“The Demon Lord, is it?” Duke Padparadscha muttered.

  “Prince Lankor…” Marquis Mossflower echoed, sinking into a chair with the heavy realization that, yes, this was actually happening.

  Bianca, however, didn’t bother with theatrics. Instead, she gave Man a long, knowing look.

  “Corruption… So that’s why you kept us out before,” she said, tone ced with uanding—and just a touch of accusation.

  COUGH!

  “Yhness?” Yvain’s grip on Bir tightened as he felt her shift in his arms. A small sound, a weak breath—hope, maybe?

  COUGH! COUGH—

  No. Blood.

  Thick, dark, and far too much of it. Bir’s body lurched violently, her small frame wracked with spasms as she vomited it up, staining her skin, her clothes, everything.

  For a long, terrible sed, no one moved.

  Then Man—without a word, without a single wasted motion—raised her hand. A surge of polden and absolute, shot from her palm and ed around Bir, its warmth cutting through the cold horror of the moment.

  Yvain froze. The three other adults stiffened.

  Bianca, meanwhile, turan, eyes sharp as a bde.

  “You… Actually, who are you, Madame Sator?” she asked, her tone making it clear that this was not a rhetorical question.

  Man exhaled, the weariness in her sigh speaking volumes.

  “That’s not important right now,” she said, waving off the scrutiny like one would an insistent housefly. Instead, her gaze settled ba Bir, watg with clear relief as the girl’s eyes finally fluttered open.

  “Yhness!” Yvain sighed in relief as he embraced Bir, the young princess broke into tears, clutg him desperately. “It’s fine now. You’re safe. You are free…”

  The adults, however, couldn’t dwell with this little victory, and without missing a beat, Man turo Bianca.

  “Now, let’s not waste time,” she said, voice as smooth as it was sharp. “Tell me what you know about Lankor. And while we’re at it—Bianca Lumine, I’d love to hear about the unfortunate demise of Luminus’ Pope and, of course, the Democratic Teachers’ exg new veo corruption traffig, particurly their involvement in poisoning Elven royalty.”

  Man’s expression remained unreadable, but the pointed edge ione made ohing abundantly clear—she was done pying nice.

  Marquis Mossflan, slowly and carefully, as if he were pig his way through a minefield.

  “He came out of nowhere. Well—not really out of nowhere, but close enough,” he admitted, rubbing his temple. “We knew he existed. His background was solid. His mother, Princess Willow Barbarel, had enough royal blood to make a det footnote in history. A distant desdant of a Wintersin Emperor. But that should’ve meant nothing.”

  His frustration alpable. He went on, expining how none of them had ever seriously sidered that King Rafaye Inkor would aowledge an illegitimate so alone one like him, someone who was the living proof of Rafaye’s unfair rise to the throne. A, somehow, that had happened.

  Worse still, the Prime Minister—a man who despised illegitimate heirs with every fiber of his being like his father, the former Prime Minister—had backed this sudden newer as a didate for the throne.

  “This,” Mossflhed, his fingers drumming against his knee, “more than anything else, is the insistency that bothers me. And trust me, as someone who has worked uhe Prime Minister’s fa for years, I’ve seey.”

  He leaned forward, exhaling sharply. “Why would the King aowledge him if he’s from the Prime Minister’s fa? And why would the Prime Minister support him if he’s illegitimate?”

  Across from him, Duke Markus Padparadscha let out a sharp, humorless chuckle.

  “Ah, so that’s why you, the Prime Minister’s right-hand man, are suddenly keeping your distance from him?” he said, voice ced with biting amusement.

  “Yes, my Lord. That is exactly why.” Mossflower’s expression was grim. “Because it feels like—no, it is—a farce. The so-called ‘fas’ of this kingdom are nothing more than decorative bels. In the end, they all seem to be serving the same power lurking in the background.”

  Then, with a sardonic shake of his head, he added, “And of course, let’s not fet the cherry on top—Celia Angemoux murdering the former Prime Minister, all so this random Lankor could vely waltz his way into the current Prime Minister’s fa.”

  Mossflower sat back, his words settling like a heavy weight over the room.

  Politics had always been a game, but this? This wasn’t a game. This was a script, and they had all been pying their parts without realizing who was truly pulling the strings.

  “Not to mention,” Duke Markus Padparadscha drawled, his voice edged with wry amusement, “that Lankor’s entrao Inkia’s politidscape was far too smooth for someone who had never been in the picture before.”

  Lankor’s background was too outstanding. Not only having the blood of a Wintersin Emperor AND Inkia King’s illegitimate son, he also emerged as the owner of the ti’s most exclusive gentlemen’s club and a close associate of the Loneborn Mert Group? Okay, fine.

  But even by the most exorbitant standards, Lance’s rise felt suspiciously effortless—like he wasn’t just buying his way into power, but walking in as if the throne had already been gift-ed for him.

  His gaze flickered toward Bianca. “And as for the Democratic Teachers, the death of Luminus’ Pope, and Luminus as the base in of the Loneborn Mert Group… Bianca, I think it’s about time you told her everything.”

  The weight of the request huween them, and after a long silence, Princess Bianca Lumine sighed in resignation.

  She had no particur love for the woman sitting in front of her. In fact, she had every reason to be suspicious.

  This so-called “Madame Sator” had materialized from obscurity—allegedly spending the past three years on the brink of death—only to emerge as the wife of a mert so wealthy he could rival entire kingdoms. If that weren’t enough, her son was the most taleudent Bianca had ever seen in all her years teag at Saint Lucia Academy.

  A, what uled Bianca the most wasn’t the woman’s wealth, nor her son’s brillia was her power.

  Bunny Fay di Sator—this mert’s wife—had holy power strohan a Lumine.

  Strohan her. A direct desdant of Apostle Romeuf.

  The sheer impossibility of it chafed.

  Bianca’s sharp gaze narrowed. “Are you a saint, Madame Sator?” Her voice was as cold as it was cutting. “Because if you are, then that would be fasating, sidering every saint must be registered and aowledged by the Holy Kingdom of Luminus. And I, Bianca Lumine, have personally met every single one of them.”

  Her lips curled into something resembling a smile, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Yet somehow, I have never heard of you.”

  Across from her, Man exhaled slowly, as if she had been brag for this moment.

  “No,” she murmured, her tone almost weary. “You have met every living saint—”

  She paused, and in that moment, the air itself seemed to shift.

  “—except one.”

  Before Bianca could react, she saw it.

  The transformation was subtle at first—a shimmer of light flickering at the edges of Bunny Fay’s form. But then, in a single breath, her casg bck hair bled into its inal molten gold, a divine radiance suffusing her presence.

  She no longer looked like a tired woman with a hole in her chest.

  She looked immortal.

  She looked sacred.

  Bianca's breath caught as the truth came crashing down with the weight of an a legend.

  “I am Saint Lucia,” Man whispered.

  “The inal Saint.”