EARLY the next morning, the guard at the small servants’ entrance at the rear of the castle gave Maria a lovestruck grin when he saw her walking toward him. “Hey, Maria. You’re here early today.”
“Good morning. I’m showing a new dishwashing girl around.”
“Yeah, the kitchen sure is busy. Is she a temporary hire?”
“Yes,” Maria said, smiling. She showed the guard her ID and the temporary pass of the girl with her. He took both, then used a special magic item to check whether they were forgeries.
“All right, looks good. Good luck, new girl.”
Cesia, her hair light blonde, silently nodded, then quickly followed Maria through the gate. Even though Cesia was wanted, the guard didn’t seem to have memorized her facial features. As long as she changed her hair color and had the proper pass, she could confidently enter without anyone suspecting she was the same person as that wanted black-haired maid.
They entered a small equipment room, and Maria undid her disguise. Then, appearing where Maria had stood, Marcus promptly gave Maria’s ID to Cesia to hold. “If you have this on you, you can travel most servants’ passageways. Don’t go to the corridors above,” he said.
“Understood.”
“What’s with that face?” Marcus asked, raising an eyebrow.
Cesia looked up at Marcus with an unreadable expression. “So, Maria does have an ID.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s an abuse of authority…”
“Of course it is. Who do you think I am? I’m a prince, you know.”
“Aah… So now I’m an accomplice…”
“What are you saying? That ID is completely legitimate.”
“How can a person who doesn’t exist have an ID…” Cesia said, exhausted, and Marcus pouted. Of course, on the job, Cesia herself constantly deceived people.
“You aren’t using it for anything bad, so isn’t it fine?”
Cesia pursed her lips. “This is an emergency, after all,” she said, making up her mind.
Marcus nodded. He gently touched Cesia’s hair, and it morphed from blonde to a bright, fiery red. “Yep, this looks good on you.”
“I-Is that so…” Cesia blushed, remembering their conversation in the vacant house.
“The Security Bureau has some people assigned as guards to watch Juliette closely. Anita is restrained and locked up at the Second Division, and May and the others are there, so go there.”
Cesia was surprised. “Even Lady May? Why?”
“Juliette might raise her guard if she can’t establish contact with Anita after enough time. But there’s nothing for her to be suspicious about if Anita is doing something for her mistress.”
It pained Cesia to think about how closely Mavis was involved in the case. She hadn’t wanted to drag the simple, innocent, diligent princess into everything.
“She’s still a princess. If it involves the future of Emeroade, she has the resolve to carry out her duty, even if it means she gets hurt doing it,” Marcus said, voicing his opinion, not as her brother but as a prince.
Cesia knew beneath that he was worried about Mavis’s gentle heart more than anyone, but she said, “Yeah, you’re right.” Juliette’s goal was still unclear, but it was hard to imagine that, with all of her audacious actions up to that point, her objective had simply been to make money. At the very least, it was certain she was trying to weaken Emeroade as a country. Judging from the rapid, ongoing developments since the day before, it wasn’t hard to see that her plans were coming to some sort of grand conclusion.
“Ronald’s abduction hasn’t been made public, which means she doesn’t know that we saw through the fake dead body,” Marcus said.
“Does that mean Juliette still believes we think Prince Ronald has passed away?”
“Probably. That fake was quite a feat. She had to have carefully prepared it before coming to Emeroade.”
“That means that she intended to,” Cesia paused, “abduct Prince Ronald from the start.”
“Yeah.”
Ronald was only an infant, but if everything went as expected, he was next in line to be king, after his grandfather and his father. The plan to harm him felt less like something from Juliette and more like a plan by Gwyllt itself.
“She’ll pay for this,” Cesia said.
“No doubt about it. She won’t get away this time. We’ll crush her.” Marcus clenched his fist, and Cesia nodded forcefully.