Sadly, there were no bandits on my way to the royal palace. They would basically need to stand right in front of the gates to catch the carriage I was riding which honestly wasn´t the most probable place to find bandits. Even though my anger calmed down quite a bit, I still wanted to bash some skulls.

I was constantly tapping on the armrest and tried to put up the friendliest smile I could imagine, which was basically what I always showed others. Nervously, I waited for the carriage to reach our destination to let myself be bullied by a brat.

Before that though, the butler opened the door of the carriage and gave me his hand as soon as we stopped. This time, I gratefully accepted and lifted up my dress to keep it clean as we walked across the slightly dusty gravel. Like the last time, he guided me through the palace while I looked around in amazement.

The security features of this place were quite good. No guard stood alone, everyone had the back of at least one other person covered … sneaking into this place would be quite hard.

After several minutes, we arrived in front of a study with many, many books inside. My tutor, a bald middle-aged man with a long beard, already sat at his desk, looking at me the moment I stepped into the room. The second prince was nowhere to be found as I looked around the room while I curtsied elegantly.

“My name is Lucy White. It is a pleasure to meet you.” My tutor, whatever he was going to teach me, certainly didn’t care much about as he didn’t even stand up, but rather nodded.

“Take a seat. My name is Mr. Schlaumeier.” I did what he asked me to and looked at the book he was currently reading. ‘The study of mana infused soil and its applications.’ was certainly not a lecture one would read for fun, especially because it was so thick, convoluted and presented hypotheses that had no proof whatsoever ... trust me, I read that book.

We spent our time in silence, waiting for Louis to finally come by. He arrived fifteen minutes late. The tutor was less pleased about this and squinted his eyes as the prince strolled into the room and sat down while eating fruits.

“Young prince, what is the reason for the late arrival?” Mr. Schlaumeier asked slightly annoyed.

“My hair didn’t sit properly.” I blinked a few times, completely taken off guard by his explanation. If the maids buzzed around me and made my hair, it always took them way too long in my opinion, but my hair was long while he had short hair.

“I see. Make sure to come on time next time. In any case, now that this group is complete, we can finally start the lesson.”

“I don´t want to learn with her.” Louis said in my direction.

“Excuse me?” I said a bit indignantly.

“Mr. Schaumeier, we made such great progress in analysing the usages of different soils over the last few sessions. I fear I will not learn anything if she is around.” Wow, he went directly to the point. And I thought he would try to bully me out of this session, instead of directly asking for it.

“I was told she is quite smart for her age.” Mr. Schlaumeier commented.

“Please, just look at her. She is from a small village, how smart can she be?”

“Intelligence has nothing to do with knowledge, young prince.” Completely unlike the knight from yesterday, his tutor refused Louis proposals, much to my surprise.

“Still, I will enter the royal academy next year. I cannot risk the stalling of my studies because of her.” Slowly but surely, I really wished that Louis would be successful in changing the opinion of Mr. Schlaumeier.

“Soo … I learn better through reading books anyway, so can I just read a few while you two take your normal lessons. I really don’t want his studies to be impacted by me.” I also knew that Mary would send me to the next tutor immediately, so I would rather take this approach, although I had to live with the voice of the prince during my reading time.

“I …” Mr. Schlaumeier looked closely at the prince and closed his eyes for a second. He was in a pinch, that was obvious. He couldn’t risk being blamed for the bad marks of the prince in the future. On the other hand, my education was also necessary as Mary has become a bit influential as well since Arthur died. “… maybe we should test this out. Feel free to read every book you find interesting for today. I will question you about your new knowledge afterwards though.”

I nodded happily, pulled the chair I was sitting on away from the desk towards a nearby wall. As I couldn’t lift it up, it scratched along the floor quite loudly, much to the annoyance of my tutor and the prince. Happy to have found a place away from them, I retrieved the first book that really caught my attention. ‘Magical Artefacts and their history’. Perfect.

It was truly great until I realized I already knew everything inside this book. I still didn’t give up, there had to be a way to steal the crown of thorns without anyone noticing, after all, it was already stolen from the elves once, at least going by the history that was propagated in this country. So there had to be a way.

Hours later, the tutoring came to an end as Mr. Schlaumeier began to talk to me.

“Okay, Lady White, if you would be so kind to tell us what you learned so far.” This was apparently my time to shine, although I had no intention of shining too brightly. I quickly summarized the contents of the books I already read and asked some questions even Mr. Schlaumeier couldn’t answer. Needless to say, he was quite impressed by my knowledge and my ability to understand these books. I may have overdone it a bit though, especially because I read two thick books in four hours. I blamed the pictures inside these books for my quick pace. Needless to say, he approved of my learning method and wouldn’t mind if I continued like this.

Quite happily and humming loudly, I strolled out of the room, an angry prince behind me.

“Don’t think you impressed me with that. I could do that as well.” I highly doubted it, but nonetheless turned around right as the door closed itself and looked at him with a smile on my lips.

“I have no doubts about that, your highness. I heard you did rather well in today's session as well. Your way of identifying a suitable spot for the development of farmland in the north was truly brilliant.” I said friendly. If he wanted to bully me forever because of my apparent heritage, I would just answer in kindness. I wondered who could live with this situation the longest and put my index finger on my cheek.

“Hey, about our little wager …” I started and then trailed off into nothingness.

“Don’t tell me you are scared of losing?” He spat out.

“Oh, not at all. I have no problems with being defeated. Even in losing, you can still improve after all. I rather wanted to propose that we´ll use the whole weekend for our wagers as well.” I said.

“Fine by me.” I smiled even more brightly as soon as he said that.

“Okay, my first idea is to bet on who can help a single person the most, without relying on anything else except yourself.” I stated happily.

“Helping someone? I don’t know … sounds boring.” He didn’t like my proposal at all, although I already suspected that.

“Are you forfeiting already?” Thus, I stroked his ego a bit. He fell completely for my little trap.

“No, I´m not!” I chuckled lightly, a hand in front of my mouth.

“Until Monday, your highness.” I curtsied and swiftly turned around to let a nearby butler lead me back to my carriage. Quite a few servants saw the scene which was perfect for me. It wouldn’t take long anymore before my wholesome and friendly behaviour would be known all over the palace, fuelled by the second prince himself. I smiled happily, knowing that I just manipulated a twelve-year-old good for noting into helping another person out, something he probably never did before. The servants, or those who gossiped, knew this as well.