The pitter-patter against the window caught Catherine's attention–had it just started? Or had she simply not noticed earlier?
The young lady wasn't particularly observant of her surroundings currently, her mind was ablaze with all the possibilities, outcomes, and consequences of her future actions.
Catherine had set out to formulate a plan, but it wasn't as straightforward as she thought. She realized that there were a hell of a lot of things to consider merely as a simple baseline.
From there it only got worse, no doubt every "problem" she created would branch off creating a spiderweb of issues. This situation would've been complicated on the face of it, but on top of that nobility, royalty, and arranged weddings–the whole thing was a veritable minefield.
Due to this, the pieces of paper strewn across Catherine's desk remained blank, and her feather pen dry.
The noblewoman planned to put her thoughts on paper to consolidate her schemes better, but her mind was so jumbled that writing any of it down would've been nigh incomprehensible even to her.
The gravity of the entire predicament had put her in a stupor for at least a few hours, fortunately, the sound of rain finally jarred her loose from it.
The Blackwood girl decided it would be better just to start somewhere, she might as well, there was no way to know how events might change after meddling with the "plot."
Catherine had some idea, but the villainess romancing the heroine was completely uncharted territory. So focusing too much on what might happen only served to stall forward progress.
Alright, let's start simple–blocking the suitors' advances. So–who'll be the easiest?
She didn't have to think long on that one. By far the simplest person to bar would be Oscar Wraith.
Considering he was the quintessential tsundere archetype, Oscar would need coaxing to come out of his shell. All Catherine would need to do is ensure that never happened, to this end she wondered if there was anything she needed to do differently.
Catherine had thoroughly embarrassed the man on the first day of school, and she'd continued to antagonize him for the last few days.
The young noble decided that her current modus operandi was enough for now, and if he showed any signs of opening up–she'd simply ramp up the bullying.
Catherine wondered if Oscar liked Alice whatsoever at this point. She hadn't given the caring girl any chance to rebuke Oscar's vitriol with kindness, so if that was the impetus of a kindling romance they were in the clear.
It would be nice if that were the case, but Catherine suspected that In Oscar's little pea brain, his debasing Alice was akin to making a first move.
She scribbled on the paper a condensed version of her thoughts to get the points across, content with moving on from Oscar.
It would only get more difficult from here, the next set of suitors was less straightforward to deal with. Firstly there was the prince–his involvement was particularly complicated because it was so intertwined with Catherine herself.
Luckily, completely by accident, she'd already set the stage for keeping Isaiah away from Alice merely by being friendly with the out-of-place commoner. Simply not being an adversary to the purported heroine put Catherine ahead.
It was somewhat understandable to steal away someone's precious lover if said person tortured you each and every day, but anyone who wasn't utterly wicked would think twice about doing it to a friend.
Still, Catherine couldn't completely rely on that–there was still the possibility that the prince could charm Alice to his side given some time and effort. Luckily she broke Alice's initial illusion of "prince charming" almost immediately, which no doubt garnered some points in her favor in keeping him away from the commoner girl.
However, in Catherine's professing that there was no love between the prince and her, there was all the more reason for Isaiah and Alice to get together. After all, the hard feelings would be minimal from their perspective.
The noble girl ruminated on whether or not she should've kept the facade of a loving courtship going to keep the prince more off limits–she'd more or less blabbed the tale of woe to Alice without thinking, ultimately though, Catherine decided it was for the best.
The prince would ultimately dump her anyway, trying to hold on to Isaiah to keep him in line would only be delaying the inevitable.
Besides this whole business would no doubt necessitate holding the truth from Alice, and if Catherine could avoid lying to the girl's face–she'd like to go with that option whenever possible.
It was all well and good to contemplate on the current progress of the situation, but it was quickly dawning on her that aside from the groundwork she'd already laid, no clear plan to stop the prince in his tracks was manifesting.
The same went for Emil Fairfax the other "love interest" she needed to worry about. The enigmatic suitor's eccentricities were hard to predict, and truth be told she hadn't a clear picture as to avoid garnering his attention.
His interests in women were vague at best, at best you could sum up as, "wanting someone who went against the grain."
Catherine vaguely knew what that meant in terms of a binary set of opinions in a video game, but what did it mean now that Emil was a real person? Furthermore, how could she stop Alice from becoming a more–for lack of a better term, "interesting" person?
The commoner was already plenty interesting. Catherine may have been a bit biased in the matter, but anyone could recognize the uniqueness of Alice's situation.
It could be that Emil already had his curiosity piqued and was waiting on further evidence before he made a move.
Suddenly Catherine realized something.
Wouldn't anyone conclude that someone was going against the grain if they were friends with…me?
Catherine groaned at the idea that her actions may have already set Emil upon Alice.
Pouting about wouldn't help. What's done was done, she wasn't even entirely sure that Fairfax was interested, but at any rate, it was better to be prepared. Otherwise, getting caught off guard could prove to be disastrous.
So what was to be done about either of the two suitors? There wasn't a clear line of attack for either of them–at least not one Catherine could see.
Her elegant solution? Play keep away. Not much of a plan by anyone's measure, but Catherine had a trick up her sleeve–there was another party that could help her in the task, one Silas Carter.
In the game, Silas was Catherine's partner in crime, and she used him to further the goal of stamping out the uppity heroine. Of course, Silas didn't have any investment in giving Alice grief, he was just in it for the money.
The Carters were a noble family on the poorer side, given that Silas had been attempting to raise his station in life by what one might call–shadier means.
He'd set out to create an organization that would fulfill less than reputable tasks, I.E thugs for hire under the guise of legitimate enterprise–like a proto version of the Pinkertons or any such similar organizations.
That was the ultimate goal anyway, right now it was little more than a gang, and a small one at that. They engaged in petty little disputes here and there, mostly at the behest of other students.
Catherine wasn't originally planning to call upon Silas' services at all. His original purpose, a tool to bully Alice, was incredibly dangerous. It was his involvement that eventually led to Lady Blackwood's trip to the slammer–Silas too, but Catherine was far less concerned with that.
The truth was she needed his help now. While it was the case that Catherine shared most of her classes with Alice, there were still two periods where she didn't, and one of those included the prince.
Beyond that Catherine couldn't guarantee she'd be able to keep track of the suitors outside of the designated periods–a network of spies would assuredly be a massive boon to her efforts.
On top of that, it was necessary to deal with Elise.
Catherine looked at the clock, it was late–no doubt Alice's childhood friend had arrived.
She knew little about the poorer noble–her role in the game was minimal, but she likely had a huge influence over her friend.
If Elise could convince Alice that being friends with her with bad news the whole thing would be over in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, Catherine had to bide her time on this one. Getting rid of a friend of many years wasn't going to be easy. She had to hope Silas and his gang could extract some dirt, preferably some that would allow her to keep Elise under her thumb.
She'd cover the details with Silas himself, it was almost certainly too much to map out tonight.
Catherine looked down at the once-clean sheets of paper. Despite her initial outset of keeping a neat, orderly outline of her plans, most of what lined the sheets was pure gobbledygook.
She sighed.
Whatever–it's enough to serve as a reference, at least.
Catherine got up to stretch her legs, she moseyed about, still dwelling on her plans. After circling the room several times she noticed the news-paper on her dresser.
She'd initially asked Elizabeth to bring her the herald when she was still laid up in bed, figuring it would be a helpful tool.
It turned out to be quite the opposite. She found it thoroughly unhelpful and lost interest in pouring over them almost immediately, but it seems Elizabeth never got the memo, never failing to bring Catherine today's edition.
She'd occasionally glance over them as a momentary distraction, but it was almost always the case that there was very little worth reading. This time, however, the front headline caught her eye–she'd hoped to be mistaken, but deep down she knew she wasn't.
The noble strode over to the paper, snatching it in her hands.
"Ulciscor suspected in the firebombing of gentleman's club," read the headline.
Catherine's breath had been taken from her–maybe it was residing in the newly formed pit in her stomach.
"God damnit'," Catherine said under her breath.
Ulcisor–in a similar situation to Silas she'd never bothered formulating a plan on dealing with them. What would be the point? Her game counterpart never had anything to do with them, why would she?
Well, whether she liked it or not they needed to be dealt with, and unlike her rivals in vying for Alice's affection this affair could cost her life.
Catherine flipped the page over quickly–she'd deal with them, but not tonight she couldn't spare the brain power.
The girl idly flipped through the paper before landing on the classifieds.
Oh, there's a new bookstore open.
Catherine looked closer at the address.
Natalia ave? That neighborhood's a tad rough for a bookstore, I can't imagine business would be booming.
Despite the potential for dangers, her curiosity was piqued. She'd take the proper measures.
I'll ask Edgar to escort me, that ought to make anyone think twice.
Well it was settled, she'd take care of her business with Silas tomorrow then she'd give herself a break with a trip to the mysterious bookstore.
Catherine yawned, looking at the clock it appeared that another hour had passed and the weight of exhaustion dropped on top of her like a ton of bricks.
She suspected that tomorrow was going to be a very long day.