Don't Keep a Dog in the Garden - Chapter 8

Cassia received the lamp from Whisker, who followed behind her.

Inside the spire, where small windows were sparsely set, there was nothing but an endless series of stairs leading up to the top.

Though it had supposedly been locked for over ten years, footprints were scattered all over the steps.

Not just one or two. Among them there must have been the Crown Prince’s.

As she climbed the stairs with a complicated mind, Whisker, who had been following quietly, suddenly said, “If you wish to run, I will buy you some time.”

Without stopping her steps, Cassia asked, “Why should I run?”

Whisker seemed to take a moment to choose his answer, then replied softly, “His Majesty will try to use even the Crown Prince’s death. What he has wanted for a long time is only one thing.”

“At the time the Crown Prince fell, I wasn’t even in the palace. There’s no reason to invite a useless misunderstanding.”

Whisker’s long shadow on the wall shrugged its shoulders.

With that incomprehensible suggestion, Whisker said no more.

The two walked in silence for a long time up the stairs until they reached the top. The door leading to the spire’s roof was wide open as well.

Cassia shone the lamp carefully over the floor.

If the Crown Prince had been killed and then moved here, there might be bloodstains left behind.

But neither on the stairs, nor on the floor at the top, was there a single drop of blood.

Cassia looked down from the spot where the Crown Prince might have fallen.

Far below, torchlights bustled about, but in the thick darkness of night, there was more unseen than seen.

Cassia examined the parapet of the spire made of thick brick, leaning on the moonlight.

Traces left from years of exposure to wind and rain remained on the railing, but whether they were related to the Crown Prince’s death, she couldn’t be certain.

Just then, a rattling sound came from behind her.

As Cassia quickly turned, the lamp light revealed Whisker’s smiling face.

“What was that?”

“What do you mean?”

His face unchanged, he feigned ignorance.

“There was just a sound—”

She was about to say she had heard something when urgent footsteps echoed from the stairs below.

As Cassia moved toward the door to see what was happening, a group of Guards appeared.

At their head was the adjutant of the Captain of the Guard, the same man who had earlier vented his anger at Whisker.

“Duke Whisker Mastiff! By imperial command, you are under arrest!”

Without surprise, Whisker calmly set down the lamp he was holding.

“The charges?”

“Ask His Majesty yourself.”

The adjutant sneered as he gestured to his men, and the Guards seized Whisker on both sides and dragged him down.

Cassia couldn’t grasp what was happening.

As she stared at Whisker’s back being taken away, the adjutant approached her as well.

“Your Grace the Grand Duchess, you must come with us also.”

It was not as rough as with Whisker, yet he didn’t ask her will either.

So this was the reason he had told her to run.

Cassia swallowed a sigh and asked, “Is that something I must ask His Majesty, too?”

The adjutant gave no answer, only bowed his head and gestured toward the door.

Whisker, bound, was dragged out of the spire. The inspectors stiffened their faces and moved closer, but he signaled with his eyes not to come near.

Though Whisker was bound like a criminal, and Cassia was not, being taken away was the same for both.

They were brought to the Guard’s prison.

In a small cell barred on all sides with iron bars, Cassia was locked in side by side with Whisker, and let out a hollow laugh at the absurdity.

Yesterday, the interrogation room of the Inspection Bureau, today the prison of the Guard.

If all this truly was the Emperor’s plot to catch her, he was going about it in too roundabout a way.

“See, I told you to run.”

Even now, his insufferably carefree voice came from the cell right beside her.

Unlike Cassia, Whisker had cuffs on his hands. Leaning crookedly against the bars, he looked at her.

Separated only by the bars, today, Whisker was placed in the same situation as she was. Meeting her golden eyes standing in the middle of the cell, he finally clicked his tongue.

The Crown Prince’s death had clearly driven the Emperor mad.

That he would use this as a pretext to harass her had been expected, but to think he would throw a direct descendant of the Golden Dawn into the Guard’s prison without even a trial.

No, perhaps imprisoning Cassia hadn’t been the Emperor’s intent.

It was more likely that the one who had lost his mind was Captain of the Guard Mikhail, with whom she had spent that private time.

Of course, the Emperor may have stoked Mikhail’s crazed loyalty.

With eyes like a beast behind bars, Whisker sought to reassure Cassia.

“Don’t worry. They can’t do anything to you.”

“You don’t seem to be in any position to say that.”

Cassia glanced at the cuffs on Whisker’s hands as she replied, when a familiar voice was heard.

“It is as the Grand Duchess says. You should worry about your own situation, Bureau Chief.”

It was Mikhail.

When she had seen him earlier in the interrogation room of the Inspection Bureau, he had been trembling and begging for his life, but now he approached with a very different face and attitude.

In an instant, the positions of Bureau Chief and Captain of the Guard had completely reversed, standing face to face with iron bars between them.

Unlike Mikhail, who seemed full of composure, Whisker sent a smile toward Cassia and mocked him.

“That is the way with dogs. In their own yard, they bark loudly. And when they think their master is behind them, their voices grow even louder.”

Mikhail’s face twisted in anger as, just as Whisker said, he raised his voice.

“We’ll see whose voice grows louder!”

He shouted to his men, “Drag him out!”

Two Guards rushed in, opened the barred door, and pulled Whisker out.

Then they tied his cuffs with a chain and hung him against the wall opposite the cell.

As Cassia looked at Whisker’s back, hung against the wall like a fish caught on a line among cruel tools, she couldn’t hold back her voice.

“Captain. Explain this situation so that I may understand it.”

Mikhail, who had taken up a whip, turned his body toward Cassia.

His face was more courteous than when dealing with Whisker, but in his hand, he still held the threatening whip.

“Don’t worry, I have no thought of harming a descendant of the Golden Dawn.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Cassia jerked her chin toward Whisker hanging on the wall and spoke more coldly.

Mikhail glanced once at Whisker with a satisfied face, then replied to Cassia as if boasting, “His Majesty gave a solemn command to find the one who assassinated the Crown Prince. Therefore, from this moment, I will interrogate this man and extract his confession.”

“You say there is evidence that the Bureau Chief is the culprit?”

“What do you think was the reason he falsely accused me and dragged me to the Inspection Bureau? It’s clear that he assassinated the Crown Prince while the Guard’s attention was turned and palace security neglected!”

Mikhail exhaled sharply as he asserted his claim in a strong voice.

Whether he truly believed it, or merely wished to avenge the humiliation of being taken by the Inspection Bureau, it was impossible to know, but his assertion was not entirely baseless.

Even for Whisker, the sudden arrest of the Captain of the Guard had been an unreasonable overreach.

When news of the Crown Prince’s misfortune had reached the Emperor, his first order had been to rescue the Captain of the Guard.

This was the first time the Emperor had ever intervened directly in Whisker’s “investigations,” and it was a clear sign that his boundless trust in the Bureau Chief had been completely broken.

Mikhail, recalling the Emperor’s grace, continued with a face full of fervent loyalty, “His Majesty commanded me to investigate whether the Bureau Chief was connected to the Crown Prince’s death. If anyone dared to harm His Highness within the palace, who could be more likely than this man?”

“But Captain, at the time His Highness met his end, wasn’t this man with you?”

Cassia pointed out calmly, and Mikhail’s fist trembled as the humiliation of earlier returned to him.

It was true.

At the time of the Crown Prince’s fall, Mikhail had been groveling for his life, while Whisker had mocked him.

But what stronger justification could there be than the Emperor’s suspicion?

Since the Emperor suspected, he had to investigate. That was his loyalty.

“Couldn’t this man have used some trick?”

At Mikhail’s resentful words, Cassia’s mind flashed back to the rattling sound she had heard atop the spire.