hold on tight, but I suppose that was too tight…”
“No, no. If I had died being crushed by your love… I can’t think of a better way to go,” he laughed, trying to dispel her worries.
The old man in white robes smirked. He had vibrant blue hair and purple eyes with a hint of mystery to them. Wearing that easygoing smile, he bowed his head to Marialite.
“My name is Celestine Giola. The royals kindly supply me with research funding, hence why I’m working as their one and only magical architect.”
“I’m Marialite Harty,” she replied, bowing her head in return. “I’m a Jade Saint, and I came to this country after becoming engaged to Prince Sirius.”
“The Jade Saint, you say? Hmmm…” he hummed, peering into her eyes for a few moments before letting out a bellow of laughter. “Very good! I’m pleased to see that you have the tenacity of a future empress. I suppose you agree, Your Highness?”
“I thought you might say that. I got the same impression, after all,” Sirius smiled, giving a sigh of relief. Marialite did the same, flattered to have been complimented by the eccentric man. Then, she noticed the black-haired girl staring at her with intense, curious eyes.
She was wearing the same sort of white robes as Celestine; perhaps she was an assistant of his. Under that assumption, Marialite bowed her head to her, but was met with a look of shocked embarrassment.
“I-I-I’m so sorry! I should be the one bowing to you first!” she panicked.
“Exactly. Where are your manners?” Celestine scolded her.
“Oh no… I’m sorry, my lady! I didn’t mean to offend you!” she exclaimed, genuinely upset. Sirius’s brow furrowed in concern.
“You’re far too harsh on your assistant, Celestine,” he said, unimpressed.
“What a kind soul you are, Your Highness,” he grinned before turning to the girl. “Go on. Introduce yourself to ’em.”
“I was getting to that!” she huffed, glaring at Celestine. A hint of anxiety entered her gaze when she looked back at Marialite. “My name’s Liffey. I’m Celestine’s carer.”
“His carer…?” Marialite echoed, glancing over at the magical engineer.
His manner of speech was certainly a little old-fashioned, but in human terms, Marialite would have guessed he was in his twenties judging by his looks. From the outside, it didn’t look like he needed a caregiver at all.
“Don’t be fooled by his appearance, Lady Marialite,” Sirius said with a point of his finger. “He’s old. Even older than my father and Lord Elestial.”
“You’ve spent quite some time living in this world, haven’t you, sir?” Marialite said.
“One could say so. I’ve had my fair share of close encounters with death during all ’em needless wars, though,” he shrugged. “I’ve been fortunate to have lived this long, ya know? Thanks to that, I now spend my days working on many varieties of magical devices.”
He took up a handful of multicolored candles and softly blew across the wicks. Simultaneously, a spectrum of colorful flames burst into existence. Blue, green, red…all the flames matched the color of each stick of candle wax.
“Woooow!” Marialite admired in delight, clapping enthusiastically. “Are those magical devices, too?”
“Indeed,” Celestine nodded sagely. “I created them by crushing up a fire spellstone into powder and mixing it into the wax. A simple breath of air is all that’s required for ignition. They’re perfect for decorating the home.”
“Hang on just a second!” Liffey objected. “I’m the one who came up with the colorful candles! You can’t take all the credit!”
“You think you deserve the credit?” Celestine scoffed. “You made a suggestion. That was all. Could you have brought that idea to fruition? No, of course not. I’m the one who made it,” he said casually before putting the candles down and picking up a glass.
It was a beautiful azure color, and the bottom half was decorated with what looked like blue sand. He lightly shook it in his grip, and the sound of a splash suddenly rang out as the glass filled itself with clear water from the bottom upward.
“And this glass is powered by a water spellstone. It’s incredibly useful; one can drink delicious, cold water wherever they like, whenever they like!”
Marialite had gone completely silent, absolutely transfixed by the glass.
“Hm? What’s the matter, Marialite?” Celestine asked curiously.
“Oh, it’s just…” she trailed off. “I feel like…I’ve seen this somewhere before.” She frowned as she looked at it, trying to forcibly gain access to the depths of her own memory. She’d definitely seen a glass with a similar design before…
“Oh, I remember!” she suddenly exclaimed. “That was one of the magical items being developed in the human world!”
“That doesn’t surprise me a smidgen. They’re trying ta mass produce the prototype devices they stole from me.”
“They’re doing what?!” Liffey yelped, astounded by his bombshell of a statement. “Why on earth haven’t I heard about this?!”
“Hmm. Because I didn’t tell ya?” he hummed pensively, casually taking a big gulp of water from the glass.
Marialite’s mouth suddenly felt very dry, thinking about how refreshing the water looked, but Sirius was more concerned about what he’d said.
“Celestine,” he said seriously. “Could you please tell us about what happened in more detail?”
“It’s not a very long story, m’lad,” he shrugged. “When I visited the human world along with some of my prototypes, some fellows identified me as a demon. They—quite rudely—stole my belongings.”
“Why would you take your prototypes with you?” Sirius asked in exasperation. He simply couldn’t understand it.
“For a vital experiment, I’ll have you know. However…it appears that simply stealing the items was not enough for ’em. Did they create copies and claim the invention as their own?”
Marialite nodded in response. The country that announced they had found a way to create magical implements had not even once mentioned the fact that it was based on Celaenic technology. Humanity celebrated it as a huge development for them, but no one even questioned whether their invention had suspicious roots.
In fact, their success was influential enough that it had eventually become Prince Rufus’ excuse to call off his engagement to Marialite.
“I’m so very sorry, Sir Celestine…” Marialite said dejectedly.