Her Majesty the Empress

September 1861, 6 p.m.

Egret Tea Room, West Street, Mondel Town.

"This meal is on me."

Wayne sat up straight and smiled.

"Picking up the bill at a respectable tea room for the mathematician who just won a resounding victory on the lawn is entirely in keeping with gentlemanly conduct!"

Li Mo smiled. "Never has there been such a wonderful start. Let us cheer, let us applaud!"

Wayne obliged enthusiastically, clapping away.

Anna joined in, while Helen lowered her head and clapped quietly.

Tea rooms in this world did not require quiet. On the contrary, a certain amount of noise seemed to be a sign of liveliness.

Across the room, for instance, several respectable people had spread out that day's Kingdom Morning News and were loudly discussing the Third Legion's rate of advance on the northern front...

A well-dressed lady in a dark green hoop skirt recognized Li Mo and came over to greet him.

"Li Mo? It really is you. I was just wondering which other young man in town, besides Mr. Li En, could have a pair of eyes like those."

Li Mo rose and bowed. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Turner."

"I haven't seen your father at church or at the salons in quite some time. I hear there's been some trouble with the workshop's supply of raw materials lately?"

"Yes, Father has been at the workshop lately and hasn't been able to get away."

"He really is a man who can't stop, isn't he? Well, give him a message for me when you get back. The social season is almost upon us, and the ladies in town miss him terribly. If he's having any difficulties, he can always tell us..."

The important part: the ladies.

Li Mo thought his father was truly impressive, and there really were a lot of women who wanted to be his mother...

"I'll pass it on, ma'am."

With that, Li Mo turned to Anna.

Anna was looking at him too.

She said, "Li Mo, I've actually been thinking about what you talked about on the lawn this afternoon, but I still don't quite understand it."

"That's all right. I'll explain it in detail when we get home~"

Anna picked up a scone and took a small bite. "Then that teaser you wrote at the end on the blackboard... the Cauchy convergence criterion. Who is Cauchy? Why is it called that?"

Li Mo's movements paused briefly.

A small slip. He had written it out of habit.

He could hardly explain that it was the name of Augustin-Louis Cauchy, a nineteenth-century French mathematician from Earth.

So he brushed it off. "I just wrote it down on a whim. It's not important."

But Wayne said, "I understand! Like some scholars who don't want to reveal their real identities, Cauchy is a pseudonym you've prepared for yourself in the academic world!"

"Uh, you're overthinking it. I'd better call it the sequence convergence test from now on..."

Before he had finished speaking.

The respectable people across the room who had been talking about the war suddenly began arguing.

"What do you know about positional warfare? The Third Legion has already advanced to the outskirts of the Black Swamp! It's there in black and white in the paper: two enemy infantry divisions have been split up and surrounded. Victory will be ours by the end of the month!"

"The Black Swamp? Do you know the mud north of the Black Swamp is five feet deep? There's no way to get heavy artillery in there! A grain convoy I brought back from the border last month lost three whole teams of mules and horses, all stuck in the mud and left to rot! If the Third Legion really has surrounded the enemy, why did the Royal Trade Bureau suddenly issue a second-tier quota order for raw coal and pig iron? If the war's going well, why has the coarse woolen cloth in your shop gone up four shillings a yard?!"

"You're openly questioning the royal army's discipline and loyalty!"

"I'm telling you what the numbers in the account books say! You stupid patriotic fanatic!"

The cloth merchant flew into a rage, shoved his chair aside, and seized the fur merchant by the lapels.

The two of them knocked over a small round table beside them, and a teapot smashed to pieces on the wooden floor.

The guests around them hurried out of the way.

Coming to blows in public was anything but respectable.

The tea room owner hurried out from behind the counter and desperately wedged himself between the two men. "Gentlemen! For the Goddess of the Moon's sake! This is the Egret Tea Room! Please, behave yourselves. There's a patrolman at the corner!"

Li Mo finished the tea in his cup. "Let's go."

Outside the door.

Leaning on his cane, Wayne said softly, "That argument was ugly, but the fur merchant was right about one thing. I'm afraid the war really isn't as promising as the official reports say. If things were going as smoothly at the front as the newspapers claim, surely the kingdom couldn't have been fighting for four whole years without even restoring shipping on a few of the main canals by now..."

Li Mo did not answer.

He suddenly looked toward Mendel Port.

From the intersection.

The port was no more than a silhouette against the gray-black dusk.

He remembered hearing a steam whistle that afternoon while lecturing on the lawn at Puxiu Academy.

Ever since the military had sealed off Mendel Port, citing an unidentified contamination leak.

The docks had been quiet for a long time.

On the eve of the autumnal equinox, when the full lockdown would begin, a heavy freighter had docked.

Who was aboard?

Li Mo looked away, a little curious.

At the same time.

Berth No. 1 at Mondel's military-controlled docks.

Soldiers of the kingdom's Royal Guard infantry stood at two-pace intervals.

On the inner side of the breakwater, Captain Carter, commander of the third line of defense, was beside himself with nerves.

An envoy stood beside him.

The sea breeze swept up the hem of her skirt. The young woman wore a solemn expression as she watched the steel behemoth coming alongside.

The ship flew no standard naval flag at its bow.

Instead, it flew a black double-moon flag edged in silver...

The ship gradually came to a stop.

Two figures in voluminous cloaks were the first to disembark.

Close behind them came a woman whose face could not be made out.

She too wore a cloak of black velvet, its hood pulled low.

The instant he saw her.

Captain Carter brought his feet together and saluted, while the two rows of guardsmen behind him raised their hands in unison!

Throughout the docks, the sound was perfectly synchronized.

The woman lifted her chin slightly.

The red-haired envoy immediately stepped forward and curtsied deeply, then moved aside to lead the way. "Your Majesty, the carriage is waiting at the exit of the hidden passage."

The woman nodded, followed the envoy through the passage between the warehouses, and boarded the carriage.

The carriage avoided the town's main thoroughfares and traveled all the way to the governor's private residence, deep in the pine woods on the eastern outskirts.

The estate gates had long been thrown open, and all the servants had been cleared out.

The envoy led the woman down a long corridor and straight into a study deep on the second floor.

Two black-robed guards took up positions on either side of the study door, standing with their backs to it.

The envoy closed the door and secured the two brass bolts.

After confirming that the doors and windows were completely shut.

The woman unfastened her collar and tossed her cloak onto a mahogany armchair.

A closer look would have revealed.

The cloak was not actually touching the armchair at all. There was some distance between them, as though it were suspended in the air.

Once she had removed her cloak, the woman's red hair cascaded down.

She was so young, yet already breathtakingly beautiful, with a beauty mark at the corner of her eye and black eyes of unfathomable depth.

"It's been a long time, Caroline." The woman found a place to sit.

The envoy hurried forward and crouched beside the chair. "It has been a long time, Your Majesty. Why did you come in person? There's no way the old foxes in the Privy Council could have missed a warship leaving port."

The empress lowered her eyes. "They'll agree to let me come... because... the Great Sage is gone."

Caroline froze. "What?"

The empress said, "Three days ago, the enemy tore a gap in the Permafrost Defense Line at the border. The Third Legion lost more than half its strength before it retook three positions. The Great Sage sat before the astrolabe all night, and in the end decided to perform one final polar-orbit prophecy..."

Caroline covered her mouth.

After a long while, she slowly stood, pressed her right fist to her left breast, and lowered her head slightly as she recited a eulogy:

"May the radiance of the twin moons guide the elder's soul, and may his wisdom know eternal peace in the sea of stars..."

They observed a long silence.

The empress spoke again. "The last prophecy the Great Sage left was this: the fulcrum to turn the tide of the war lies in Mondel, and I must come in person to receive it. If I had known this prophecy would cost him his life, I would never have approved the ritual..."

"So... will the autumnal equinox plan be brought forward?"

"No, it will proceed as planned. The creation at the docks is the kingdom's trump card, as well as bait to draw out the northern spies. I must remain in Mondel Town until the great tide arrives on the autumnal equinox. In the capital, I left letters of authorization signed by three dukes of the Privy Council, and the Regency Council will handle day-to-day affairs in my stead. As long as the war reports show no collapse, they won't dare act rashly."

"I understand..."

Caroline could see that the empress was deeply distressed.

The Great Sage had sacrificed his life for what amounted to a pointless statement.

Who didn't know that the key to turning the war around lay in Mondel?

But now that things had come to this, Caroline did not know how to comfort her.

The empress said, "Tell me about Mondel Town. Has anything interesting happened here recently?"

Caroline thought for a moment. "One major event recently was the linked case of the murdered spinning mill worker and the kidnapping of Miss Green. But the case was solved last night. The culprit was a surgeon named Morris who had been hiding at the docks. The security office has already captured him."

"An ordinary murder case?"

"Yes, but the way it was solved was rather interesting. Morris was caught by a sixteen-year-old, and he's someone Your Majesty should remember."

"Who?"

"The person Professor Bryce mentioned a few days ago."

"Li Mo?"

"Yes, him. I saw him with my own eyes at the docks last night. He was very calm, nothing like other students his age."

The empress was silent for a moment.

She drew back the curtains and looked at the bright moon in the sky.

A moment later, she suddenly said, "Is he still in school?"

"Yes. I hear Professor Bryce recommended him for an exemption from the basic courses, but he still held an academic salon on the school lawn this afternoon. It went very well, and he seems to have put forward a highly advanced mathematical theory."

The empress gave it serious thought.

Then she said, "Have the Black-Robed Court Guards prepare a disguise ritual. Arrange an identity for me. Tomorrow, I'll join his class as a transfer student."

Caroline stared at her in astonishment. "Your Majesty, this..."

"The Great Sage's prophecy said that the fulcrum was hidden in Mondel. It didn't necessarily mean that weapon."

"Besides, I've said it before: mysticism alone can no longer save this country as it slides toward the abyss..."

Caroline opened her mouth.

In the end, she chose to remain silent.

She dropped to one knee and lowered her head.

"As you command, Your Majesty."