A voice slipped out from between Nigel's lips as he lay sprawled comfortably across the couch. The instant he heard it, Ethan all but slammed his teacup down onto the table and rushed straight over to the sofa.
“Yes! Nigel, a-are you coming around?”
But Nigel wasn't looking at the Ethan Lake who had run right up to him. His gaze was fixed on Veil Khalid as he spoke.
“...Don't touch him. Ethan, I mean.”
“...”
“I... tested him earlier, and he really doesn't seem to know anything.”
Huh? At that, Veil's expression turned fierce and he arched a single eyebrow. What exactly do you think I came running all the way here for? The Crown Prince, drugged on truth serum, and that was all he had to say?
And there was something about that look on his face. It was the face of some noble knight stepping in to keep a common ruffian from needlessly cornering his innocent junior.
“Nigel, I came here meaning to help you-”
Veil's lips twisted with displeasure as he spoke.
But Nigel cut his sentence short. Even through his blurred vision, he doggedly chased Veil's amber eyes, slowly working his lips.
“I know.”
Nigel spoke with the side of his face leaning against the sofa, as if even sitting upright properly was too much for him. At his calm, even voice, Veil Khalid's lips stopped dead just as he was about to launch into a tirade, the veins standing out on his neck.
“I know... Veil Khalid. Just how much... you care about me.”
It wasn't a reaction befitting the Crown Prince. Or maybe the truth serum had forced him into honesty. Perhaps, normally, he kept such kind thoughts locked away inside.
...Uh. Veil Khalid started to say something, then gave up with the look of a man who had no idea what answer he was supposed to give to that, and scratched the side of his head. Well, if he knows how much I care, then I suppose that's that... That was the gist of what he was thinking.
Ahem.
That was when it happened. A throat being cleared cut in between Nigel and Veil. It was Ethan Lake.
“Here. This is the list of people who brought gifts to the student council today.”
He held out a single sheet of paper, packed densely with names in tiny script, right in front of Veil's eyes.
Veil tidied away his momentarily dazed expression, then snatched the paper up as he spoke.
“...You found it already? How very fast of you.”
“His Highness's safety is at stake. It's only natural.”
Ethan's reply was flawlessly courteous, but behind his glasses his eyes were coldly sweeping over the shoulder of Nigel that Veil was holding. The boy must have drunk a mouthful of the truth serum himself, yet he looked far too composed.
Veil paid it no mind one way or the other and snorted as he ran his eyes down the list.
“A count, a marquis, a collateral branch of a marquis's house. The royal family of Brion. The queen of some kingdom I've never even heard of... what is this, there are far too many suspects. And why are there so many gifts coming into the student council? The sorts of things they're sending are on a whole different level from what comes into the Magic Faculty.”
“It's Kaiserion's student council. And right now, Nigel is on it, no less. There's no shortage of people who'd offer up a kingdom's family heirloom if it meant catching the Crown Prince's eye.”
There was a note of pride in the academy in his voice. But Veil knew that Ethan Lake's loyalty to Kaiserion was, in truth, directed at one single person: Nigel.
Veil stared hard at the list, then stopped at one particular name.
“...Hm.”
“Is something the matter?”
Ethan came closer and examined the list alongside him.
With an odd look on his face, Veil Khalid pointed a finger at a certain spot on the list. Where his finger landed, it read: [Libe Halion - tea leaves from the Blackrock region].
In that long, long roster of gifts, that was the only tea. The distinguished guests visiting Kaiserion Academy had all been intent on sending things far more valuable and precious than mere dried leaves.
“There are tea leaves on the list, all right. From the Blackrock region.”
“...”
Ethan Lake's expression hardened at once. ‘Blackrock’ was a region on the continent known for its many black cliffs, and before it was absorbed into the Empire, it had been the territory of the nation of Sihar.
It was a place no one called Blackrock anymore. To go out of one's way to send tea leaves grown there might well mean there was some other, hidden intention behind it.
“A name you recognize?”
So it was a perfectly natural train of thought that led Veil Khalid to put this question to Ethan Lake right away. Veil Khalid studied Ethan's face as he asked. After the briefest of pauses, Ethan answered in a voice so flat it raised goosebumps.
“...Halion is a common surname in Sihar.”
That was Ethan Lake's answer. Under the suspicious gaze that kept boring into him, he added one more thing.
“I don't know every Sihari person, either.”
“Well, no, of course you wouldn't.”
Hoping the truth serum was taking effect on Ethan Lake too, Veil Khalid gave a few shallow nods, his lips twisted.
“Nigel, we need to thoroughly investigate just who in the world had the nerve to send this to Kaiserion's student coun-”
The latter half of Veil's words, meant for the Nigel seated on the sofa, trailed off into nothing. At some point Nigel had closed his eyes, as though he were asleep.
“...It might be better to just let him rest his eyes a while.”
Ethan slowly crossed the room and cleared away the teacups on the table. The clinking friction of the glasses sounded unusually loud.
True enough. Veil leaned back against the sofa where Nigel slept and watched Ethan Lake tidying up the student council room.
A Nigel turning into a frog without even knowing it himself, and truth serum mixed into tea meant for him, who habitually enjoyed his tea. Someone with no small intentions was inside this academy.
It could be that Sihar-born freshman before his eyes, or it could be a student with no connection to any of this at all. Nor could he entirely rule out an outsider visiting the academy during the Mardinia festival.
Slik-
Veil gently swept back the hair of the sleeping Nigel. It was something he could never have brought himself to do otherwise, made possible only because Nigel lay there with his eyes closed. He could hear the low sound of Nigel's breathing as he lay reclined against the sofa, eyes shut as if dead. It was the first time he'd seen Nigel asleep.
Expressionless even when he sleeps.
Veil laughed inwardly as his eyes traced Nigel's sharp, firmly closed eyelids.
That was when it happened.
“He's a sensitive one.”
Ethan Lake's voice came from behind him. He must have already finished clearing away all the teacups, for he stood holding a tray. Then, glancing back and forth between Veil and the sleeping Nigel over the top of his glasses, he added in a voice devoid of feeling:
“Could you carry Nigel to his dormitory room? We can't very well leave him on the student council room sofa like this.”
It wasn't wrong from start to finish. But Veil couldn't shake the feeling that the boy was trying to be left alone in this student council room.
Still, Nigel's condition came first. And since they already knew the name of the one who'd sent those tea leaves, that would be enough.
Veil lifted the sleeping Nigel into his arms, plainly for show.
With the motion, Nigel's head lolled limply and buried itself against the crook of Veil's shoulder. The chin that was always lifted so arrogantly came to rest against Veil's collarbone, and the moment that even breath tickled the nape of his neck, Veil couldn't help but hold his own for a second.
“...”
The body in his arms was firmer than he'd expected, and the weight settling onto his arms gave him a strange sense of pressure, like carrying some holy relic. Befitting the second most noble body in the Empire, the bundle in his arms was heavy.
The corridor leading to the dormitories was cut off from the noise of the festival, eerily quiet. Veil shifted the heavy warmth in his arms to a better grip and rounded a corner of the hallway. But it didn't take long before he stopped in his tracks.
At the end of the corridor, in front of the door to Nigel's dormitory room, a single shadow stretched long across the floor.
“...”
It was Rowen Ashfield. He must have just come from training; a fierce exhaustion radiated from his tousled blond hair and his unfocused eyes.
He looked to have been waiting here a good long while for Nigel.
“Oh, Rowen.”
With Nigel cradled in his arms, Veil gave a light flick of one hand in greeting. It was the easy poise of a man welcoming a guest into the master bedroom of his own home.
At that, Rowen's gaze immediately fell on the Nigel held in Veil's arms, his face buried in the nape of Veil's neck.
In that instant, Rowen's blue eyes trembled finely, then froze over cold.
“...Did something happen to Nigel?”
Rowen strode up and planted himself in front of Veil, blocking his way. He looked ready to shove Veil aside and snatch Nigel away at any moment.
Rather than being flustered, Veil let a crooked smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He turned the Nigel in his arms slightly toward Rowen, showing him off, and wrapped his arm even more firmly around Nigel's waist, as if to make a point. Slik, Nigel's soft hair brushed past Veil's cheek.
“As you can see, our prince here isn't feeling too well. I'm being kind enough to escort him all the way to his bedroom.”
