West Borough, Royal Museum,
A figure flickered across the painted bay window in the wall. Then, in the brief moment when no one was watching, two people appeared in the hall.
Cyril glanced at the long, winding queue outside the entrance and gave himself a little credit for using his Beyonder Ability to skip the line.
"Roselle truly is the Great Emperor. Even in Loen, he's still so popular."
Clarice offered a half-hearted agreement beside him:
"From the Fifth Epoch to the present, the most famous person across the Northern and Southern Continents has been Emperor Roselle."
Noticing how inattentive she seemed, Cyril tilted his head curiously, then followed her gaze to a woman a short distance away, watching them through the crowd.
She wore an olive-green dress and an old-fashioned black hat, with a thin veil hanging down to conceal her face.
Cyril furrowed his brow slightly. There was something familiar about her.
One figure after another flashed through his mind. Before long, he settled on a likely suspect: Queen Mystic Bernadette, whom he had met once before.
He studied her carefully for a few more moments, growing increasingly certain of his guess.
...The Roselle Memorial Exhibition really could draw Bernadette, who was still in Backlund. But why was she looking this way? Had she noticed us using our Beyonder Abilities to cheat our way inside?
As his thoughts stirred, he heard Clarice softly remind him, in a tone that sounded almost coy:
"You have such a beautiful lady by your side, yet you keep staring at another woman. That's hardly gentlemanly."
"Your behavior is disrespectful both to me and to her."
...Was she subtly telling me that the woman over there was someone of her own standing?
After a brief flurry of thoughts, he looked away and inclined