Truthfully, the past couple weeks had been really hard for Anne.

From early in the morning until late at night, the church kept her busy with various ceremonies and events. Mostly she just had to be present and say vaguely saintly things or perform some sort of small ritual role, but it was still exhausting because she had constantly be in character as the Saintess. And she couldn't afford to make too many mistakes—she had already pushed her luck with the whole "cutting her hair and wearing men's clothes" thing.

Then there was the social aspect. Some of the events were internal church events, but some of them were public facing, and for whatever reason the Crown Prince kept showing up for all the public events. That was mostly fine. All he ever seemed to want was for Anne to greet him and chat with him with meaningless things, and he didn't really seem to notice if Anne was a bit rude to him, so it didn't take too much energy to keep him happy. Anne could basically turn off her brain when she was with Prince Sebastian and it didn't really matter.

Much worse was the fact that Grand Duke Marshal keep showing up.

Every time Anne spotted him approaching her, she'd make some kind of excuse to slip away. But keeping an eye out for him was putting her on edge constantly, and she'd claimed bathroom emergencies once too often and now Eva was talking about adjusting her diet to help improve her digestion...

I know he was the original Anne's love interest, she thought to herself, but why does he have to be everywhere? I don't want to get involved with the man who killed my precious Corvina in the original story. No way! Maybe it's silly to hold a grudge for something someone hasn't even done yet in this timeline but I don't care. I don't trust him.

But regardless of any specific complaints, the main issue was that, when it came down to it, Anne just wasn't well suited to being this busy. In her previous life she'd purposefully chosen a low stakes career that wouldn't require her to work any overtime. She was a good worker, and she didn't mind being around people, but ideally she wanted at least a few hours a day to just sit by herself and maybe read some novels and otherwise do nothing. That was how she recharged.

The only way she was able to keep up with this schedule at all was because Eva kept her promise to help her through it.

Eva took care of all the peripheral requirements for the schedule—transportation, meals, even Anne's outfits (all with pants, not dresses)—so that Anne basically didn't even have to think about them. It meant that Anne didn't have to spend her energy on anything other than the essential duties of the Saintess. She didn't have to keep track of anything or make any decisions, she just let herself be ushered around by Eva all day.

Thanks to that the busy schedule was exhausting, but survivable.

Still, no matter how tired Anne was, she couldn't stand just immediately going to sleep after getting home from work. She needed to take at least a bit of time doing something that wasn't work related or she really would lose it.

So she started making Agis hang out with her a bit in the evenings before bed. They mostly just talked about random things or played a few rounds of cards, but the fact that Agis hated the church (and humans in general) made him refreshing company after a long day dealing with self-important church people.

One night nearly two weeks into this new ridiculous schedule, Anne was laying in bed tossing a ball up in to the air repeatedly while Agis sat on a chair nearby doing some maintenance on his bow.

"Hey, have you been following me around?" asked Anne curiously.

"You can't tell?" said Agis in a smug tone.

"Yes, yes, you're very stealthy," said Anne. "Have you, though?"

Agis shrugged. "Not recently. Eva said that official church events are well guarded anyway so I don't need to."

"So what have you been doing all day instead?"

"Exploring the city, mostly," said Agis. "Oh, you might find this interesting! I went back to look at those statues, and the statue of the first Saintess is also missing its ears. Weird, huh? I can't seem to find anything about why."

Anne thought for a moment. "Do you think the Goddess and the first Saintess were elves? But at some point when the humans started discriminating against elves they started saying she was a human and tried to cover up the evidence that she was an elf?"

"What? No way!" said Agis. "There's no way the human Goddess is an elf! No elf would ever let themselves be worshiped by humans. And besides, we elves worship a completely different Goddess."

"What, really?" said Anne, sitting up in bed. She hadn't heard about this before. It might not have been in the original novel, or else Anne just might have not been paying attention.

"Yes," said Agis. "Her name is Quire and she's way better than the dumb human Goddess."

Quire... thought Anne. Pronounced like choir. Like the Goddess Coris, pronounced like chorus. Subtle.

"You know the Sacred Forest is called the Sacred Forest because that's where the Goddess Quire first arrived when she visited our world," said Agis.

"The humans also believe that about their Goddess, though," said Anne.

"Yeah, but they're wrong," said Agis.

Well, whatever. It wasn't really important right now.

"I should probably get going soon," said Agis. "You should sleep. You're getting really big bags under your eyes, you know? You're letting the humans push you way too hard for their dumb church."

"Nooo," said Anne, flopping back in bed again. "Don't go. I don't want to go to sleep. Then it will be tomorrow. I'm so tired. I don't want to work anymore."

"You should just quit being the Saintess, then," said Agis.

"No, I can't do that, either," said Anne. "I have to keep going."

Anne needed the power of her position as the Saintess to have any chance of being able to save anyone from the plot of the original novel. There wasn't much she could do as just an ordinary bastard elf princess in this world.

Anne just had to do her best to remember why she was doing this. To keep herself going.

"Ugh," Anne turned on her side and hugged a pillow close. "If only I could see Corvina's face again... that would definitely give me the strength to go on."

"What, that mean human lady?" said Agis. "Why would you want to see her that badly?"

"I just like her," said Anne. "And her face is so beautiful just looking at it makes me feel refreshed. You wouldn't get it."

"I sure don't," said Agis, making a face.

"What-ever!" said Anne, throwing a pillow at him.

He caught it, laughing. After a moment he frowned and said. "Do you really want to see her that badly?"

"Yeah..." said Anne wistfully.

Agis stood up. "Okay, then let's go!"

"What!?" said Anne, sitting up again. "Go where?"

"To Corvina's house!"

"Right now?"

"Why not?"

Anne flung her hands wide to indicate, you know, everything. "It would create a huge fuss if the Saintess tried to leave at this time of night!"

"So we'll sneak out of here!"

"There's no way Lady Corvina's household is receiving visitors this late, either!"

"So we'll sneak in there, too," said Agis. "Don't underestimate my skills. Even bringing another person along I'm confident I can get us in and out of wherever. And you just want to see her face, right? It's not like we need to make it into a big official visit or anything."

"We just... we just can't do something like that!"

"Why not?" insisted Agis.

Anne thought about it. It was obviously an insane idea. It just wasn't the sort of thing people did. Especially not important people who had work in the morning. Especially not the Saintess. But, honestly, once Anne got past the initial shock of the suggestions, she couldn't help but think...

"Fuck it," said Anne. "Why not?"

---

That was how Anne ended up, a short time later, striding into Corvina's study with a big grin and a wave.

And the sight that greeted Anne was better than anything she could have possibly imagined. It made the whole crazy idea of sneaking-out and sneaking-in worth it. It made dying and being reborn in this world worth it.

Corvina was wearing glasses.

Corvina had on a simple, casual dress and her long purple hair was pulled back in a low ponytail. And she was wearing round glasses with gold wire frames.

In her previous life, Anne had always had a bit of a thing for characters with mean eyes and round glasses. And Corvina had the perfect look to pull it off, too.

Thank you Goddess Coris, thought Anne, clasping her hands in prayer. Or thank you, original Saintess. Or even thank you, Christian God from my old world. Whoever allowed me to see this beautiful image before me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Corvina's expression looked both surprised and confused, but not necessarily angry or unhappy. That was promising. "Saintess!" she said finally. "What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to see you," said Anne. "And I told you to call me Anne, didn't I?"

There was a pregnant pause, during which everyone wasn't quite sure what to do about this unexpected situation. The one who finally broke the silence was the butler, who bowed deeply to Corvina, saying, "We'll take our leave now. Call me should you need anything."

On his way out the door, he gave Anne a wink and a thumbs up. And he ushered Agis and Helen out with him.

"What?" said Agis. "Why do I have to go? I—"

"We should give the ladies a chance to talk," insisted the butler, looming over him.

Agis looked nervously at the massive scar across one of the butler's eyes and decided not to argue any further.

When everyone was gone, Corvina let out a brief sigh. "Come on," she said. "Let's talk on the balcony. I need a smoke."