"Why are you thanking me?" Morgana shook her head lightly, her tone calm. "You're the one who designed and brought this academy into existence. You're free to come here whenever you wish. And besides… I'm genuinely happy to spend some time with a sister!"
Morgana truly was smiling from the depths of her heart, not the polite smile of a Monarch, but a rare, sincere one.
The academy itself was never short on girls, yet all of them were either students bound by discipline or followers bound by hierarchy. She could never speak freely with any of them without risking the erosion of her authority. Emily, however—despite being extremely young in her eyes, and by all measures even rather weak—possessed authority among His Majesty's followers that rivaled Morgana's own. Only she, along with a very small and exceptional number of girls, could stand before Morgana and speak to her not as a subordinate, but as a friend.
