It was a beautiful, sunny day, and I sat alone in the student council room, finalizing the research data I’d received from a classmate. Yet I couldn’t concentrate, and in frustration, I let out a sharp click of my tongue.
It was because that woman’s trail had gone cold. After she’d vanished near the sea, carried off by a basilisk running across the water, tracking her had become extremely difficult.
I had immediately used Regulus’s teleportation magic to return to the mansion and contacted my father. It was obvious she was headed to grandmother’s house. But father had insisted I leave it alone. What was he thinking?! Didn’t he worry about grandmother?! If that woman tried to harm her, she’d get her comeuppance?! What the hell did that even mean!
A week later, during dinner, Regulus, disguised as my father’s messenger, had delivered my parents’ divorce papers to my sister. Since my parents had also registered the marriage with the church, my sister had apparently been instructed to submit the papers there. Although it lacked the force of national law, society would still consider them husband and wife unless the church registration was annulled.
Hythyism was no longer the state religion, and the royal family and the Four Great Ducal Houses kept their distance from the church in official matters. Yet the church still had many followers. If they’d wanted the support of their subjects for their marriage, it would have been better to abide by the registration practice and submit their documents to the church.
Especially since my parents’ marriage had likely been taken poorly by the general public, given my uncle’s elopement. They’d married about twenty years ago, so the church’s influence must have been greater then than it was now.
The country needed priests to purify the land if disaster struck. Nobles, precisely because they were nobles, couldn’t afford to disregard the church. Consequently, they tended to donate large sums and register their marriages with the church.
I’d heard that the annulment of a church marriage normally took several months to process.
But why had they singled out my sister? Both father and the church...
Just as my irritation peaked, the door clicked open and Heinz appeared.
“You’re here,” he said. “You might have heard, but I delivered the ingredients to Lady Robur five days ago. The sonic wolf wings were included too.”
“Wings... Seriously... No, I see.” I’d heard about the ingredients, but that really included the wings? Were those bat-style wings even tasty?
But my sister was a great cook. Last night, we’d had tonkotsu ramen for dinner with Miss Faltan, who’d become my sister’s friend; that and the salad, using this new ingredient called ice plant, had both been delicious. I’d heard the ramen broth was made by simmering the bones of the sonic wolves. My instincts were yelling at me that dishes made from the wings must be delicious too.
“So...did you find them?” Heinz didn’t specify who. He seemed aware of his commoner status. If he was caught up in a high-ranking noble’s family feud, he had no means to protect himself.
“I don’t know.”
“I see.”
At the end of summer, Heinz had been afflicted with a tangled, wicked curse. It had been miraculously broken by a crude magical device crafted by my sister. Back then, Sienna had willingly become that magic curse. She later returned to human form, but at that point had been transformed into a hideous old woman.
The resemblance between Sienna, when she’d become a black mass of cursed energy on the boys’ dorm rooftop, and the silhouette of the black doll that had clung to that woman’s back, was deeply unsettling. Sienna’s death had been confirmed, but could it be another magical curse? I couldn’t be sure.
But I knew thinking about that woman wouldn’t yield answers, so I shifted my focus. “Speaking of which, I hear you’ve been spending a lot of time with my sister lately.”
“Huh?! Ah, no... That’s...” Heinz was visibly flustered. Suspicious?
“You seem quite close, spending all that time alone together in that place you call your atelier?”
Heinz took a fearful step back as I rose and advanced on him. Step by step, I cornered him against the wall, then slammed my hand down beside his face, leaning in close. I was putting into practice what my father, the duke, had taught me.
“My sister may be shameless, but she’s a pure child,” I told him.
“You admit she’s shameless?! That’s not pure anymore, then, is it?!”
“If you lay a hand on her, I’ll crush you.”
“Crush what?! W-Wait, more importantly, on the day Miss Faltan took the ingredients, she hit it off with Lady Robur and made plans to stay over. She actually stayed last night, right?! She didn’t become prey, did she?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Was it because she was his former fiancée? He seemed concerned about Miss Faltan, but what did “prey” even mean?
“They hit it off energetically and went to the church.”
“Huh?! Just the two of them?!”
I gritted my teeth. “The head supervisor went along too.”
“Wh-What? Seriously, why?” At first, he had probably simply been concerned over Miss Faltan going to that suspicious church. But learning midway that Regulus, the first prince—a figure of special, exalted status—had gone with them, left him utterly stunned.
“Last night, he visited with my parents’ divorce papers in hand,” I replied. “He said he’d be leading the group as head supervisor.”
“Abuse of authority... No, but why did Miss Faltan go too?”
“Don’t ask. Miss Faltan shares her fangirl tendencies... My sister happily invited her along as a friend. And Miss Faltan didn’t seem entirely opposed; she said the church was full of...roses?”
“Fangirl... Full of roses...”
They were words I hadn’t been able to comprehend, but Heinz seemed to understand them.
He stared intently at my face, and then...flushed? Then he suddenly turned pale. His face twitching, he backed away from the wall, slowly distancing himself from me before taking his leave. He was utterly silent. I watched him go, still not understanding a thing.
Suddenly, I recalled this morning’s meal.
“Miss Linda and I became friends through our shared interests! I even read the autobiographical novel she wrote! Other people’s novels really are the best!”
“Uh, um, good evening, my lord. I accompanied Galfi to deliver ingredients to Lady Robur. I apologized to her, and, um, we made a plan, and today, I’m staying over...um, at the lady’s invitation...”
“Hee hee hee, I happened to see a dropped memo and discovered this unexpectedly wonderful novel. Tonight we’ll have an all-night fangirl discussion!”
The scandalous novelist had smiled dreamily, her face radiant. What on earth was an “all-night fangirl discussion”?
I had already heard from our butler John about Miss Faltan’s stay, but this was undoubtedly my sister’s request.
“Me too! I never imagined that you could be that esteemed author I admired so much!” Miss Faltan was overcome with emotion. Apparently, she was a devoted fan of the scandalous writer.
The two girls, cheeks flushed, had held hands and gazed at each other. It was like a scene straight out of a romance novel. I’d been bewildered by what I’d witnessed...and then suddenly I’d snapped back to reality.
Wait a minute! Had I been poisoned by my sister’s novels too?!
Just as I’d come to my senses, Regulus had arrived bearing the divorce papers, sent by my father.
He must have snatched the papers from my father and schemed this date under the guise of protecting my sister. Our nation’s prince running errands for a subject... Was that really acceptable, Regulus, you lovestruck fool?
Apparently, the church had contacted my father, saying if my sister came to process the divorce, they could complete a procedure that normally took months in just one day. If it weren’t for that woman who was bound to cause trouble, I could have happily waited months, since the divorce had already been legally finalized under our country’s laws.
Miss Faltan had had trouble with the church before, and she showed signs of refusing, but my younger sister wasn’t having it.
“The church! It’s a paradise of roses, isn’t it! Miss Linda, let’s go! No, as Lady Robur, I’ll take you even if you refuse!”
Her use of status was crude and far too personal, I thought—but I supposed it was her first time using it to her advantage. Watching as the first-love fool slurping tonkotsu ramen radiated a dark aura, I silently rooted for my sister. The first-love fool probably realized his date was being disrupted, but that was the right decision.