The end came more quietly than expected.
Estella received the news on an evening one week after the hearing. Her lady-in-waiting knocked softly on the door and delivered a brief report.
"It seems His Highness Alvin has been speaking with Lady Millefeuille. She was summoned to His Highness's chambers."
A few days had passed since he had asked Mille to tell him the truth. Something must have shifted within Alvin. The rumours hadn't stopped. The contradictions in Mille's testimony. Her real voice in the waiting room. Her cold treatment of the young lady who had been her ally. These things piled up around Alvin little by little.
Estella continued to move her embroidery needle.
This is not my place to intervene.
This was a matter between Alvin and Mille. If Estella involved herself, it would damage her dignity no matter how it played out. She would stand by and watch. That was the right course of action.
But another question swirled inside her.
Am I not cut from the same cloth as that girl?
She had cried in the garden. She had swayed those around her with carefully calculated tears. Did she truly have the right to criticise Mille's crocodile tears?
Estella stopped her needle and looked out the window.
She found no answer. The night wore on without her finding an answer.
The next morning.
Her lady-in-waiting's report was detailed. Information had passed from Alvin's chamberlain, through the network of chamberlains, and into the ears of Estella's lady-in-waiting.
Alvin had summoned Mille to his chambers. Guards were stationed outside the door and a chamberlain waited in the adjoining room; the standard arrangement. It was not entirely private, but it was an environment where the two of them could speak freely.
Alvin asked Mille about a number of things.
About her testimony at the hearing and how it contradicted with the attendance logs. About the rumours of her raising her voice in the waiting room.
He had asked her those questions calmly.
Mille resorted to her last measure.
"It was all because I was afraid of Lady Estella. I just wanted to be by Your Highness's side..."
She had cried and held back her voice. She held back the tears that were welling in her eyes and struggled desperately to hold them in. It was a touching display. But something different was mixed in.
"I just wanted to be by Your Highness's side."
That was probably the truth. She cried while mixing lies with truth. She cried calculatingly while mixing in some of her emotions. These were the most difficult kind of tears to discern; the kind a cornered person shows at the very end.
Alvin wavered. According to his chamberlain, Alvin rose from his chair after a long moment of silence and stood with his back to the window without saying anything.
He must have wanted to believe Mille's tears. He must have wanted to confirm that his judgement over the past year had been correct by believing in her.
But.
At that moment, a document was delivered to the room.
It was from Leonhardt. As part of his duties as an administrative aide, he had forwarded paperwork related to the Royal Council's review to Alvin through the proper channels. The document contained a cross-reference of the timeline of Mille's testimony against the civil official's attendance logs.
Leonhardt had made his move.
He had refrained from directly contacting Estella under Alvin's orders, but forwarding Royal Council documents to the Crown Prince fell squarely within the scope of an administrative aide's duties. Sending this document didn't mean he was taking sides. He simply presented a summary of the facts.
But those facts were heavy.
The contradictions between Mille's testimony and the attendance logs were laid out side by side in a table. For each date and time, Estella's movements during the periods Mille could have claimed she was "threatened" were corroborated by the logs. It was formatted so that anyone could see at a glance there were almost no unaccounted gaps.
Alvin read the document.
Then he turned back to face Mille.
According to the chamberlain, Alvin's voice was quiet. It held neither anger nor contempt. It was simply the voice of a tired man.
"That's enough."
Two words.
Mille continued to cry but Alvin was no longer looking at her tears. He was looking out the window.
"That's enough, I said."
He wasn't rebuking her. He didn't yell nor accuse her of anything. He simply let go of her hand.
Mille's tears didn't stop but because Alvin no longer responded to them, those tears had lost their power for the first time.
Tears that no one came to wipe were just tears.
Estella learnt these details that night.
She listened in silence as her lady-in-waiting relayed what the chamberlain had told her.
After the account was finished, she said nothing for a long while.
I suppose I won.
Mille's lies had crumbled. Alvin had let go. Following the Royal Council's review, the credibility of Mille's testimony had plummeted and the motion to annul the engagement would likely be withdrawn. Mille had lost all her influence in the court, and her fate was to be decided by the baronial house.
But there was no sense of triumph.
All that remained was exhaustion.
Mille's last tears. "I just wanted to be by Your Highness's side." Those words wouldn't leave her mind.
Was it a lie? Was it the truth? Or was it a bit of both?
Estella couldn't tell. Even she, who had spent ten years analysing emotions in her past life, couldn't determine the sincerity of those final tears.
If they had contained genuine emotions...
Then at the very end, for the first time, Mille had shed real tears.
But no one could believe them since she had told too many lies.
Estella looked at the mirror in her room. The perfect face of a duke's daughter stared back at her. The face of an expert in emotional control, armed with memories of a past life.
She, too, was someone who had shed false tears.
That fact wouldn't change.
Late into the night, when the academy grounds had fallen completely silent, Estella walked down the corridor outside her room. She saw a figure around the corner.
It was Leonhardt.
He was carrying administrative documents. It was unusual for him to be in the corridor at this hour, but the work of an administrative aide sometimes extended into irregular hours.
The distance between them closed. Her lady-in-waiting trailed a few steps behind.
Leonhardt stopped, so Estella stopped too.
"You heard?" A brief question.
"Yes." A brief answer.
Leonhardt looked at Estella's face. He seemed to be searching for the face of a victor but all he found was fatigue.
"Can you still cry?" There was no trace of sarcasm in his question.
Estella gave a small shake of her head.
"I have no reason to cry right now."
Leonhardt said nothing. He only gave a slight nod.
That was the extent of their exchange. Leonhardt adjusted the documents in his arms and disappeared down the corridor.
Estella placed her hand on the door to her room.
It was over.
A long day had ended. A long battle had ended.
But no tears came. Neither crocodile tears nor real ones.
Only a quiet fatigue lingered in her.