Chapter 11: In the Lounge

 

 

 

Chapter 11: In the Lounge

 

AFTER the commotion brought on by the new arrivals, the group on the terrace continued chatting casually with one another. Letizia suddenly remembered their conversation from before, about the athletic tournament.

“Prince Jahal, are you really going to participate?”

Military arts were very popular in the Kingdom of Bakr, and the royal family in particular valued swordsmanship, so it wasn’t strange for Prince Jahal to want to participate. However, even if the tournament had no age restrictions, physical strength and magical power only increased with age. Jahal’s youth would be a handicap in a competition where almost all the participants were adults.

That was the reasoning for Letizia’s question, but Jahal quickly replied with some unexpected information.

“Of course! Ed and Alec said they were going to participate, too.”

“What?” Amy asked, taken aback.

Ed had never shared those plans with her—not in his letters, nor when they had met in person the other day. Amy’s head swiveled over to him. He smiled guiltily, as if apologizing for the sudden news.

“I never meant to keep it a secret from you… I just forgot to mention it.”

He explained that it was customary for male members of the Luducian royal family to take part in the athletic tournament while they were in school, and that even his older brothers had in the past.

But that had been many years ago, and Amy had never come to watch the tournaments except when her brother, Harold, had participated in one, so she’d been ignorant of this custom.

“I may not be as strong as my older brothers or Harold, but I don’t plan to be easily beaten.”

“But, Ed, what if you get hurt…?”

Edward’s eldest brother, the First Prince, was famous for being talented both academically and physically, and his second older brother, the Second Prince, was a captain of the Knights of the Royal Guard. Compared with those two, Amy wasn’t sure how she was supposed to stay calm.

She knew that even though he was royalty—no, because he was royalty—Edward had been required to cultivate his swordsmanship and magic skills. But she just couldn’t imagine it—he never acted rough or aggressive around her at all.

He tried gently assuaging her fears, but there were real fights in the athletic tournament, and they produced their fair share of injuries. Even if he told her not to worry, she couldn’t sit there perfectly at ease, just like she couldn’t for Harold’s matches.

“Seriously, stop worrying,” Alec told Amy. “We may not look it, but Ed and I are pretty skilled, you know. Besides, even if anything happens, there will be healing magicians ready and waiting… Wait, will you be healing, too, Amy?”

“Oh! Yes, I will,” said Amy, confirming Alec’s astute prediction. “Just before this, actually, Sir Dion asked me to help out in the first-aid room this year.”

“Well, then!” said Edward. “In that case, I can participate with much more peace of mind.”

“Ed, that’s all the more reason why you shouldn’t get hurt!”

No matter how well Amy could treat injuries, that didn’t mean she wanted him to get hurt. Although she spoke very seriously, a smile still lingered on Edward’s face.

“I’ve heard you’ve gotten very good at healing magic, Amy,” said Letizia, looking a little proud. “It’s rare to be able to do healing magic at your age at all.”

Not only did learning healing magic involve a high degree of difficulty compared with other forms of magic, but performing it consumed massive amounts of magical power, so most people learned it only after becoming adults. It was not common for children to be able to do it.

Prince Jahal looked impressed, but Amy was more pleased with being complimented by Letizia. She smiled and nodded.

“Did you start practicing on your own?” Prince Jahal asked.

“Yes. I wanted to get a cat.”

“A cat?”

Oh, shoot! I accidentally told the truth!

Amy had started learning magic to be able to get a cat, but she knew that was a strange, incomprehensible reason to undertake such a feat for most other people. She quickly adjusted her answer to her usual “PR” reason.

“Uh—no—it’s just…my older brother’s an adventurer and gets lots of injuries, so I wanted to be able to heal him.”

“Ah…I see. I’ve heard rumors of ‘Luducia’s Dual-Wielding Swordsman.’ Harold Northland is your older brother, then?”

“You know about him already?” Amy asked, eyes widening. “I’m so honored!”

She had no idea Harold’s reputation had even reached the royal family of a foreign kingdom. At the mention of Harold’s name, Alec’s eyes lit up and he leaned forward.

“Whereabouts is Hal now?”

Alec had always dreamed of becoming an adventurer, but his high social status had prevented him from being able to go out to dungeons or other magical beast habitats. His reality was limited to only hearing stories of hunts from others. But if he were not the son of a duke, Alec had once told her, he would probably put more effort into his magic and sword training in the hopes of joining Harold’s party.

“He could be in a foreign kingdom, for all I know,” said Amy, shrugging. Harold did things on his own time and relished his life as an adventurer. The last time she had heard from him was before she had even started going to school.

“So he hasn’t changed much, I take it?” asked Edward. “Are your parents worried?”

“They’re optimistic. ‘No news is good news,’ they say.”

Harold (who hadn’t visited their parents in a while, either), was traveling the world hunting monsters with his old friends from school, Gilbert and Nicholas. They weren’t ordinary travelers, however. Guilds were responsible for adventurers, and there were guild branches in every kingdom. So if adventurers came to a kingdom to hunt down magical beasts, all efforts were made to keep their immigration process simple and their stay convenient. Many adventurers simply wandered from kingdom to kingdom.

From the stories Amy had occasionally heard, Harold’s party was apparently quite good, and they were steadily improving their standing and reputation. And from the letters and packages that would be sent to Amy and her family (which typically arrived out of the blue), it seemed Harold had gotten used to his nomadic life. They could also always get in touch with him directly by contacting the guild to find out the address of where he was staying and where he had previously been.

For those reasons, neither her parents nor her grandfather were that concerned.

In Wallum particularly, it was very common for people to go out to sea for many months at a time, so they were used to enduring long stretches without a family member.

But there was actually one other reason for Harold’s travels besides hunting—he was looking for another party member.

Their party consisted of only the three of them—Harold, who specialized in dual-wielding blades; Gilbert, a spearman; and Nicholas, who used a crossbow. To make up for the members they lacked, they would solicit help on a temporary basis from each locale they visited.

They weren’t lacking in offensive power, but Harold had been saying for quite a while how much he wanted a regular healer who could double as support. Both Harold and Nicholas could use magic, but unlike Amy, neither was good at healing.

With such a well-known reputation, there were lots of people who wanted to join his party, but the requirements Harold demanded of the new member were so hard to achieve, none of the temporary fill-ins stuck around.

The real reason behind Harold’s high expectations was from the game he used to play in his previous life. He played his hunter character with someone who was an incredible support. He didn’t know the person in real life, though. They just happened to meet each other online when they were both solo, and every once in a while, they would team up and help each other out.

Although the person’s avatar was a cute catgirl, they were at the highest level possible in the game. They could set predictive traps with startling accuracy, and they were great with their weapon, too. They were also really good at finding out the location of an enemy and often came across high-ranking monsters.

The player wasn’t the friendliest or most talkative person, but they never cheated when it came to reliably providing support or incredible healing skills when Harold most needed them. Despite their straightforward playstyle, Harold was so impressed after hunting with this frighteningly talented support player that he begged them to become his teammate on the spot.

A memory flashed in Amy’s head of her past-life older brother’s excitement as he had screamed, “I just found a support GOD!”

In their last conversation on the in-game chat, the player had mentioned that they couldn’t come on for a while because they were getting busy with real-life stuff. Harold started complaining around the house that the support player had suddenly stopped showing up in the game.

Those were some of the last of Amy’s past-life memories.

Amy couldn’t remember if the player eventually came back or if things ended there, but there was no doubt in her mind that Harold was using them as the basis for his ideal support member.

Looking for a good party member was important for an adventurer, but there was no guarantee Harold would find someone as good as that in this world. And if such a talented person did exist, they would have probably joined up with another party already.

Harold knew this, but he couldn’t just give up. So he wandered from kingdom to kingdom, searching for an encounter like that in this life.

Gilbert and Nicholas were being dragged along with him on this quest, but they didn’t seem to mind, which was a relief. Amy thought Harold got more than lucky enough with his two friends, who kept her careless and reckless brother company and could fight alongside him.

Well, I suppose Harold should keep searching until he’s found some peace of mind, at least. And I’ll chase after my dreams, too!

According to her mother, this life was their precious second chance at things.

Although the image of the otome game would still flicker in her mind from time to time, Amy now felt much more capable of looking past it toward her real-life future. She had worked hard to learn magic these past four years all in the name of getting a cat, but she also did it to put distance between herself and the otome game.

She assisted a veterinarian through the duchess’ Cat Club, and she went to visit the riding grounds and animal pens at the royal castle to see the animals. Through these activities, Amy came into contact with more people, and little by little, she had gained confidence and a sense of belonging in this world.

And at the end of the day, she would always have Tigger when she went home.

There was no substitute for the time she would spend with her beloved cat—it calmed her immensely. Even the briefest moment with him could completely free her mind from the chains of worrying about the otome game or villainess novels.

But I can’t let my guard down just yet…, Amy thought, looking around at the three men in front of her and letting out a small, quiet sigh.

Beside her, Rosalind was telling Prince Jahal stories of healing magic that had been performed on Portia and other animals.

“Outstanding… Then, if I get injured during the tournament, I’ll leave my medical care to Amy, too!”

“Oh! Of course,” said Amy. “But I really hope I won’t have any injuries to heal.”

“That’s right. Amy just used up too much of her power recently.”

“That’s not it, Letty! I was just a little hungry.”

Even students at the Royal Academy sometimes got injuries from their magic and swordsmanship practicums.

If the injury wasn’t serious enough to warrant a visit to the doctor’s office, many times Amy would heal them if she was nearby, but even a small one would chip away at her magical power. And if a lot of students had gotten injured, it would be taxing indeed…

“That’s not true!” Letizia retorted. “You were so pale you looked like you were about to faint!”

“But Amy’s healing magic is so effective and comfortable, I can see why people would come to her for help,” Rosalind pointed out.

“Really?” Amy asked, tilting her head. “I don’t understand it myself.”

It was usually difficult to compare healing magic done from one person to the next. Healing magic partially accelerates a person’s own powers of recovery. But in exchange for quickness, the process left the patient with fatigue and physical weariness.

But Rosalind explained that Amy’s healing magic didn’t have those side effects.

“I don’t get really tired after you do healing magic on me. I actually feel better afterward.”

“I wonder if it’s just a coincidence…,” Amy mused aloud.

Being able to invoke healing magic at her age was rare, but there was some precedent of it happening in the past in families with particularly high magical aptitude.

Amy’s case, however, was a little different.

Her abilities alone were growing at a rate to outpace the kingdom’s head magical doctor, but she also possessed a rare healing ability. This power had already been sensed by animals, like Tigger, but the first human to pick up on it was Sir Dion. When Amy had used her healing magic on him one day during her training, he had sensed a faint but distinct different form of magic at play.

The powers of healing were often said to be a blessing from the spirits.

A person who was said to have received this blessing and could heal wielded strong religious and political influence, so they were desired by a variety of institutions. Even in Luducia, the royal palace, magical institutions, medical institutions, and religious temples each wanted to win over Amy for themselves.

Amy was currently Edward’s fiancée candidate, but because that hadn’t progressed, it was very likely she would soon be receiving offers of marriage from royals and prominent aristocrats from Luducia and other foreign kingdoms, and they might be more heavy-handed about things.

If that happened, she would have to stop going to school, and her life would completely change—and she wasn’t even an adult yet. Her mother, her father, and Sir Dion worried about what might become of her.

Fortunately, at this point, only those with incredibly high magical power, like Sir Dion, were able to discern these special healing powers. After he had discussed the matter with her grandfather, the Margrave of Wallum, they had jointly agreed to keep it concealed from everyone for the time being, including Amy herself.

“Oh! I have to get going soon,” said Rosalind, glancing at the clock hanging on the wall.

She gently returned her cup to the table, pulled over her bag with her textbooks and writing utensils, and started getting together her things.

“Is it that time already?! I’m sorry, Rosalind. You should have been practicing instead of hanging out with me…”

“It’s fine, Amy! Don’t worry about it.”

Amy’s shoulders slumped dejectedly. Rosalind gave her a very older-sister-like exasperated look and patted her head.

“Practice?” Edward asked.

“For my music recital, Your Highness.”

Edward and Alexander exchanged looks of comprehension.

In music classes, each student learned their chosen instrument under the tutelage of a professor, and then at the end of the course they would perform in front of a large crowd of people to earn their course credits.

A recital was held at the school chapel once every two months. The music was usually rather good, and with viewing open to school alumni, parents, and guardians, it was always a popular event.

Jahal expressed interest in this, too.

“So there are recitals here, huh? What instrument will you play, then?”

“I’ll be playing the violin. I had planned on doing an ensemble with one of the piano students, but she suddenly became unable to come to the recital.”

The students were free to choose their performance style, but they usually joined up with others to perform in an ensemble or found someone to be their accompanist. Rosalind had been in the same class as her partner and practiced with her many times, but the girl had a sudden death in the family the week before and had taken a leave of absence from school to return home.

Rosalind had received an expedited letter that explained that she probably wouldn’t be able to return in time for the performance, but she hoped Rosalind could find another person to take her place.

“The performance is so close that it would be difficult to find someone else or change the piece,” Rosalind explained. “So I was hoping to ask the teacher if I could postpone my recital to the next time it’s held, or maybe later.”

“I see,” said Prince Jahal. “Do you not play any instrument, Amy?”

“I learned some when I was little, but now…”

“Tigger gets jealous,” Edward added cheerfully. Alexander nodded alongside him.

“Tigger?”

“My cat. Whenever I try to practice an instrument, Tigger just gets in the way, and I end up not being able to play.”

It may have sounded annoying, but Amy didn’t look bothered by it at all.

Tigger would jump up on the keys and use all his feet to play beautiful chords whenever she tried to play the piano.

When she started learning the violin, he got annoyed by the movements of the bow and would bat his paws at it like it was a cat toy.

When she played the flute, he would meow alongside the music and climb all over her, begging to be held.

Tigger only behaved this way when Amy was playing music. When Isabelle or someone else would play, he would sit there listening to them as quiet as a lamb.

So Amy had given up on instruments and specialized in listening instead. Even the music classes she picked out were not practical learning, but appreciation—music history, mainly.

“Is that right? That’s pretty annoying,” said Jahal.

“Well, it’s fine because he’s so cute.”

Jahal grinned. Lost in thoughts about Tigger, Amy squeezed her hands together over her chest and smiled. She could go on forever about cats, even if she was talking to a foreign royal she had just met for the first time.

“So what song are you playing?” Jahal asked Rosalind.

“Oh! It’s…”

Rosalind told Jahal the name of the song. It was quite a difficult piece, but it was a famous song that everyone had heard before.

“Oh!” exclaimed Edward, turning to his childhood friend. “Don’t you know how to play that song, Alec?”

“Oh, wow!” said Letizia. “Then what do you think about playing with her?”

“Th-That’s too much! Y-You don’t have to do that!” said Rosalind, putting her hands up, completely bewildered at how the conversation had spiraled.

Her reaction was only natural. Playing a duet with an unbelievably handsome son of a duke in front of so many people would be terrifying, unless you happened to be one of those ambitious ladies who hoped to marry up. Rosalind would probably have felt much more at ease playing with Alexander’s mother, the Duchess of Coverdale, whom she was connected with through Portia.

Amy and Rosalind had become friends through their love of cats and their shared interests, and they both had similar feelings toward love and marriage. Neither were yet engaged nor did they wish to be.

Rosalind loved books, and her dream was to remain unmarried and become a librarian. But recently, her parents and the lady of the house she was staying at had started recommending various bachelors to her.

“Really?” asked Alec. “It’s truly not—”

“Alec,” interrupted Edward, “the twice-weekly music classes are at the same time as Sir Dion’s magic practicums, aren’t they? You should be able to get the minimum credit, even if you miss some classes for this.”

“—any trouble or anything,” Alec finished. “Do you have the sheet music on you now?”

Alexander didn’t look very excited, but at Edward’s convincing appeal, he got up from his chair.

“Huh? Oh…yes,” said Rosalind. “Here it is.”

“All right, then! The recital is at the end of this month, so that gives me two weeks… I should be able to swing it.”

“What?! R-Really?!”

“Of course. Well, looks like I’m busy, Ed. I’ll leave Jahal’s tour of the school to you.”

“I-I-I need just a moment!”

“Sure, I understand.”

There wasn’t anyone in the Royal Academy who would pass up the opportunity to miss Sir Dion’s lessons for legitimate reasons. Alexander had accepted the sheet music with a smile and was now jovially humming to himself as he thumbed through the pages.

Rosalind, who was always a calm, stable presence in their group, was all aflutter, unable to grasp what had just happened. Amy felt a little privileged to have been able to see something so rare!

“Well! We should have just asked Alec from the beginning,” said Amy.

“You can breathe a little easier now, can’t you, Rosalind?” asked Letizia.

“Amy… Letty… What should I do? I’m still nervous, just now for a different reason!”

Before she could change her mind, Alexander quickly helped Rosalind to her feet, and they headed toward the professor’s office to tell him the news.

While secretly thinking Rosalind resembled a lamb being carried off to slaughter, Amy and Letizia watched her leave, smiling and waving at her as she frequently looked back at them.

“We should get going soon, too, huh?” asked Amy, turning to Letty.

“I probably should have asked earlier, Ed…,” said Jahal. “But can’t Letty be the one who gives me a tour of the school?”

“I have class after this!” she protested.

“What a cruel twist of fate!”

Letizia said a few parting words, but then Jahal suddenly pulled her back by the hand and planted a magnificent kiss on his fiancée’s soft cheek.

Amy, about to shout in surprise, put a hand over her mouth, the other over her eyes, and froze, peeking through a gap between her fingers.

Letizia was speechless.

“It’s a good luck charm to repel bugs, Letty!” Jahal claimed.

As Amy was appreciating the beautiful way Letizia was turning the color of a red rose, a tart appeared in front of her. Without a moment’s hesitation, Amy leaned forward and ate it.

As she chewed, Jahal descended from the terrace into the courtyard. Edward stood up to follow him and smiled at the two girls.

“Well, I’ll see you later, Amy. Letizia, I’ll look after Prince Jahal.”

“I-It’s not like he’s mine or anything!”

“Maybe we should just leave it at that, then. Ladies…”

Letizia and Amy curtsied at the retreating figures of the two princes.

“Letty…,” Amy said under her breath. “I heard him kiss you!”

Letizia jumped.

“Wh…? Amy! So should I just blurt out who fed you that tart just now?!”

Amy gasped.

“What?!”

Amy had had both of her hands covering her face… And it was impossible that the tart could have just flown into her mouth on its own… Naturally, someone had fed it to her!

As she realized this, she suddenly felt so hot she thought steam might start rising from the top of her head.

After the two girls ran off to class, the ladies remaining in the lounge felt so sweetened by the scene, it was as if they had been drizzled in honey.

🐾🐱🐾

THE grounds of the Royal Academy were large. There were several buildings with classrooms for learning, buildings predominately used for practicums and training sessions, and professors’ laboratories. There were also other facilities, like libraries, lounges, and dining halls, and the student dormitories were at the perimeter of the grounds.

Except for one tower, almost all the buildings were low-rise, so they were arranged spaciously across the expansive grounds. The huge garden had a large pond and a greenhouse, and it was surrounded by a well-maintained walking path. The students studying horsemanship also rode there.

It would have been impossible to show Jahal everything in half a day, so Edward took him around the most important locations.

“The magic training building is here. The practice field for sword fighting is that building with the blue roof on the other side.”

“Oh, here? Whoa, you guys have a strong defensive barrier.”

At a glance, the building just looked like an ordinary building for magic training, but it had been enchanted with powerful defensive magic. Jahal had picked up on this right away. Edward looked at him with some surprise. The Kingdom of Bakr placed such cultural importance on swordsmanship that magic shouldn’t have been his strong suit.

Jahal shrugged lightly and looked up, amused by Edward’s surprise.

“There’s been more emphasis placed on magic in my kingdom recently. But I’m really just here to observe—I’m not very good at using it.”

“I see. But Sir Dion’s class is included in your curriculum, isn’t it?”

“Ah… Well, I suppose.”

It looked as though news of the Demon Professor—the one Alexander had so gleefully run away from—had even reached ears in foreign kingdoms.

Jahal sighed and explained that because of all the trouble it had taken for him to enroll here as a special case, he had been given strict orders to learn as much as possible before returning home.

“I can’t hear a thing coming from the building… Are classes still going on?”

“Yes. In fact, that’s the building your fiancée should be in for her class.”

“Letty’s really good at magic,” said Jahal, puffing out his chest as if his fiancée’s skills were his own. “Amy must be in class, too.”

Edward nodded.

“Letty had told me in her letters that Amy could do healing magic, but I was shocked to learn the extent of her skill. I had no idea her skills were that legit. I really thought she was, at best, just playing pretend, and then afterward they’d get normal medical care.”

“It’s more effective on animals,” Edward noted.

“Yeah, Rosalind mentioned that earlier. You must really like her, huh?”

Even as they left and headed to the next location, they continued talking about magic and the girls in their lives who were good at it.

“So, how was it actually meeting Letty’s friends?” Edward asked.

“Rosalind was exactly what I had pictured, but Amy was more of a mixed bag. Letty’s letters had quickly become more flattering toward her, so I couldn’t help wondering what she was all about.”

High-ranking aristocrats were typically genetically related somewhere along the line, and Letty’s father, Marquess Elphinstone, was related to Alexander’s mother, Duchess Coverdale.

As soon as the Elphinstone family had returned to Luducia, they paid a friendly visit to the duchess. At that time, it was only natural that Amy Northland, her “favorite cat companion” and “Letty’s would-be classmate,” would be brought up in conversation.

The duchess spoke very favorably about her, but Letizia didn’t initially have a very good impression of Amy. Part of the reason was that, although Amy was the granddaughter of Margrave Wallum, a heavyweight in aristocratic circles, she was really just the daughter of an earl.

The fact that she was the only remaining fiancée candidate for Prince Edward and had been in limbo in that position for so long had always stuck with Letizia. To be a fiancée candidate for that long without making any progress… Letizia couldn’t help wondering if there was something wrong with her. All the rumors she had heard about Amy had been negative, although most of them were digs about her appearance.

It seemed as though her cousin Alexander liked Amy, too. Her cousin was generally very capable and followed a personal rule (especially toward women) to treat everyone with a friendly attitude and an impartial mind. Letizia could tell from every word that he had a special fondness for her.

Plus, if she could be friends with Sir Dion, it was natural to be suspicious of what kind of a person she was.

Letizia frequently visited the royal palace at the Kingdom of Bakr during her stay there, and she saw many games of politics and love up close and in person.

Letizia dared not say it in front of Duchess Coverdale, but she was suspicious that, at the behest of Margrave Wallum, Amy was currying favor with the duchess, leading both Prince Edward and Alexander around by the nose, and hatching some evil plan. She had shared these suspicions in her letters to Jahal. But the letters had also shown that, ever since meeting Amy in person, Letizia’s suspicions had dwindled day by day until they had vanished completely.

“Letty said that the first time she saw Amy, she had been healing a student’s injuries in class. Were you there, too, Ed?”

“No, I was at the royal palace that day. I heard about it afterward, though.”

It had been a few days after Amy had started going to the Royal Academy, and it was the first time she had used her healing magic in school.

On that day, a captain of the Order of Knights had visited the school. His proposal for a special contest had been accepted by the students of the swordsmanship class, and their lesson for the day became a contest of real combat.

The students confident in their combat skills and those who wanted to join the Order of Knights had unanimously raised their hands, and it was true that they had a fruitful class, but naturally, there were more injuries than usual.

The captain fought against the students. Naturally, he took it a little easy on them. There hadn’t been any broken bones or gashes that needed stitches, and most of the injuries were minor. One of the students who got injured was a younger friend of Harold’s, whom Amy had met before.

She had passed by the boy by chance and had offered to heal him. When the other students saw her healing him without leaving the faintest scar, they all clambered over to ask her to heal them, too. Amy continued to do so until Sir Dion realized what was going on—and then a sharp look made the boys scatter away from her in all directions.

Although Amy had been pale in the face, on the verge of depleting her magical powers, she had continued to heal them with a reassuring smile. She didn’t refuse a single person, always prompting the next person who needed help to come forward. Letizia had watched the entire thing from a distance.

“Letizia wrote recently that she’s been worried that Amy is too generous.”

“Yes, well… That’s true,” admitted Edward.

When it came to situations regarding animals or healing magic, Amy often didn’t look after herself as well as she should. Edward had noticed this himself not long after he started seeing her regularly.

“I don’t want her to overdo it, though,” Edward continued.

“But she won’t stop, will she?”

Edward chuckled at Jahal’s perceptive observation. Amy wasn’t usually self-assertive, but Edward had noticed she was stubborn when it came to healing magic. Or rather…Amy felt compelled to use her powers as much and as often as she could.

The number of people who were able to perform healing magic was limited, so for the kingdom’s sake, Amy’s powers were very welcome. But Edward wouldn’t want someone to use healing magic so much that they ended up hurting themselves—especially if that person was the girl he loved.

Even so, Edward couldn’t push back too strongly against it, because when Amy used her magic to help others, she looked so full of life. That was one of the reasons she gave when Edward had previously asked her in a roundabout way if she felt her healing magic was a burden.

“Being able to heal people with my magic makes me really happy,” she had said. “Of course, it’s nice when people tell me they appreciate it, but it’s not just that… It kind of gives me peace of mind. It reassures me that I really exist here, in this present moment.”

They had been at the royal riding grounds then. Amy had spoken quietly as she petted the horses that came up to her, almost as if she were talking to herself.

Being that he was the Third Prince, Edward’s parents hadn’t been sure how to deal with him growing up. By contrast, the Northland family must have cherished Amy and raised her with love.

There shouldn’t have been any question that that was true, considering the personalities of the Earl and Countess of Northland, whom he occasionally met, but Edward was bewildered by the way Amy spoke…like she felt uneasy about her own existence.

As if she hadn’t realized what she’d said, she immediately started talking about something else, her face totally impassive.

However, that sense of discomfort was enough to linger in Edward’s heart.

It had been four years since Edward had first seen her face.

Over those years, she had opened her heart up to him quite a bit, but there was still an invisible line in the sand that he was never allowed to cross.

Amy’s obsessions were animals and healing magic.

The final key to her heart was definitely hiding there.

And because Edward had realized this, he couldn’t force Amy to stop using her magic.

Of course, Edward had done everything he could think of to make sure nothing went badly, and that wasn’t even accounting for the presence of Sir Dion, the high magician who was like a second grandfather to her.

“If you’re that worried, why not just force the engagement?”

“If only I could,” said Edward.

“Huh?”

“You didn’t just come down here as the prince. You came down here because you wanted to win Lady Letizia’s heart, didn’t you?” Edward asked smoothly.

Prince Jahal raised his eyebrows, then smiled.

“Guilty as charged. Let’s give it all we’ve got, then.”

“Yeah.”

“But I won’t lose, you know. I’ve got a head start—my engagement is already decided!”

“It’s not a competition, Jahal.”

“Really? Well… Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Then the two princes strolled around the grounds shoulder to shoulder until the bell rang announcing the end of class.