Chapter 7

Chapter 7

 

AFTER LEAVING the meeting room, Rishe hurried down the hall. Really, she wanted to sprint, but she couldn’t exactly do that in the imperial palace. Trying to stuff down her panic, she listened to Theodore’s rundown of the situation.

“He threw off all of his tails,” Theodore murmured as he walked beside her. “He was last seen in a seventeenth-district alley in the southern part of the capital. That was three hours ago. We’re searching the area now.”

“Under what circumstances did they lose him? Even if he noticed the tail, for him to escape people from the slums is just…”

“Apparently, they smelled something sweet right beforehand.”

Theodore explained the effects, and Rishe recognized the “scent” as an anesthetic derived from a type of mushroom.

“They entered the alley, and that’s the last thing they remember. When they woke up, two hours had passed and their target was missing. In other words…” Theodore lowered his voice even more. “We no longer have eyes on Michel Hévin.”

Rishe’s lips closed in a thin line.

Several days ago, she’d asked Theodore for a favor. “I want you to watch Professor Michel and tell me what he does. If he tries to get near Prince Arnold, stop him.”

Theodore’s people from the slums knew everything there was to know about the capital, boasting an impressive information network and methods for reaching any corner of the city. Additionally, Theodore’s surveillance network within the palace kept tabs on Arnold’s activities. Michel had evaded all of them.

“Just in case, please have the affected people drink plenty of water. If there’s anything else you can tell me—”

“They reported that he was carrying a different bag than usual. A sturdy-looking metal case. He handled it very delicately.”

Rishe gasped.

“My operatives report whenever targets make a change to their usual routine.” Theodore smirked. At times like this, he really resembled Arnold. “As soon as I received word, I mobilized all my contacts in the slums. I have scores of people searching outward from the seventeenth district right now.”

“Wow, Prince Theodore…”

“The report on losing Michel Hévin didn’t get to me for about two and a half hours. Once they find their target, they’ll do exactly what you told them to do. They’re sending me regular updates.”

Rishe’s eyes widened in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to be that on top of things. She hadn’t told Theodore about the gunpowder, and she was hiding Michel’s desire to give it to Arnold. True, she’d given him steps to take when engaging the “target,” but Theodore didn’t know any details. She had simply said, “Keep an eye on this foreign man, do this if he acts in a certain way, and report back to me.” She hadn’t expected him to be so good at improvising.

“Why do you look so surprised? Did you think Arnold’s little brother could only mindlessly follow orders?”

“O-of course not! I’m just shocked you trust me. I haven’t even told you why I want you to follow him.”

Running next to her, Theodore gave her an exasperated look. “Someone innocent wouldn’t attack the people tailing them. They’d just try to lose them or seek help from the proper authorities. A man who knocks out his pursuers with some weird drug is obviously planning to do something crazy.”

Rishe couldn’t respond. Her gaze dropped as she sped through the halls. Theodore had all sorts of ruffians from the slums—practically criminals—under his command. His words rang true.

Theodore glanced back at the knights following them and lowered his voice. “I made the call to pull you out of a meeting with my brother because I judged the situation an emergency. I’ve tipped our hand to him, so he’ll certainly probe into this; I apologize for that in advance.”

“It’s all right. Thank you, Prince Theodore. Let me just confirm: Have Michel and Prince Arnold had any contact?”

“I think it’s safe to say they haven’t. I don’t think he’s approached Oliver either. One thing does bother me, though.”

“You mean how you gained entry to the meeting room?” Rishe also found it strange.

He nodded. “Even if I am the younger prince, they wouldn’t let me barge in on a conversation between my brother and Prince Kyle. Yet Oliver didn’t even try to stop me.”

“And Prince Arnold barely reacted. He wasn’t surprised.”

Maybe his surprise simply hadn’t shown on his face. Or perhaps he’d seen through it all and had been expecting something like this.

Or maybe it was more convenient for Prince Arnold for me to leave…

She could be overthinking, but if Rishe didn’t interrogate every idea that came to her, she’d never figure out Arnold’s behavior. In any case, she had ample reason to be wary. “Tell me, what’s the state of the search—”

“Excuse me, Prince Theodore.” A knight appeared from down the hall and whispered something to Theodore in a practiced manner. The large man was one of Theodore’s imperial knights, as Rishe recalled.

“Got it. Come on, Sister. This way!”

“You’ve already found him?!”

“Whose brother do you think I am? Besides, he returned to a place where it’s easy to get eyes on him!”

Theodore left the palace with Rishe chasing after him, running out into the courtyard with her skirt hitched up. It was easy enough to guess what he meant.

“Ugh…” She was out of breath, having run for so long. When she finally arrived at their destination, shoulders heaving, the man they sought was there looking utterly relaxed.

“Hey, Rishe.” Michel wore a composed smile, standing in the flower-filled garden. Four knights loomed behind him, their uniforms bearing a slightly different design than that of Arnold’s imperial knights. Surrounded, Michel sat down on a white bench in the garden, smoke from his herbal cigarette rising from his lips.

“You’re a brilliant student, but you need some lessons on how to treat your lab rats. Cornered animals can be unpredictable, you know? If a cat has no tree to climb, it’ll attack the dog chasing it. Rowr!” Michel swiped his right hand like a cat’s paw. “Not that I need to alter my behavior much, even if I’m being surveilled.” He tilted his head to the side, shoulder-length hair swaying with the movement.

Theodore was just as out of breath as Rishe, but he casually stepped in front of her as if to protect her. “What’s this guy’s problem? Aren’t you acting a little too familiar with my brother’s fiancée?”

By this point, Rishe’s knights had caught up as well; Rishe sent them a look telling them to hold. After that, she studied the knights surrounding Michel.

“Prince Theodore. The knights behind the professor…”

“I know. You all can leave.”

A knight bowed awkwardly. “I apologize, Your Highness. We are not able to follow that order.”

“What?” Theodore frowned his displeasure. The knights flinched but seemed to have no intention of leaving.

Watching this exchange, Michel blinked slowly. “Hey, Rishe, why do you want to get rid of the knights? I don’t suppose it’s out of consideration for me, is it? That’s very kind. Thank you.” With an impish smile, he added, “But there’s no need for that.”

This presence… Rishe whirled around at the sound of boots on grass. She didn’t need to see him to know who was coming; she had memorized his tells just the other day to avoid running into him. It’s Count Lawvine!

“Lucius Alcott…” The tall military man stood before Rishe, eyes wide with shock. He quickly schooled his expression, bowing first to Theodore. “Your Highness Prince Theodore. Have my knights offended you somehow?”

“Well, I told them to leave, but they wouldn’t listen. Would you mind explaining that, Lawvine?”

“Please forgive them. Their loyalty does not permit them to follow your orders, even if you are a prince.”

“And I’d like to know why that is.”

Lawvine had the air of a man on a battlefield. Gone was the caring instructor Rishe had known these last few days. “We serve His Majesty, not you.”

Theodore looked almost frightened at the mention of his father.

“Michel Hévin has announced a significant incident fifteen minutes from now. Of his own creation.”

“Professor Michel, you didn’t…”

“It’s just as he says. I mentioned it to a random knight I found in the palace. That a crime would occur at the eighteenth hour and it would be my doing. Arrest me.”

What was Michel saying? Rishe was confused for a moment before she remembered his goal. “And by this strategy Prince Arnold will hear of your gunpowder?”

“Well, I’ll have to confess everything in the investigation afterward. I imagine either the crown prince or the emperor will be very interested in what I have to say.” Michel smiled softly, innocently. “Considering the scale of what’s about to happen, it would be impossible for the royal family to ignore.”

Michel really was planning on using his gunpowder for some plot. Rishe had seen this coming. In fact, she’d resigned herself to it and factored it into her plans. But her heart still sank to discover she was right.

Theodore clicked his tongue. “This isn’t good.” He turned around to Rishe and whispered, “Lawvine isn’t a knight. He can do this because he rules over Galkhein’s northernmost territory.”

“You mean he’s judged Michel, a guest from Coyolles, to be an enemy of Galkhein.”

“That’s right. If my father’s already heard about this, my brother may know as well. Father might have ordered him to do something.”

Rishe clenched her fists. Michel had implied an attack on Galkhein, and Lawvine was monitoring him. If the emperor had gotten word of that and told Arnold…

Prince Kyle!

Doing her best to stay calm, Rishe met Michel’s eyes. “Professor. Your actions have pulled in unrelated people.”

“Yes. I know that.”

“Professor!” Rishe couldn’t help raising her voice.

Michel returned her gaze and plucked the cigarette from his lips. “Well, this unveiling deserves a show, don’t you think? That way, people will understand gunpowder’s might and just how much unhappiness it can cause.”

“Unhappiness…?”

“Indeed. That’s why gunpowder exists. I have to help it fulfill its purpose.”

Michel had repeated these words so often in Rishe’s third life. He believed all things were created for a reason, a role they were meant to fulfill. Fulfilling that role was the only way to give their life meaning.

That’s why the professor and I parted. Rishe was never able to accept Michel’s way of thinking. She’d wanted to stop him from using his gunpowder, had pleaded with him not to. In the end, she could never get him to listen. They’d gone on to live separate lives, never again crossing paths.

“I brought it into this world—I am responsible for its existence. Even if it ends up making people unhappy, it must fulfill its purpose.” He wore the same smile on his face now that he had that moonlit night. Rishe remembered the last time they’d exchanged words.

Just then, a knight flew to Theodore’s side and whispered in his ear.

“Sister!” Theodore shouted.

Rishe listened to his report and let out a tiny sigh of relief. We made it.

 

---

 

Michel Hévin was feeling rather strange, standing in Galkhein’s imperial palace’s garden. The girl in front of him was to blame. He just couldn’t understand the strong, earnest way she was looking at him, the person he’d only begun calling his student on a whim when he arrived here.

It’s odd. Michel tilted his head, savoring the sweet taste of his cigarette. She looks angry, but that’s not all. Although, who am I to guess at what’s in someone’s heart?

Vague memories of a distant day came to mind.

“My wife is dead because of you.” His father had said those words countless times.

Their mansion had been dim and full of books. His father was thin, like he was slowly eroding. Eventually, their servants all disappeared, and Michel was stranded with his father’s words day after day.

“You must repay me. You were born to make us miserable. You’re a reaper.”

His father was a brilliant scholar once, or so Michel had heard. But he changed when his wife died. And he’d kept the cause of her death—Michel’s birth—beside him despite his deep hatred.

“I’m sorry for being born, Father.” He apologized to his father, clutching his robe around himself.

Even when he was hungry or lonely, he never asked his father for anything. Instead, he read through the books in the mansion to distract himself from his empty stomach. When he was studying, sometimes his father’s eyes would soften.

Fortunately, studying suited him well. He was quick to absorb information and a natural at putting it into practice. The things he learned from books came to him as easily as breathing or drinking.

Thanks to all his studying, his father eventually brought him into the outside world. Michel was swiftly surrounded by adults. A bit removed from the cluster, his father said, “This child has inherited my abilities. Make use of him in my stead.”

A commotion went through the adults, but Michel was ecstatic. For the first time in his life, he was something other than the child who killed his mother and ruined his father’s happiness.

“Father, will doing this help you?” he asked, desperate.

His father threw him a hateful look. “Of course.” Michel remembered shuddering at how cold the words felt. “It’s the least you can do to repay me for raising a reaper like you. This is the only thing you’re good for.”

He’d forgotten long ago how his father’s words had made him feel. Maybe he’d found it hard to stand, or his heart throbbed painfully in his chest. Maybe he couldn’t breathe, the world spinning as he knelt and murmured “I’m sorry” under his breath.

But the more his father pushed him away, the more Michel immersed himself in his studies. The world had opened up to him as soon as he entered a laboratory. Anything he wanted to know, he could find out with experimentation and research. Alchemy was so much more clear-cut to him than his father’s heart, easier than gauging the man’s mood on a given day. Plus, the adults in the laboratory were nicer to him than his father was.

“Michel’s pretty amazing. Guess he really is that guy’s son.”

Secretly thinking of them as older brothers—or maybe even as fathers—Michel learned as much as he could about alchemy under their tutelage.

When the change happened, it was such a small thing. Michel was reading over a paper the adults had written, adding his own insights. What was lacking in the written plan instantly became apparent to him, as well as what was overabundant and what was uncertain.

“If they do it this way, it will work better.” He was giddy as his pen raced across the paper. The adults were attempting to create a chemical with a specific desired effect, pooling their knowledge to solve the problem.

“Then you just mix these two chemicals together. We won’t know for sure until we experiment, but what do you think?” Michel had asked them, looking up hopefully. For the first time in his life, he felt like he was of value to someone. This was the only proper way to make use of Michel, who had been born to make his parents miserable. At least, that was the foolish dream he’d had.

“Michel,” one of them said, voice ice-cold. “You really are a little reaper, aren’t you?”

Their eyes pierced him. Michel couldn’t move. The adults looked down at him and whispered to one another.

“What’s going on? How is he so good at making chemicals to kill people?”

“Well, no one’s taught him. It must be innate talent, just as his father said.”

“If we mass-produce these chemicals, our country can win the war with barely a life lost. But is making use of a demonic invention like this ethical?”

His father had been right. Michel really was brought into the world to make people unhappy.

In the end, that chemical was never used. The royal palace where the research took place was raided, and everything was burned, the records of their experiments turned to ash. His father and the other alchemists lost their lives. Michel alone escaped the fires of war, traveling on his own after that.

Thanks to his father’s name, Michel received a warm enough reception in any country that valued scholarly pursuits. His father’s published research was full of things Michel himself had come up with in that dark mansion, but he didn’t care about that. His studies were all he had, and once he came to grips with that, he found alchemy surprisingly enjoyable. Research done to satisfy his own curiosity and not for someone else’s sake left him feeling peaceful and placid. He wondered if this was what it was like to spend time with friends or family.

Therefore, when he finally invented gunpowder, Michel was satisfied. He’d created it because he was good at bringing misfortune. Just like Michel himself, his gunpowder had the power to bring about despair. And anything brought into this world had to fulfill its purpose.

“Something poisonous is only valuable when it kills someone, thereby fulfilling its duty.”

Come to think of it, the other day, Rishe had said, “People don’t need a purpose to exist in this world.” But that wasn’t true. Everything needed a meaning to live. Otherwise, it would be weeded out.

A little ways away from him, Rishe began speaking, looking straight at Michel. “When I heard those words from someone in the past, I simply asked him, ‘Can a poison really never better someone’s life?’ That was a mistake. I should have come right out and told him.” His momentary student completely denied Michel’s way of thinking. “Even poison can better someone’s life.” She really was a strange girl.

“You shouldn’t take the words of people like me so seriously.”

“I suppose that’s true. You can’t mindlessly accept everything a professor teaches you.”

Michel listened to Rishe with a smile on his face. It was almost the eighteenth hour. There was room for a slight margin of error, but at roughly that time, the three gunpowder barrels he’d set in Galkhein’s capital city would explode.

With its mild climate, a spring day in Galkhein was the perfect condition for his creation to function. He’d done tests in deserted spaces outdoors, but this was his first experiment in an urban center. Michel had been planning a remote experiment like this for some time now. The climate, the level of humidity, the weather, the density of the buildings—he’d strolled around Galkhein’s capital city, finding places that fit his specifications. And on a supremely dry day, after a string of clear skies, he’d shaken his tails and set up all three locations for his experiment. He used clock parts to rig a timer for the explosives. He expected the damage to be extensive; there would likely be some casualties. If the effects were anything like he was hoping, Galkhein’s warmongering royal family would surely take notice of his invention.

The time was rapidly approaching.

“I’m sorry, Rishe, but that’s just how it has to be. I made you my student to play at being human, but I’ve always been a monster.”

“No one can decide a person’s worth. Not you or anyone else! To you, I might just be your student in passing, but I want to play a different role!” After that, Michel thought he heard her whisper, “This time will be different.”

She turned to the tall, gray-haired man behind her. “Lord Lawvine, please forgive me for lying about my identity. But first, I would like to clarify something about this situation. Michel Hévin has not yet stated what he plans to do. Am I correct?”

“It is as you say, my lady.”

True enough, Michel had yet to explain what gunpowder was or the nature of the attack he had planned. Experiments could go wrong without a steady handle on unpredictable variables, and remote experiments always had unpredictable variables. The detonation of the hidden gunpowder could fail. Because of that, he hadn’t shown his hand. Had Rishe picked up on his plan? If she had, she was predicting him easily, as if she’d been his student for years. It struck him as awfully strange.

There’s no way I’d ever keep someone beside me for long. Kyle’s face floated to mind, but he waved it away. In any case, it was nearly time.

“Michel Hévin appears to be laboring under a misunderstanding, so I’d like to go ahead and correct it.”

Rishe’s unexpected words made Michel’s eyes go wide once more. Ah, I see. Even if Rishe somehow knows what gunpowder is, she doesn’t know that I can detonate it with a timed device.

He wasn’t even completely sure she knew that much. She probably figured that if they just arrested Michel now, they could forestall the tragedy at the eighteenth hour. While Michel was thinking such thoughts, Rishe turned to him.

“My alchemy teacher once told me that experiments always have unpredictable variables, and if you don’t have a handle on those unpredictable variables, it’s easy to mess them up.”

Michel gasped. That was exactly what he’d been thinking.

Rishe’s clear green eyes never wavered. “You may be a genius alchemist, but as long as you’re missing information on the pawns in your experiments, you’ll never get the results you want.”

Suddenly, she held a golden pocket watch in her right hand. “Your experiment has failed,” she announced. “There was no way for you to account for the unpredictable variable: me. Thankfully, everyone involved finished their work very quickly.”

“What are you saying?”

A bell rang in the distance, functioning as both an announcement from the church and the clang of the would-be clock tower. It was now the eighteenth hour. The sun was setting over the capital city, dyeing the sky a deep blue.

Michel looked westward at the view of the city visible from the garden. He located what he thought was one of the districts with his barrels. Just then…

“Lightning?!”

There was a streak of vertical light. It couldn’t have been lightning; the skies were clear. This light, however, rose from the ground up and raced into the sky.

“No… That’s—”

“Your creations are not just poisons. You can only imagine them bringing people harm, but if you change the way you use them, they are worth so much more.”

In the next instant, beads of light burst into the skies above the capital with a great boom! It was his gunpowder. Michel knew that from a glance, but this was not what he had been expecting. In fact, he never could have predicted what he was seeing.

The light looked like an enormous flower.

The chemical he’d created—the one meant to blow human bodies to bits—had made a flower bloom in the night sky.

 

---

 

That’s one up safely. Rishe let out a relieved breath as she looked out at the city from the palace garden. Apart from one of Rishe’s guards, who’d run off somewhere, everyone was gazing skyward. Even Theodore, her accomplice, was looking up with round eyes—the eyes that resembled his brother’s.

After losing track of Michel, Theodore’s network had searched all through the capital. As it turned out, they were searching for the gunpowder, not Michel himself.

“The main target of this reconnaissance is not Michel,” she’d explained when she asked Theodore for help. She’d relayed things to him a few days ago, laying out several pieces of paper across a table in a meeting room.

“Michel probably intends to place items in three specific areas across the city. I want your people to evacuate everyone in the surrounding district if they find something with this specific shape. Do you have anyone skilled at disarming traps?”

“Of course. Half the people who work for me.”

“Have those people follow what I’ve outlined here.” She handed Theodore a diagram of the device she thought Michel would be using. “Just like traps, these devices are dangerous if you don’t follow these exact steps. But unlike traps, they’re not made to be difficult to disarm—just do everything as I’ve written and the degree of danger involved will plummet.”

“These diagrams will make this much simpler than what those guys are used to. I’ll tell them to be extremely cautious just in case.”

“Thank you. Next, I have a list of candidate sites where you’ll likely find your targets. Even if you lose Michel, this list will narrow your search considerably.”

Rishe’s explanation to Theodore had gone on for some time. If they tailed Michel every day, they’d get a sense of the locations he was scoping out. Thanks to their information network, they even had a picture of where he’d been going before they began tailing him. Michel tended to stand out—he was androgynous and beautiful, and he wasn’t the type to resort to a disguise. Additionally, Rishe had the advantage of knowing Michel’s plans for his experiments from her life as an alchemist.

In his plan to test the chemical in an urban area, he prepared three devices. He wanted to use districts with small buildings and a lot of air flow. People from the slums, who traveled all across the city to earn money, would be familiar with places like that. Limiting the candidates to places on Michel’s daily routes made it easier to find what they were looking for. Michel would make sure his chosen locations were optimized for eliminating as many unpredictable variables as possible for his remote experimentation.

The perfect climate, humidity, weather, and location. He even told me he’d set the three devices over a kilometer apart from each other to account for different wind conditions. I keep going over it again and again, and I remember it all.

He would set the explosions for just before sunset, when there would be enough light to observe the results but fewer people out on the streets. In Galkhein this time of year, that would be the eighteenth hour in the evening. Just after she’d finished her earlier conversation with Michel, Theodore received word they’d made it in time.

Rishe closed the pocket watch in her hand and heaved a little sigh.

Michel stood and took a shaky step forward. “What was that…?”

The knights pointed their swords at him, then lowered them just as quickly. The event he’d described, at the time he’d described it, only left them confused.

Lawvine just looked down at Michel without a word, his face unreadable.

“Colored flames. The smell of gunpowder. You detonated them in the sky? What did you add to…?” Michel trailed off, racking his brains.

The devices Michel made were very precise and easy to understand, just as I thought they would be. Rishe’s time concern had been over the right moment to fire the bundles of gunpowder—her fireworks—up into the sky. Once they found the devices, we were kind of gambling on whether Theodore’s agents could rewire them. It’s a testament to their design that people who had never seen them before could use them with just a brief set of instructions.

Nothing extraneous existed on the devices; you could tell a lot just by looking at them. They were simplified—made convenient for anyone who wanted to use them.

Rishe called the beautiful flames shooting into the sky “fireworks.” Their splendor seemed to have been burned vividly into Michel’s eyes. He was looking up like a boy marveling at the stars, in awe of the unknown.

The second round of fireworks soared upward. While Michel was distracted, Rishe told him, “My teacher once showed me an aurora.”

Michel slowly turned toward her, his face wiped of all expression.

“At the time, I was trying to solve a problem. I wanted to know if it was possible to detect harmful substances in a lump of metals. When my teacher showed me those lights, they reminded me of something: the reaction that occurs when you throw certain substances into a fire.”

“That’s right. When you burn metal, the color of the flame changes based on the type. Blue and green flames do resemble an aurora…”

Rishe nodded at Michel’s somewhat dazed words. For her fireworks, she’d used metal shavings a craftsman from Coyolles had given her. The dust was just a byproduct, so Kyle had sourced it easily.

“Seeing the aurora taught me how to tell different metals apart. And that’s not all.” She drew in a short breath. “It changed the way I looked at things, and it gave me a way to change the color of flames.”

Michel’s eyes widened.

“Are the small lights you see in the darkness wartime torches, or are they fireflies? By changing your perspective, a phenomenon takes on new meaning.” Rishe had realized that the night she’d talked with Arnold on his balcony. What should she do to stop Michel? How could she get Arnold to accept Coyolles? Her answer was to show them the view from different angles—show them the value of the things they considered worthless.

“A single phenomenon can be interpreted in many different ways.” She had finally reached a conclusion she was satisfied with. “Don’t you think people and inventions are the same?”

All along, Michel believed his purpose in life was to bring misery to others. He’d denied Rishe’s assertion that he could exist without a goal, but that was only natural. He’s an alchemist, after all. Without proof, words were just predictions. A genius scientist like Michel would never believe someone else’s hypothesis without anything to support it. If I don’t prove it to him with quantifiable evidence, nothing I say will get through to him!

So, she offered her proof. “People and inventions do not produce one single effect. Something that exists only to bring unhappiness is an impossibility.”

“You put all this together just to prove a point? Why would you go so far?”

The answer to his question was obvious: “Because I’m your student.”

Michel couldn’t know what Rishe really meant when she said that. Still, her words were like a prayer. In a past life, Michel had spared no effort to teach Rishe everything she could possibly want to know.

Even if he doesn’t know that…even if the world gets reset…that won’t go away. As long as Rishe still remembered it, the truth existed within her, nestled deep in her heart.

“You insist your existence and the things you create can only cause despair…”

A third flash of flame burned in a distant corner of the capital. Even Michel couldn’t rig the devices to go off all at once. The third shot went off late, sailing into the sky with a tail of light behind it.

“So I’ll do everything I can to prove you’re wrong!” For a split second, before the fireworks were set to explode, their lights winked out. “See it with your own eyes. Watch as something that you brought into this world holds a value you never dreamed it could!”

There was a heavy boom, and a huge flower bloomed in the night sky, its petals falling like shooting stars. Lights glittering blue and green spilled forth, mimicking a night sky. They dyed one section of the sky in colors as brilliant as the aurora, crackling as they floated down.

Michel looked up at the lights, squinting against the glare. “I didn’t know…” he said softly. “I knew about flame tests and how gunpowder functioned, but this never occurred to me.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of other applications. If you just change your perspective, every poisonous thing you’ve invented could be put to other uses.”

“Heh heh. You might be right.” Michel’s smile was forlorn. “You’re amazing, Rishe.”

“No, Professor.” She shook her head. “You’re amazing. You’re an unparalleled genius, an alchemist who will go on to gift wonders to the world.”

“You really say the strangest things,” Michel said, shaking his head. He looked up at the sky again. “I see… I can hardly believe it.” His expression was fragile, like he might start to cry at any moment. “To think I created the base for something so beautiful.”

She took a step toward him. “Professor, I—”

“What’s going on here, Lawvine?”

Rishe spun around. The air crackled with tension, the knights all taking a knee at once. At the entrance to the garden was someone she wasn’t expecting.

Prince Arnold?!

A dozen imperial knights flanked him. Among them was Rishe’s guard, the one who had run off after the first fireworks went off. He must have been reporting to Arnold.

“Michel!” Kyle ran over. He had been escorted here with the rest of them.

Arnold didn’t spare Rishe a glance, his cold gaze focusing on his vassal. “I believe I asked what’s going on here.”

“I apologize, Your Highness.” Lawvine dipped his head even lower at the weight in Arnold’s voice. “This man made a threat, so we were keeping him under surveillance. I apologize for the delayed report.”

Arnold’s blue eyes slowly settled on Michel. Rishe stiffened. The expression on his face made it clear he understood the broad strokes, if not the fine details.

“What do we do, Sister?” Theodore whispered. “Did the imperial knights escort Kyle here? Do you think Brother captured him, since he’s Michel Hévin’s superior?”

Meanwhile, Lawvine’s report to Arnold continued. “Michel Hévin announced his intention to cause a violent incident at the eighteenth hour in town. As the capital city is land under the emperor’s protection, I kept watch over him as His Majesty’s faithful servant.”

“I see. I understand your perspective.”

Rishe steeled herself. It’s okay. I was prepared to negotiate with Prince Arnold. I still have space to argue for the alliance with Coyolles, and now Michel is dealt with! She opened her mouth to speak to Arnold.

“However…” For the first time since he’d arrived, Arnold looked at Rishe. “My fiancée announced she planned on correcting Michel Hévin’s misunderstanding, did she not?”

Rishe’s eyes widened as everyone focused on her.

“It’s just as she said. Those phenomena were just a display of Coyolles’s engineering prowess.”

What’s going on?! I mean, maybe the guard told him what I said, but…

She couldn’t believe her ears. Arnold was going along with her plan.

Lawvine’s brow furrowed. “What exactly are you trying to say, Your Highness?”

“To insult our guests from Coyolles would be grave indeed. Pull back your knights while Prince Kyle is present.”

“Can I ask one question, Your Highness? Why is a scholar from Coyolles displaying his engineering prowess in our country?”

Arnold lowered his eyes at Lawvine’s question. Rishe’s heart pounded. Is he really going to say it?

Then Arnold spoke the very words Rishe was hoping for, clear but indifferent: “Our country is forming a technological partnership with Coyolles.”

Surprise and joy welled up within Rishe until she thought she would burst. She looked at Kyle, who returned her gaze with a triumphant nod. They’d come to an agreement while she was gone, then.

He understood. Her heart throbbed in her chest. He gets that military might isn’t everything. That the techniques Coyolles possesses are incredible. That they might lead to truly amazing inventions one day. And more than anything else, that Galkhein can foster relationships with other countries rather than invading them!

This was only the first step, but Rishe was still ecstatic as she turned to Arnold. The prince narrowed his blue eyes very slightly in acknowledgment before staring at Lawvine where he knelt.

“In exchange for military support, Coyolles will share its academic know-how with us. To start with, I will send the imperial knights here with me now to Coyolles. The fireworks that graced our skies are proof of the heretofore unknown engineering techniques Coyolles possesses.” Arnold’s voice was level, but the threat in it was plain. “Do you understand? We are forming a new relationship. You cannot interfere by disrespecting our allies.”

“But, Your Highness—”

“I have nothing more to say. Withdraw immediately.” Arnold cut him off, his eyes narrowing. “If this escalates, I can’t promise my father won’t hear of it.”

That shocked Rishe, but she didn’t let it show on her face.

Lawvine remained silent for a moment. Then he turned to Kyle and bowed deeply, still kneeling. “Your Highness Prince Kyle, I apologize for my rudeness. I acted imprudently and take full responsibility for my lapse in judgment. If it will persuade you to forgive me, I offer you my head in apology.”

“Your words are more than enough, sir. Please rise. I also owe you an apology. Your reaction is understandable in light of Michel’s behavior.” Kyle spoke from the heart. He likely hadn’t heard the same report that Arnold had; he just thought Michel was doing experiments where he shouldn’t, being a nuisance like always.

“We will take our leave before we disgrace ourselves any further. Your Highnesses, I once again apologize for my men’s behavior, and for mine.” After bowing once more, Lawvine quietly stood and glanced at Rishe. He gave her a polite bow as well, which Rishe returned with a curtsy.

Theodore slid up to her. “Looks like things have calmed down. I’m going to go take a look around town.” He left the garden before Rishe could even thank him. As if she ever could thank him enough for his help. She’d have to think of a way to repay him.

The imperial knights swarming the area also took their leave, dismissed by Arnold. That left Rishe, Arnold, Michel, and Kyle together in the garden.

“Now, Michel.” Kyle cleared his throat, scolding Michel like he was a child. “What do you think you’re doing?! Those fire flowers blooming in the sky! I was shocked. Was that some new invention of yours?!”

“Kyle…”

Nostalgia washed over Rishe. The only unusual aspect was Michel’s brows, which were furrowed in a repentant frown.

“I’m glad you wanted to help the alliance, but you need to tell me before you do these kinds of things. We could have taught Galkhein about this with less public upset, couldn’t we?”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Kyle. I should be repenting for this with my life—”

“Professor Michel.” Rishe called his name, and Michel gave her a troubled look. It wouldn’t do for him to confess everything to Kyle right now. If Kyle learned the truth, as prince of Coyolles, he would feel obligated to take responsibility for the incident. “Just let Prince Kyle scold you for now.”

When she smiled at him, Michel’s eyebrows drooped further. He looked lost at sea. At last, he murmured, “I’m sorry, Kyle. Sorry, Rishe.”

“Michel…?”

“I won’t do it again. I realize now that the premise of my theory was flawed.” Michel squeezed the hem of his lab coat in his hands. “I promise…I won’t do it again.” His words were pure and sincere, like those of a child making a solemn oath.

His attitude stunned Kyle, but Rishe was relieved. She looked up at Arnold again, and their eyes met.

“I want it clear that I’m not doing this out of the kindness of my heart,” Arnold said coldly. “If what that knight reported to me is true, it’s obvious he was planning something rotten. But if I publicly treat him like a criminal, my father will hear about it. I avoided this by using the scheme you are no doubt behind.”

“Got it. Thank you.”

Arnold had even realized that Rishe was behind the fireworks. She doubted the knight had given him a very detailed report, but the excuse Arnold gave Lawvine—that Coyolles was displaying its advanced technology—was the exact story Rishe had been ready to feed Arnold herself. If they could get everything settled, she planned to come clean to him.

“I’ll explain Michel’s original plan later, Your Highness.” It was just an attempted crime, but if he had succeeded, the results would have been grave. They were concealing the truth, but they couldn’t act like he was innocent. “Then you can decide what to do with him.”

“Hah. That’s generous of you.” Arnold laughed impishly. “And you were trying so hard to keep him away from me. You even got Theodore involved.”

He noticed! But of course. Michel’s tails were Theodore’s subordinates stationed around the palace, posing as servants and gardeners. Theodore had originally used them to gather information on Arnold himself, so it was only natural he’d be sensitive to their presence. I suppose that means Arnold always knew his brother was gathering information on him. He let him do it this whole time… He really is rather soft on him.

She decided to tell Theodore about this as well. He’d helped her out a lot lately. She’d thank him in any way she could.

“Honestly, I’m as guilty as Michel is. Instead of stopping his plan, I took it over to teach him a lesson…and you too. I wanted you to see those fireworks.”

She’d known the timing for each device would be slightly off, and that when Arnold heard the first detonation, he would look up at the sky. That aspect of her plot had gone swimmingly.

“Fireworks contain dangerous substances, but as you saw, they can create scenery unlike anything you’ve ever seen. I hoped that once you witnessed it, you might use that knowledge in exciting new ways.”

She wasn’t limiting gunpowder to one peaceful use either. There were so many possibilities for Coyolles’s manufacturing techniques—particularly in Arnold’s future.

“You believe you only possess abilities specialized for war, but…” She wasn’t concealing gunpowder from him—she was choosing to trust him with the knowledge instead. That was Rishe’s decision. “I know that someday, I’ll prove to you that isn’t true,” she declared, confident.

Arnold frowned. After a brief silence, he said, “You may regret that, you know. I can do whatever I want with Michel Hévin as long as I’m not public with it.”

Rishe pursed her lips at Arnold’s characteristic antagonism.

“All I’m saying is, don’t get angry with me if I kill and dispose of him in secret. Is that still fine with you?”

“Prince Arnold.” She tugged on his sleeve, and Arnold bent down obligingly. They had about twenty centimeters’ difference in their heights.

“What is it?”

Rishe stretched up as tall as she could and whispered into his ear, “Believe it or not, the man standing right in front of you is the inventor of the pocket watch.” She couldn’t see Arnold’s face, but she knew he’d be frowning. “He created it to keep track of time during his experiments, or so I hear.”

“…”

“He doesn’t like attention, so it isn’t public knowledge, but there’s plenty of proof that he created it in Coyolles. For instance, craftsmen from Coyolles have molds for the device’s components.”

“…”

“I believe Michel’s knowledge will be indispensable when it comes to joint research between Galkhein and Coyolles.”

Rishe let her heels settle back on the ground, then tilted her head. “What do you say to that?”

“…I can’t believe you.” Brow scrunched, Arnold heaved a little sigh. “From the very beginning, you always planned on talking me into this, didn’t you?”

“Of course not! I just knew you would be interested in Michel if I told you who he was.” That was the truth. She would never be so bold as to think she could manipulate Arnold. Judging by the awkward scowl on his face, though, her plan had paid off.

That was a real gamble. There’s no way he planned to send his imperial knights to Coyolles before our meeting this evening. If they were mustered beforehand, I don’t think it was for our alliance. He probably meant to wage war. That sent a shiver down her spine.

I’m curious, though. Earlier, Lawvine had claimed he couldn’t obey Theodore’s orders because of the emperor. He disobeyed the prince by citing his allegiance to Theodore’s more powerful father. Yet Prince Arnold merely threatened to tell his father about this incident. No one’s actually reported it to him yet.

If she recalled correctly, Lawvine only stated his allegiance, not that he was under orders at present. Strange. You’d think if a guest of the royal family caused so much trouble, the emperor would hear about it. Especially since Lord Lawvine is so famed for his loyalty.

Rishe felt deeply unsettled. She knew the future, after all. The count will attempt to counsel Prince Arnold, and he’ll be executed for treason.

She looked up at Arnold. It was impossible to read any emotions on his countenance. His face was beautiful, but in the way that a sculpture was beautiful.

“What’s wrong?”

She gave a slow shake of her head. “Nothing. I’m sure the people in town saw those fireworks too.”

Glancing at Michel, she saw that Kyle was still scolding him. He got scary when he was angry, Rishe knew, but she left Michel to deal with it on his own.

“When people learn that it was Coyolles’s technology that made that display possible, I believe there will be public support for the alliance.”

No one knew what gunpowder was, and it was unlikely they would glean its purpose and power from seeing the fireworks. She hoped the display would remain in people’s memories only as a beautiful work of art—a stepping stone to an equal relationship between the powerful nation of Galkhein and the small country of Coyolles.

“You’re…probably right.”

“Heh heh!” She was pleased that Arnold agreed with her.

Rishe was still ignorant of many things, but she now knew exactly what she had to do. With a deep breath, she renewed her determination, moving forward toward the future.