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"Y-you.." she lifted a trembling finger toward the grinning figure in front of her.

"I told you, darling, this hurts me more than it hurts you," the figure chirped, rewrapping the powder-filled cloth and returning it to their pocket.

Kel tried to say more, to tell that person exactly what she thought of them, but she wasn't strong enough to cling to consciousness any longer. Her thoughts were melting away rapidly, and her eyelids refused to stay open.

With a thud, her limp body fell against the figure's exposed chest. Lifting her in their arms, the person clicked their tongue.

"It would have been easier, if only you'd behaved."

***

Only ten hours earlier, Kel had been lounging on her bed, giddily humming to herself as Lucy scrubbed the floors of her tiny bedroom.

"You seem to be in quite the good mood!" The maid giggled, glancing up from her work. "I take it your trip to the library went well?"

Kel blushed as the maid winked at her before turning back to the floor.

"I really did go to the library!" Kel defended herself, using a pillow to cover her red cheeks.

"Sure, sure," the maid responded sarcastically. "And the man you're in love with just happened to also show up at the library?"

"What are you talking about!" Kel screeched, tossing the pillow at Lucy's face. "The emperor was the one who came, ok? And he had someone arrested while he was there, so I don't know what nonsense you're imagining!"

At Kel's words, the maid's smile dropped and she grew quiet.

"Hey, Princess," she said seriously, fluffing the pillow Kel threw and gently placing it back on the bed. "Why do you think she did that? The librarian, I mean."

"I don't know," Kel shook her head. "The emperor said he would definitely find out.."

She hesitated, scrunching her eyes shut as an uninvited memory popped into her head.

When she was facing the emperor earlier, a bunch of emotions suddenly ran rampant through her mind, and she somehow ended up confessing.

Kel, the fake hostage princess, actually dared tell the emperor of all of Serin that she had feelings for him. Not even that, but that she 'wanted him'. Plus, it was right after he'd just gone through a betrayal?! (The emperor wasn't actually clear enough on that matter for her to be sure, but he at least seemed hurt by Lila's words.)

"I'm crazy," she muttered, scooping up another pillow to bury her face.

Fortunately, she hadn't actually said the words aloud; she mouthed the whole thing. Even more fortunately, the emperor didn't seem to notice. At that moment, his attention had shifted from Kel to the matter at hand, and he immediately dove back into the conversation about Lila.

"I'll find out exactly what Lila has done," he declared, turning away from her. "Who she's been in contact with, where her loyalty lies, I'll find out all of it."

"You won't hurt her, right?" Kel had replied quietly.

The fact that Lila might not be the good-natured librarian she'd believed her to be hadn't quite sunk in.

"I'll do whatever I have to," the emperor grimaced.

"Oh.." Kel responded.

Her heart had still been racing too much for her to think properly, and that was the best she could come up with at the time. Thanks to that 'oh', however, the conversation quickly died, and the emperor soon bid her farewell.

Thane showed up moments later, saying the emperor had asked him to escort the princess back to her room.

"And so begins and ends my romance with the Dragon Emperor," Kel chuckled sorely to herself, hugging the pillow against her chest.

"...cess. Princess!" Lucy's voice broke through her reminiscing.

"Ah, sorry," Kel blurted, dropping the pillow, "what did you say?"

​ "I said I wonder why the librarian let herself be caught," Lucy sighed, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she observed Kel's volatile facial expressions.

"I'm not su-wait, let herself? You think she wanted to be arrested on purpose?" Kel jolted up.

"Well, just think about it," the maid speculated. "If she's truly been plotting against the emperor for this long, surely she's not foolish enough to be caught so easily."

"What do you mean by 'this long'?" Kel questioned.

"Oh! Um, it's just that she's worked in the library for quite some time," Lucy explained rapidly, "and the emperor would have noticed something early on if she wasn't careful."

"That makes sense," Kel nodded.

Even though she said that, she didn't want to believe it.

For the rest of the evening, Kel pored through all the details she could remember of every conversation she'd ever had with the woman. Everything seemed ordinary enough, except their first conversation when she revealed several secrets to Kel.

Back then, she told Kel about the emperor's teacher, which Kel thought was a secret judging by everyone else's reactions to the subject. Lila, however, had even given her the teacher's name, which, strangely enough, was the same as Kel's uncle.

It definitely rattled her brain hearing the woman refer to him as 'Uncle Itzae'. Seeing as the emperor confirmed that information without much fuss, though, meant it wasn't really anything extraordinary.

There was also their conversation about the scroll containing the story of the dragons' gift to the first emperor of the continent. She'd probably learned more about that topic from reading the other Itzae's journal, though.

Come to think of it, all Lila had really said on the matter was that the emperor often came to study the scroll.

Kel sighed. A royal librarian knowing the emperor's reading habits wasn't particularly suspicious. Aside from that, had they talked about anything else?

There had been just one other thing.

Along with what the scroll was about, Lila had also explained the origins of the ancient parchment. She'd described very fondly how her mother retrieved it by distracting the soldiers with..

Gasp! Yellow marguerites!

From their first meeting then, could Lila have been giving Kel a clue? That she was actually part of the mysterious terrorist group?