Is this…… me…….

My heart sank into my chest.

I thought there would be some ridiculous drawing.

I thought it was just a note he’d thrown in to tease me.

“What do you think.”

What?

It was a surprise beyond words.

In Killian’s black pen, there was a beautiful girl with long hair, not a man.

I looked, if I may say so, like a fairy.

Enchanting.

I swallowed hard and looked up at him, and Killian’s eyes narrowed as he forced a smile.

“You look happy.”

“Meow!”

I laughed, tapping the painting alternately with my front paws.

I’m such a pretty human.

“You must be so excited.”

“Mmm!”

Of course I do!

I couldn’t believe I was a woman, and I couldn’t believe I looked like this.

As I stared at the picture he’d drawn, I realized that I really was a person when I slept.

I took a deep breath, looking more into my reflection.

“……meow.”

If only I could walk around in bright daylight or at night in this human form.

I’d be able to find out whatever I wanted to know faster.

Or even better. I’d be able to flee this empire sooner.

Suddenly, the long-forgotten desire to flee was replaced by hope.

There was no freedom in this cat’s form, much less escape.

I ran my paw across the sleeping girl in the painting, feeling the smooth texture of the paper.

Could I be human?

Could I find a way to be?

“Something on your mind?”

Killian asked, nudging my ear.

I looked up at him, stunned.

Oh, yes, I had Killian.

But I had to stay until I could help him break his addiction to the black magic potion and find a clue to the oracle’s forgery.

Before then, human or not, I would repay the man who had saved my life.

“Meow!”

I replied, tilting my head to glare at him, and Killian gently squeezed my front paw.

“Let me explain.”

“Meow?”

I ask, and his fingertips trace the hair of the sleeping girl in his notebook.

“Your hair color looks like the Milky Way.”

I looked at the long hair in the picture he was referring to.

He said I had silver hair.

The black lines on the white paper seemed to slowly add color to my figure.

I liked Killian’s description, so I followed his fingertips and traced my front paw across the drawing.

“Face, pale, as pale as the moon in the daytime.”

He spoke softly, moving to the pen strokes of the face, and I followed his lead, tracing the lines of the face with my paw.

The more color came into my head, the more I focused on Killian’s fingertips.

“You have really long eyelashes.”

“Mmmmm.”

“And the tip of your lips are so high up.”

“Meow.”

“And here.”

Killian’s hand stopped slowly at her neckline.

“It’s strange, long, thin, pale. It looked like it would break if I squeezed it.”

“Meow?”

Was he imagining grabbing someone’s neck and breaking it?

Then, as if reading my reaction, Killian turned to me with a sly smile.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to squeeze it.”

“Meow.”

“Then…….”

He slowly removed his hand from the note and looked down at me.

“You’re not supposed to know.”

For a moment, Killian’s red eyes beneath his black hair flashed a faint smile.

It had the nonchalance of a mischievous boy or the mischief of a laid-back adult.

I’d never seen anything below the neck.

His closing remarks seemed to indicate something.

My face brightened as I realized what he meant.

It’s a good thing I’m a cat, or Killian would have noticed my ripe red face.

He was actually looking at me in a condescendingly slow way, like someone who doesn’t care about such things.

“Nice way to dress.”

He met my eyes with a seemingly harmless smile, a handsome boy with a physique much larger and more muscular than the average adult.

My mouth went dry as one side of my chest pounded dizzily.

If I look at it for a long time, even just for a moment, I become speechless, like a person in a daze, and I thought this was a real illness.

It’s not like there weren’t many handsome men in my previous life.

“Meow!”

I sobered up and nodded my head in agreement.

I looked at the painting again and saw the flowing sleeves and ruffled neckline of the chemise, and the face of the sleeping girl, peeking out from the white blanket.

Still, Killian certainly wasn’t a bad guy, considering he’d found me sleeping naked, forced me to get dressed, and tucked the covers up to my neck when I slept, instead of watching me luridly.

“Name. I create it.”

“Meow?”

I wagged my tail impatiently, wondering what it would be.

“……Reinette.”

A calm, low voice called out the name, and it melted on the tip of my tongue as I silently repeated it.

“It means little queen.”

Killian taught me the meaning.

Little Queen? It sounded almost too pretty for me to have, and I was dumbfounded.

I walked over to him, ears pricked up.

I wasn’t expecting it, but he drew me a picture and explained what I looked like.

And when I couldn’t figure out why I was here, he gave me a name for this world.

Reinette.

With a name, I felt like I really belonged here, like I wasn’t a stranger.

“Meow.”

I whimpered and buried my face in Killian’s palm.

I pictured myself in his mind, just as he’d told me.

Long eyelashes.

The upturned corners of my mouth.

Pure white skin.

Long neckline.

Long silver hair…….

What does it look like when I open my eyes?

Are the corners of my eyes up or down?

Would my eyes be big or small?

“……!”

Suddenly, someone came to mind.

One by one, I tried different shapes of eyes, and a face materialized in my mind’s eye.

‘Shhhoooo.’

The woman’s voice lingered in my ears and wrapped around my neck.

Her tightly tied hair resembled silver.

What was she looking for with the feather?

‘It is a life that has been preserved from generation to generation.’

I remembered Baron’s words.

I placed a forepaw on Killian’s palm.

He naturally opened his own palm and waited to see what I would do.

‘A maid was looking for something.’

‘I’m beginning to think it’s me.’

Killian’s eyes paused on me and gradually began to darken as he reached the picture.

The face reminded him of someone, too.

* * *

The next morning, there was an unexpected intrusion in Killian’s bedroom.

As soon as he heard the footsteps outside the door,  I immediately snuggled into the nearby pillows.

“How have you met the wizards!”

The voice was angry.

I couldn’t stick my head out to see who it was, but it didn’t take me long to realize that the voice belonged to Emperor Adolf.

“Good morning, Adolf.”

“If you wanted to say good morning, you shouldn’t have been dealing with wizards and such. Why are you inviting them?”

He seemed to be firmly angry with Killian for suddenly inviting the mages that the Royal family had suppressed for so long.

Killian’s demeanor, on the other hand, remained calm.

“It’s just that I thought we should watch them more closely.”

Killian replied calmly, in the manner of a well-mannered son.

“If it is necessary to watch them more closely, then they are deluding themselves.”

“It’s not as if they’re completely unnecessary to this empire. Most of our people, except for the nobility, still go to mages when they’re sick or in trouble. Mages have been healing and caring for the sick for hundreds of years. Ignoring them completely is not the best defense. We need to keep them close, for your sake.”

“For me……?”

“For the sake of this empire and for you.”

Killian replied plainly, waiting for the Emperor to calm down.

In the tension, he seemed to be looking into his father’s eyes.

Steady and still, as if he meant every word of what he was about to say.

“Madame Gisela.”

Lady Gisela? She too had come with the Emperor.

“What do you think? About my meeting with the wizard.”

Killian took a not-so-short pause, then asked for Lady Gisela’s wishes.

“Me, me?”

Madame Gisela asked, surprised that Killian had asked for her opinion, but quickly cleared her throat.

“I thought it was a very good idea, Your Majesty and the Crown Prince have a point; don’t you think so too?”

What’s wrong with Madame Gisela?

Apparently, she was on edge, not knowing what Killian would say about her searching his room and running into him in the hallway.

For the time being, she seemed to be trying to accommodate him.

“Well, then…….”

Emperor Adolf said, turning to Lady Gisela.

“I understand. For the time being, do as you please.”

A father who listens to the government more than he listens to his son. I couldn’t help but click my tongue.

“Thank you.”

I heard Killian reply, smirking at his father.

“Well, Your Majesty, the foreign ambassadors are expecting you, so you’d better get going.”

Lady Gisela urged him on, concerned about Emperor Adolf’s schedule.

Unlike her usual relaxed attitude, today she didn’t seem to want to continue this uncomfortable situation with Killian.

* * *

“Good evening, Your Highness.”

Irina Scott, who had been assigned to clean the crown prince’s study by the head maid, entered the study and quickly greeted Killian as she spotted him sitting at the far end.

Killian, who was sitting in the deepest corner on the left side of the study, caught a glimpse of Irina’s back as she set me down and started cleaning, hidden from view by the statue across from me.

She was organizing her cleaning supplies.

“Right.”

“Did you call ……?”

Killian called out Baron Duchsen’s name, and Baron appeared in front of a bookshelf, silently removing the black cloak from around his head.

“I see you can teleport now.”

“Thanks to you, Your Highness. Only mages under contract can use teleportation at the command of their masters.”

Teleportation is a powerful form of magic, Baron explained, and its unbridled use can lead to crime.

Wizards train and practice to hone their powers, but the more powerful they become, the more they are not allowed to use them as they please.

So why was the Royal family so wary of these mages?

According to Baron’s words, if they formed a master-servant relationship, they wouldn’t have to fear that their power would increase

It’s hard to reverse something that’s been going on for over five hundred years, Killian said, but it’s probably not unrelated to the Cat Oracle and their current situation.

It was no coincidence, he thought, that after the genocide of the cats, both mages and those with otherworldly abilities declined.

“Is that the maid?”

Baron asked, pointing to Irina, who was cleaning up.

Killian nodded.

Baron looked back and forth between me and Irina, then approached her.

Irina, who had assumed the crown prince would be the only one in the study, froze as soon as she saw Baron.

“……What brings you here?”

“Sit in this chair for a moment.”

She hesitantly sat down in the chair next to him.

I glared at her, my back to Killian.

“I’ll just check.”

Baron quickly circled the room, and Irina jumped to her feet, startled.