TLNTAAM Chapter 21

I Know You're the Grand Duke

I tucked the book 〈Customs of Iberia〉 into my apron and walked down the corridor with all the energy of a wrung-out rag.

'That was genuinely terrifying.'

The beautiful Saint had cited scripture—something about honest people being the most dignified works of God's creation—and demanded a complete explanation. Thanks to that, I'd burned through every lie I owned in a frantic scramble to justify myself.

"I was worried about worrying you, Your Holiness."

Seraphie had shaken her head and pulled Nina into a tight embrace. Then she'd said something thoroughly saintly: that worry and prayer were a saint's proper work.

'I didn't expect to actually feel guilty.'

In the end, I'd had to declare three times that I would never lie again before she finally let me go. So this is what they mean when they say softness conquers force. Rendering someone utterly helpless with beauty and eloquence—she really was the heroine through and through.

I opened the laboratory door. The place was exactly as I'd left it: books stacked in precarious towers, old paper smell thick in the air. Diomede heard me come in but didn't turn around.

"You're here."

I suppressed the urge to grab that messily tied red ponytail and fling it across the room. Barely.

'Every time I think about that truth serum and its side effects, I grind my teeth.'

Honestly, I wanted to do worse than headbutt him.

"How's the body? The ankle as well?"

"Yes. The ankle is fine."

The red-haired man, apparently unaware of my murderous intentions or indifferent to them, drifted over and unwrapped the bandage. The white cloth rippled in front of my eyes and was gone.

He examined my forehead closely.

"Will there be a scar?"

The monocle shook his head. A small mercy.

"It wasn't a wound that scars. You nearly died."

"Still, no scar is better. Cutting bangs just to cover my forehead sounds like a hassle..."

I was combing the bandage-flattened hair back with my fingers when the cap on my head slipped off. Too lazy to bend down, I kicked it back up into my hand.

He said nothing. Strangely, today he wasn't even telling me to take my medicine.

'He really is a man of very few words.'

If he had something to say, he'd say it when he was ready. I settled into the small chair and started swinging my legs.

Silence settled in. He looked over documents for a while, then wrote something. He had a great deal of work.

'Should I just leave?'

That was when the red-haired man spoke.

"Ask."

"Pardon?"

"Ask what you want to ask."

Completely out of nowhere. Was everyone in this place just inherently odd, or had I simply managed to surround myself with a very particular sort of person?

I leaned back in the chair and stared at the stacks of books. The laboratory didn't get much light, which probably explained why everything smelled so strongly of old paper.

He said to ask, so I supposed I should ask. What exactly he wanted me to ask about, I had no idea.

I started carefully.

"Um... His Majesty told me not to die."

"Then you need only not die."

"He said he would dote on me."

"Then he will dote on you."

That kind of answer I could produce myself. Whatever enthusiasm I'd brought for this conversation collapsed. I kept swinging my legs.

"He calls me a rabbit, too."

Diomede pulled his gaze from the documents and looked at me. Then he gave a single nod.

"You do resemble one."

"Can you explain that?"

"His Majesty kept a rabbit when he was young."

"What happened to it?"

What becomes of a pet that receives the love of a king? Surely it lives long and peacefully. Raises many offspring.

A memory surfaced, unbidden: a friend's tiny dog being fed expensive red ginseng supplements. My friend had been enormously pleased about it—her red ginseng, going to a dog—and couldn't have been prouder.

"He fed it too much and it died."

I was rubbing my unbandaged forehead. My head dropped.

How much did you feed it.

This was precisely why you couldn't just impulsively get a pet. Life requires preparation before you take responsibility for it. You cannot bring something home just because it's cute and then refuse to follow through.

"Originally it was a rabbit I'd kept for experiments. Still, it lived considerably longer than it would have after it became His Majesty's."

The red-haired man delivered this without a flicker of expression, which somehow made it more unsettling.

"He genuinely means it when he says he values something."

"But I'm not a rabbit."

The monocle looked at me. I leaned back in the chair and kept swinging my legs.

I spent three full seconds debating whether I really had to be the one to say this out loud.

"I'm a person."

Something like a laugh came out with it. Right. I really wasn't a rabbit. Being a person meant I could think whatever I wanted and make different choices—with responsibility attached, naturally.

"That kind of generalized affection—I don't trust it. It's strange. A rabbit might have been happy with that kind of love, but when a person is kind to you, there's always a reason for it."

Something Lee Hwayun had learned acutely. Maybe the thing from thirty-odd years of living that had stayed with her most vividly.

"Sometimes I get the sense he's testing me. Like—if I actually believed in it and acted on it, he'd take the whole thing back immediately."

Diomede adjusted his monocle. I exhaled slowly and shook my head. Thoughts that brought up this particular flavor of bitterness were best shaken off quickly.

"You really don't seem like a child."

I forced out a small smile. I must be having a rough time. And lonely, apparently. Why am I unloading all of this on someone who has nothing to do with it?

'This person might report everything I just said directly to the king...'

Well. It didn't particularly matter. Perhaps His dear Majesty had already read something like this in my face and understood.

"I'll take it as a compliment."

I stopped swinging my legs and looked at the red-haired man. He turned back to his documents and said, without any particular inflection:

"It is a compliment."

A laugh broke out of me. What is this. I came here planning to headbutt him, and now it's gone all warm.

"Oh, right. Is it actually true that the truth serum side effect is madness?"

"Generally, yes. Past a certain threshold, the brain sustains damage. Even so, they still don't talk."

"Isn't it a bit much to give someone something that dangerous?"

"What I gave you was an extremely small dose, and I included an herb with a counteracting effect. Now—who told you about this?"

I swung my legs and answered promptly.

"His Majesty."

"He says unnecessary things. Regardless—trust me. The dose given to actual spies is considerably larger."

I tried to picture a spy drinking a full bucket of truth serum. It looked extremely unpleasant. Then again, a drug designed to force words out of someone—some degree of brain damage did track logically.

'I hope the spy suspicion gets cleared up soon.'

A chill ran down my spine. I shrugged it off.

Just then, footsteps sounded outside in the corridor. Like last time, I wondered if a knight was coming and glanced at Diomede. The red-haired man let out a breath and set his documents down entirely.

The door opened. The person who entered was someone I knew.

"Hey, kid. I heard you nearly died?"

The knight with the muscles and the easy smile. I rose from the chair and gave a small curtsy.

"Yes. I'm alright now."

"You were in bad shape. Be more careful with yourself. I was so shocked when I saw you in the ward."

"You visited the ward?"

Leo stepped slowly into the room.

"Soldiers get into accidents often enough that checking the ward is basically part of my daily routine. Do you have any idea how startled I was to find you there, kid?"

I was just about to ask if he might have been the one patting my chest while I was unconscious. That was the moment I noticed something strange about his cloak—an odd crumpling along his side.

I took one step forward. Nothing visible from straight on, but from a different angle it was perfectly clear.

"What's that?"

Dangling from Leo's waist was a small boy. Leo scratched the back of his head with a sheepish grin.

"You can come out now, Your Grace. You've been spotted."

A head of golden hair emerged from Leo's side. I stared at the boy with a completely collapsed expression. Glittering hair, green eyes the color of new leaves—objectively adorable. Which only made it worse.

'Of all the bridges in the world, you have to meet your enemy on the narrowest one.'

I opened my fist and closed it again. Of all the people to run into here—this little grim reaper.

"Leo, you can't leave my side."

"I'll stay close, so please detach yourself from me. You said you wanted to see the kid."

Why did he want to see me? Was he here to apologize?

Somehow I doubted it. I folded my arms and stared at the Grand Duke. The golden-haired boy stepped out from behind Leo with visible reluctance and approached.

"You..."

The Grand Duke stumbled over his words. I waited with what I hoped was patience, though what was building in my chest was something else entirely. Hurry up and get on with it.

And then he suddenly shouted.

"I am a chosen person!"

Good lord, you startled me.

I had no idea what he was trying to say. I shifted my gaze quietly to Leo, who was pressing two fingers to his forehead, murmuring something along the lines of that's not right, now.

Right. Whatever this was, it really wasn't right.

The boy shouted again, mid-recovery.

"No—that is to say—I am the Grand Duke!"

Is there anyone in this room who didn't know that? Yes, we all know you're the Grand Duke.

I watched him and waited, leaving the door open for him to continue. The golden-haired boy's face went crimson and he shouted again.

"Answer me!"

Leo exhaled deeply.

"What answer are you looking for?"

I clapped. Clap. Clap. Clap. The sound of my palms meeting filled the cluttered laboratory.

"Wow~. A chosen person~."

I could do three cheers if that was what he wanted.

"Th—that is to say, I am Iberian royalty chosen by the arcane!"

Oh. He was trying to make a point about rank. So you're royalty and I'm a maid, and therefore even though I nearly died it's not your fault?

'I really want to swear right now.'

I opened my fist and closed it again. My hand was aching to hit him.

"You!"

The boy pointed a finger at me. Stop that. You're making me want to bend those neatly straight fingers of yours.

'Hold it. I must hold it.'

He was still the Grand Duke. Outranking both Diomede and Leo.

The golden-haired boy asked:

"Why were you bathing at that time?"

I answered plainly.

"Because I was told to."

"By whom?"

"By Sabina Taylor."

"Why?"

The memory of my desperate string of excuses to Seraphie that morning surfaced. I had no desire to perform that again. I gave a vague answer.

"It just sort of happened."

Even I could tell that was thoroughly insufficient. The prince bit his lip. Leo laughed quietly into his sleeve.

"Answer me properly!"

"Does bathing require a reason? You get dirty, you wash."

There was, of course, an extremely irritating reason. But I had no interest in explaining it to someone the same height as me.

"The maids' quarters are a male-restricted area, aren't they? I assumed anyone coming in would be another maid. It genuinely never occurred to me that the Grand Duke might open the door to my room in muddy boots while I was in the bath."

"Falling was your mistake."

I laughed, low and brief. Is that how we're playing this? My nickname isn't shark's teeth for nothing. Let me really sink them in.

I looked at the golden-haired boy in front of me. All that gleaming, sun-warmed blond—it looked like prey that had been very nicely roasted.