Even on the journey home, Ed's tireless efforts to look after Lia never let up. As the heir to Crimson Manor, Lia had received the finest education money could buy—top-tier tutors, a meticulously designed curriculum—but all of it had been aimed at grooming a noblewoman to lead her family and navigate high society. Haggling, bargaining, the basic arithmetic of a fair deal: these were concepts as foreign to her as a foreign language.
Ed didn't call her financial instincts an absolute disaster for nothing.
They could have ridden the locomotive home in perfect comfort, but Lia had declared she simply had to try the street food commoners ate. So they stepped off at a small town along the route. The moment they turned off the main road and ducked into a narrow side alley, the atmosphere shifted completely—even though they were only a few steps from the boulevard.
For Lia, that alone was a thrill. For Ed, it was not. He swept a sharp gaze around them and drew her close, his hand settling over her shoulder.
"What's wrong?"
"Places like this are dangerous, my lady."
"It's the middle of the day!"
"Criminals don't exactly wait for sundown and announce, 'The night is mine at last!' before getting to work."
Lia decided Ed simply worried for sport.
She was glancing around with her usual bright curiosity when a battered, peculiar little antique shop caught her eye. Before Ed could say a word, she pushed the door open and walked straight in.
A small bell chimed as the door swung wide. The air that greeted her was a layered blend of aged wood, old paper, and the faint ghost of some long-burned incense. Every wooden display case held jewelry worn smooth by decades and nameless objects that seemed to be sleeping. She felt a strange, irresistible curiosity—she had never seen things like these even in the treasure room at Crimson Manor. The shop itself felt as though it had been holding years of secrets, quietly waiting for the right traveler to walk through the door.
The place smelled as old as the door looked. Behind the counter sat an elderly woman who, in Ed's eyes, was plainly a con artist—and in Lia's, was clearly a mysterious keeper of ancient secrets.
"Is there anything worth buying in here?"
Lia's murmur was barely out before the old woman bared a set of yellowed teeth in a wide grin.
"You've come to just the right place, my dear. This—this right here—is a piece made for a young lady like yourself."
"Hmm. Let's see it, then."
"This item, if I may say so… is a rare relic from the age when magic still walked the earth. And the color—why, it matches your red hair perfectly."
The old woman's voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur. Ed couldn't imagine why a genuine ancient artifact would end up in a shop like this, but Lia clearly had no such doubts. The woman pressed a necklace into her hands—flashy on the surface, cheap underneath—and called it a legendary gemstone that brought great wealth to its owner. Lia was ready to pay a small fortune for it.
"How much?"
"Just for today, I'll let it go for fifty gold."
"Oh, really?"
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose. *Good heavens, my lady.* She was about to throw a small fortune at a piece of costume jewelry with not a trace of magic in it. He stepped forward and caught her hand before she could reach for her purse.
"Pardon me, but might I take a closer look at that necklace?"
The old woman's eyes narrowed.
"Can't you see I'm doing business with the young lady? Know your place, hired help—"
"As hired help, preventing my lady from spending recklessly is very much part of my position."
The old woman forced a smile. Ed turned the necklace over in his gaze and spoke calmly.
"You said this is a piece from the ancient magical kingdom. And yet this clasp mechanism is a design from no more than two hundred years ago."
Lia's hand stilled. The old woman jumped in at once.
"It was replaced during a repair."
"I see."
Ed nodded, keeping his contempt entirely to himself. Ancient magical relics couldn't be repaired—there were no mages left to do it. The so-called mages at the Imperial court had barely enough ability to detect whether an old object held any magic at all, let alone restore it. He chose not to raise that point, however, and moved on to something more concrete.
"In that case, why is the silver-content hallmark stamped in the current standard format?"
The old woman's expression went rigid.
"W-well, that's…"
Ed continued without missing a beat.
"Furthermore, any item from the ancient magical kingdom would require an Imperial authentication certificate. Where is yours?"
"I—I can't say."
"How strange. If it were genuine, there would be no reason to hide its provenance."
Silence settled over the shop. The old woman was sweating now, her eyes darting between Lia and Ed. Lia, for her part, was listening without a trace of anger—if anything, she looked thoroughly entertained.
Bolstered by Lia's silent (if ambiguous) encouragement, Ed pressed on.
"Would you mind if I sent a telegram to the Ancient Relics Authentication Society right now to verify?"
A bead of cold sweat rolled down the old woman's forehead.
"If you don't want to buy it, then don't!"
She snatched the necklace back, announced that the shop was closed for the day, and hustled them both out the door. A frantic clattering from inside suggested she was already shoving the necklace to the back of a display case.
Ed gave a mild shrug.
"My lady, I shudder to think what the Count would say if he heard about this. That ancient magical relics fall under Imperial jurisdiction is common knowledge, is it not?"
"I hadn't forgotten! I just wanted a little souvenir and a good story to tell."
Ed straightened his gloves.
"There is no one in the world who spends fifty gold on a good story, my lady."
"Fine, fine. No more lectures! Let's just go catch the train."
"Music to my ears. I would very much like to make it back to the capital without any further detours."
"Okay, I'm sorry!"
Lia's cheeks had gone as red as her hair. Ed watched her for just a moment, then quietly took charge of her purse.
"Effective immediately, every purchase you make requires my approval. In exchange, I will personally select whatever you'd like to have."
"Excuse me?"
"Impulse-spending prevention. The Count would take my side on this, I assure you."
"Ugh…"
Lia pulled a sulky face—but almost immediately consoled herself with a quiet, "*Everything Ed picks out is pretty anyway.*"
"Get me sapphire instead of ruby. I already have plenty of red stones."
"As you wish."
Ed allowed himself a small smile. She had asked for blue on her own. The one thing he and Lia shared—their blue eyes—and now she wanted a stone to match. The thought of clasping something that color around her wrist, something chosen by his own hand, sent a quiet thrill rising from somewhere deep inside him. If he could fill every piece of jewelry she ever wore with his taste, his choices, things that had passed through his hands… perhaps one day this lovely rose of a young lady would find her way into his arms.
He kept that particular thought well hidden, and offered her the same warm, faintly teasing smile he always did.
Lia finally got her street food. By the time they boarded the locomotive again, she was thoroughly worn out from a full day of wandering, and the moment she sank into her seat she leaned against Ed's shoulder and fell fast asleep.
Ed watched her for a moment, a quiet smile on his face—and then, once he was certain she was truly out, let that smile cool into something slower and more deliberate. His gaze moved over her sleeping face with an unhurried, unguarded intensity he never let her see when she was awake. He smoothed a strand of hair away from her cheek with one finger, then let his eyes drift to the necklace resting at her throat—the one he had chosen for her at the station, its blue stone catching the light.
The gem was luminous, he thought. But it was nothing compared to the blue of Lia's eyes, hidden now behind closed lids. The cold fire of a cut stone was striking enough to hold anyone's gaze. And yet it couldn't begin to rival what lay behind those softly lowered lashes—the living, breathing depth of color that no jeweler's craft could ever replicate. The certainty of it settled over him so completely that he swallowed, almost without meaning to.
At that exact moment, Lia stirred awake. Ed felt a cold flash of panic—*had she heard that?*—and held very still. But Lia only yawned and blinked at him.
"Ed—I didn't drool, did I?"
Ed smoothed his expression back into something warm and gently wicked. "Twice as much as usual," he said, and reached over to straighten her collar.
"What? Seriously?"
Lia scrubbed at the corner of her mouth in a panic. Ed let out a short laugh. She shot him a withering look.
"You did it again!"
"If you're tired, you're welcome to sleep in the sleeping car, my lady. Your first class express ticket is weeping."
"No! This is romantic!"
"Drooling on one's butler is romantic?"
"I wasn't drooling!"
Lia spent a moment seriously weighing whether to smack him on the back, then gave it up and turned to the window instead. The sunset outside was the same deep red as her hair, and something about it made her go quiet and a little wistful. After a moment she spoke.
"Ed—this trip was so much fun, wasn't it? Now I want to go outside the Crozen Empire someday. Doesn't that sound incredible?"
Ed reached over and tied the ribbon of her bonnet into a firm, careful knot.
"Wherever you wish to go, go. I'll follow you to the ends of the earth regardless—teasing you and looking after you is my job, after all."
"…You really are the best butler. Except for the teasing part."
Lia laughed, bright and easy, thinking only that she had found the most dependable companion she could ask for. Ed looked back at her with an expression that said, quietly and without any room for doubt, *I will never let you go.*
He intended to serve her with everything he had, for as long as he lived. He would keep her hands clean, her eyes sheltered from anything harsh or ugly in the world. It didn't matter to him if that devotion—so excessive, so absolute—eventually became a blindfold over her eyes and chains around her wrists. He wanted only one thing: for her to become so helpless without him that she had no choice but to lean on him entirely, and only him.