Julietta had a knowing smile as she looked at Maribel. "Don't talk as if you've now decided to come with me, as you already donned a hat."

"Oh, baby. Don't judge everything by its looks. I wore a hat watching you get ready to go out, but maybe I was going somewhere else."

"But it is right that you would come with me, isn't it?"

Maribel smiled coquettishly at Julietta's reb.u.t.tal. "That's right. But if it were someone else, not you, I would have headed to a completely different place, asking her to go out to make a surprise attack. People who I can see inside are not attractive."

"Are you saying that I should be a difficult person to predict?"

"Yes. In the position you're about to climb, you have to be more careful. Don't show yourself. I mean, don't let your opponent grasp you."

Julietta nodded at Maribel's words. It was now something that she had to engrave on her heart in order to reach her final goal, beyond the big mountain that lay before her.

"Let's go in my carriage, unless you're going to reveal your ident.i.ty. Then, Phoebe, go tell the knights escorting the princess to change into clothes that will not reveal their ident.i.ties and follow the princess."

When Phoebe nodded and quickly left the room, Maribel asked, looking back at the painkiller made from metum stems held by Vera and her maid. "Is that amount enough?"

"It's the first day. If it's not enough, I'll send more people to my shop."

They had only a few days' amount of antidote in the capital. They had to hurry up and get the metum from the Kiellini estate in Vicern. Count Adam was out to help bring in the metum in storage.

The metum stems Maribel had kept at the theater were sent to Dr. Paulo, who was temporarily staying in the dress shop, and making it into painkillers. To keep the secret, several men sent by Killian as well as the staff of the shop had been fully mobilized to make painkillers day and night. The painkillers were to be distributed today to treatment centers set up in areas where there were many patients.

As Julietta stepped out into the hallway, Jane, the maid of Simone, was waiting.

"My lady?" As soon as she saw Julietta she frowned, and poked her mouth at the princess.

"I heard Miss Phoebe talking to the knights in the hall that you would be going out."

Jane thought that she had done all she had to do as soon when the princess fell, and was ready to run before she was caught. But on the first day of the princess's fall, she lost her chance to escape because of the heavy surveillance after Prince Killian arrived.

Jane looked at the woman standing next to Julietta and carefully, and chose what to say. This was her only chance to go outside, as the exit of the attendants had been prevented because of the epidemic.

"I've heard that His Highness Killian had set up a temporary clinic for the patients of the infectious disease, and the princess is going to do some volunteer work, too," Jane said.

"So?" answered the woman next to her coldly, instead of Julietta. It was Mrs. Grayson who was specially arranged by Prince Killian for the princess who was about to enter the Imperial Castle. She was already wielding the Kiellini family.

Mrs. Raban was stern, but not cruel or cold-hearted. But Mrs. Grayson, who had newly come, was different. Her eyes seemed to penetrate the head of the person in front of her. When Mrs. Grayson watched her every move, she felt a chill and her heart shriveled. She wanted to get out of the mansion, fearing that she would soon be noticed for what she had done.

"I'd like to go and help. I'm sure they'll be shorthanded for the care of the sick. I've been given permission by Madam Raban."

Maribel's eyes glistened at Jane, who lowered her head politely. "Do you mean you want to go volunteering?"

"Yes, Mrs. Grayson."

"The princess, why don't you take her with you? I think it would be better if she joins the volunteer work."

Julietta nodded at Maribel's suggestion. "Certainly she can go. Follow Phoebe in the other carriage."

"Yes, Miss."

Julietta whispered as she followed Maribel downstairs, "Are you going to put a man on her?"

"She is practically screaming she is a suspect, so why not?"

As soon as Maribel got into the carriage, she opened the window to the driver's seat and said to the driver, "When we get to our destination, you should follow the maid named Jane in that carriage over there. You must not miss where she will run away."

"Yes, ma'am."

The carriage stopped near the fountain in the middle of the Eloz Street. There was a tent set up in the middle of the square. There was a long line in front of the tent early in the morning, as they had heard that doctors from the royal family would come out and take care of the disease.