The punishment for attempting to assassinate royalty is the death penalty, which isn’t surprising. You’d expect that sort of thing even nowadays. Monica instantly jumps to Casey’s defense, however, because she’s too much of a cinnamon roll. In a way, I don’t want Casey to die either, but my reason is very different from Monica’s: I simply don’t support capital punishment. Beyond that, I don’t really have any sympathy for our would-be assassin. I can’t get past the fact that she was willing to murder someone. Had Monica not interfered, Casey would’ve succeeded in taking a life because she saw Felix as the Duke’s puppet. Not like he’s Hitler or anything. A puppet. Even if she was right, she’s targeting someone for being manipulated. Hell, multiple people in that barn probably would’ve died as collateral damage. The way I see it, there’s something fundamentally wrong with Casey and people like her.

Not surprisingly, Monica manages to convince Louis to show a bit of clemency. Instead of an interrogation (read: torture) followed by an execution, he’ll send Casey off to a monastery where she’ll supposedly spend the rest of her life. What, no parole in this universe? Still, that’s better than dying. Way, way better. And yet, Casey won’t apologize or show any gratitude. Rather, she wants Monica to forget all about her. If you want to be charitable, then I suppose you can read this as her trying to spare Monica from the pain of losing a friend. If Monica hated her instead, then it would be no big deal for Casey to disappear. But of course, our cinnamon roll can’t hate Casey, so our heroine breaks down in tears. I’m not as charitable, and I guess I never saw them as being all that close. Casey hasn’t been involved in the story enough to merit such an emotional response. I don’t feel that it’s earned.

Plus, the story wasn’t going to kill her anyway. Not a chance. There are anime series that are willing to cross that line, and this isn’t one of them. Secrets of the Silent Witch belongs in the group that would keep a character alive as long as they’re cute. Lots of anime are like this, so it’s not a huge mark of shame or anything. For instance, I can’t see Dandadan killing off any of its cute characters either.

The rest of the episode more or less tries to justify Monica being a softie. As such, Lana tells our heroine, “You don’t need a reason to be kind to your friends.” Even if they are wannabe murderers, I guess. Meanwhile, Felix indirectly encourages Monica to reconnect with Casey in the future through horse riding. Well, maybe our attempted murderer will have repented by then. Last but not least, even though Elliot uses a chess move that he never taught her, Monica says she can’t bring herself to be angry with him (and thus Casey). Which, of course, prompts a flashback where, not surprisingly, Elliot was kind of a dick to a younger Felix. It’s the wildest thing. Apparently, Elliot looked down on Felix for being weak, so he bullied him for it. For example, daring the prince to climb a tree just to fetch a book. And even though Felix almost died from the incident, he uttered those same words about not being able to find a reason to be mad at people who are horrible to us. Sigh, I get it. Even though she’s a murderer, we just can’t find a reason to be mad at Casey. Uh huh. What if she wasn’t cute, though? I’m just sayin’, if an ugly character had tried to assassinate the prince, would we still be so kind?

Anyway, I guess the story is still teasing a potential Monica/Cyril pairing by having her unknowingly lean on him near the end of the episode. Cyril still comes off as a complete stiff, so I don’t support it. He’s just so boring. Usually in these stories, the primary love interest is the prince. Like sure, our girlie can have her harem of cute boys, but the guy who gets most of the spotlight will belong to royalty or some similar status. After all, that’s the classic and painfully generic fairy tale romance. But this series’ narrative has mostly kept Felix at arm’s length. Despite being the person that Monica needs to protect, she doesn’t actually spend all that much time with him. Relatively speaking, of course. As a result, we don’t know him as a person all that well. Sure, there have been some breadcrumbs here or there, but so far, Felix wouldn’t make a great partner for her either.

But maybe that’s about to change. Felix eavesdrops on Louis early in the episode and finds out that the Silent Witch has been protecting him. He seems to have a thing for the powerful mage despite not realizing that she’s been besides him all this time. And that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? He doesn’t know her at all; he’s just obsessed with the idea of her. Nevertheless, maybe the story will focus more on the prince going forward. Is that why Monica got one-on-one time with him during her horse riding course? He was almost whispering in her ear the way he talked to her. Well, there isn’t much time left in the season if the show wants to portray him as a viable candidate. Better hustle if you wanna make it meaningful.