The king looked at Azalea questioningly. She was surprised, though internally she had already anticipated the appearance of this man.

“Faster than I thought,” she pronounced calmly, adjusting her heavy skirt.

“I can simply command for him to be dispatched from here,” Gerhard offered mundanely, already prepared to deliver the instruction.

“It is not worth it. I shall converse with him myself.”

Gerhard nodded to Albrandt, and the latter delivered the order to open the door.

The heavy leaf opened wide. On the threshold stood Berthold von Berge. Rather, Berthold Moonforest.

In the eyes of his daughter, he appeared pitiful in his formal uniform, which had visibly become too large for him. Within his gaze fluttered fear, recognition, and that exact same vile, sticky hope experienced by a parasite that has discovered a new victim.

“Your Majesty...” He bowed low, hastily adjusted his clothing, and only after that shifted his gaze to Azalea.

“My daughter...” His voice trembled, and his eyes darted convulsively from her to the king. “I... I could not credit my own eyes. What a miracle... the gods heard my prayers regarding your salvation.”

Azalea rose slowly. She did not look upon him as a father - in her eyes, this man was merely an unstable element that ought to be instantaneously removed from the zone of action.

“Mr. Moonforest,” her voice rang out evenly, yet an overt antipathy leaked through it. “I do not recall witnessing your name within the list of people invited to today's celebration.”

“Azalea, what are you saying?” He took a step forward, clumsily attempting to depict paternal care. “I am your father! Why, do I require an invitation to come to you? I am your sole family. Your house is my house.”

Azalea raised an eyebrow. She stood motionless - majestic, cold, inspiring trepidation. But Gerhard, sitting slightly to the side, suddenly registered one detail: the edge of her heavy, silvery hem shifted barely perceptibly, exposing the tips of her toes. Her bare toes.

She was exerting all her strength to maintain an icy countenance, but was simultaneously attempting to imperceptibly push her bare feet deeper beneath the sumptuous skirt. From this spectacle, an irrepressible amusement began to bubble inside the king's chest.

“Your family, Mr. Moonforest,” Azalea chiseled every single word, making a dangerous lunge with her torso forward and desperately balancing so as not to betray the absence of her shoes, “concluded on the day when you sold your daughter into a house where they transformed her into a servant. Currently, however, you command nothing. You managed to squander even my mother's ancestral house. And now you arrive and declare that you are my family? Do not delude yourself. I am not bound to you.”

She pointed her hand sharply toward the exit.

“Depart before I command the guard to eject you. And forget the path to this house.”

Berthold, turning crimson from humiliation and sticky terror, cast a pleading glance at the king, seeking protection. But Gerhard sat covering his mouth with his palm and keeping his head suspiciously low - his shoulders shook finely. The old man took this for royal wrath and, retreating in fright, textually tumbled out of the study.

As soon as the heavy lock clicked, the silence within the room became ringing. Azalea attempted to even out her breathing, but then a strange sound drifted to her ears.

Gerhard no longer checked himself. He leaned back against the back of his armchair and exploded into a loud, sincere, boyish laughter, from which tears surfaced in his eyes.

“Oh, goddess...” he managed through his laughter. “Azalea, you ought to have witnessed your toes! You were raking the carpet with them so hilariously while you were lecturing him!”

Azalea’s face, which a second prior had been cast in stone and inaccessible, flashed instantaneously to the very roots of her hair. All her assumed importance crumbled in a single fraction of a moment. Not considering further, she seized a soft pillow from the sofa and launched it straight at the king. Albrandt instinctively moved forward to intercept the projectile, but Gerhard merely waved his hand, exposing himself to the strike.

“Be silent!” she shrieked, and for a second the exact same girl she had been in the past cut into her voice. “Speak nothing! I simply recalled that I remained without footwear only when I had already risen!”

Ophelia flew to her mistress’s side in haste, proffering her footwear.

Gerhard caught the pillow, continuing to wipe away his tears from laughter.

“Azalea, you are the most terrifying barefoot aristocrat of all those I have encountered. I swear, had he looked down, he would have perished not from your wrath, but from a rupture of the heart!”

Azalea took a heavy breath, put on her shoes, and sank onto the sofa once more, this time no longer attempting to keep up appearances. The corners of her lips twitched, and she laughed quietly in his wake.

“He truly appeared pitiful, did he not?” she asked, stealthily brushing away a tear of laughter from her eyelashes.

“Pitiful is to speak mildly,” Gerhard finally caught his breath and looked at her with an unexpected, warm tenderness. “He appeared as if his hope had collapsed.”

Azalea nodded in agreement. Most likely, her father had resolved that he could profit from the coin in his daughter's new house.

Gerhard rose from his place.

“It is time for me to return to my queen. Ingrid has been worrying a great deal of late. We shall converse another time.” Gerhard reached out, took her hand into his own, bent down, and kissed it softly. “Next time... I wish to hear your accounts regarding the time when we were apart.”

The guests set about departing. Prior to boarding their carriages, each received an elegant box of an indigo color, inside of which lay refined silver pins with small sapphires, while the Rosenthal trading emblem was engraved upon the reverse.

Departing, the people animatedly discussed the past celebration, the extravagant attires, and the costly gifts, wrapping themselves in fur capes.

“Have you heard?” one of the nobles pronounced in a low voice, assisting his companion with mounting the carriage. “They say the king locked himself within the study with her for a good hour.”

“And not simply locked himself,” seconded his neighbor, waving her fan with an explicit shade of envy within her voice. “My spouse swears he heard His Majesty laughing. A genuine, loud laughter! When was the final time anyone witnessed the king laughing?”

“And these pins? Only look upon the faceting of the sapphires...” whispered the ladies near the adjacent carriage, inspecting the blue small boxes. “Just how much coin do these Rosenthals command?”

Azalea stood upon the balcony, peering into the cool night darkness and listening to this distant hum of voices. Elena approached her soundlessly.

“Strelitzia was fastidious,” the woman uttered wearily, adjusting her cape. “Marcus had to promise her that next time she too will go out to the guests. And only then did she fall asleep. Well, what a stubborn creature...”

Elena took a breath and, tracking her niece’s fixed gaze, fell silent. Below, the servants were neatly and carefully loading into the luxurious carriage dispatched from the palace that very same painting the king had selected today.