I'd Give Up The World For You

Silas wasn't sure what to make of that. It was perhaps the most interesting compliment he had ever gotten. Elaine was a strange girl.

"Thank you for your kind words, Miss Fairweather. May I escort you wherever you plan to go next?" he asked politely, hoping beyond hope that she worked in the palace so he wasn't wasting his time.

She smiled at him again so the reddish apples of her cheeks were especially prominent. "I would be delighted. Thank you, Captain Conrad."

And so Silas found himself on a date for the first time since before he went to Zel. He wasn't sure what to make of Elaine as they continued walking around and talking. She had been rather bold earlier but was now acting like a meek little sheep. Which one was her true personality?

It didn't particularly matter until after dinner when she asked him to drop her off near part of the castle gate and he watched her slip inside. His time today had not been in vain! He needed to continue pursuing this girl.

Perhaps tomorrow during his free time he should drop off something from the bakery with a note for her. At the very least he needed to let her know he was interested in seeing her again.

Silas headed back to the barracks and found a few of his men discussing their attempted romantic endeavors today. It seemed only Ermes and Dudley were successful. Harland had tried but ended up chatting with a girl who worked in town rather than in the palace. Everyone else fell flat.

"What about you, Captain?" Ferguson asked.

"I ended up buying flowers for a girl who works in the palace. Not sure which part of it but I did see her go in the gate after I dropped her off toward the servants entrance," he replied with a shrug. "Not sure if anything will come of it. I'm going to reach out tomorrow. Ermes, Dudley, you do the same."

They both nodded and the conversation went back to how pretty the girls they had talked to were and what sort of girls the others were interested in. Silas thought back on Elaine and her pretty but forgettable features.

She was no Veronica May and had been wearing an artful amount of makeup, likely to try and compensate for that. That was fine though. Single as he may feel around his friend, this wasn't about finding love. It was about getting information.

Who knows? Maybe he would get lucky and she would turn out to be more interesting than he originally thought. It would be all too convenient if he managed to kill two birds with one stone on this assignment.

===

"Elaine, there's a letter for you!" the laundry mistress called irritably.

"Another one?" Mitzi asked, practically turning green with envy. "You've gotten something every day for weeks!"

Elaine had a smug air about her as she replied. "What can I say? Tell a man what he wants to hear and he'll be all over you. I told you I don't care about something as frivolous as love. Captain Conrad is my way out of here."

Juliet barely refrained from rolling her eyes. She actually felt sorry for the poor schmuck. It had been about a month since the two of them met and they saw each other every time they had a day off.

He seemed to be sincerely interested in her considering how much money he was pouring into presents. On the days he didn't send something from the bakery or some sort of small accessory he sent letters. That was an awful lot of effort from someone who wasn't serious. And Elaine didn't seem to care about him at all.

"Do you even like Captain Conrad?" Amaya asked skeptically.

"Of course I like him. He's decent company and more importantly he's polite. He asks a lot about my interests too, which is more than most men do," Elaine said with a shrug. "I'll be very lucky to marry such a man."

"…aren't you getting ahead of yourself?" Juliet cut in before realizing what came out of her mouth.

They all turned to look at her like she was stupid though Mitzi was the one who spoke up. "Courting leads to marriage with any decent sort of gentleman. It's only a matter of time before he asks. Have you been living under a rock or what?"

She had been living on another planet. One where most relationships ended before reaching marriage. Since she couldn't explain that to them, she had to casually brush this off.

"I suppose so."

"Honestly, Juliet! All you care about is socks. You don't know anything about romance," Mitzi said dismissively.

Juliet nearly snorted because one of the things people loved most about her book was the romance between two of the main characters. She had been praised for a realistic yet adorable relationship development in the midst of bigger plot points.

"Don't insult my socks. Those are my way out of here. Not a person."

Elaine was unbothered by the jab. "We all do what we have to in order to survive. You have fun with your socks. I'll be the mistress of my own home without having to work myself to death."

Juliet didn't want to work herself to death either but she had to get out of here and warn her main characters what was going on with Rukelion Blaze. With any luck, she would be able to stop him before he took over this world.

She wasn't feeling very lucky though. She had no new leads on where he was at this point in the story or even who the mystery singer was since she hadn't been to Veronica's place since before her husband got home. It seemed the two of them were off in their own little love bubble, which made sense considering they were still newlyweds.

Sending a barely married man off to fight in a war was brutal. She was glad Veronica got him back home in one piece.

If she was being honest, Juliet missed eating dinner at her place. She missed having a higher quality of food, someone to talk to other than people she saw all day every day, and being able to get knitting help whenever she needed it.

Disrupting newlyweds was not something she wanted to do though. Goodness knows she had been a third wheel more than enough in her life already! Butting in on their time together would not be cool.

Her excuse to hang out in that neighborhood was gone now and that was a problem but it wasn't worth invading a love nest. From the way Veronica talked about her husband it was plain as day that he meant more to her than anything. She definitely didn't need to get in the way of that.

Love was in the air for so many people around Juliet—a lot of the scullery maids and nursery maids sharing the same living quarters were dating these days too—and it was seriously starting to get to her. These people didn't understand that the apocalypse wasn't far off! Dating should be the last thing on their minds!

It sucked that she was the only one who knew the end of the world was coming and had no power to do anything about it. She needed more money but her sock sales didn't yield as much as she had hoped since she still had to rent the stall and buy the yarn.

Ugh, she needed to get out of here! She could get another job closer to the academy or maybe become a teacher there. She did have a literature degree and had been considering getting a teacher's license before getting her HR job.

Juliet had created this world. She was certainly smart enough to teach in it.

She couldn't deny she was looking forward to meeting her main characters. It would be a lot of fun if it wasn't so urgent.

Unfortunately, this was a matter of life and death for an awful lot of people. Herself included. She may not agree with all of the frivolous thoughts her laundry room coworkers had but she didn't want them to die either.

The castle was going to be all but demolished when Rukelion invaded it. Servants would die along with the royal family in the purge. Even regular civilians out in the capital would die as a result of his one-sided "fight" with the royal army. Everyone she had met here would most likely perish if she didn't stop him!

Juliet didn't want that. She wanted Mitzi to find love, Veronica to be able to live happily ever after with her husband after getting him back, Elaine to have the cushy yet practical life she wanted, and Amaya to accomplish her dream of designing and creating accessories for working class women.

All of the people she had met had actual personalities and lives of their own within the framework of what she had created. She supposed not everyone could be a nameless extra.

Her no-longer-nameless-extra acquaintances deserved to live as much as she did.. She had to find a way to put an end to the madness before it truly began. If only she knew where Rukelion Blaze was right now!