The following day started as usual. Most of the city livened up before dawn, while the nobles began their day several hours later.

A few hours after dawn, a certain baby stirred, her long eyelashes fluttering as they slowly opened. However, when she rolled around, she realized that there was a decided absence of her mother’s softness.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes with her little hands, though they were held back by someone. “Don’t rub your eyes,” said Celeste, who had walked over when she saw her baby had stirred awake.

“Mummy…” the child mumbled, her little milky voice causing hearts to melt.

Celeste couldn’t help but provide a sound smooch on her face. “It’s still early,” she said. “You can go back to bed.”

Little Evelina was like any other normal person—preferring to sleep in whenever she could help it—so that was what she did.

As she lay down on the large bed, though, she couldn’t help but turn to watch whatever was happening on the other side of the room, just out of curiosity. It seemed that her mother was already preparing for the day.

Her mother’s dress was quite intricate and had a lot of accessories, like that of every other noble woman out there—not that Evie had seen a lot of those dresses, of course.

To be honest, although the dresses were pretty, Little Evie thought her mother looked best in simpler clothing. She just thought the other things were cumbersome and that—like her—her mother probably liked the comfy dresses she could sleep in.

As for Evie, they would also dress her up a lot, especially when she went outside. It was very uncomfortable, and many times she would find a way to ruin her dresses on purpose just so she didn’t have to wear them.

The maids and her mother kept trying to stop her from taking off several layers each time. It made Evie dislike going out of their palace at all.

As for her ‘home dress,’ they fortunately let her wear whatever she wanted, though they had hinted many times that she would start wearing standard clothing soon.

Tsk.

Anyway, after her mother got dressed, some of the maids were free to help Evie out. They guided her to the toilet (the metallic chamberpot) and then placed her in a nice, warm bath.

They also made her wear a very pretty dress, which was a little fancier than the usual. It was comfortable, though, so Evie didn’t think much of it.

After that, the mother and daughter headed down to eat their breakfast together. Today, her brother apparently wouldn’t be joining breakfast due to his morning training.

By the time they arrived in the Palace’s dining room, there was already a lot of food on the table. There were two main dishes, soup, a vegetable dish, and some bread. To the eyes of normal people, the menu would have appeared quite extravagant.

The sight never excited Little Evie, though.

Today was no exception.

She didn’t know why, but she felt it was never enough.

Celeste looked at her baby daughter’s bored look again. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating again?” she asked.

She was very hands-on in raising her children, unlike other nobles who relied heavily on the maids and nannies.

Celeste tried to feed her baby, though the latter would instinctively turn away from the spoon, apparently feeling the tense dislike in her taste buds.

“Dun wike…” the baby mumbled, pouting. “Dun wike.”

“But you must eat…we already added a bit of sunseed and herbcrest spices here…those are very expensive.”

Little Evie pursed her lips, looking guardedly at the food. “Add mow pwease…”

“...”

“Fine, but just a bit.”

Evie watched the chef, Pietro, add a bit more of the multi-spice powder to her food.

“Shalalaala~” he said, sprinkling the powder with a bit of flair and drama that amused the baby (and everyone else) very much.

Seeing the effort made for the food, Evie could only reluctantly eat, feeling like she was eating her own hair. Or equari hair. Whichever was worse.

But at least it was a bit tastier than usual.

She couldn’t hide her guarded look while she chewed, though. It made her face scrunch cutely, and her cheeks even puffier than usual. It made the adults both worry and be amused.

Anyway, other than her obvious dissatisfaction with the food—which was a constant—the rest of the day went on for the family.

Celeste’s schedule was quite busy, particularly during Evie’s morning classes, where she and Helena would teach the child some basic manners, often disguised as play.

They taught Evie how to curtsy depending on rank and what the basic table manners were (with special emphasis on eating the food).

Of course, these were all basic and foundational lessons—she was just two years old—and they weren’t very strict with her. They simply wanted to familiarize her with what was right and wrong, slowly conditioning her for longer classes.

After that, they would have an early lunch together and then they’d separate to do their own activities.

Today, Celeste had refinery classes on poetry or embroidery, and then she’d go to a customary afternoon tea time with some other noble ladies.

The latter was rarely held in Rosekeep Palace, however, and she wouldn’t want it to be. More often than not, it was the Queen who’d hold it, and Celeste didn’t want her children to be exposed to politics so early.

She really disliked those sessions and found them to be a waste of time, but for her children and her family, she could only endure.

Fortunately, her children were so good and adorable. Seeing them after such tiresome activities would never fail to re-energize her.

On the other hand, the Prince was always training or studying the whole day. Sometimes, he’d spend time at home because they held his tutoring classes in their palace, but lately, it seemed like his academy classes were particularly busy.

Anyway, unlike everyone else, no one really expected much from a baby girl, yet.

In the afternoon, Helena would just teach Evie some more words and grammar rules—that was, how to start making full sentences. She would point at an item and tell her what it was called, and perhaps tell what it could be used for, as well.

Helena, at first, taught with mild expectations. After all, the Princess was still a baby. She was only expected to be familiar with some items, not really to memorize them quite yet.

But lo and behold, the Princess learned everything the first time. It was remarkable.

Anyway, because the lesson scheduled for that day was completed early, it meant that the baby had the rest of the afternoon to do nothing.

One of the baby’s favorite pastimes was exploring their palace, which was not small. Today, she decided to explore a few rooms she hadn’t visited yet. This time, it was Helena who accompanied her on her trip, which was for the best because she ended up being the perfect guide for Evie.

For the most part, they just looked at the guest rooms, properly maintained by the maids even when they had been unused for as long as Evie could remember.

However, she found something interesting today. It was in one of the deeper rooms in the Palace.

“This is the storage room of the Royal Mistress’ older items,” Helena explained, wearing a nostalgic expression on her face. “We brought a lot of things from home, though she didn’t really get to use all of them.”

While Helena reminisced, the baby in front of her had entered the room. Each room was maintained well, and even the unused storage rooms were dusted once a week or so, preventing the accumulation of excess dust.

When Helena came back to the present, the baby princess was already in front of a chest. “Princess? Where are you going?” she asked, hurriedly heading towards Evie.

It seemed like the princess had been trying to open the heavy chest, but what could a baby do? All she got was a reddened cheek that people wanted to bite.

Helena had no choice but to help her out. She opened the chest, and the princess quickly tiptoed to take a look inside.

“What is it, Your Highness?” Helena asked very patiently. The Baby Princess looked at her and held up both of her little arms.

“Up, up!” she said, her milky voice echoing in the room.

Helena’s lips twitched upwards as she followed the Princess’ orders, and together they looked at the contents of the chest.

It held a lot of fabric and some memorabilia. In Helena’s eyes, they didn’t have much use, but the princess reached in so suddenly that Helena almost dropped her.

Helena quickly lifted her up with wide eyes, belatedly realizing that the baby had already ‘fished’ something from inside.

It was a large seashell as big as her face.

Interestingly, it was something Helena had seen before.

“Oh, it’s that,” Helena uttered, looking a bit surprised. The Little Princess held on to it and hugged it as if it were her baby, and the old woman wanted to laugh.

“Oh, Little Princess, don’t worry. I don’t think the Mistress will mind you taking it.”

The baby looked at Helena as if she were asking her to teach her what it could do.

Sadly, Helena didn’t even have an idea what it was.

“I’m…not quite sure what it is, but neither is the Royal Mistress. It was something from the old house, but the maids there mistook it for hers and placed it while we were packing.”

“The General and the Young Master both said they didn’t own it, so the Royal Mistress just let it be.”

“Oh…” the baby said, mouth making a little ‘o’ as if she understood (though Helena doubted it).

At any rate, the princess wasn’t in the mood to explore anymore and just sat in a corner as she held onto her new toy. Helena blinked when the child continued to play around with it until she turned it so the opening was in front of her face.

“Hewo? Anywbowdy thew?” she asked, and then proceeded to place the hole near her ears.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion when no echo came out.

Helena blinked. “Why are you talking to it?”

The baby shrugged. “Hewooo~” she repeated and placed her ears on the opening again. Nothing.

However, the fact that nothing came out was what made her even more curious. Later, she would realize that it was because she didn’t hear any reverberation—it was as if the shell absorbed all sounds.

However, she was still a legitimate 2-year-old at this time, so that wasn’t something she thought of yet.

She was just a naturally curious and intelligent baby, and she was just instinctively attracted to the shell.

It was as if she knew there was something more to it than met the eye.