You Owe Me One

Ciel was the first to wake up and find himself in a cell surrounded by the passed out Erin, Cedric, and Dominic.

He hummed discontentedly as he looked around. Before being knocked unconscious, he had sensed something wrong but hadn't been able to hold his breath long enough to outlast whatever drug was put over his face. 

His cat-like eyes gave off an icy blue glow as they reflected the light in the dimly lit cell room. 

'They took my blindfold. Oh well, at least it's not that bright in here.' 

After Lilian gave him a thorough examination, he had confirmed that Ciel's eyes had developed some sort of strange condition where he had excellent night vision but in exchange, Ciel would slowly get headaches, piercing head pain, and temporary blindness if he looked at even slightly bright lights directly. That included normal sunlight, and the symptoms would slowly emerge the longer his eyes were exposed to the lights.

Ciel had attributed it to spending nine years in complete darkness and threw it to the back of his mind. At least it was helpful now in this room where the only lighting was a single torch the size of a candle.

Ciel tried to summon the weapons he had bought from Taq, but then realized he couldn't use mana. His space ring couldn't be accessed at all.

'Is it the collar?' He remembered the sensation of a collar being wrapped around his neck before he fainted. Other than that and the ropes, there were no additional accessories on him. 

'It must have some sort of array engraved on it to restrict mana.' Ciel rotated his neck, the collar was made from some sort of leather, or at least it felt like leather.

'Good, at least it's not metal.' Ciel tried to sit up, accidentally kicking Dominic with his tied up feet in the process. 

Dominic was kicked awake. "Ow!" 

He was surprised to see a pair of ghostly blue eyes staring straight at him in the dim cell. 

"..!" He quickly sat up, only to fall off balance because his hands were tied behind his back. He quickly remembered what was going on.

"As expected of the third fis–cough cough, of the crown prince. You woke up pretty quickly." Ciel almost let slip what he called Dominic in his head.

"What did you call me?" Dominic momentarily forgot the situation and narrowed his eyes. 

Ciel smoothly ignored him. 

"Dearest crown prince, it seems that our mana is being restricted by the collars around our necks. What do you think of our situation?"

"Don't think you can—" Cedric was unconscious, so Dominic stopped restricting his pettiness. Even though he had tried to restrain this dislike, the maid boy was not a partner like Jadiel nor a friend like Cedric. He had no need to tolerate his rudeness any further.

But he was quickly interrupted.

"As the rising sun of Anatol, can your highness think of anyone who would kidnap him this brazenly? Or maybe this wasn't premeditated?" 

"You–" 

"Collars that have arrays engraved on them must be expensive. So the kidnappers have a rich backer. Perhaps some previous first prince's supporters?" Ciel mused out loud. 

"What–"

"Or there's been human trafficking going on for some time and we just happened to be unlucky?" Ciel fully laid out his thoughts and finally gave Dominic a chance to speak.

Dominic glared daggers at Ciel. Even if he later on became the king who had a share in the largest merchant organization on the continent of Anatol, he was still a kid. Ciel, a reincarnator, shamelessly used his mental age advantage to suppress the young prince. 

Looking at the harmless smile on the maid boy's face like he had done nothing wrong, Dominic felt stifled and defeated.

Seeing that the third fish had no opinions to add, Ciel continued talking, "By the way, should I expect your guards to come crashing in at any time?"

Dominic remained silent. The fact that he didn't bring any guards to Fatalite because it was supposed to be covert was a lie. The real reason was that because of him ascending to his position, many staunch supporters of either the first or second prince from the royal palace were causing trouble. 

They clearly knew that his ascension to the throne was inevitable but they were just taking the opportunity to pressure him. As a result, all the manpower in the palace was mobilized to quell the chaos. Dominic clearly haven't gained enough supporters to stabilize his position yet.

'Damn those two, why'd they have to kill each other so early?' He had only pretended to have everything under control in front of Cedric. In fact, he had no idea what had come over his two older brothers when they killed each other. 

Ciel took his silence as a no.

  "Pfft." 

He stifled his snicker. 

The crown prince was kidnapped yet no one was coming to save him. Ciel bet ten coppers that the palace servants didn't even know the third fish was missing yet. It was funny but sad at the same time.

Dominic calmly shoved his rising irritation into a corner of his mind. The first priority was to get out of here, other things could wait until later. 

"You're talking as if you have a way to escape."

"I do." Ciel spread his hands out. 

"To escape your bindings, you have to first untie your feet, then cut the collar off. I'll go free Erin first." Saying this, he finished untying his feet before heading off to untie the unconscious Erin. 

Meanwhile, Dominic stared, his mind momentarily blanking out.

"Wait wait wait, I think you skipped a step there. Aren't your hands tied?" 

"Ah, just untie them." Ciel's main weapon of choice was cards, so he naturally trained his hands everyday even if he didn't do actual physical training. He also had naturally long and slender fingers even as a child. Untying his bound wrists was a piece of cake for his flexible fingers. 

'It was that easy?' 

Dominic twisted his hands and… his fingers couldn't even touch the rope binding his wrists. 

"F*ck."

"Little crown prince, are you not done yet?" Now in the process of untying Cedric, Ciel looked over, his questioning blue eyes seemed to be mocking Dominic. He was incredibly fast when using his hands.

Dominic gritted his teeth, "Help me." 

Ciel chuckled, leisurely walking over to Dominic's side. Just as he was going to start untying him, he quickly froze as the sounds of heavy footsteps coming towards their way. Thinking fast, he speedily re-tied Cedric and Erin before tying his feet. He didn't have enough time to tie his hands so he just laid down on his back, pretending to be sleeping.

"Are these new flowers?" A gruff voice was heard.

"Yes yes, our men received anonymous intelligence that a rare eve child was roaming the capital with a few other children. We acted quickly after authenticating it and here they are. The child with straight black hair is confirmed to be a winged serpent but as for the others, I'm not sure. They must've hidden their beastly traits with some devious means. No human child would interact with eves." Another voice was clearly trying to please the first voice. 

"You did well." The cell door opened and someone stepped in. Ciel acted like a limp fish as his face was lifted up. 

"Such a pretty flower, it'll definitely sell well next week." Ciel's head was gently placed down. The one lifting him up must've not wanted to damage the goods. 

The footsteps stopped beside Ciel, and he felt a strange thrill that only happened when he sensed something interesting. 

As usual, Ciel's intuition was correct.

"F*ck, well, isn't this a familiar face?" A mana fluctuation spread out. Ciel pretended to turn over in his sleep, and opened his eyes by a slit.

Dominic's hair was a beautiful red under the dim torch a masked man held. His bracelet had slipped off earlier, and was now lying quietly on the ground. 

Looking at the bracelet, Ciel's mind turned over quietly.

"Isn't this our newest crown prince? What is he doing here?" The masked man sharply turned back to the other masked man outside the cell. 

"Crown prince? What's he doing with those savages?" The masked man outside the door asked.

"How would I know?" The first man sounded irritated, "Norama's heir is here too. How do you choose your guys? You kidnapped two of the future pillars for the kingdom! How are we supposed to explain this when they wake up? Ah sorry, we accidentally kidnapped you thinking you were eves but you'll be able to go back right away? They can't even be sold because no one would buy such a hot potato!"

"Then what do we do?" 

"Shut up and let me think." 

As Ciel listened, his grin getting harder and harder to hide as he listened to the two men spinning an absurd plot. 

They would pretend to save the third fish and Cedric but sell him and Erin. The reason that was going to be told to Dominic and Cedric was that both Erin and Ciel were working with traitors planning to kidnap the two children and intentionally used their age to get closer to the two aristocratic boys. They would then take the opportunity to introduce their backer to the boys and have the boys support them in slavery. 

At this point, Ciel had to restrain himself from laughing. Maybe the first part would succeed if the third fish wasn't awake, but with both boys' personalities, the second part was impossible. 

"Bring those two to a different area and set this place on fire in two hours." The first masked man lifted up Cedric and Dominic and hung them over each of his shoulders like sacks of rice. 

"Yes." The other masked man bowed towards the leaving back of the first man. 

As they left, Dominic opened his eyes to peek back just in time to see that behind the second masked man, Ciel had sat up in the cell and was waving gently. 

His gem-like blue eyes curved beautifully as he smiled, but in the darkness, his eyes were indifferent to the extreme. Dominic understood the words he was mouthing silently.

'Goodbye little crown prince. See you later.'

Then, Ciel lifted two pale fingers up to his lips and made a zipping motion before continuing. 

'Remember, you owe me one.'