’ANGELA HEEEEEEEEEEEELP—’

If Angela was here... no, even somewhere in the dungeon, Angela Iondora would probably feel an inexplicable urge to sigh.

Beneath the veil, Cecilia recalled every interaction she had ever had with every type of person across every station of life.

Politicians who would sell their own mothers for a scrap of power, priests who believed their own lies so thoroughly they had forgotten they were lies. Assassins, scholars, fools. She had learned that understanding people was the key to surviving them.

But nothing could be compared to Ivy Cassia’s chaotic goodness.

This woman was ready to break every rule, every norm, every moral convention to make sure she achieved what she judged as a "better" world to live in. And Cecilia had never felt more terrified of another person in her entire life.

This absolute certainty that what they were doing was right, and that any method was justified in pursuit of that goal... this was somehow more admirable than doing it for their own benefit.

Angela was a similar kind of person. The same sharp intellect and willingness to operate in the grey spaces between right and wrong. Both also had fierce protective love for the people she considered hers.

But Angela was restrained. Restraint too was a survival mechanism, and had honed it into a weapon. She had used it to navigate the treacherous waters of the Iondoran Court without being devoured.

She hesitated before burning bridges. She calculated the cost before making enemies. She understood that some lines, once crossed, could not be uncrossed. So, she manipulated instead.

Ivy Cassia was the polar opposite. Perhaps Ivy Cassia was what Angela would have become if she had never been confined under an emperor and the Iondora Court.

But if Ivy had been standing in Angela’s shoes, she would have become an empress. She would not have hesitated, she would have simply acted, and the world would have rearranged itself around her actions.

This woman did not hesitate to sleep her way to the top. She also would not hesitate to kill her way to the top. Angela would, but she held herself back. Not because she was morally opposed, but because she knew she had too much to lose and too much to protect.

But Ivy moved like she had nothing to lose, yet to lose everything was to protect it all.

A woman who had held that much power from such a young age. A woman who had sat on that lone throne without anyone above her, without anyone to answer to, without anyone to tell her no.

Someone who was used to making decisions that affected thousands of lives and never once doubting her right to make them.

It made sense, Cecilia supposed, that this was how Ivy Cassia had turned out.

And Cecilia was terrified by the possibility.

What would happen when Ivy lost her reason to create that "better" world? When the thing that drove her, the thing that gave her purpose and direction, was taken away?

Or, perhaps more frightening, what would it look like, in some other world, some other timeline, if Ivy Cassia had never had that "good" of a heart to begin with?

If all that power, all that conviction, all that willingness to do anything had been pointed in the wrong direction?

If so... then what kind of individual was Cecilia herself?

Did Cecilia conform to moral values? No. Did she conform to norms? No. But would she do all and every single method to reach her preferable goal? No.

There were lines she would not cross. There were prices she would not pay. There were people whom she would never, ever sacrifice, no matter what victory lay on the other side.

Here, the only difference between Cecilia, Angela, and Ivy was principle. The invisible line in the sand that each woman had drawn for herself.

Cecilia could but she wouldn’t. Angela would but she couldn’t. Ivy could, and she would.

Ivy Cassia’s line, if it existed at all, was so far from Cecilia’s that she could barely see it.

And for someone like Ivy Cassia to meet someone like Magnus Karas—

Ha.

Birds of a feather flock together. Literally, in this case. Magnus Karas was basically Ivy Cassia in a different font. The same casual relationship with rules and norms. The same cheerful willingness to offer anything in service of a goal.

The same unsettling calm when discussing things that should make any reasonable person balk.

They were the same to the very tone they were using to their philosophy. The same half-amused, half-serious delivery. The same watch me energy that made Cecilia want to lock them both in a room together and throw away the key, for everyone else’s safety.

This was—double terrifying.

"You know I’m not going to pull, System," Cecilia said firmly in her mind.

[It is completely up to you, Cecilia! The Banner is active as a response from a beast’s feelings towards you! Five-Star Love Interest Magnus Karas wants to be your mate!]

"Well, I do not."

[We completely understand. Do you want to skip the banner? We will turn off all notifications from it!]

"Absolutely."

Cecilia concluded the mental conversation and refocused on the room. Especially, on Ivy, still watching her with that earnest gaze and on Magnus, calm and agreeable beside his fiancée.

She shook her head slowly, the black veil rippling with the motion.

"Your Highness, and... Young Lord," she addressed both with a slight incline of her head. "What I need from you will be all of your own plans and vision for the future."

She straightened her body from her relaxed sitting position. "You expect me to give you insight into mine, and thus I will want to see yours. See where they are aligned, and where they will complicate each other."

She paused, then gently continued. "But you need to understand that you are not privy to my entire plan before you give all of yours."

Ivy blinked. "Information," she said slowly, tasting the word. "Is that what you want?"

"Exactly." Cecilia nodded.

"Hmm." Ivy hummed. "That is... manageable."

At this point, Cecilia knew Ivy wanted the same thing. Cecilia was just as unpredictable to Ivy as Ivy was to her. The Cassian princess had been trying to secure her loyalty with gifts and offers and the literal handover of a Saintess Candidate, but information?

Information was different. It was dangerous. Giving out her secrets first, laying her cards on the table before she knew what Cecilia was holding, was actually scarier than offering her own body or her fiancé’s or any other material thing.

Cecilia had called her bluff. And Ivy, to her credit, was considering it.

"I will accept that, Your Majesty." Ivy said steadily. "But about us and Damon... to maintain this connection with you..."

On that, Cecilia grinned.

"I don’t care. You talk with him." Cecilia raised both hands now, palms outward, removing herself from the equation.

But immediately—

"You!" Damon shot to his feet and pointed furiously at Cecilia. "You little shit! What do you take me for, huh?! What kind of sister are you?!"

...

You little shi—

...

What kind of siste—

...

Ivy and Magnus’s faces suddenly dropped. The blood drained from their features, leaving them pale as winter snow.

What was this emperor doing?! Why would he yell at—not just Arkai Dawnoro’s Luna, but also a White Dragon?! A divine being! A creature of legend and terror! Someone who could probably disintegrate him with a thought!

Their brains, which had been following the conversation, carefully navigating a minefield, ground to a halt and began frantically recalibrating the relationship between these two people.

"I thought you had my back, and now you betray me?!" Damon grasped his own head, his fingers clawing at his dark hair. "These two lunatics will torture me to death if you let them!"

That was when Ivy and Magnus turned to Cecilia—no, Lady Sees—and found her no longer sitting gracefully.

She was now hiding behind Arkai.

Her veiled face peeked over his broad shoulder, her hands gripping the back of his tunic, playfully fearful and was enjoying herself immensely. A grin was blooming so wide on her red lips, visible beneath the hem of the veil, that it split her face.

All that while everyone in the room could hear the popping of Damon’s veins from across the sitting room.

"Ehehe~ Ark, protect me~ Damon is being scary~" Lady Sees’s voice was a singsong now. A tease, a provocation aimed directly at the Emperor of Iondora’s last frayed nerve.

"I will get back to you." Damon growled, low and trembling, his composure had shattered into a thousand pieces and was now held together only by sheer, incandescent rage. He pointed at her over Arkai’s shoulder, his violet eyes blazing. "I will, I swear on my fucking lif—"

"Angela will be on my side, though~"

"Fucking—"

Ivy and Magnus watched this exchange, completely frozen and wide-eyed. They had just witnessed something that defied all known categories.

Damon Iondora, a human Emperor, was yelling at the White Dragon? Threatening her?! Calling her a little shit—and she was hiding behind her husband and giggling about it?!

This...

Apparently, Damon Iondora had some kind of power over the White Dragon. Some kind of relationship that transcended the normal boundaries between human and divine.

But what allowed him to rage and threaten and act like this while the dragon teased him mercilessly?!

Magnus glanced at Ivy... and Ivy glanced at Magnus. Both of them were still pale and recalibrating, trying to process the sight of an emperor throwing a tantrum at a goddess.

Magnus’s gaze, when it met Ivy’s, held only one message.

"Don’t let him go, Ivy. Get him, Ivy! Get to his bed, Ivy!"