One Who Repays Kindness (1)
“Prince Edwin.”
Perhaps she had not completely lost her senses after all, for the head maid offered Edwin a courteous curtsy. Taking their cue from her, the other maids hurriedly bowed toward the young prince as well.
“I was merely administering discipline to one who dared disrupt the order of the Prince’s Palace.”
At the head maid’s smooth explanation, Edwin, who had been standing motionless, turned to face her.
“And just who was it that disrupted order?”
“…Pardon?”
It was a response no one had anticipated.
Was this not the very same prince who had always shrunk back in silence, meekly reading the room whenever the serving maids tormented him or the head maid raised her voice? Yet here he was, suddenly adopting such an overbearing tone. The head maid’s eyes widened to their absolute limit in shock.
Surprised as I was by this unexpected turn, I could see what others missed. The boy who had made such a spirited entrance was clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles were drained of all color, and beneath the surface, his wide pupils trembled with faint, unmistakable tremors.
Why?
He was plainly terrified. And yet, there Edwin stood, refusing to back down. I could not begin to fathom his reasoning.
“The one disrupting order isn't this woman. It's you.” Edwin glared straight at the head maid, enunciating every syllable with deliberate clarity. While he lacked the crushing aura expected of imperial blood, neither did he look like an easy mark.
“Y-Your Highness, how could you say such a thing…?”
“I am the master of the Prince’s Palace. Even you know that much, don’t you, Head Maid?”
At Edwin’s pointed question, the head maid’s lips merely fluttered in wordless disbelief. Her face was practically screaming, What has gotten into this little brat all of a sudden?
“That means everything in this palace belongs to me by right. Does it not?”
“…That is correct.”
“And the maids are no exception. Isn't that right?”
“Th-that is so.”
Receiving her reluctant affirmation, Edwin kept his gaze locked on her as he pressed forward. “However, I have no use for those maids. After all, they were never ‘my’ maids to begin with. From the start, they were always ‘yours.’”
A heavy silence blanketed the room.
Not a single soul present was foolish enough to miss the boy’s meaning. The maids stiffened visibly with acute tension, while the head maid stood frozen, her expression hardening like carved stone.
“But this woman is different.”
“…Excuse me?”
“This woman is the nanny to me and Lia. Do you understand what that means?”
At Edwin’s declaration, the head maid’s features contorted into a deeper scowl. But the young prince paid her grimace no heed, speaking with the steady conviction of a young king issuing an imperial decree.
“It means my nanny belongs to me. No one touches her except for Lia and me.”
“That's right! Nayche belongs to Brother and Lia!” chimed Emilia, who had been hiding quietly behind her brother until now, stepping forward to assert her own claim of ownership.
Edwin squeezed Emilia’s little hand tightly.
“If punishment is due, I will administer it. If praise is earned, I will bestow it. So…” He ground the words out through clenched teeth. “If you ever lay a hand on my nanny again, I will no longer sit idly by. Head Maid.”
It was the young prince’s very first counterattack against the cruel world that hemmed him in.
“Nayche, does it hurt a lot?”
“No, Your Highness.”
Cradled in my arms, Emilia gazed up at me with tearful, brimming eyes.
“B-but it looks like it hurts so bad…”
“I am quite alright.”
“Nuh-uh. Lia will blow on it! Ho, ho! If Lia blows on it, it gets better super fast!”
True to her word, Emilia began puffing gentle, ticklish breaths onto my bruised cheek. The little princess was still far too young to realize that blowing warm air directly onto a fresh welt only made the stinging worse. But I simply let her do as she pleased, quietly enduring her earnest little puffs.
It was right then that Edwin, who had spent the entire time brooding by the window, whirled around and screamed at me.
“You absolute idiot—!”
His sudden roar made Emilia flinch and pull her shoulders up tight.
“Do you have any idea what happens when you defy that old witch? Do you?!”
“Please lower your voice, Your Highness. You are frightening Princess Emilia.”
Edwin caught sight of his little sister’s terrified face and bit his lip. “I don't even know what I’ve done because of you,” he muttered under his breath, his voice dropping to an anxious murmur. “She’s going to run straight to the Second Imperial Consort and tattle about everything. Every single thing…”
It seemed the true source of Edwin’s terror was neither the head maid nor Countess Katrina, but Consort Helena herself.
“Then why did you step in?” I asked.
“What?”
“You are a coward, are you not, Your Highness?”
“Wh-what?!”
By all rights, a young, powerless third prince should have stayed out of a scene like that. Yet he had stepped forward the moment he saw me struck. I was genuinely curious about the thought process behind his reckless bravery.
Edwin stood there with his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish, clearly stung by the barb. Then, his face flushing scarlet with indignation, he shouted back at me.
“F-fine, yes! I'm a coward!”
I certainly hadn't expected him to admit it so readily. As I looked on with wide eyes, the boy held his head high and puffed out his chest.
“But I'm not a craven! I promised Emma that I would never become a dishonorable coward!”
Not a craven?
I arched an eyebrow at his defiance. “And so you stepped in to save me simply because you refused to be craven?”
“Yes! And besides, you helped me before, so I was just returning the favor!” To prove his point, Edwin proudly raised his wrist to display the bracelet resting against his sleeve—the very trinket I had wrested back from Gale and his cronies. “I happen to be someone who remembers a kindness!”
One who remembers kindness, is it?
To think such an admirable sentiment would come tumbling out of this cheeky little brat’s mouth. I stared at the boy’s bracelet for a lingering moment before letting out a soft, dry chuckle.
“Is that so?”
“Wh-what are you laughing at?”
“Nothing, Your Highness. I merely happen to share your perspective.” Tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear, my fingers brushed lightly against my swollen cheek. “When one receives a favor, it is only proper etiquette to return it in kind.”
I offered Edwin a sharp, flashing grin.
“After all… I, too, am not one to forget a debt.”
That evening.
Catherine rose from her seat to change out of her rumpled, dirtied clothes.
“Huh?”
“What is it, Catherine?”
“My spare maid uniform is gone. That was the only extra set I had.” Catherine turned a woeful face toward her roommate, who suddenly slapped her knee as if a light had just turned on in her head.
“Oh, I completely forgot to mention it! The new nanny came by and borrowed it.”
“What? The nanny did?”
“Mm-hmm. She said she’d return it washed and clean.”
“Really? Does she not have enough clothes to wear right now? Why on earth would she borrow a maid’s uniform of all things?” Catherine scratched her cheek with a puzzled expression, her mind drifting to the newly arrived nanny.
A chilling, impassive gaze that completely contradicted her gentle features. Actions that appeared indifferent on the surface, yet carried an unexpected undercurrent of care. Recalling the enigmatic woman, Catherine couldn't help but giggle softly to herself.
“She truly is a peculiar nanny.”
“Right? Isn't she weird? I think she's strange, too.”
“Pardon?”
“That new nanny, I mean. Doesn't something about her feel… off?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, take the questions she was asking us earlier today.”
Catherine recalled the inquiries the nanny had directed at the annex maids earlier that afternoon. “What about them?”
“Don't you think it was odd? Prying into what kind of relationship the head maid has with Countess Katrina, asking when the head maid leaves the palace…” The roommate muttered with an uneasy grimace. “She was interrogating us about the head maid’s entire daily routine, from start to finish.”
“She might just have been curious.”
“Well, maybe. That could be true,” the maid conceded before visibly shuddering. “Even so, her demeanor was just… how should I put it? Bleak. Ominous. Didn't it creep you out even a little?”
“Huh?”
“She has such a mild, pleasant face, but the look in her eyes feels like she could slit a dozen throats without blinking.”
Catherine frowned at the remark. “Don't make jokes like that. She's the one who stepped in to save me.”
Seeing Catherine turn dead serious, the maid shrugged sheepishly. “Alright, alright. Anyway, things in the main palace were in absolute chaos because of what happened.”
“Chaos? What happened?”
“Word is, the head maid slapped the nanny across the face.”
“She did what?!”
As Catherine gasped in horror, the maid quickly shushed her. “Quiet down! You’ll wake the others sleeping down the hall!”
“Ah, I'm sorry…”
“It's fine. At any rate, they say the young prince intervened and put an end to it.”
“Prince Edwin did?”
“Yes! The very same prince who couldn't utter a single syllable when Lady Konrad suffered that terrible fate.”
Hearing those words, Catherine quietly bowed her head.
“What's the matter, Catherine?”
“Oh, it's nothing.” Catherine blinked away her reverie, a radiant smile blooming across her face. “I just have this feeling that things are about to change in a big way.”
“Change? What is?”
“Everything, I think.”
“Do you have divine power now or something? Can you see the future?”
“No, hehe. It's just a hunch.”
Being an ordinary human, Catherine had no way of knowing then that her humble hunch would very soon become reality.
Inside the 3rd Prince's Palace, the head maid was busy clicking the beads of her abacus, as she was every evening.
“This month's ledger is utterly pathetic,” she muttered with irritation, twirling a quill between her fingers. “This is the curse of serving the wrong master.”
Just as she drew a firm black line through a string of figures, a knock sounded from the door.
“Head Maid, it is time for your departure.”
“Is it that late already? Very well, I'm coming.”
The head maid hastily tucked away her ledgers, threw on an outer cloak, and stepped out of her office. It was nothing more than her ordinary, everyday routine.
Perhaps that was why she failed to notice.
She did not notice the heavy office door swinging open without a whisper of sound.
Nor did she see the slender shadow slipping through the crack, vanishing seamlessly into the gloom.
The head maid’s office reeked of high-grade perfume. It was an exorbitantly lavish scent for a mere baroness to indulge in.
Now then, let's see.
Moving as naturally as if I owned the place, I began scouring the room from corner to corner. My business here had to be wrapped up before the head maid returned from the 2nd Imperial Consort Palace.
Just as the annex maids said.
The foremost virtue of an assassin: meticulous reconnaissance.
Synthesizing the intelligence gathered from the annex staff with my own observations over the past few days, the head maid’s visits to the 2nd Imperial Consort Palace invariably kept her away for at least an hour.
I pulled the books from the shelves one by one, skimming through them with practiced hands. After several minutes of searching, my fingers caught on something solid. A heavy gold necklace slipped out from between the hollowed-out pages of a thick tome.
Dazzling and opulent, it was a piece unmistakably crafted for imperial nobility—and buffed to such a gleaming sheen that someone had clearly been polishing it every single day.