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WITH King Ricardo back in Nieve, I eased back into my duties by preparing for the wedding. Since Mother was right in that I was useless currently, I devoted my time to preparing Elizabeth’s private chambers. There was plenty of furniture and daily essentials to go over, which made the process feel like we were newlyweds already.
There was already a list of most of the furniture to be moved from the la Montlivere mansion, most of which were Elizabeth’s personal possessions. There were several instruments, for example, as well as rare books, heirloom accessories, and articles of furniture alike. The question was where we’d put her things.
“We can’t simply put everything in the parlors,” she reasoned. “It would get too cluttered for our guests.”
“We could keep it at the villa?”
The small villa at the back of the palace grounds—Elizabeth and my temporary home after our marriage—was plenty large enough for extra furniture. Our current issue, however, was that my parents wanted us to live in the palace eventually. We had to ensure that the room adjacent to mine was ready for her. With the idea to keep it at the villa, however, we stood a chance at managing it.
With that, Harold, Elizabeth, and I left for the small villa to confirm the space we had available. I hadn’t been there since our search for Plum. We surveyed a few rooms, laid out areas for storage, and returned to the front door. That was when Lars reared his head from his perch in Harold’s arms. He’d gotten so attached to Harold that the basket was barely used now—and precisely because of that, he was free to take flight and dive down a corridor. He seemed to be headed directly for the room in which Plum had appeared.
“L-Lord Lars!” Elizabeth shouted after him.
“What’s wrong?” I called as I ran. “Is something there?!”
Don’t tell me there’s another demon sealed there… Even enough of Plum’s leftover mana could be trouble.
Upon arriving at the door to the room in question, Lars tackled it, shattering the lock with his tiny body and sending it shrieking open. Inside were countless motes of drifting light. I could tell it wasn’t mana; however, upon closer observation, the sunlight coming in through the window was hitting the polished picture frames assembled in the room and sending reflections dancing throughout.
In the middle of the room, Elizabeth… no, a thoroughly off-putting number of Elizabeths looked back at me. She looked at me from every corner of the room, from young to old, as if it were the chronicle of her maturation. Countless paintings lined the walls, and it was then that my scrambled memories of Plum’s attack finally became clear.
That’s right… When Plum appeared, Harold and I had just finished moving all this art here—because Elizabeth would probably be disturbed by it. Gods, I’m no better than Father, am I?!
“Oh!”
I heard a gasp from behind me and froze. Then, with a slow, uneasy turn of my head, I looked back at Elizabeth, who was now taking stock of my full collection.
This is the end.
“This is it,” she muttered to herself.
That… didn’t sound like a cry of revulsion.
“Prince Vincent, there’s one thing I avoided telling you about. I wanted to bring it with me to the palace, but I couldn’t find the place for it.”
“You couldn’t?”
“Please, let me put it here. I believe it would be perfect in this room.”
She smiled at me warmly. There was no trace of disgust or anger on her face.
Right… She didn’t react when she saw the portrait of her I carry in my pocket watch, so this reaction makes sense.
“Mind if I ask what it is?”
“It’s a life-size portrait of you, of course!” she told me enthusiastically. “I couldn’t bear to leave it behind, but at the same time, I would feel rather uneasy to hang it up in front of you.”
I seemed to be in the clear. She was too accepting.
“Of course, you can put it here.”
Elizabeth beamed back at me before walking forward to retrieve Lars. He had stopped to hover in midair, slowly turning to take in the room as if he’d suddenly found himself in heaven.
Right. I suppose he’s had a crush on her ever since she rejected him all those years ago. I imagine he thought every dinner and event with her was a blessing, even if he could only watch her from afar.
“Lord Lars?” she called to him.
At her call, his tail drooped, and with one last, long look around the room, he obediently flew to her side.
Elizabeth sighed. “If only I’d commissioned more portraits of you when you were younger…”
Though she’d not intended for me to hear, Harold and I whipped about to look at her in shock. Harold, however, seemed more frustrated that his earlier efforts to keep the room’s contents secret were in vain.
Is it just me, or are Elizabeth and I actually an ideal couple?
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THREE hands reached out to rest on my head. The first was Elizabeth’s, soft and warm. The second was Lars’ taloned paw, complete with scaly paw pads. The last was Plum’s plush little kitty mittens.
“Neow, let’s start the ritual!” Plum declared imperiously.
If all went well, the spell should restore my sealed memories. Plum had been lazing about for two weeks and finally had enough mana to do it. It had spent the past two weeks napping on Mother and watching her work, as well as annoying Father as often as it could manage. The rest of its time was spent wandering the castle gardens. It reminded me a lot of having a tiny King Ricardo around, but Mother was ever vigilant about any possible delinquency. Plum also took a bit of a liking to Elizabeth, and Lars saw it as an existential threat. That made it seem almost Lars-like, and it even slept on Mother’s bed in much the same way.
Perhaps there’s more to its stay than it’ll admit… not that I’ll breathe a word about it to Plum.
Though my eyes were closed, rainbow lights began to flicker and dance before me. Then, a new light appeared that seemed to outshine the others.
“Neow I’ve got it!” came Plum’s voice.
I felt lightheaded all of a sudden—no, clear-headed, as though the fog on my mind had lifted. My memories were finally back.
I could feel Plum’s mana recede from my body, and Elizabeth and Lars’ mana did the same, though I wouldn’t have minded the former staying. They each pulled away from me, one by one, and finally, Elizabeth and I sighed with relief.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
I took a moment to stretch. “I think I’m fine. I feel…well, normal.”
Only now that the seal was lifted did I realize the weight the memory loss had placed upon me. A little under half of my memories were gone, and the foreign mana in my system had affected me more than I realized. I was impressed I’d been able to function at all in that state. Of course, studying so much in that state would make me ill.
“The seal’s all gone neow!” Plum announced, giving me two thumbs-up. It was an impressive feat, with its little kitten paws, but it succeeded nonetheless.
Who even taught it to do that?
“That’s so adorable,” Elizabeth muttered beside me, and I noticed Lars trying to move his little claws similarly.
“With that, my work here is done! I’m free!”
The cait sidhe floated into the air, its cape billowing imperiously around it. Sure enough, the seal on my memories was the one thing keeping the cat bound inside the palace’s barrier.
Does it really want to leave, though? I think Mother and Plum should at least try to tell each other how they feel.
Before I could make up my mind to say something, Plum turned about to face the queen. It looked lonely, almost hurt.
“Mew are the only human to have bested me, Mariabel. When mew hit me all those years ago, I saw nyothing but sparks, and I couldn’t think straight… That’s why I tracked mew all the way here.”
Er. It’s not talking about being hit in a metaphorical sense, is it?
“I suppose a cat sidhe could nyever love a human…”
Love… as in, the romantic kind?!
The longer I listened, the more confused I became, and I watched as the cat flew to the window, paused for just a moment to catch a breath of fresh air, then left for the open sky. It didn’t turn back to look at us once—in all likelihood, it couldn’t have.
Elizabeth drew closer to me as we watched the monster leave. “Perhaps staying would have been a more painful fate for poor little Plum.”
“Yeah… Maybe.”
Its chief romantic rival was sitting in Mother’s bed with matching pajamas, after all. Not even I could be that cruel to Lars… probably.
It seems love does more than simply drive people mad.