Found Sleeping Beauty (7) - Sienna's POV

Henry awkwardly grabbed onto Luke's hands to buy some time for Rika to take her turn. Rika immediately turned to sprint towards the garden, getting his signal. Luke's scary eyes slid down to his hands before looking up to study his face. He turned his head, instantly noticing Rika was missing from the circle.

I shivered as I already anticipated how hard it would be to cover for Rika. Even Henry's smile was beginning to slightly falter as we both noticed Luke had already realized we were working together to help Rika. Henry let go of Luke's hand as his hands faintly shook in return.

"This is how close fellow members in the same fractions are," Henry quickly made a poor excuse.

"We're like this with everyone," I gulped as I grabbed one of Luke's hands to support Henry.

"Can you give us a moment to have a private conversation?" Luke asked our classmates.

For the first time, I hoped my classmates would stay and continue to pester us. It was better than being left with Luke and Henry. Sneaking a glance at Henry, it was obvious he was thinking the same thing as he stepped a few steps away from Luke.

However, our classmates smiled, saying they would wait for us in the garden. I stepped closer near Henry as Luke immediately stopped smiling as soon as they were out of sight. Henry's usual arrogance disappeared as Luke walked towards us, close enough that whatever we said in the conversation wouldn't be heard by others.

"Can I know what is going on?" His intimidating voice slid into our ears.

"Rika messaged us that she had to go to the garden to check on the decorations," I placed all my hopes in my acting skills.

"Since you've known us for some time, you know why I worry for her," Luke's voice softened, noticing how tense we were.

"Rika attracts trouble to the point that every second matters," he explained.

I poked Henry's ribs as I noticed he was almost starting to give into Luke. It wasn't like we could disagree from all the things we went through together. Not even a month had passed since Rika was seconds away from death.

We became speechless from Luke's effective words as I elbowed Henry to counterattack. There was still fifty more minutes left until her turn ended. Henry took a long breath to return to a calmer state before facing Luke. In a sense, it made Luke more suspicious of us.

"I understand. But I think it's important to give her some freedom," Henry came up with a horrible argument.

He was basically admitting to us covering for her. I sighed as I decided to watch how the rest would go. Worst case scenario, I would take over when it appeared like the conversation was nearing its end. It was one of the habits that my family tutors drilled into me ever since I entered kindergarten.

"But would you be able to forgive yourself for giving more freedom to your partner when she lands in great danger because of it?" Luke made a solid point.

"Rika is just checking up on the decorations," Henry repeated my excuse.

"Then please excuse me. I'll head towards the garden myself," Luke sent us an apologetic smile.

"You can't!" I blurted.

Luke was definitely going to search for Rika inside the garden. He would find her sleeping in a rough bed in no time if we let him go. I glared at Henry as we needed to keep him here as long as possible.

"We need help tending to the guests in the ballroom," I swallowed my horrible excuse as the ballroom was almost empty.

"We need to come up with more extravagant decorations since the ones in the garden won't last long," I switched my excuse.

"Do you mean the fans?" Luke knew what I was talking about.

I frantically nodded my head. I wondered how he was able to find them so fast and already understand how they worked. The Roselia family name didn't have their reputation as one of the most powerful families for nothing.

"I already charged the batteries with a spell to make sure they would never die. I also sent the same message out to most of the members in the garden," Luke already took care of everything.

So this was why Rika was almost powerless against Luke. He came up with a solution for everything in less than a second. Now, nobody would come into the ballroom with the overdone decorations in the garden.

I sighed inside my heart as this meant he knew we were covering for Rika since my decoration excuse. It was only because of pure etiquette that he wasn't leaving us alone in the large ballroom. Currently, there were no guests inside the ballroom, which we worked extremely hard to prepare. It was abandoned to the point I was starting to pity both Alice and Ben.

Delia sent me a message that both Ben and Alice were standing near the entrance of the garden instead. It couldn't be helped as the role of the main hosts was to greet all the guests. I never could have imagined that the random ideas that came to Rika and my mind would influence the event this much.

"It is quite pitiful how everyone is out in the garden," Henry agreed with my thoughts.