The neighing of horses could be heard, and Rosemarie, who had been sitting on the slanted passenger seat clutching her knees, lifted her downcast head.
“They’re here,” Edeltraud, curled up as Rosemarie was, announced.
Edeltraud had insisted that Claudio would come find them. But the time they’d waited, combined with the encroaching dark, only heightened Rosemarie’s worry that they’d be stuck there all night.
She went to approach the cracked window, but hesitated. What if it wasn’t Claudio or one of the knights out there? That thought crossed her mind, and her courage to peek outside diminished. As she sat there conflicted, she heard the sound of feet treading the wet ground. She thought she saw the silhouette of someone in the cracked window, but before she could process it, there was a violent knocking at the door.
“We’re looking for someone. Would you mind if we search the inside?” Rosemarie was met with an all-too-familiar deep and annoyed voice. Every drop of blood in her body was pumping in joy. Before she could even crawl on the toppled over seat toward the window, the door opened up.
In the next instant, her vision started to warp and distort. The toppled seat that she had been crawling on went upright, as well as the doorway that she had been looking up at this entire time. The pieces of broken window scattered across the floor faded away in the blink of an eye, and the window returned to pristine condition. Even though the carriage was supposed to be flipped on its side with its horses stolen, it went back to looking as good as new—almost as if nothing had happened.
“Huh...?”
“—Rosemarie!”
Rosemarie blinked in surprise as the rain-soaked Claudio entered her sight. His appearance overlapped with the frantic expression of Claudio in his youth that crossed her mind when she last passed out.
“...?!” Her brain wasn’t able to catch up with her—not because of the mysterious phenomenon that had occurred before her eyes, but because of the arms that reached out and hugged her tightly.
“I swear, do you have any idea what you’ve done? I thought you showed up in town because you dragged Alto and Master Edel into your plan, but then you didn’t even come back to the castle? Your maid was practically on the verge of a breakdown.” Despite his scolding, Claudio’s hands around Rosemarie’s shoulders didn’t loosen up one bit. Eventually, Rosemarie tapped hesitantly on Claudio’s back, short of breath.
“I’m sorry, Prince, but it’s a little hard to breathe.”
“Silence. —Consider it your punishment for putting me through so much trouble.”
“—I-I’m very sorry about that...”
Despite him saying it was a punishment, his voice was tinged in relief. As she thought that her insides were going to actually pop out from the constricting force around her body, she heard a rather carefree yawn from behind them.
“Claudio, you’re late. Had stage all set up, but Volland princess was getting all the more suspicious.”
“Stage all set up...?” There was a set of words in that sentence that she couldn’t help but fixate on. Now that Claudio had loosened his grip on Rosemarie, she turned her head around. There, she saw the sorcerer rotating their shoulders to limber up their stiffened body.
“Volland princess doesn’t return to castle, Claudio stops procrastinating and takes action.”
“Huh? Um, what do you mean by that? Those bandits...”
“Bandits? What do you mean? Explain yourselves.” The incomprehensible and hesitant words coming from Rosemarie’s mouth sparked Claudio to react in turn. He squeezed her shoulders tightly.
“We were assaulted by bandits. The carriage was destroyed and the horse was stolen away...”
“Uh, come again? Nothing here is destroyed. The horse is there, too, hitched to the carriage as it should be.” The two of them looked at one another, bewildered. Edeltraud, solidifying the fact that they were undeniably strange and unusual, started to chuckle to themselves.
“Hee hee, prince comes to rescue princess in distress and falls in love. Tale old as time. Once person they care about not being around, come to find out their importance. Also old as time. Bandits and carriage being destroyed an illusion. Everything a lie. Well? Have fun?”
Rosemarie stood with her mouth agape and it stayed that way.
Edeltraud had their face covered by the hood of their robe, so even if they were telling a lie and they had a beast head, she wouldn’t have been able to see it. She had been completely blindsided.
Edeltraud had been pulling the strings on her the entire time. She felt more languid than upset over the whole thing.
However, it seemed that Claudio begged to differ. As soon as Claudio took his hands off of Rosemarie’s shoulders, he drew his sword, its blade meant for Edeltraud.
“No, Prince! Mage Edel, please get yourself out of here!”
Claudio’s expression was akin to the devil himself. Clinging to his arm, she tried desperately to stop him from bringing the blade down. Regardless, Edeltraud was not scared in the least, and seemed to actually be enjoying all of this as they jumped out the door opposite the one Claudio opened.
“Mend things up. Will you? Next time might not end up lie. Got it?” Without forgetting to drive the point home with a warning, Edeltraud vanished into the darkness. The horse neighed in surprise.
The moment the target of his aggression had vanished, Claudio sheathed his sword with the same force he used to draw it out. He then put his hand over his face and plopped himself down on the carriage seat.
“Alto, will this carriage move?” Claudio called.