Emotions Usually Come Late
“...I believe I misspoke to you yesterday, Sir. I hope you didn’t take it seriously.”
Serena’s words fell lightly into the depths of the archive.
They fell lightly, and yet the echo lingered strangely long.
Perhaps it was because everyone in the room had held their breath.
I looked at Serena.
She was still perfectly composed. Her back remained straight, and those gray eyes were barely holding their tremor in check.
Even so, I could tell.
These were not words she had calmly arranged overnight. They were something she had never managed to settle, something she needed to force past her lips before it was too late.
The Princess rested her chin on her hand and asked,
“Lady Valter.”
Serena’s gaze shifted toward her.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“That is a rather ambiguous statement. From what I heard, it sounds as though you believed the broken engagement had settled everything—when in truth it had not.”
Serena could not answer at once.
People with strong pride usually crumble first in moments like these—not from the emotion itself, but when they belatedly realize exactly what they have said.
Adelaide quietly closed the ledger. She said nothing, yet it was clear she was missing not a single word of this conversation.
Serena drew a very slow breath before she spoke again.
“If it sounded as though I regretted the broken engagement itself, that—”
The words broke off there.
I did not look away from her.
Serena’s eyes met mine for a brief instant, then hastily fled.
“At the very least, I believed that choice was not wrong.”
The Princess pressed further.
“And now?”
“...”
Instead of answering, Serena curled her fingertips into the faintest fist.
It was the same habit I had seen at the banquet—the small, unconscious tremor that appeared when her emotions refused to settle.
I pressed absently against the bandage on my palm.
The Princess did not push harder. She waited like someone who knew that letting the other person open their own mouth was far more cruel.
At last Serena spoke.
“Now... I find myself wondering what it was I failed to see.”
The archive fell silent.
There were almost no windows, yet even the air outside seemed to have stopped.
The Princess’s eyes narrowed by the slightest degree—the face of an observer who had wiped every emotion clean, the eyes of a predator watching with interest exactly how the prey before her would collapse.
Adelaide’s expression remained as dry as ever, but her gaze had drifted a little more toward Serena than before.
I opened my mouth slowly.
“My lady.”
Serena lifted her head.
“I have no answer I can give you for those words.”
Her gray eyes wavered for a moment.
“Sir Rion.”
“I told you yesterday as well. I do not understand why you are saying such things now.”
The words must have been too cold; I heard one of the archivists catch their breath.
I did not take them back.
“The broken engagement was your decision.”
Serena looked at me.
This time she did not look away. Instead her expression cracked, ever so faintly.
“...You’re right. I know that down to my bones.”
“Then that is enough.”
The Princess slowly lowered the hand that had been propping her chin.
“How fortunate that both of you have sorted things out so neatly.”
It was not meant kindly.
Serena bit her lip for a moment at those words.
That she still did not retreat—whether that made her every bit the eldest daughter of House Valter or simply foolish, I could not decide.
She looked straight at me this time and said,
“Then let me say only this.”
I did not answer.
Serena’s voice was quiet, yet steadier than before.
“Yesterday I thought leaving you was the right thing to do. But now... now it is different.”
The Princess asked shortly,
“Lady Valter, are you publicly declaring that you wish to retract the broken engagement?”
Serena’s face went white.
Yet she never lowered her head.
“...I have no intention of taking back words I once spoke before Your Highness.”
“Then what exactly did you come all this way to say?”
Serena closed her eyes for the briefest moment, then opened them again.
“...I believe I need to think on that a little longer.”
When that answer fell, the air inside the archive loosened just a fraction.
Instead of replying, the Princess rolled a paperweight between her fingertips.
Adelaide glanced at me once, then returned her gaze to the ledger.
Everyone wore the face of people who had heard all they needed to hear.
Only then did I steady my breath and speak.
“If my lady has finished what she came to say, it would be best if she left now.”
Serena did not answer at once.
Her eyes touched the bandage on my hand for a moment before rising again.
“You truly... do not resent me even a little, do you?”
At that question I was silent for a while.
To say I did not resent her would be a lie; to say I did would make it far too simple.
In the end the answer I gave was endlessly dry.
“I do not have the luxury for that right now.”
Serena drew a very slow breath at those words.
I did not need to look long to know what expression crossed her face in that moment—the face of someone who had seen the true tip of the blade later than expected.
The Princess cut through the brief silence.
“Lady Valter.”
Serena turned.
“Everything you have seen here today is under a gag order that applies to you without exception.”
“I am aware.”
“If you are aware—”
The Princess’s voice sank, very gently.
“Then leave at once. What we are trying to resolve here is a matter entirely different from the face of noble society.”
Serena’s face hardened.
I was not certain she fully grasped the meaning—how heavy the place she had just walked into truly was.
In the end she could say nothing more.
Not to anyone in that room.
She merely offered a formal bow, then turned.
Just before crossing the threshold she seemed to pause for the briefest instant, yet she never looked back.
Only after the sound of her footsteps beyond the door had completely died did the archive reclaim its original air.
The Princess spoke low.
“Faster than I expected.”
I did not raise my eyes.
“What is, Your Highness?”
“The regret.”
It was not a pleasant word.
Adelaide quietly reopened a document as she said,
“I wonder. Is it regret? Or some other emotion?”
The Princess asked without smiling,
“Can you tell the difference, Adelaide?”
“I tend to believe the distinction is necessary.”
Adelaide’s hand rested on one side of the ledger.
“Regret is merely an emotion. But what she carries seemed something more complicated.”
It was a conclusion entirely like Adelaide.
The Princess gave a short nod at the answer.
Only then did I turn my gaze back to the ledgers.
“Your Highness.”
She turned at my call.
“Yes? Have you finally found a lead?”
“...It would be best to set aside the matter of Lady Valter for now.”
The Princess narrowed her eyes.
“You are surprisingly romantic, Sir.”
“There is something more urgent at the moment.”
I opened the ledger from three days ago and yesterday’s side by side.
“Both have been altered in nearly the same places. Not the entry times so much as the purpose column, and just above the seal.”
Adelaide leaned in.
“Rather than erasing the record itself, they are trying to make the purpose of entry ambiguous.”
“Yes. They are hiding not who entered, but why.”
The Princess asked quietly,
“Why?”
“The visitor list itself is easy to catch if cross-checked. But if the purpose column is blurred, there is room to claim it was official business.”
An archivist hurriedly nodded.
“In truth, people do enter the barrier chamber under the pretexts of inspection, review, or auxiliary record confirmation.”
I tapped the blank space in the ledger with a fingertip.
“So someone has been entering the same way repeatedly, and erasing the records the same way.”
The Princess tapped the table twice.
“A repeated habit.”
Adelaide said low,
“Then we can catch them.”
I looked at her.
Adelaide was already several steps ahead.
“...How?”
“Habits leave traces.”
She continued while scanning the dates in the ledger.
“If they altered the records the same way, there is a high chance they used the same time slots or the same routes. When people are in a hurry, they choose the familiar path.”
The Princess nodded.
“Good. Then rather than looking at every person authorized to enter the barrier chamber, we start with those who repeatedly came and went in the same time slots over the past ten days.”
An archivist hesitated.
“Your Highness, that volume would mean several ledgers.”
The Princess answered as if it were nothing.
“Then bring several ledgers.”
The old archivist’s face went momentarily blank.
I felt a twinge of pity for no particular reason.
A short while later more ledgers were stacked high.
Ten days of entry records—not only the barrier chamber, but the adjacent corridors, the record storage room, and even the medicine warehouse logs.
We began turning pages with almost no conversation.
Only the soft sound of pages turning and the distant clink of a teacup set down by a servant layered quietly together.
Then Adelaide’s hand stopped.
“Your Highness.”
The Princess lifted her gaze.
Adelaide was pointing to a single line with her fingertip.
“Here.”
I leaned in.
Entry records for the medicine warehouse right beside the barrier chamber.
Three times in the same time slot over the past ten days.
The names were all different, yet the seal impressions were faintly similar.
The habit of signing was perfectly identical.
“It is the same person.”
When I spoke low, the Princess’s eyes cooled sharply.
“You are certain?”
“The pen pressure and stroke order are similar. Even if they wrote different names, the hand cannot lie.”
Adelaide added,
“Moreover, all three times were immediately after the issuance of correction solution.”
The Princess stared down at those lines for a long while.
Then she asked, very slowly,
“Those names—are they real people?”
An archivist peered into the ledger and lost all color.
“...Two of them are real. But one already transferred to the south last month, and the other has no duty record for that time slot.”
The Princess laughed low.
It was the laugh of a predator that had just seized its prey by the scruff.
“Excellent.”
I thought it was not excellent at all.
The Princess closed the ledger and rose from her seat.
“Then we know one thing now.”
Her golden hair swayed lightly under the cool light of the archive.
“The culprit is someone who knows both the palace’s internal entry system and the proper use of barrier correction solution, and who has moved at least three times in the past ten days.”
Adelaide rose as well.
“And they are accustomed to forging signatures.”
I looked once more at the final line.
The same time slot.
The same kind of medicine.
The same hand disguised under different names.
The scattered pieces were finally beginning to fit together, one by one.
The Princess turned to me.
“Sir Elberhart.”
“Yes.”
“From now on it will only get busier.”
I clenched and unclenched my bandaged hand once as I answered.
“Your Highness. It is already quite busy enough.”
This time the Princess truly, very briefly, smiled.