Once he was gone, Carla turned, weak with relief, to thank Miss Sophia.
Sophia took both her hands warmly. "Just Sophia."
She smiled, bright as a struck match, and told her to forget everything that man had said to her. Every word of it.
"Thank you," Carla said quietly, and meant it.
"Sophia."
The grey-haired Grand Duke had come up behind her, and beside him the long-haired man, and they both told her she had done well.
Then the Grand Duke simply watched her for a moment, in thoughtful silence.
Across the hall, a man with long white hair asked Sir Elude whether he had seen how that unfolded.
Standing before his faceless retainers, Sir Elude was asked what he intended to do now.
He closed his eyes, and quietly prepared himself to speak.
Then he crossed to Sophia and bowed deeply.
He apologised for having introduced such a man into this house. The trouble she had been put through was the result of his own poor judgement, and he would not pretend otherwise. Her courage, he added, befitted a Herman.
Sophia thanked him, thoroughly flustered.
The Grand Duke laughed heartily. "Our Sophie certainly resembles me."
And then he swept her up off the floor.
Held aloft, Sophia stared back at him in complete shock.
"An outstanding human being," he proclaimed, beaming with pride, and carried her, dazed, as the whole group moved off down the hall. Then he gathered her in against his shoulder, gently, protectively.
She leaned into it.
She thought about it afterwards — the foolish thought she'd had. She closed her eyes and remembered that embrace, and remembered believing, naively, that everything was going to be all right from here.
She did not know yet that it was one piece of a sinister conspiracy, and that the conspiracy would change her life.
The clock of fate turned in silence, a purple sigil, and it did not stop.
"Miss Sophia! Look at it — isn't it magnificent?"
Sylvie was almost dancing. The high priest of the Imperial Palace was visiting, she explained, and the royal high priest was the most powerful priest in the entire empire, and he was here, in person.
Sylvie gushed on about how great the Hermans were.
Sophia knew the situation was not that good.
Ever since Charone's arrest, a new problem had grown up in the space where the old one had been. To find the missing children, a high-ranking priest had been dispatched to interrogate the imprisoned Charone — and if the children were not found, everything Sophia had done would come to nothing at all.
She rubbed her forehead. "Any news?"
"He's on a break from the questioning, Miss."
A soft sound at the doorway pulled Sylvie's head around.
A guard bowed. "The royal high priest, Exan, wishes to meet Miss Sophia."
"Me?"
She took tea in a bright, ornate room with two older men.
One of them chuckled as he formally greeted Miss Sophia Herman. The royal high priest introduced himself as Exan and said he had genuinely wanted to meet her.
"Why me?"
"Because you are already famous."
Famous. Sophia's mind supplied, instantly and in detail, the princess who steals.
"The missing princess has returned," Exan clarified. "That is all the empire is talking about." He smiled. "This was my only chance to meet you."
"Sophie will be a hit in high society," the grey-haired man declared, and Sophia was briefly shocked by how informally he said it.
Such is the ambition, she thought, of the worst villain family in the territory.
"You resemble your mother," Exan remarked gently.
Sophia looked up, confused. "Did you know my—"
The door banged open and a guard came through it, apologising for the intrusion, and knelt.
"What is going on?" the grey-haired man demanded.
The guard stammered. He had come from the interrogation team.
High Priest Charone and his entire group had suffered sudden death.
Sophia stared, wide-eyed.
The grey-haired man rose at once, deciding to investigate the matter personally, and the high priest calmly agreed that he should.
Left alone with Exan, Sophia said, half to herself, "How could all of them die so suddenly?"
"That's right."
She turned back.
He was smiling at her, knowingly. Perhaps, he suggested, the great Mnemosyne had bestowed a divine punishment upon them.
Then he leaned a little closer, and his smile changed.
"Unfortunately."
No way, Sophia thought, staring at him in horror.
Officially, High Priest Charone and his group had died of heart failure, because the duchy's magicians could find no other cause. The temple announced that it had been divine power at work and took the bodies away for investigation.
The Hermans, meanwhile, put their efforts into finding the missing children.
And so the Herman family began to sponsor Mama's home openly.
"Mama's home and the Hermans are going to work together now," Sophia told Carla, sitting by her bed.
Carla smiled and thanked her, and vowed to recover quickly so that she could help.
A new orphanage would be built in the south, where Mama and the children could live happily and safely.
As for Sophia's own future, it was represented by a sparkling golden lion.
She was given a lavishly decorated room, and the decor of the room was lions, and the lions were gold. In a beautiful new dress, she was officially admitted to the main palace.
The grey-haired man welcomed her to stay, and presented the statues as a gift from him personally.
She stared. He asked what she thought.
She touched one, and discovered it was real gold, and decided on the spot that she would stop calling him a villainous old man.
Then she stood looking up at the lion, and her thoughts went back.
He had abandoned her. He had refused to negotiate with her kidnappers at all.
Why was he suddenly spending this much money on her? Was it a test?
She turned around and asked him. She recounted it to his face — how the kidnappers had demanded money, and how he had refused them.
Her eyes filled.
"Why are you being kind to me now? You abandoned me when I needed you most."
She remembered what it had been to go unsaved. She remembered the betrayal and the loneliness of it, and all the old questions came up at once: why love was so hard, and who exactly she was supposed to resent for the way her life had ended, alone.
The grey-haired man looked down at her.
"I won't make any excuses."
Between his cold gaze and her wide eyes there might as well have been a hedge of thorns with one rose in it.