The two of them lingered a moment before the greenhouse, then walked on.
Louise led him across the lawn where she practised riding on ordinary afternoons, and along a hidden path through the trees to a quiet lake where swans drifted in silence.
At every stop, she took up the role of guide with quiet pride, telling him the history and curious little stories of each place.
Russell played the part of her most devoted audience, never once interrupting.
Now and then he offered a thought of his own — never many words, yet always precisely the right ones, casting over these familiar sights a veil of mystery and romance that belonged entirely to Phantom Thief Moriarty.
At last, they came to a marble viewing terrace that looked out over nearly half the garden.
Louise settled onto a cold stone bench, propped her chin in both hands, and let out a long, satisfied sigh.
"Thank you, Mr. Moriarty," she said sincerely. "This has been the most wonderful night of my life."
"The honour is entirely mine, Miss Tour Guide." Russell leaned against the balustrade with easy grace.
"And what about you?" Louise summoned her courage and asked the question she had been holding back all evening.
"Why did you become a... Phantom Thief?"
"Someone asked me that same question not so long ago," Russell said.
"And what did you tell them?" Louise asked, curious.
"Mm. Because it interests me."
Russell gave the very same answer.
"Because it interests you?" Louise tilted her head, clearly finding the reply somewhat different from what she had expected.
"Have I disappointed you?"
"No, it's just... how to put it..." The girl shook her head and took a long moment to find the right words before she spoke.
"It sounds exactly like something Mr. Moriarty would say."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Russell smiled faintly, then rose to his feet — as though the midnight walk were drawing quietly toward its close.
"Mm. It's getting late, Your Highness. I should take you back."
"But... but there are so many places we haven't seen yet." Louise's reluctance was plain.
"I wanted to take you to the studio, and the collection room..."
"Staying up too late isn't good for you, and if we're caught, I'd have a great deal to answer for."
"...Ah. All right, then."
Louise gave a slightly crestfallen nod and rose from the stone bench.
Russell caught that fleeting shadow of disappointment crossing her face — and so he spoke again.
"Your Highness."
"Mm?" Louise looked up at him.
"In return for your guided tour of Buckingham Palace, I have a small gift for you when we get back."
"A gift?" Louise blinked with open curiosity. "What sort of gift?"
"You'll find out once we're inside."
Russell left her in suspense.
On the way back they did not retrace their steps; Russell deliberately chose a different route, treating Louise to the quiet thrill of slipping unseen through the shadows.
When he swept her up once more and landed soundlessly on the carpet of her bedroom, the feeling of a dream about to end rose in Louise's chest — a sharp, aching reluctance to let go.
"There we are, Your Highness," Russell set her gently down. "Now — it's time for you to rest."
"But... what about my gift?" Louise asked.
"Lie down, pull the covers up properly, and the gift will come on its own."
At that, Louise obediently burrowed into the soft warmth of her duvet like a contented little cat.
Only her amber eyes remained visible above the covers, glittering with anticipation, fixed unblinkingly on the figure standing in the moonlight.
Russell drew a chair close and sat down beside her.
"The gift is simple — a bedtime story."
"A bedtime story?" Louise blinked, then puffed out her cheeks.
"You're still treating me like a child!"
"So — do you want to hear it or not?"
"...Yes."
"There, then." Russell gave a quiet laugh.
He cleared his throat, and began: "What I'm going to tell you is the story of a Little Prince."
"A Little Prince?" Louise blinked, and curiosity seized her at once. "What kind of story is it?"
She shifted her small body beneath the covers, inching a little closer toward Russell, like a fledgling waiting to be fed.
"A story about a lonely little prince," Russell said.
His voice was very soft, very gentle — like a night breeze moving across a lake, carrying with it a quiet magic that made one feel safe.
"He lived on a very, very small planet — so small it might have been no bigger than this room.
There was nothing on the planet at all, only three volcanoes — two active, one dead — and a rose he was very fond of, though she was rather proud."
"A rose?"
"Yes. A rose unlike any other." Russell gave a small nod; in the last of the firelight, the outline of his mask looked almost soft.
"Every day the Little Prince watered his rose, placed a glass globe over her to keep her safe, and chased away the caterpillars.
He loved her dearly — but the rose was too proud, and she always used her little thorns to wound him.
And so one day, the Little Prince decided to leave his planet and travel to other worlds."
Russell's voice was unhurried, flowing like a stream finding its way through stones.
"He visited many, many planets, and met many, many people.
A king who wished to rule all things. A vain man who lived only for admiration. A drunkard who could not stop drinking. A businessman who did nothing but count the stars...
He met all manner of strange grown-ups — and yet he felt lonelier than ever."
Louise listened in silence. The eyes that had been bright and shining with excitement a little while ago grew slowly soft, and hazy.
Russell watched the girl's eyelids grow heavy and her breathing deepen into a slow, even rhythm — and so he drew the story toward its end.
"At last, he came to Earth — the very planet we live on.
In a garden, he found thousands upon thousands of roses, each one the very image of the rose he loved.
A sudden sadness came over him, for he had always believed that his rose was the only one of her kind in all the universe."
"And... and then what?" Louise's voice was thick with sleep, as though the words were coming from somewhere inside a dream.
"Then he met a fox," Russell said softly.
"The fox told him: yes, there are thousands upon thousands of roses in this world — but only the one on his planet had ever been tamed by him.
Because he had given her his time. He had watered her. He had sheltered her beneath a glass globe.
And because of that — that one rose, and no other, was truly his own."
The story was finished.
The room was quiet. Only the girl's soft, even breathing remained.
She seemed to have fallen asleep.
Russell sat in stillness for a moment, and was just about to rise and leave — when those closed eyelids trembled, and opened the barest sliver.
"Are... are you going?" The girl's voice was thick with exhaustion.
"Of course. Disturbing someone's rest would be quite rude." Russell said.
"But... you still haven't told me what you're going to take..."
Her voice was muddled, with the faint stubbornness of a child who refuses, against all odds, to give in to sleep.
Russell couldn't help but smile.
He settled back into his seat and spoke in a voice that was barely more than a whisper:
"Then, Your Highness — would you be so kind as to introduce me to your most treasured possession?"
"Mm..."
Louise struggled to hold her eyelids open. She raised one slender finger and pointed, at some distance, toward the dressing table.
"Over there... that crown — Mother gave it to me for my fourteenth birthday. It's so heavy. It makes your neck ache terribly just to wear it."
Her finger shifted toward the safe along the wall.
"Inside... there's a sapphire necklace. They say... it once belonged to Cleopatra. It's so cold. Like pressing a block of ice against your skin."
One by one, she introduced the treasures that the outside world would deem priceless — yet in her voice there was not a trace of love or pride for any of them, only the frank, honest complaints of a child.
Russell listened patiently, without interruption.
At last, when she had finished accounting for all those extraordinary objects, her gaze drifted, almost without meaning to, toward the bedside table.
"And that?" Russell followed her eyes.
"That?" Louise's gaze flickered, and she mumbled evasively.
"That's nothing... just an old music box. It broke a long time ago — it can't even make a sound anymore. You'd never want it."
The more she said, the smaller her voice became — like a child trying to hide a beloved toy and not quite knowing how.
The smile at the corner of Russell's mouth deepened.
"Have you ever heard a story," he said quietly, "an old Eastern proverb?"
"What?" Louise blinked. "I don't think I have..."
"Then let me tell it to you." Russell's voice remained gentle.
"Once upon a time, there was a man who had saved up three hundred taels of silver — a great, great deal of money.
He was very pleased with himself, but terrified someone would steal it.
So he found a very secret spot and buried it all underground.
But still he could not rest easy — so he drove a wooden stake into the ground above it and wrote on it: There Is No Money Buried Here."
The story was simple, and Louise understood it almost at once.
A charming flush crept up her cheeks — pale as they were from drowsiness.
She tucked her chin bashfully beneath the duvet, leaving only her amber eyes exposed, glaring at Russell with a small, flustered indignation at having been found out.
"...You're awful."
"Goodnight, Your Highness."
Russell got to his feet and tucked the covers snugly around her once more.
"You... you'll bring it back, won't you?"
In the last second before sleep finally took her, she spent the very last of her strength asking the question.
"Of course."
Russell looked at her eyes — at last fully closed — and at the peaceful, serene expression on her sleeping face, and answered softly.
"We'll meet again."
He stood at the bedside for a quiet moment, and only when he was certain she was entirely asleep did he turn and walk to the bedside table, where he carefully picked up the old, worn music box.
Then, from the pocket of his coat, he drew a small card he had prepared well in advance — doodled with a little smiling face — and set it gently in the place where the music box had been.
Moonlight poured through the window and fell across the card, illuminating a line of neat, precise handwriting.
[Sweet dreams, Your Highness — Moriarty]
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