Chapter 40: Gears Go Mad

—Ah… it really is fun when the gears of the timeline go out of sync…

“Are you all right, Brother?”
“Y-Yeah…”

Inside, he wanted to burst out laughing at the top of his lungs, thrilled that the order of events had finally gone awry.
On the outside, he wore the face of a younger brother worried about an elder sibling who spent his days anxious after hearing that his fiancée, who had just turned eight the day before yesterday, had been abducted.

When had he learned to so skillfully separate his inner and outer extremes of emotion?
Ah, right—the second time around, Neige thought, lowering his gaze to the untouched soup.

“…It’s going to get cold, you know?”
“I know… I just… can’t get it down my throat.”
“I heard the ducal house is searching with everything they have.”
“My father has also secretly dispatched search parties to look for Faustina.”

It had been discovered that Faustina was gone yesterday morning.
When her maid went to wake her, the room was completely empty.
They searched the entire estate, but Faustina was nowhere to be found, and the matter was reported to the duke at once.

From there, things descended into even greater panic.

The news reached the royal castle yesterday afternoon.
A messenger from the ducal house rushed in, insisting the king read an urgent letter at once.
The king, who had just finished a round of official duties and sensed something was wrong from the messenger’s demeanor, granted permission.

After reading the letter, shock immediately crossed his face.
The king dismissed the messenger and summoned the commander of the knight order.
He then issued a top-secret mission.

“All we can do is pray that she comes back safely…”
“….”

Children of the nobility were easy targets.
That was why they were always assigned guards, sometimes nearby, sometimes watching from afar.

Even within the estate, someone was always on duty.
The last person to see Faustina was her personal maid, late at night.
That meant the abduction happened sometime between night and morning.
What, then, had happened to the night watch?
Bernhard and the others asked King Sirius about it.

Everyone responsible for night patrols and security was questioned.
There were no reports of suspicious individuals.
There were no signs of tampering with the gates or walls.

However—
One butler had vanished starting from the day the estate erupted into chaos over Faustina’s disappearance.

The butler’s background had already been shared from the ducal house to the royal family.
Disappearing alone was not proof of abduction, yet both the ducal and royal houses concluded he was the culprit.

There was a reason for that.

Neige and Bernhard had only been told that the butler was the kidnapper.

“My father said that butler had been serving the Wittgenstein family for seven years.”
“I heard that too. No one on the ducal side imagined there was an inside collaborator.”

At that moment, Bernhard felt a strange sense of unease.
He had not missed the muttered words Sirius spoke as he left.

“Those blind believers of Arva…”

(Who is Arva?)

It was a name he had never heard before.
Yet it was obvious that this Arva was connected to Faustina.
Otherwise, Sirius would not have spoken the name with such bitterness.

(Faustina…)

Bernhard clenched his hands beneath the table.
As a child, there was nothing he could do to help with the search.
All he could do was wait, hoping she would return safely.

“….”

The steam had long since faded from the soup.
Bernhard stared at the corn-colored surface with shadowed lapis eyes, still not touching it.
Neige tilted his glass and drank his water, calmly thinking things through.

(Even if the timing is different, the situation is the same.
That means the kidnapper is the same too.
The only thing that changes is how she’s rescued.)

(Last time, Brother went to save her himself, but that’s impossible now.
Back then, he was seventeen.
Still… the look on his face when he saved Faustina was priceless.
As if it wasn’t already far too late.)

—Faustina’s attitude back then was a mess too, of course.

Knowing the missing memories and emotions of that time, Neige could barely suppress his laughter at the thought of the two of them drifting farther apart as the end drew near.

The only lead on the kidnapper was that missing butler, who was still unaccounted for.
Investigating his acquaintances and movements yielded nothing.
So what to do?
Neige knew where Faustina was.
There was a way to convey that.

After seeing Bernhard leave with his attendant and guard knight without touching his breakfast at all, Neige instructed his personal maid, Lapis, to prepare a carriage.
Even under the guise of a secret search, tension filled the royal castle.

Neige was feeling well today.
When asked where he was going, he said he wanted to go to the church.

“I’ll ask Her Majesty first.”
“Yeah. It might be difficult, but if you say you want to pray for Faustina’s safety, Mother will probably allow it.”
“Yes.”

Neige walked the long corridors with Lapis.
Even those unaware of the situation wore stiff expressions, the air itself heavy to breathe.

“Oh.”

Neige spoke up.
A man was approaching from ahead.

“That’s the priest, isn’t it?”

Lapis voiced what Neige was thinking.
Dressed not in priestly robes but in aristocratic attire, the priest bowed upon spotting Neige.

“How are you today, Prince Neige?”
“…This is perfect timing, Priest.”

His silver hair was slightly disheveled, and though his expression was calm, a faint sheen of sweat covered his skin.
His voice was gentle and polite, yet Neige could clearly sense the emotions hidden beneath.
Neige had Lapis step back, made the priest crouch, and whispered into his ear.

The priest’s eyes widened in shock as Neige fixed him with bottomless violet eyes meant only for him to see.

“Whether you believe me or not is up to you, Priest.”
“…No, I will believe you.
You know things only those from that time could know.
There is no way His Majesty or Her Majesty would have told you.”
“Thank you for trusting me.”

Neige smiled with pure innocence.

“….”

With an indescribable expression, the priest turned and hurried back the way he came.
Neige called Lapis back and said they would not be going to the church after all.

“You’re not going?”
“No.
I asked the priest to pray to the goddess for me.”
“I see.
Then let us return to your chambers, Your Highness.”
“Yeah.”

This would do.
There was no problem even if the priest told others.

Neige returned to his room with Lapis.

Meanwhile, at the Wittgenstein ducal estate, Citrine—who had not slept since the day Faustina was taken—continued sharing information with the knights’ secret search unit as they searched for her.

The whereabouts of the crucial butler were still unknown.

“….”

A hand landed on Cain’s shoulder as he peered through the gap of the study door.
When he turned without reacting, he found his mother, looking as though she had aged several years in an instant, pulling him away from the door.

“Cain. Go back to your room.”
“…Where is Kain?”
“Your father and the knights are desperately searching for Faustina.
What you should do is wait.”
“….”

Kain was the name of the missing butler.

He had always seemed like a quiet, diligent man who did his work without issue.
Who could have imagined such a man abducting the daughter of the house he served?

At first, Cain’s impression was just that.

But the facts revealed afterward led them to conclude he was the culprit.

Cain, led back to his room by Ludmila, sank onto the sofa.
Lyun was assisting Citrine alongside the head butler—no, Cain had sent him there.
It was not just to help, but also to hear any new information.
In a situation like this, a child like Cain could do nothing.

“Hah…”

He let out a heavy sigh and picked up the documents spread across his desk.
They contained information he had secretly gathered about Kain through Lyun.

“I wish adults wouldn’t drag children into their messes.”

The documents detailed Kain’s background.
After reading through them once more, Cain placed them down, opened a drawer, and grabbed some stationery.
He quickly wrote a letter and slipped it into an envelope.

He rang the bell.
A servant entered at the sound.
Cain sealed the letter with wax and asked the servant to deliver it to the specified location.

Just as the servant accepted the letter, Rinsy rushed in.
When Cain asked what was wrong, she said a letter had arrived for him.

Though it was an emergency, a gag order was in place, so the outside world knew nothing of the abduction.

Cain noticed Rinsy’s reddened eyes and dark circles.

“Rinsy, are you getting any sleep?
Your eyes look awful.”
“My well-being doesn’t matter.
Finding the young lady as soon as possible is what matters most!”
“Rinsy.
I’ve said this before, but there was nothing wrong with how you did your job as her maid.
Night patrols and security are the responsibility of the ducal knights.”

Though she was moving around now, it had been much worse at first.
She had been the last person to see Faustina, and her distress had been extreme.
As Cain said, Rinsy had fulfilled her duties properly.
The real problem lay with the knights on night duty.
Having an inside collaborator was no excuse for failing to notice or stop it.

But assigning blame now would not bring Faustina back.
Right now, finding her was the priority.

Unable to argue with Cain’s reasoning, Rinsy fell silent.
Cain read the letter he had just received and his eyes narrowed slightly.

“…About that letter earlier, you don’t need to deliver it after all.”
“Y-Yes.”

He retrieved the letter from the servant and put it away in his drawer.

“Rinsy.”
“Y-Yes?”
“Go back to your room and rest, even if it’s just a short nap.
If you collapse in the middle of all this chaos, it’ll only create more work.”
“Yes…”
“The head maid scolded you this morning too, didn’t she?
She told you to rest.”
“Yes…”

His words came out harsher than intended, meant to force her to rest.
The sight of Rinsy walking away dejectedly overlapped with Elvira’s slumped figure when she was scolded.
When Faustina was reprimanded and upset, she looked much the same.

Cain dismissed the servant back to their post.
Alone in the room, he sat on the sofa and reread the letter.

“You really did it, Prince Neige.
Leaving it to that priest because the current Bernhard can’t save her…”

The choice of person was not wrong.

“In this situation, it wouldn’t be unnatural for the priest to save Faustina.
At least, not to an adult who knows the truth.”

Cain leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.

Faustina was probably right now—

“An apple pie… one mushroom pie… mmm… one call duck…”
“…Did you give her some kind of incredibly strong sleeping drug?”
“Well… yeah.”

She had been sleeping continuously for two full days.