At that, there was a stir, and everyone around them began whispering. Cesia rubbed her temples like she was dealing with a headache and glared at Selene despite herself. “Don’t say it like I pretended to be you for fun. Your father threatened me and ordered me to do it.”
“Ohh? Did you hear that, everyone? She just admitted that she pretended to be me and attended the Academy!” Selene said jubilantly, in a mocking tone. It was doubtful whether she knew that she was denigrating her own family at the same time. Among the attendees to the soiree surrounding them, those with the good sense to see that were grimacing.
“The Diane family will also be charged,” Cesia said.
“And should I care?! I’ll do anything if it means bringing you down.”
“You idiot!”
“Say whatever you like. And what’s this about being a baroness or princess consort?! A rat like you will never be fit for a higher position than me!” Selene yelled. At that, the surrounding nobles soured on Selene, and the atmosphere grew awkward. By then, they all probably saw her as a fool. Still, that and the fact that Cesia’s wrongdoing was now public were different stories. “I also don’t appreciate that all these people are lauding you as some sort of genius. Your diploma should be revoked!”
“I retook the entrance exam and passed, then passed the graduation exam on my own ability. That was all after you left the capital.”
Selene frowned, having assumed that Cesia had been identifying herself as a graduate using the time she had gone to the academy as Selene. But she quickly collected herself. “Even if that’s true, you still falsified your identity to attend. I hear that many were charged with doing something similar. You shouldn’t be an exception!”
She’s absolutely right, Cesia thought. It had always weighed on her mind. The Diane family hadn’t been charged with anything because to do so would mean exposing her. She had been properly readmitted and graduated legitimately, but that didn’t change the reality that she had lived a lie for two years. Of course, at this point, Cesia hadn’t thought anything would come of it by dredging up the whole incident again. That was why she decided to live the rest of her life honestly. However, the past she had abandoned had come back to haunt her.
“That’s…Selene Diane? How did she get here?” Marcus asked when he heard the commotion coming from the hall. He immediately tried to head in that direction, but Layne stood in front of the door, blocking his path. “Layne?”
“If you don’t get involved, this’ll end up being about Cesia and Cesia alone,” Layne said.
Marcus’s eyes widened. Layne looked somewhat pale but stared fixedly at him with imploring eyes and a firm expression. “In other words… You planned all this, Layne,” Marcus said with melancholic certainty, and Layne nodded. He must have let Selene into the party and helped her with a whole bunch of other things besides.
“I want to help you,” Layne said. “Cesia’s a good person, but she’s a criminal. Her crimes may not be yours, but I couldn’t stand the thought that you might be blamed for choosing her as princess consort sometime in the future.”
Marcus grimaced. Hearing Cesia called a criminal made him feel worse than he had imagined it would. “You would blame a young girl for doing what her guardian coerced her to do?”
Cesia had taken the Academy entrance exam on Viscount Diane’s orders when she was young and attended the Academy in place of Selene afterward. The viscount was her uncle and had been her guardian, legally and publicly. If he had ordered her to do something as a child, she would have had no way to refuse, whether she had known it was wrong or not.
“That troubled me as well. Cesia didn’t willingly pose as Selene, after all. However, you convicted Anita for the same type of crime, didn’t you?”
Marcus painfully averted his gaze. He had wanted to help Anita, too. He really had. But her actions had exceeded the threshold at which a single prince could do anything about it. Many people had died or gone missing in the incidents she had been involved in. More than anything else, Anita had no desire to be saved. She had betrayed her benefactor, Juliette, and had lied to Mavis, who had unconditionally accepted her.
In the end, Anita had made the right choice. She had offered up everything she had known and all the evidence she had on Juliette’s plans, and after that, she fervently desired to be punished for what she had done. After she had been sentenced, she declined any visits from Mavis or Cesia and quietly waited for her punishment. She had accepted the punishment of drinking a cup of poison so that she would be able to pass without suffering. It had been granted to her in lieu of an execution in recognition of her final contributions. She hadn’t left behind any message to anyone.
The family of her now-deceased father, who had been a count, had refused to collect her body, so she had been treated as a Gwylltian immigrant and buried in a common grave, which Marcus had arranged. Normally, it would have been frowned upon for a prince to help out a criminal, but he had been unable to bring himself to deal with Anita’s death mechanically. He had spent a significant amount of time with her because she had been his sister’s head maid, but having been born a prince—someone with power—he had also always wanted to help those born powerless, like Cesia and Anita.
That was why he had created the Second Financial Division, a post where he could carry out private investigations like the one that had involved disguising himself and attending the Royal Academy. In the beginning, he saved Cesia from the exploitative Diane family and acted as her guardian because of that belief. Helping Cesia, and everything else besides that, had been wonderful and had given him the confidence that what he was doing had helped someone. He was surprised himself when he realized that he loved Cesia as a woman.
On the other hand, even though everything Anita had gone through had been in the past and in a foreign country where his power couldn’t reach, he had been devastated by his inability to help her. He had also noticed the same thing that Cesia had. There was a point of divergence between Cesia and Anita—he had found Cesia, but Juliette had found Anita. Marcus knew that he couldn’t help everyone, but he wanted to save everyone he could see and reach and all that were in his power to save.
“I couldn’t do anything about Anita,” Marcus said, frowning. By saying it, it meant that he knew that he had failed.
Layne made the same sad frown. “Yes, what she had done was too serious to be forgiven. No matter how much you might have run around trying to help her, it was too late. She had caused direct harm to Emeroade,” he said, gazing sympathetically at Marcus.
Marcus didn’t reply. He recruited Keith and Layne when he founded the Second Division, and the two were its oldest members. It went without saying that Layne knew very well all of Marcus’s ideals and desires, including his inner conflicts and regrets.
“Your Royal Highness. I’ve said this many times, but your belief that you should try to save everyone is wonderful. However, there is a limit to who you can help and how far you can reach,” Layne admonished him.
Marcus stared straight at Layne. He knew that. But that was no reason not to reach out. He wanted to continue stretching out his hand to help those he hadn’t been able to reach before, if even only by a bit more.
Layne continued, “I believe your ideals are noble. I’ve followed you for all this time, not only because you selected me—really, you saved me—but because I was deeply moved by those ideals.” Marcus nodded slightly. “So, I believe it’s necessary to keep away anything that might interfere with that.”
With that, the conversation had returned to where it had begun.
“You’re saying that Cesia is getting in the way of my wishes?” Marcus asked after a pause.
“Yes. Even if you haven’t made any mistakes, if it becomes widely known that the princess consort is a criminal, some may try to restrict you and prevent your dreams from coming to fruition. I won’t let that happen.”