Rosalind heard the reception room door close behind her.
Miria never took back those words, in Big Sister's place. She came apart, was caught up by her maid, and was half-dragged out of the room. Rosalind had stepped out only after a single door cut off her last scream.
When she came out into the corridor, Lucas was leaning against the wall, waiting.
He didn't ask what had been said inside. The record-keeper would report it. More than that, he had simply been waiting for Rosalind to come through that door on her own two feet. That was how he stood.
He didn't push off the wall until Rosalind started walking. She moved half a step, and only then did he move too.
"Done?"
"Yes. However, I believe protocol requires that we at least see both parties off at their departure."
"...If that's your judgment, then that's fine."
Rosalind opened her schedule and wrote a brief entry in an empty slot.
"Above the castle gate, gallery. Ten minutes."
Meaning she would give it no more than ten minutes.
The gallery above the castle gate was cold, the winter wind cutting straight through it.
Rosalind rested one hand on the railing and looked down.
Two carriages stood in the courtyard. Alfred's crest on the one in front. Miria's plain hired carriage behind it.
—Quite the disparity in vehicle assignments, for two people leaving through the same gate.
Lucas stood half a step behind Rosalind.
A carriage door opened. Alfred appeared and looked up at them.
"Rosalind!"
His voice carried all the way to the gallery. Apparently he still had the energy to shout.
"At the very least, for old times' sake... won't you reconsider? Just a single word?"
Rosalind tapped the railing lightly with a finger.
—For old times' sake.
—And there it is. The emotional appeal, the last resort. If you wanted to retain me, Your Highness, you should have made your counteroffer while I was still on the payroll.
Rosalind let out a small breath that never left her mouth, then spoke.
"I'm afraid that is out of the question."
The wind through the gallery stirred her silver hair.
"I knew the working conditions of that chair from the very beginning. That is why I accepted the broken engagement with such gratitude."
Alfred's face stiffened. From the carriage behind, Miria leaned halfway out and looked up at her. Her black traveling clothes, like mourning dress, whipped in the wind.
"Big Sister...! I never wanted a chair like this...!"
Rosalind gave that voice no warmth in return.
"It is the chair you once craved. Then remain seated in it, to the very end."
Miria's shoulders trembled. Alfred opened his mouth, but no words followed.
And then, the final step.
Rosalind set her gaze on the space between the two carriages.
It didn't matter which one it was aimed at. It needed to reach both.
She straightened, and bowed her head at the angle of a noble lady's most courteous curtsy.
"Once again, I respectfully decline."
For several seconds, no one moved.
Miria leaned out of the carriage window and screamed.
"Big Sister...!"
Nothing followed.
Instead, it was Lucas who moved.
He stepped forward, past Rosalind's shoulder. He looked down into the courtyard, his gaze fixed on Alfred alone.
"Your Highness, Crown Prince."
His voice was low. It echoed faintly off the gallery stone.
"If ever again Rosalind's name passes your lips—"
He let one beat pass.
"—I will deal with it not as a diplomatic matter, but as a personal matter of my own."
At the far end of the gallery, the head chamberlain's eyes widened, just slightly.
—Ten years in His Grace's service, and this is the first time I've heard him say "personal matter." That was the look on his face.
Even from the gallery, they could see the blood drain from Alfred's face.
The carriages began to move.
The two of them rolled across the courtyard. Alfred kept looking up at them to the very last. At some point, the window of Miria's carriage had closed.
The carriages passed through the castle gate and disappeared down the snowy highway.
Rosalind let go of the railing.
And inside her sleeve, on the side Lucas couldn't see, she quietly made a small fist.
—Ritsuko.
She didn't say it aloud.
—The boss who used to scream at you finally rode away in a carriage, right beneath my feet.
—Shall I do a little fist pump?
The fist in her sleeve loosened, unseen by anyone.
In the first chapter, it had been a fist raised proudly before a watching crowd. Today, it had stayed hidden in her sleeve.
Not because she needed to hide it.
It was simply that it was no longer something to show anyone. That was all.
"Rosalind."
She turned at Lucas's voice.
"It's cold. Inside."
"Yes."
She had started back along the gallery when Rosalind stopped.
"Your Grace."
"Hm."
"The petition from our homeland's Chancellor. The fourth letter. May I take it that it no longer needs opening?"
"...If that's your judgment, then that's fine."
Rosalind gave a small laugh.
Lucas, too, let the corners of his mouth rise, ever so slightly.
When they returned to the office, a single new envelope lay on the desk.
The head chamberlain stood beside it, wearing an expression unlike his usual one.
"Your Grace, Lady Rosalind. A fast rider from the Mother Church."
Lucas looked at the wax seal and raised an eyebrow, just slightly. He broke it first and read it through.
It was a short document.
Upon verification against ancient texts, a grave error has been confirmed in the basis of the current Saint certification.
Accordingly, all Saint certifications throughout the land shall be reviewed, and the Saint of every nation shall be verified anew upon the Temple Stone, by the true sign.
Rosalind took it, turned the envelope over, turned it back again, and read the document through once more.
Her expression didn't change.
"...Ancient texts, is it."
Just those few words, rolled around in her mouth, addressed to no one.
"Understood. I shall turn to the next order of business."
Lucas murmured in a low voice as he squared a stack of papers.
"...Looks like things are about to get busy."
Outside the window, the snow had begun to fall again.
—At around the same time, in the Mother Church of their homeland, the doors of the archive of ancient texts were opened for the first time in a hundred years.