Chapter 74: Tina
Fransia Palace could be roughly divided into three buildings, the largest being the royal family's residential wing.
Lakyus was standing at the far end of a side corridor within that building.
The pale pink dress traced the line of her slender waist. Her golden hair had been carefully gathered to one side and fell across her shoulder, leaving a length of pale neck exposed.
From appearance alone, no one would ever guess this was the captain of an Adamantite-rank adventurer team.
She looked entirely like a noblewoman.
But the smile on that refined face right now was something else.
The curve of her mouth was technically perfect. There was even a trace of warmth in her eyes. And yet as Lucian looked at that smile, the cold sweat had already soaked through to his undershirt.
He knew it wasn't what it looked like. He still felt exactly like an older brother caught sneaking around with his sister's closest friend.
"Lakyus. This — this isn't what you think."
Lucian spoke. His voice came out drier than he had intended.
"It isn't."
But Renner's voice came in one step ahead of anything else.
Lucian turned to look at her.
Renner's lower lip trembled faintly, but she caught it and pressed her mouth shut. She lowered her head, her gaze falling to the floor in front of her — the very picture of someone deserving of sympathy.
"It was because..." Her voice grew smaller. "It was because... I was helped with something... so this was in return for that..."
She lifted her lashes. Those deep blue eyes held just a trace of grievance, the look of someone who has been misunderstood but doesn't quite dare to defend herself out loud.
Yes, technically accurate — no. No, wait.
Lucian stared at Renner with undisguised astonishment.
Was that really how she was choosing to explain this?
It was the truth, as far as it went. But phrased that carefully, paired with Renner's fragile, hesitant expression — heard from the outside, it made him sound even more like someone who had pressured her into something.
Before Lucian could get a single word of actual defense out, Lakyus had already moved.
Her pace wasn't hurried — it could even be called graceful. The hem of her dress traced a smooth arc through the air.
Then a punch that looked as though it meant very serious business landed squarely on Lucian.
Hm.
That doesn't actually hurt.
The thought passed through his mind in an instant.
But within that same instant, his body gave the correct response.
He bent forward, covered the point of impact, and arranged his face into an expression of considerable suffering.
She used to be the little sister who followed her older brother around everywhere, he thought silently. And this is how she treats him now.
Lakyus didn't look at him again. She extended her hand, took Renner's arm in a completely natural gesture, and the smile that returned to her face was gracious and entirely appropriate — as though the punch simply hadn't happened.
"Shall we go in, Your Highness?"
"Yes."
Renner murmured her agreement and let Lakyus lead her toward the tea room. But not before she turned back just long enough to give Lucian a meaningful smile.
Lucian stayed bent forward, holding the pose, and watched the two of them disappear through the doorway.
A flash of pale pink hem and golden hair at the door's edge, and they were gone.
He straightened.
From inside the room came the soft sound of Lakyus's composed voice and Renner's equally light reply. The atmosphere was entirely serene, as though nothing had happened at all.
Lucian stood in the corridor for a moment.
Then he walked toward the door.
He pushed it open.
The tea room came fully into view.
Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows and cast wide, bright patches across the polished stone floor. Two golden-haired women sat at a round table by the window — Lakyus in pale pink, Renner in pale blue. The scent of tea drifted in the warm air. In the slanted morning light, the scene had the quality of an oil painting.
The atmosphere, however, was faintly charged.
Renner sat across from Lakyus, her standard expression of innocent warmth in place. Lakyus was smiling too, but the fingers holding her teacup were pressing just slightly harder than necessary, the knuckles carrying a barely perceptible whiteness.
The conversation before Lucian entered had clearly been less harmonious than what he was hearing now.
When Lucian came through the door, Renner spoke first.
"Lucian, sit here."
Her voice was warm to precisely the right degree. Those deep blue eyes curved pleasantly as she indicated the chair to her right.
Lucian's gaze landed on that chair.
There were five chairs arranged around the round table.
A teacup sat in front of Renner. A teacup sat in front of Lakyus. A teacup sat waiting at the empty seat to Renner's right.
But there was also a teacup at the seat beside Lakyus.
Four cups in total.
One more person.
Lucian's perception had already caught it the moment he pushed the door open.
In the shadows of the room's corner, there was a presence. Faint, deliberately suppressed, like a cat holding itself completely still.
That would be Tina.
Though he had to wonder why his perception had worked perfectly well on a stranger hiding in a shadowed corner, yet had registered absolutely nothing when his own twin sister was standing right behind him in the previous corridor.
Lucian felt mildly aggrieved about that.
Since she's already there, I'll keep pretending I haven't noticed. Besides, I have no wish to sit next to Renner.
Lucian inclined his head toward the table and took the seat beside Lakyus.
The moment he sat down — whether or not it was his imagination — Lakyus's mood seemed to improve slightly. Her smile gained a few degrees of genuine warmth.
She had probably just confirmed that her older brother wasn't going to betray her by getting entangled with her closest friend.
Honestly. Even in another world, girls still worried about their best friend becoming their sister-in-law.
Lucian almost smiled at that.
At that moment, a third gaze landed on him.
Neither Renner's nor Lakyus's.
The one from the corner.
He turned his head and looked directly toward the shadowed corner without any pretense of not noticing. There, a woman in a close-fitting black outfit was sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her frame was lean and long, the black fabric tracing clean lines around her. In the dimness her hair color was hard to make out, but those eyes were looking straight at him.
There she is.
Tina. Blue Roses. Ninja-thief class. Typically operated alongside her twin sister Tia. Lucian ran through her details quickly.
"Oh."
He gave a small, deliberate start and shifted back slightly in his chair, letting an expression of surprised discovery settle on his face.
He looked at Tina. Looked at Lakyus. His expression asked the obvious question.
Lakyus sighed.
"You startled my older brother with that pose of yours."
Her tone carried a trace of exasperation, though without any real edge of reproach.
"Got it, Ghost Boss."
Tina unfolded from the corner in a single fluid motion, light and quick as a cat. She crossed to the table without a sound, her eyes fixed on Lucian the entire way.
Lucian found that gaze slightly unsettling.
It was too direct. The particular look of someone examining something they found genuinely interesting — the way a collector might study an unusual piece they had never encountered before.
The seat beside Lakyus was already taken. Tina settled into the chair beside Renner instead. Her attention hadn't moved from Lucian.