"Five seconds, name me all the kingdoms, all seven of them."

  "Easy! Eldoria Kingdom, Waldow Kingdom, Wiedenfeld King—" Charmy began, clearly about to go on to name the other kingdoms, but halfway through, she got smacked by a ruler.

  "Wrong!" buzzed Lydia, wielding the ruler.

  "How so, I—"

  "I asked you to give me the names of all seven kingdoms, then you went ahead to name them without asking me at what time period I wanted that answer from."

  "That's..."

  A little powertripy but okay, Ana noted in her mind.

  "My answer would still be right regardless," protested Charmy. The ruler came swinging again. "Ouch, what's that fo—"

  "You're wrong."

  "You said Wiedenfeld Kingdom earlier. The name was dropped in the last century and half of the last era, and reestablished at the beginning of this new era. So no, your answer wouldn’t be right regardless."

  "That's…"

  "So, now do it again. Make sure to ask the right question before answering."

  "Sigh, alright, at what time period then?"

  "This era."

  "You, really," Ana chuckled internally, understanding that the girl was just tormenting Charmy for the pleasure of it.

  The trio was on the lower floor, in a room that Uta had designated as their study room, with a table in the center and chairs comfortable enough for long hours of work. Today’s session was one of their lessons, but instead of etiquette or proper speech before nobles like they've done before, they were focusing on general knowledge. It was something Uta believed the three would need as flowers.

  To be precise, Ana and Lydia were perfectly fine when it came to general knowledge. Charmy, however, was not. Just like with etiquette and noble speech, she was falling behind in this subject too, and in the process she dragged Ana and Lydia into extra lessons they could have spent doing something else, at least, that was the excuse the girl teaching her used to bully her.

  “Schwarz Kingdom, Wiedenfeld Kingdom, Waldow Kingdom, Eldoria Kingdom, Evermere Kingdom, Radiance Kingdom, Dawnrealm Kingdom. I got them all right, right?” Charmy beamed, proud of herself for naming all the kingdoms.

  “Tch, tch, tch,” Lydia shook her head with theatrical disappointment. “Look at you, getting all proud over something even a seven-year-old could rattle off without thinking. Now name their capitals. All of them.”

  “All of them? How am I supposed to know all tha—”

  “By memorizing the note you were given,” Lydia scolded, tapping her ruler against her palm.

  At that sight, Charmy darted behind Ana for protection. “I tried, but I couldn’t! Reading all that gives me a headache.”

  “All that? It’s barely a one-sheet memo.” Lydia lifted the memo from the table, one neatly redacted by Ana herself, who had already several dozen other such memos, each containing about everything a person in this era was expected to know.

  "Yes, but the writing, it’s so small, it’s also not straight, it gives me a headache."

  "Oh," Ana mused retributively, "so my writing gives you a headache when you read it?"

  "Wait, wait, that’s…"

  "How about you write it," Ana suggested.

  "That’s actually a good idea," Lydia nodded. "This might even be this semi-illiterate’s opportunity to better her beautiful writing. Give her the pen, Ana?s."

  Ana brought a sheet onto the table and put a pen in the girl’s hand.

  "Since when did you two get along so well?"

  The duo looked at each other, then Ana said, "Since we have to deal with a certain someone."

  "Now dear someone, focus. I’m going to spell everything in these notes to you, and you write it all."

  "Awww!"

  "I said Focus!"

  Five more days had passed, easily the most hectic of Ana’s time in the Garden. Realizing she might not have much time left at her disposal, she had become unusually proactive in her investigation. With Uta's approval, as their now-official overseer, Ana began approaching the flowers on the second floor. Ironically, she did not even need to use her ability to make it happen. What drove her urgency was also what enabled her progress: the looming threat of being expelled from the Garden.

  Instead of asking directly, Ana simply suggested to Uta that being seen as sociable and well liked might help her case, given her handicap. Uta agreed right away. In fact, she supported Ana’s initiative even more than expected, giving her the perfect excuse to wander the upper floors and speak with the people she needed for her investigation.

  Until this point, Ana’s only lead was the list Laura had mentioned, a list of all the flowers who had left the establishment. Since there was no official record of missing girls, Ana’s first task was to sort through that list: which girls had left because their contracts were purchased, which were expelled, and which had left under unclear circumstances. And sort she did, painstakingly organizing the chaotic information into a coherent board.

  That board now stood in front of her, holding thirteen names. Thirteen flowers had left the Garden in the past six months. But Ana was not interested in the ones who left with celebration. She was looking for the ones who simply vanished.

  Out of the thirteen, five could be ruled out immediately. Their contracts had been bought, and very publicly. These were not disappearances. They were well known departures. That left eight.

  Among those eight were several whose contracts had probably been purchased as well, but with far less attention. People close to these flowers said they had expected their contracts to be bought soon by regular patrons, one of whom, a bookkeeper, had even been hoping to make one of them his own. But these girls left quietly, and strangely, not with the people everyone expected. Those same patrons were later seen in the Garden again, still active and asking for service. When questioned by curious friend of the girl, they insisted they had not purchased the contracts at all. Someone else had.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  This meant Ana was left with eight suspicious cases: five that fit the disappearances she was investigating, and three whose contracts had been sold to mysterious, unnamed buyers.

  Given how long it took her to get here, Ana couldn’t help but think how much easier things would have been if Lord Lucas had at least known the names of the missing girls. With the time she’d spent assembling this list, she might already have solved the case if he’d just given her a name.

  She wanted to curse him, but held back. Instead, she found herself wondering: why did he care so much about this case anyway?

  It was a question that had always lingered in her mind. She had come up with many theories, but the one she liked best was that he had cared for one of the missing girls, perhaps even loved her. She liked this theory so much that, when interviewing flowers, she was tempted to ask if any of them had known Lord Lucas. Of course, she never actually asked. Still, as tempting as that explanation was, it had one major flaw: Lord Lucas hadn’t asked her to find just one missing flower, he wanted answers about several. Maybe, she reasoned, he had cared about more than one… but that idea didn’t sit well with her.

  “Sigh... it’s a waste of time and energy to think about this.”

  Back to her list of eight, Ana searched for a common denominator and she found one. Two, actually, though one, if it were a relevant denominator would cull to half that eigth the number of missing girl. The only one that held true for all eight was this: in every single instance, the Garden had quietly covered up the girl’s disappearance.

  She noticed something about the Garden during her time as a Petal. Had she grown up in a small, isolated village like Charmy, she might have believed the Floravelle was a generous place, one that cared for its girls and offered opportunities no one else ever would, asking little in return. But Ana wasn’t that na?ve. She understood perfectly well that there was no real kindness here. Everything was business. The Garden treated its girls well because, sooner or later, they were expected to become products. And products were meant to make money. A lot of money.

  It wasn’t surprising that the Garden would cover up disappearances. News of missing girls would be bad for business, she realized, and keeping such things quiet was simply logical. And cover them up they did, always in one of two consistent ways. Either the girl’s contract was quietly marked as purchased, or she was listed as having been transferred to another Garden. Apparently, this happened often, especially with lower-performing Flowers. All eight girls had, on seemingly random days, left the Garden under one of those two explanations. That was the common denominator.

  Ana couldn’t help but think it had taken her far too long to reach this point. Then again, she acknowledged that investigating the case of missing girls was complicated when the girls in question belonged to an organization whose entire business revolved around marketing and selling them. There was something tragic in that, but at last, she had something concrete to work with.

  "You're done writing that answer down?" Lydia asked.

  Charmy nodded.

  "Let me see." She peeked and grimaced. "Thank god no nobles saw you butchering these names like you just did."

  "Eh."

  "Appreciation would be the very opposite of what they’d feel. Anyway, next question. Write faster this time, you’re ridiculously slow."

  "I’m trying my be—"

  "Question seven: Who—" Lydia began, then stopped mid-sentence, frowning at the sheet.

  "A problem?" Ana asked, noticing the expression and guessing it had something to do with what Lydia had read.

  "No, I just… I found the answer to this question amusing."

  "Amusing?" Ana frowned. "Is my answer wrong?"

  Question seven… Ana tried to remember and was swift to do so. It asked who was currently ruling the seven kingdoms. She shook her head and chuckled. "No, that’s the amusing part."

  Ana felt a flicker of doubt. The girl seemed to be lying. If that was true, then Lydia must think Ana’s answer was wrong.

  Who else could it be? The Kings or Queen Theta? No. This is no longer the One and Only Era, when the Emperor and his Kings held absolute power. This is the Era of Kings, an era when, despite the name, the seven kingdoms are not ruled directly by their kings or Queen. They no longer involve themselves in such mundane matters, leaving those responsibilities to the Crownlord family. This family is led by a Crownlord, a lord chosen by the kings and the Elven Queen from among the Crownlord families, whose word now carries the force of law across all seven kingdoms.

  Sure, the kings and the Elven Queen still stand above him, and Ana predicted they always will. But if there is a clear answer to who truly rules the seven kingdoms, it can only be the Crownlord. Ana had learned through her post in the organization that the kings and the Elven Queen had completely removed themselves from all worldly affairs. That knowledge was an exclusive one, but even without it, the answer to the question would remain the same.

  Ana wondered if perhaps Lydia was not lying about the part where she said she believed she was right, but then Ana wondered, what part could that be amusing? She couldn’t figure it out.

  "Forget about it," Lydia said, before spelling the question for Charmy, "Who is currently ruling the seven kingdoms? You're done writing that? Okay. The answer is the chosen Vassal: the Crownlord."

  A couple dozen minutes passed like that, Ana still tucked in her corner of the table, quietly watching as Lydia grew impatient with the poor girl, whose writing only slowed further. Ana was not the only one observing. Uta, who had been in the room all along in another corner of the table, stirred from her doze and watched as Lydia’s patience thinned. Yet even as she observed, her detached stillness made it clear her thoughts were elsewhere.

  “…sigh. I’m done with this,” Charmy muttered under her breath, glancing at Ana for support. Ana looked away, leaving the girl to face her devil alone.

  “Say, Lydia, isn’t this enough? Let’s take a pause. I’m tired, and I’m sure you are too, right?” Charmy leaned sideways against Lydia, standing close in an attempt to mellow her. Unfortunately, the plan backfired spectacularly.

  "Ew, get your smelly hair out of here."

  "Hey, my hair isn’t smelly! It smells like coconut oil! I always use coconut oil for my hair," she barked, outraged, but nonetheless took a whiff of her thick wavy hair to confirm.

  "It is. Smell yours and Uta’s, and smell the world difference."

  "Of course there’s gonna be a world difference, hers really smells nice. But my hair doesn’t smell bad. Smell it," the girl offered.

  "Ew, get that away from me."

  "Ana?s, please smell it, tell her that it’s not true."

  "Sorry, my nose," she rejected, "my nose is clogged, I can’t smell right."

  "Tsk," Charmy grimaced, turning toward her last hope, "Uta, tell me my hair doesn’t smell, right?"

  Charmy’s desperate question fell on deaf ears.

  "Uta?"

  As she had been for a moment now, the girl’s mind seemed to be completely elsewhere, far enough that it took a few more calls for her to snap out of it.

  "Oh, sorry, Charmy, I didn’t hear what you said. You were saying?"

  "You’re alright?" Charmy, asked before adding, "I’ve noticed you were strangely silent today."

  "I was?" She laughed nervously. "I’m alright, I fell asleep. I just feel a little groggy still. So you were saying?"

  The trio looked at each other, not all that convinced, but nonetheless, "Charmy’s smelly," Lydia pointed out.

  "My hair doesn’t smell," the girl pouted, walking over to Uta to get her confirmation. "My hair doesn’t smell, right?"

  Somewhat hesitant at first, but with Charmy’s insistence, Uta took a whiff, then noted, "Smells like coconut oil."

  "Right, that’s what I’ve been saying! I’m using coconut oil for my—unr—wait," like some animal she took a whiff in the air, the smell leading her to Uta.

  "What?"

  "That smell. It’s your hair, right? It smells like flowers? What oil do you use?"

  "Just the same shampoo all flowers use for our hair."

  "Shampoo? What’s that?"

  "Something we wash our hair with. It’s like soap but for hair specifically."

  "Oh," she marveled, clearly intrigued by this shampoo. She leaned in and asked in a low voice, "Uta my best friend, can you get me some of that shampoo thing, or is it forbidden to share, like a high-ranking flower thing?"

  Hearing this, Uta burst into laughter.

  "What? Is it really something that’s super fancy that can’t be shared?"

  "Not at all, not at all. I can bring you some… in fact, I think I can bring you along to have it." Uta stood up, then declared, "I think we did good enough for today. How about we all go take a bath," she pointed up, "in the upper-floor bath chambers?"