It wasn’t a hair accessory Karina had last time; it was a necklace. She’d actually picked it herself. When she wrote to say the stone had broken, I’d decided to give her the same stone again, but in a hair accessory this time.
“I’ll treasure it. Well, good night.”
“…Good night.”
I watched Karina turn and head off to her room.
“Who…Who was that?”
My whisper sounded faint in the vastness of the palace hallway.
Karina didn’t seem to have simply forgotten. It was almost like…
“No one can guess a puzzle box’s contents from the outside. That’s what makes them an enigma. Beware the Witch of the South.”
Daniel’s words replayed in my mind.
The Witch of the South…who could change her appearance at will.
No, it wasn’t possible…Ed was the only magician in the world who could do that.
But I couldn’t stop the wave of terror from washing over me.
My mind was awhirl with horrible doubts.
But I still had no idea what was really going on.
She was Karina…but she wasn’t Karina at all. And it was just like when Daniel had been Daniel…and yet not Daniel in my last timeline. Things were starting to take an oddly familiar turn.
I didn’t know what to do…but I decided to hurry to see Ed to ask him about Elena’s condition for now.
I headed straight to Ed’s room and knocked on the door. Quietly, it opened.
“Ah, Princess. I just got back. I narrowly managed to evade Karina. Thanks for the heads-up.” Ed looked deeply troubled as he answered the door, speaking low and fast.
“Ed, what happened to Elena?”
From the look on Ed’s face, it was obvious he hadn’t been able to help her. I was filled with anxiety as I looked at him.
“Come in first, Princess.” Ed moved back, gesturing inside the room. I nodded, ducking inside.
“So…what happened?”
I sat down and got straight to the point, aware that time was short. Ed sat down on the opposite side of the low table, facing me. His expression was grim.
“I was only with her for half an hour, but I was able to fully examine Elena. She seemed surprised to see me at first but relaxed when I assured her I was there with Harold’s full consent. She even shed a tear… Now, as to her ailment…it’s clear to me that she is indeed under magical influence.”
Ed paused, as if unsure how to proceed. Lacing his fingers together, he gazed at the wall.
“Based on my intuition, it appears that she’s under the influence of several spells at once. One is a silencing spell, which prevents her from speaking or even writing certain things. It’s an extremely complex spell. Another spell keeps her from leaving the room on her own…”
“She’s under that many spells? Were you able to lift them?”
“No. The examination took longer than I expected. It took me the whole time just to determine what spells she was under. I worried that the culprit might pick up on what I’d done if I lifted the spells incorrectly. Then they’d just cast an even more powerful spell next time.”
Ed paused, biting his lip.
“It seems impossible, but…it is my belief that Elena is under the influence of an Illusion.”
“…It can’t be!” My voice rose in shock. “But…you’re the only magician who can cast Illusions. I mean, I know the other Najirian Royal Magicians have recently been able to cast temporary Illusions on small objects thanks to your instruction, but…”
Illusion magic had been pioneered by the legendary magician, Longile. It was his life’s work. The technique was very old indeed and incomplete. But once Ed became a Royal Magician, he was able to pick up the research and continue it until he could cast incredible Illusions himself.
It was impossible to imagine any magician who wasn’t from Najir being able to do it.
“I thought so too. But there’s no mistake. I know an Illusion when I see it. But this Illusion spell Elena is under…it shows signs of the technique that I developed.”
Ed shook his head, his face very solemn indeed.
“Anyway, from the amount of complicated magical spells Elena is currently under, it’s clear to me that the woman in that room who appears to be Elena isn’t actually her.”
“Is it really her…the Princess Karina we knew?”
Daniel’s words came back to me as I reeled back in my seat.
That’s what Daniel had asked me, back in the garden gazebo.
“No one can guess a puzzle box’s contents from the outside…” I murmured.
“What’s that?” Ed gave me a confused look, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. My mind was ablaze with rapid thinking.
Daniel said he saw the Witch of the South use Illusion magic in his dream.
I dismissed him at the time, thinking it was impossible. But what if it were true?
If the Witch of the South could change her appearance, then that’d mean that the woman who looked like Elena wasn’t Elena. It was the witch herself.
But Ed had said that Elena was “under magical influence.” Magic that someone else had cast upon her. In other words, she wasn’t doing it to herself.
“Could that mean…”
I thought back on the unsettling encounter I had just before.
Karina, now acting like a completely different person, didn’t know about one of the precious memories we had made together in Najir.
“Could that mean that the ‘Witch of the South’ is…Karina?”
“Princess. Who is this ‘Witch of the South?’”
Picking up on my mutterings, Ed looked at me with an expression of deep concern.
I clenched my fists as they lay on my lap.
I’d been dismissing it until now, thinking it all too absurd. But if Karina wasn’t really who she appeared to be, then all of the weirdness that’d been surrounding her would make sense. She didn’t seem like Karina at all. So…perhaps she wasn’t. After all, what had led to my current life should have been impossible, and yet here I was.
But then…where’s the real Karina?
That’s when I gasped.
Someone was casting magic on Elena.
Around the same time that Elena fell sick, Karina’s personality completely changed.
Which must mean…
“Elena was behind everything…she switched places!”
When we met for the second time here in Nigren, Elena had seemed so uncharacteristically happy to see me. She’d shed tears, as if desperate to tell me something.