Having asked the question, Eliezer had gotten the answer he feared. "You knew all along, and yet you said nothing until now..."

Allister had known about Raven's intention from the very beginning, yet he still let it all happen. What if she had not decided to back out and had finished the job? There was a possibility that he would not be sitting where he was at this time. Granted, his safety was mostly his own responsibility - something that he had neglected the day he had left the palace to go to the village, but it still hurt that the butler had let him do it, knowing full well that the woman he had gone to meet was an assassin after his head. What was then implied about the one who had hired Raven to kill him was even more disturbing. It was rather apparent that Allister was suggesting that this person was his own brother.

"I- It cannot be... Prince Mathazar would never..."

Mathazar had been Eliezer's closest confidant for as long as he could remember, and until Raven came along, he seemed like the only person who truly understood him. It could not all have been a big lie, could it? The crown prince had trusted nobody else as much, until recently when Allister had earned that same trust due to the matters concerning Raven. However, after the butler had admitted to keeping quiet about something that had put him in danger, he was unsure if it had been wise to have given him that trust.

Hildebrand was appalled, and flared up once again. "You are in no position to play any games with us when you had said nothing and watched our crown prince walk right into what you knew was his possible death, Mister Cornell!"

That jolted the prince out of his thoughts, and he turned to his knight. "Sir Hildebrand!"

"Your Highness!" Hildebrand protested.

Eliezer simply shook his head at Hildebrand in response, indicating for the knight to say no more to the butler. Overwhelmed, he then rose from his seat, finding it a good time to take his leave.

"If you would pardon me, Allister," he addressed his butler, before signalling to his knight that they were leaving. "Sir Hildebrand."

Hildebrand immediately stood and strode ahead to open the door, and as the two young men left the office, the knight glanced back and returned Allister's death glare before shutting the door.
[hr]
"I worry for your situation, Your Highness," Hildebrand began, as the two reached the prince's quarters.

Eliezer let out a sigh and sat down. "I... do not know who to trust anymore, Sir Hildebrand. My butler had thought it acceptable to have me in danger, my brother is being accused of betraying me, and my lady had initially only wanted to be close to me so that she could run me through."

"Mister Cornell insists that she truly loves you. Do you believe that is so, Your Highness?"

"Am I not fortunate that she fell for me? Otherwise I would have been dead. I wonder myself how love happens, I wonder what it is about me that makes her feel such a way. She tells me that I remind her of her father before he met her mother, that I am unhappy, just as he was. Perhaps she is sorry for me."

As Eliezer shook his head at the ideas he was sharing with his knight, Hildebrand shifted uncomfortably. He had not the slightest idea how to respond to what the prince had just said. As far has he had been concerned, Eliezer had always had it together, and he had never thought that he would see his crown prince in such a mess. He eventually decided to pose another question.

"Will you continue to see the Moon Raven after knowing her initial intention?"

"I do not need the pity of someone who was after my head, but I desire her attention. I find that she has made me want something that I should not. I appreciate her, yet I despise what she has done to me. I am therefore unsure."

"I may be wrong, Your Highness, but from what you have just told me, I believe that you might be in love."

"And what enjoyment it has brought," Eliezer commented bitterly, the statement obviously being one of sarcasm.

Hildebrand thought it appropriate to stop prying into the prince's feelings, and his next inquiry concerned his duty. "Permission to begin investigation on the Red Robin, Your Highness?"

Eliezer nodded. "Granted. In spite of everything, I at least owe the Moon Raven this."

"I shall work to discover who she answers to, and I sincerely hope that I am not led to your brother."