“How is his Highness holding up?” He asked, twirling his mustache a little bit.

  He, Ludis de Crato, was rather uncomfortable with how things had turned out. First, his boss’ tragic sweetheart, the dear Lady Wynthart suddenly collapses while waiting. Second, his own reluctantly accepted assistant suddenly goes away running, third, the prince talks about something being impossible and becomes manic, four, the Lady, having returned to her senses, treats him like he’s a terrible person, when it’s only debatable, fifth, she picks up a sword, makes it glow and goes away, revealing that she’s apparently some kind of berserker despite his assumption that she seemed to be a very nice young woman, and sixth, the prince seems to have snapped a little bit.

  “Rather well.” Miss Rabineau answered, cleaning her fingers with a handkerchief and putting some white silk gloves on her delicate hands. “I have given him an elixir. He will be sleeping for the next ten minutes and will wake up relaxed and with his mind clear.”

  Crato nodded. He wasn’t much of a fan of drugging the prince, even if it was for his own good and the drugs were legal, it seemed far too controlling for his taste. He grimaced as he remembered Rose accusing him of exactly that. But if he woke up and decided it was a bad idea, he could just blame her and problem solved. His Highness never got angry at her, which made things a fair bit easier for them both.

  He glanced at a clock and took in some air. They had about forty minutes before the party truly began with the prince’s speech, it would be difficult, but they needed to make the last minute preparations, and honestly, it was going to be just so much easier without having him intervene like he so foolishly wanted to. Crato sighed. He was glad that there was no chance that his Highness was going to reign in Lastria, as the throne didn’t fit him at all. He ha also heard some rumors about the princess, but didn’t want to accept them.

  And speaking about candidates to the throne, that was exactly the issue he and Miss Rabineau were out so solve.

  If her deductions were correct, Lord Vivrul intended not only to raise an Objection to the crown, which to be entirely fair, he had the right to do, to cause a vote in which his wife could, with a near-distressing likeliness result in her being elected to the throne, and thus him becoming king. But it implied that he may go beyond his job and do something in the ball intended to publicly embarrass the Regent, who honestly, was already dealing with far too much following the apparently fake breakup with Lady Wynthart. Not that he knew why in the Seven Punishment would he stage something like that, specially involving accusing her on a list of serious crimes. But still, doing a denunciation himself was something that neither Crato nor his Highness’ adorable doll-like friend were willing to accept.

  They were going to make sure this went swimmingly and hopefully, to get Vivrul to pay for attempting a public slander. He didn’t even register it as remotely hypocritical.

  “Very well then.” Crato answered. “The ball is a bit a head, but for now, let us say that it is Showtime!”

  The corner of Maran’s lips twitched. She had clearly registered it as some kind of joke and was finding it to be extremely, painfully, unfunny. Not the reaction he expected, but one he could readily accept as the one that made the most sense. He muttered a short apology as they crossed the still empty ballroom and entered the lobby.

  Despite having intentionally only invited the baseline amount for it to be credibly considered to be a ball at the royal palace, it was still a large enough number of guests to make things quite awkward if they went wrong, so they looked for Vivrul and fortunately didn’t have too much trouble locating him and pushing him to a slightly more private spot. He wasn’t surprised to see them, but by his reaction of annoyance, he was likely aware that they already knew.

  “So, am I to assume that his Highness has found out that I ordered the sending of an eagle?” He asked them, tidying his already neat frock coat. Of course, he was going to play it as something perfectly innocent, he was just trying to help.

  “Not exactly, but any child could figure out as much. He is, however, worried about the exoneration.” Crato eyed Maran, he didn’t expect her to be that direct. With this kind of noble, the customary thing was to maintain pleasantries and dance around the bush a little, avoiding a full confrontation.

  Lord Vivrul’s expression changed into a mask of false benevolence.

  “Well, I can assure you, my child, that all the paperwork is in order. Honestly, his Highness worries to much for his own good, you both should tell him as much. He can trust that things will go in a perfectly smooth manner.” There was a warmth in his voice that made both Crato and Maran uneasy. It was the mark of someone who was insincere as a general custom rather than the product of a momentary scheme. Of course, Crato knew as much, seating in the Council with him, but it was never not disturbing to hear.

  “Just in case, however, we should rehearse what is to happen, so things do indeed go as smoothly as you say, milord. Saints know that you should never think of yourself as unable to fail.” Crato sighed as Maran talked. He couldn’t just have her shut up, but the idea of angering the duke could easily put their diplomatic approach in jeopardy.

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  “His highness will give a speech in which he will list the reasons why we were wrong to assume that Lady Wynthart had committed the crimes he had mistakenly accused her of. Then he publicly apologizes to her. I then announce that all charges have been dismissed for lack of substantial enough evidence as the subsequent investigation after her charging has been unsuccessful.” Vivrul said. “What is there to rehearse?

  “All of it, maybe, it is quite a lot.” Crato answered before she could, attempting to take the reigns of the conversation.

  “Yes, and much of it requires the intervention of his Highness, who is not here, so I do not see how we could rehearse most of it without his intervention. Maybe if he had been calmer these past few days and it was brought up then, we could have done so, but at this point, I do not see any other option than proverbially ‘enduring for it’, as some kids say.” Vivrul said in a lamenting tone. He was accustomed to often be the adult in the room, and given his position, it was natural that he would try to paint himself as the more reasonable one; a tactic that often worked when facing lower-ranking nobles, such as them, but given the situation, one doomed to fail.

  “Lord Crato can act as him, and I can just pretend to be Lady Wynthart. I do not see how it is much of a problem. We all know him well enough to account for his absence, do we not?” Maran said, faking an angelic smile of pure benevolence. If he didn’t know better, Crato would have assumed her to have a completely innocent intention. It creeped him out.

  “You do know, milady, that things do not work so easily. Does his Highness have a written speech? And if so, have you, Lord Crato, studied it enough to act as him?” Vivrul answered. It was good enough of a gotcha. He knew the speech was short enough that it hadn’t been written; in fact, he even brought up to the prince that he should just say the lines from his heart instead of something pre-made that could easily come out as sounding overly artificial. Besides, the wording didn’t really matter since the press would be getting second-hand accounts of the event anyway.

  Crato was about to respond when Maran, once again, stepped in first. “He does in fact have it, and I myself have studied it. Not that it was necessary, of course, given how short it is.”

  One of Vivrul’s eyes twitched slightly, once. He hoped that they couldn’t have seen it

  “Although, honestly, he should not have bothered.” Maran continued. “You were perfectly right when you told him, milord. But as you know, he has been quite paranoid lately, not just due to the events that have happened to our dear Lady Wynthart, but since that stunt with the eagle, who could blame him? That said, it is merely a handful of lines, so short that it could hardly be interrupted.”

  Vivrul staggered, almost imperceptibly, and stared at them with a calculating gaze. Both were smiling a bit; it was a sure sign that they knew, they must have known, about his plan. And yet he couldn’t quite accept it. It was too good to fail.

  The plan, as he had thought it until that very moment, was outstandingly simple: When his Highness was giving the speech, he would step in to clarify one of the points, namely the fact that there was no evidence found to charge the lady with certainty, modifying his wording to no longer imply innocence but instead that she simply would get away with it. The prince was probably going get angry at him afterwards, but the idea would then go on into the press, as it was juicy enough for the gossiping aristocracy. Then, at the Enshrinement, he would raise the Objection, something that, being both technically a member of the parliament and a noble of the Nine First Houses, he had the right to do. If everything else then had gone according to the preparations, his wife had an extremely high chance of winning the election and thus make him King by right of marriage.

  Plus, she would pet his head, something that he enjoyed very much.

  And yet, it was very likely that those two, and perhaps even the prince, were already more than acquainted with it. They probably didn’t have any evidence whatsoever that pointed to it, but any child could follow the train of logic. The circumstances made it very easy for him to score a win.

  “As if anyone would just dare to interrupt him during an important speech.” He deflected. “I am quite sure that they know better than just stepping in when he is talking. Specially with me around to give my approval to the end of the case.”

  “Speaking about that approval, milord, if I may change the subject.” Crato intervened. “Would you be so kind to let me see the document that his Highness is to sign after the informal trial has finished to make the exoneration official? As his Eyes, I am to bring it to him as soon as possible so he can review it.”

  He was grinning in a way that made Vivrul far more nervous than he was willing to show or admit. “Does he have to review it at the moment? I am not quite sure of the time, but I could swear we have about half an hour yet, there is no time.”

  “But milord, that only makes it so he has to do it now. As you must understand, His Highness’ attention will be near completely caught by both his regular paperwork, and more, given that he has not been able to do it as he needed in his usual scheduled work time, plus the press and having once again to take care of his fiancee.” Maran said, looking up towards him. He found her doll-like looks, adorable the first time he had seen her, to be rather unnerving. It was as if she knew so much of what was going on at nearly all times; as if the world was a play and she had read the script.

  He had heard it a few times regarding her, specially when Lady Frimole, the daughter of a friend of his sister’s was poisoned while she was at the Academy. It was a terribly sordid affair in which an innocent girl was blamed, only for Maran Rabineau to intervene and point out who had been the actual culprit all along. It was easy to assume that the girl was simply smart and could deduce things easily, but some of them went beyond what could be found with pure logic and back then her family was not yet a part of high society. A shiver went down his spine.

  “He does need to take good care of her, does he not?” Vivrul found the idea downright hilarious after what had happened in the previous royal ball.

  Then, one of the windows of the ballroom broke in an explosion of red glass. Something that no one could quite identify fell, still moving, to the floor, and on top of it, Rose Wynthart herself, holding a glowing sword.

  ‘Take care of her’ his ass.