"Hello."
"…..?"
The Queen, who had been waiting for Holmes and Watson with an anxious expression, tilted her head at the voice from beside her and turned.
"Y—you…!"
Her eyes widened at once.
"Shall I say it's been a while."
The nurse before her stripped off the uniform and swept back "her" hair—revealing a presence the Queen feared more than any other.
"A—Isaac."
Isaac Adler. The boy whose "childish prank" had left far too deep a scar upon the Queen when they were young now stood before her.
"H—how did you come here…"
"I shook off Holmes and her assistant. I wanted to speak with you alone."
Adler absently touched his ear for a moment, as if something were fitted there, then sat down across from the Queen.
"…What?"
"Did you think I wouldn't know?"
Adler's chilly gaze bored into the Queen.
"In the end, Your Majesty, you disappoint me to the last."
At those words, the Queen stared at Adler with a terrified face.
"Why… why are you doing this?"
Her two hands trembled as she asked.
"Why would you put me through such an ordeal."
The usual aura of dignity and majesty had vanished without a trace.
"All you have given me is pain beyond bearing…"
All that remained was a sheltered young lady in her early twenties, caught in a trap long and carefully laid by the man before her.
"…It's simple."
Had Adler let out even a little sneer there, or pressed her with force, the Kingdom of Bohemia might well have lost its Queen.
"I was jealous."
Yet, unlike his usual wickedness, the boy, glancing absently toward the window with a flat face, said something utterly out of left field.
"…What did you say?"
Tears pooled as the Queen cocked her head.
"I wanted to stop Your Majesty's marriage."
"What are you…"
"As you know, I've been with many women."
Adler began, gazing at the Queen.
"But the only person I truly loved was you, and you alone."
"Lies!"
"It's not a lie, Your Majesty."
With that, Isaac drew something from his breast.
"So when I heard you were to marry the King of Scandinavia's second son, I could not restrain my lament."
"….."
"To think of what would happen if you married that old man who is thirty years your senior—I felt I had to do something."
"I—it is for the good of the realm. What could you possibly know…"
Muttering so, the Queen absentmindedly took the papers Adler held out and skimmed them—and her face turned to stone.
"What is all this."
"Evidence I obtained with great difficulty, recording the Scandinavian prince's misdeeds."
The Queen, wearing a look of disbelief, examined the documents.
"According to those papers, the prince uses narcotics in bed."
"F—forgery. Do you think I'll be swayed by such fabricated—"
"It's already public record in the papers that he's been divorced three times, and that the reason each time was his spouse's drug addiction."
Her gaze began, slowly, to waver.
"If you call it a forgery, I have nothing more to say. But—did you ever truly wish to marry that old man thirty years your elder in the first place?"
"For the good of the realm…"
"Not for the realm—do you, Your Majesty, want it?"
When the Queen could not answer for a long while, Adler let out a deep sigh.
"Well, in any case, it seems my part ends here."
"...."
"And it seems the blackmail ends here as well."
"…What?"
Then, suddenly, Adler took out a familiar photograph and placed it on the desk.
"Ugh."
The Queen, catching sight of herself naked, crouched like a dog, snatched the photo in a panic and hugged it to her breast.
"Having handed over the evidence, I have no further need of threats."
"You…"
"Break the betrothal or don't; do as you please. But look at this."
With a quiet smile, Adler drew out something else.
"That is…"
Up onto the table went the slave contract she had, years ago when she was still foolish, giggled over in Isaac's arms and written out in her own hand.
"Your Majesty, if you are willing, might you sign this contract?"
"A—are you serious."
"My last wish in this life, Your Majesty."
She had gone stern at first, but at those words the Queen's face turned bewildered.
"As you know, I overreached collecting evidence to protect you, and now countless enemies are after my life."
"I—is that true?"
"Even if I go to the Auguste Academy, I doubt I'll last long. So before it's too late, I wanted to receive one last gift from the only person I ever loved."
The Queen's eyes wavered again at his words.
"…A signature can be forged at any time. That much you could do for me, surely."
Only now did the burns across Adler's body truly enter the Queen's sight.
"Well, even if you don't, it's fine."
"...…."
"Even without such a thing, the fact that Ms. Lilia loved me will remain in this world forever."
Yet when the Queen still hesitated, he gave a bitter smile, rose, and began to whisper in a sorrowful voice.
"That alone is enough for me."
"W—wait…"
"If there were no gap in our stations, I would have wanted to spend my whole life with you."
And with that, Adler quietly turned to leave.
"W—wait!"
The Queen's urgent voice rang through the lobby at that very moment.
"Wait a moment, Isaac!"
When Isaac paused and looked back, the Queen met his eyes with guilt-ridden gaze and spoke.
"I have something to give you."
Then, drawing a pen from her breast, she began to sign the contract.
"…I shall annul the betrothal with that prince."
She, who had once drafted that slave contract with him as a game, etched her name upon it, walked up to Adler, and handed it over, whispering:
"Isaac. If only we'd been of the same station… how wonderful that would have been."
"...…."
"But as sovereign of a nation, this is all I can give you."
When Adler took the contract, the Queen hesitated—and then embraced him.
"Isaac. Though it's only a document in form, I…"
At the very moment she closed her eyes and started to murmur—
"Get down."
Adler breathed a command in a low voice into her ear.
"…Uhk!?"
At once a chilling sensation swept her whole body; the Queen staggered—and before she knew it, she had flattened her belly to the floor at Isaac's feet.
"W—what have you done."
"Simple. I laid a spell upon the contract."
"What do you…"
"The human heart can change at any moment."
The cold of the floor seeped into her abdomen and made her shiver; at his words, her eyes went round.
"In a world as harsh as this—where even the few magi in Europe can be attacked in broad daylight—one should have at least one reliable means of self-defense, don't you think?"
Adler's sigil, imprinted on her lower belly, shone and lit the hospital floor.
"Please forgive my discourtesy."
The Queen stared vacantly at the sight; when Adler began to stroke her head, she let out a low, bubbling laugh.
"H—hahaha."
So much for the pride of having escaped him at last.
The situation had grown worse than before: she, who ought to have all Bohemia beneath her feet, had become Isaac's slave forever.
"Hahahaha…"
But now it no longer mattered.
Once her guilt—that she could give him nothing but this meaningless contract—fell away, a flush rose to her cheeks and her heart began to beat faster for some reason.
'Whichever prince I marry, my child will have golden hair.'
It was the moment when the sun of Bohemia collapsed entirely.
.
.
.
.
.
[To Miss Charlotte Holmes.]
[From the moment you threw yourself in to save me dressed as a young nun, I had a fair suspicion you were Miss Charlotte Holmes.
No one would save me—the worst scoundrel in London—and I'd been warned more than once by those around me to beware the genius girl of London.
So when I opened my eyes at dawn in the hospital, I decided to confirm it with my own two eyes.
Stealing a nurse's outfit was easy.
Lengthening or shortening my hair was child's play for a mana user like me.
When I disguised myself as a nurse and slipped down to the hospital lobby at dawn, there was a girl nodding off on a sofa with sleepy eyes.
Seeing with my own eyes that I was being hunted by the most capable detective in London, I judged there was no hope.
Therefore, I will be moving my lodgings to the dormitory of the Auguste Detective Academy.
Even a genius girl like Charlotte Holmes cannot enter Auguste without mana.]
[Instead, I will hand the target—the photograph—over to the client before I leave this hospital.
In truth, I'll be using a method even more certain than that.
Even so, from now on it will be by mutual consent, used not as blackmail but for self-defense.
Since I'm being targeted by London's top detective, I mustn't cross the line any further, must I?
Then have a good day, Miss Holmes.]
Holmes read Adler's letter over and over, then slowly closed her eyes and set it down on the table.
"He's a truly remarkable man, isn't he?"
Beside her, the Queen—still flushed—chattered on.
"If only we'd been of the same station, I would somehow have kept him by my side…"
"To my eye as well, Mr. Adler seems of a kind far too different from Your Majesty."
"Right? You see it that way too, don't you?"
Holmes's words had a sardonic edge, but the Queen only agreed all the more.
She looked like nothing so much as a girl in adolescence who had fallen in love.
"What on earth did she and Adler talk about to leave her like that."
"…Sometimes, Watson, not knowing is a mercy."
Quietly answering Watson's muttered wonder, Holmes inclined her head slightly to the Queen and spoke.
"I am terribly sorry we could not resolve the matter to your satisfaction."
"No, no. You did your best for me."
But the Queen shook her head and instead encouraged Holmes.
"So—what do you intend to ask as your fee?"
"…A fee? I hadn't thought I had the right to one."
"You worked your hardest for my sake. And it is also the price of asking you to keep this matter quiet. Please, don't be shy—name it."
As the Queen said so with a kindly smile, Holmes fell silent in thought.
'I can't make sense of it.'
According to the letter, Isaac Adler had suspected her identity from the start—
A detective hired by the Queen, who was ever eyeing his lifeline.
A threatening presence, enough that he would have to move his lodgings to the Auguste Detective Academy.
To him, someone like her must have been a highly distasteful existence to be excluded at any cost.
'Then why didn't he abandon me back there and save himself.'
Why, then, had he risked his life to save her?
According to the servants, the path leading to her room was unusually treacherous.
Treacherous enough that the servants who had come to save her lying there in bed had given up and turned back.
But Isaac Adler had endured in the sea of fire for a full ten minutes to rescue her.
And, excluding the servants who escaped the house on their own with Isaac's help, he had saved her first of all.
Unless Holmes herself had been Adler's most valuable possession, it defied explanation.
'I don't know.'
It was the first time in her life.
A riddle she could not solve had appeared before a woman who'd regarded everything in the world as mere puzzles to while away the time.
"If you truly can't choose, what about the ring I'm wearing? This ring, you see…"
"Your Majesty possesses something far more valuable than that ring."
After long minutes wrestling with that insoluble problem, Holmes spoke.
"…And what would that be?"
"The photograph that was our objective."
"What?"
Abruptly, she asked for the photograph as her fee.
"A—are you in your right mind? Absolutely not."
"You said you could give me half the kingdom."
"This is mine."
Naturally, the Queen refused vehemently.
"Is it because you're in it, Your Majesty?"
"O—of course. Even for you, that's a bit…"
"In that case, this will do."
"…Ah?"
Holmes snatched the photo from the Queen's hand—and before she could be stopped, tore it cleanly in two.
"I don't need this."
"...….."
Then Holmes handed back to the Queen the half showing her lying on the floor.
"This way there's no problem."
"D—do you want his photo? Might I at least know why…"
"Watson's hobby is to turn our cases into stories and publish them, Your Majesty."
"…Ah. I see."
The Queen, who had been watching Holmes with a faintly wary, measuring look, cleared her throat and rose at the suggestion laden with implication.
"If that is truly what you want…"
"And I have a personal favor to ask."
"…A personal favor?"
Rising as well, Holmes added:
"Would you write me a letter of recommendation to the Auguste Detective Academy?"
"What are you talking about, Holmes?"
Watson, who had been listening silently at her side, rounded her eyes and asked:
"A few months ago you were savaging them as people you'd never associate with—why are you suddenly trying to go there?"
Holmes, whose gaze had until then been fixed on the torn photograph in her hand, answered in a low voice.
"The riddle I have to solve ran away there."
Reflected in her deep gray eyes was Isaac Adler, head bowed by the window in the photograph.