abcnovels
Chapter 173
Chapter 173: Suspicions 2
TL: Etude
Inside the embassy of the Grand Duchy of Eton, a servant walked along the corridor with an anxious expression.
He arrived at the door to the Duke and Duchess’s room and reached out to knock.
However, he hesitated as he extended his hand. The Duchess was resting inside, and under normal circumstances, she would never mind being disturbed during her rest.
But the situation might be different now. That morning, a maid who had been slightly forceful while combing her hair received a reprimand.
Such an event would have been unimaginable before. The Duchess was renowned for her good temperament and always treated her servants kindly.
However, the servants all understood. The change in the Duchess’s character was due to her sister—Baroness Fennie—being missing, or more accurately, abducted.
After all, Baroness Fennie was the only person as close to the Duchess as her husband.
And to make matters worse, there had been no clues for several days.
The servant, after hesitating for a while, still knocked on the room’s door.
A weary and anxious voice came from inside. “What is it?”
The servant’s heart ached. Oh heavens, please stop tormenting this poor Duchess.
He carefully replied. “Your Highness, a lady claiming to be Ladi Sertia Gerard has come to request an audience. She says she has a longstanding acquaintance with you, and we did not dare to turn her away.”
“Does she bring any news of Fennie?”
Anxiety laced the Duchess’s voice.
“I am sorry, Your Highness.”
“Don’t let her in!”
“Yes.”
The servant turned to leave when the Duchess’s voice suddenly called out from inside:
“Ladi, it is Ladi! Bring her in. Quickly, bring her in!”
The servant was a bit confused, but clearly, the Duchess had changed her mind, and the visiting lady indeed was acquainted with the Duchess; their relationship seemed not so ordinary.
He quickly hustled outside.
The Duchess’s voice continued from within. “Ladi! Ladi Sertia Gerard, I knew you would appear by my side when I was most helpless.”
…
Guided by the servant through the corridors, Ladi arrived at the entrance to the Duke and Duchess’s room. Two maids guarding the door opened it for her.
Inside, she saw a beautiful noblewoman sitting on a sofa who immediately stood up and looked over as the door opened.
This was the Duchess of the Grand Duchy of Eton—Her Highness Helen. With chestnut hair and captivating brown eyes, she was once renowned for her beauty throughout the Horn Bay, and the announcement of her betrothal to the Grand Duke of Eton had broken the hearts of many noble youths.
But the current Duchess, though still as beautiful as before, had lost the glow of her former demeanor. To those beside her, it seemed that in just a few short days, the Duchess had grown thinner, and it was genuinely heartbreaking.
Ladi sighed, stepped into the room, and the Duchess waved her hand, dismissing the servant who had guided Ladi. The maids outside also closed the door, leaving Ladi and the Duchess alone.
Without others present, the Duchess’s emotions collapsed. She rushed over to Ladi, hugging her tightly, and wept incoherently:
“Ladi! You’ve heard about my sister, haven’t you? What… what should I do now? If anything happens to Fennie, how could I ever face our parents in heaven?”
“Helen, my senior…”
Ladi gently patted her back, whispering comfort.
“There has to be a way. I’ve come here to help you.”
“Yes, thank you, thank you.”josei
Duchess Helen sobbed, thanking her while she cynically acknowledged that Ladi’s lone efforts might be limited, but she had to try every straw she could grasp at.
Ladi helped the Duchess to sit back on the sofa and took her hand, saying. “Senior Helen, calm down and tell me every detail you know, especially those ‘special’ clues.”
The Duchess composed herself and recounted the sequence of events in detail.
Ladi noted a crucial point. “So, the most suspicious part of the entire process is the collective ‘forgetting’ of a few hours of memory by the guards and staff?”
The Duchess nodded. “Indeed, it must’ve been magic. Only magic could have caused this effect.”
Ladi asked, “Could it have been a drug-induced effect? Like memory-loss herb?”
The Duchess shook her head with certainty. “No, to my knowledge there is no such drug currently that can precisely control the forgetting of memory for a few hours. The memory-loss herb can indeed cause memory loss, but it acts randomly, and is more likely to erase all memories since childhood.”
“But neither Fennie’s attendants and guards nor the shop owner and staff lost any of their previous memories, they only lost the most critical hours of memory on the day of the incident. It’s magic, only magic can achieve such an effect.”
“And there’s direct evidence!”
She pulled out an object and placed it on the table—it was a stone, a slightly darkened stone.
Ladi immediately recognized the stone, “A Witch Detection Stone?”
“Yes, after suspecting that Fennie’s abductors were mages, I personally went to the store to investigate and confirmed my suspicion with this stone.”
Helen, the Duchess of the Grand Duchy of Eton, concealed another identity behind her noble one—she was a mage.
Thanks to her elevated status, she had kept her mage identity very well hidden, even as the witch hunts in the south intensified; still, no one knew, not even her husband, the Grand Duke of Eton.
To this day, only two people knew her secret: the mentor who guided her on the path of the mage, and her junior who studied magic with her—Ladi Sertia Gerard.
The Duchess wept, “What should I do? I can’t reveal all this to my husband! He certainly won’t be able to accept it!”
Ladi was deeply puzzled, “If it was one of our kind, why would they abduct a high-status noble girl like her? Especially in the current severe climate of growing witch hunts, isn’t such high-profile and dangerous behavior asking for trouble?”
“Our kind?” The Duchess’s voice rose sharply, and her beautiful eyes filled with resentment.
“Ladi, you actually still consider such a person as our kind? I absolutely refuse to acknowledge those who commit such atrocities as belonging to us. They, whether mages or not, are nothing but scum, degenerates, trash! I will have them torn to pieces.”
Ladi was concerned internally; she knew her senior’s character well—kind and gentle. But now there was a tendency towards something darker. It seemed the abduction of her sister had hit her too hard.
Once the Duchess had calmed down somewhat, Ladi quietly asked, “Senior, think carefully, is there something special about Fennie? Something that would interest a mage, enough to take such a big risk to abduct her.”
“Indeed, there is something about Fennie that would interest a mage.”
The Duchess became composed, speaking slowly.
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