The meal was finished. The three maids from earlier came over and fixed the Queen's makeup. I had thought they were only guards, but I was surprised to see they could perform ordinary maid duties as well. So they had stopped pretending to be strangers to the Queen.
When the Queen stood up, every gaze in the restaurant gathered on her at once. It was extremely unnatural, but there was no point in worrying about that now. In the kitchen, Browning-sensei's wife wore a face as if her soul had left her body. Like a haniwa clay figurine?
Today the Queen said nothing about payment and simply left the shop. If this were Japan, someone would probably say "No charge, please just take a group photo with the staff" and then ask for an autograph on colored paper as well.
Outside, people were walking sparsely, and the sky was a clear, piercing blue. Christine and Anisee seemed to have been only background noise for the restaurant and were not following us.
