Alicia was sent back to the Wellston estate in a royal carriage.
Once the carriage set into motion, Joshua spoke before long.
“You once said you would spend your holidays at the dormitory, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“I confirmed it with the matron. She said you returned home.”
A chill ran through Alicia.
The image of the dormitory matron, Ada Klein, rose in her mind. A stern elderly woman with tightly pulled-back hair and an ever-unforgiving expression.
Was Joshua lying, or had Thomas forced the matron to lie?
Either way, someone clearly wished for Alicia’s ruin.
Joshua would not believe her words.
Yet she refused to cry and apologize for things she had never done, as she had in childhood.
“I did not return home. There is no place for me there.”
“Mariabelle says she is always worried about you. She claims you are melancholic and unstable. From my perspective as well, that seems true. You always look so unhappy. Why is that?”
She realized then that nothing she said would reach him.
“Why do you ask me that, Your Highness?”
“What?”
“Because no matter what I say, you will not believe me.”
Alicia lifted her face and, for the first time, looked straight at him without shrinking away.
He was beautiful.
And twisted by anger.
“That is because you have lied since childhood.”
“I have lied?”
“Whenever I announced my visits in advance, you were always absent, or too unwell to appear. Are you saying it was all my fault?”
His calm voice was laced with restrained fury.
“It was not my fault either.”
Her reply was quiet, but resolute.
“Then explain yourself.”
“What more is there to explain to someone who has no intention of believing me? I have already been told by Her Majesty the Queen that I am unqualified.”
“That was not my mother’s true intent. She meant to spur you on.”
Joshua frowned irritably.
“Your Highness, I am not criticizing Her Majesty. I believe she spoke truly. As you say, there is no trust between us. I am looked down upon by other nobles as well. Tonight, I was shoved aside by debutantes and nearly fell. I was only saved because Lord Rosner caught me.”
Once Alicia had said all this in a single breath, silence fell over the carriage.
Did he truly notice nothing when he saw her left behind without the Wellston family carriage?
Soon, they arrived at the Wellston estate.
The gatekeeper stared in shock at the royal carriage, then rushed to summon the master of the house.
Moments later, the Wellston family appeared at the entrance.
“Oh my, Sister, we were so worried about you.”
“Indeed. If you were returning with His Highness, you could have told us.”
Deborah spoke in a cloying voice.
“Your Highness, thank you so much. Would you care to join us for tea?”
Thomas smoothly extended the invitation.
“No, thank you. It is late. I will take my leave.”
The moment the royal carriage departed through the gates, Deborah struck her.
“You shameless wretch!”
She kicked Alicia again and again. The blows were so violent that Alicia lost consciousness on the spot.
The next morning, Alicia awoke and immediately fled through the back entrance of the mansion.
She never wanted to pass through that gate again.
The following day, Alicia’s face was swollen, and bruises marred her arms and waist. Her body ached, but she ignored it and headed for the library.
She was preparing for the transfer examination to the magic department.
The librarian looked startled at her condition, but sensing there was more to it, said nothing.
Alicia studied with single-minded focus.
Three days later, a male student deliberately sat down beside her, breaking her concentration. The library was vast, with plenty of empty seats.
She looked up with faint irritation and froze.
It was Joshua. He, however, looked shocked.
“Alicia. What happened to your face?”
She hesitated, unsure how to answer.
If she honestly said her stepmother had beaten her, he might go to confirm it.
And then, surely, she would be branded a liar and killed. That was how it felt.
“I do not wish to say.”
“Why not? The culprit must be caught.”
How troublesome, she thought. Joshua never believed her words, and he lacked flexibility.
“Perhaps I was at fault. Your Highness, is this not a place for quiet study?”
She did not want him to know about the transfer.
She felt he would oppose it, and worse, that he might let the matter slip to Mariabelle.
After finally managing to establish contact with her grandparents, she could not afford to ruin everything through carelessness.
After all, her placement in the general course had been the result of deference to the queen.
Alicia quietly closed the book she had been reading, hiding the cover, and stood.
“Wait, Alicia. After the ball, I found it strange that the Wellston carriage was not waiting. Should we not try to meet each other halfway?”
For a fleeting moment, she felt glad to hear those words.
Then memory surged back.
“Indeed, there are aspects of your upbringing that deserve sympathy.”
That was what the future Joshua in the mirror had said.
Did that mean that trying to meet him halfway now was futile?
Alicia thought carefully and arrived at a calm conclusion.
“We have been engaged since I was six years old. Nearly ten years have passed. And yet there is nothing between us. I am timid, despite being a marquis’s daughter, I have no friends, and I am ridiculed. For the sake of something constructive, might we reconsider this engagement?”
Joshua let out a long sigh.
“…Strange. Until now, I believed you to be merely a weak-willed girl. But now you speak so bluntly, as though you were a different person altogether. What happened to you? That is what I want to know.”
His gaze was sincere.
Her heart wavered for an instant. But if she clung to that sincerity, ruin surely awaited her.
(No. Treating that vision as the future is reckless. Perhaps it was a warning of some sort…)
Even so, it remained an inexplicable phenomenon.
“Your Highness, I am a narrow-minded person. It pains me to see you and Mariabelle dining together.”
“Mariabelle is your sister. Why are you so cold toward her?”
She had never thought herself cold, but perhaps that was how she appeared to him.
“Then why not become engaged to Mariabelle instead? She is a wielder of holy magic. I see no reason why that would damage your reputation. Rather than being engaged to a socially inept woman like myself, would you not find a brighter future with someone cheerful and well liked?”
“Are you jealous?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
(I do not wish to die under false charges. Not for someone who does not love me.)
“You misunderstand. An engagement is a sacred vow and a contract between the royal family and House Wellston. Your opinion is not important. Nor, for that matter, is mine.”
“Then please refrain from asking me anything further.”
Joshua fell silent.
Alicia bowed, murmured “Excuse me,” and left.
His face remained unreadable, giving no hint of what he was thinking.
Even such a man smiled when he was with Mariabelle. It stung, but she could not afford indulgence in sentiment.
(No matter how much I cling, I will be unloved, falsely accused, and executed. I refuse such a life. I want an ordinary, peaceful existence.)
Students in the library were surely straining to overhear.
By the time classes resumed, rumors about the two of them would spread through the academy.
Alicia found the thought faintly tiresome.
