Cursed by others as a "witch", Evris, the youngest daughter of the House of Bradley, is engaged to Mark, the fifth prince of the Kingdom of Klengel. When he abruptly announces that their engagement is broken off, Evris is plunged into despair. However, someone reaches out to her instead... The cross-dressing crown prince (♀) of a neighboring country!?
This is the story of a red-haired witch who manipulates shadows and a cross-dressing crown prince (♀) who is serving as a body double for her missing older brother.
The curtain rises on a fantasy romantic comedy of a girl being teased by a princess!
The Engagement of the Disgraced Witch and the Cross-Dressing Princess provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Despite her rather ditzy nature, Ciel establishes herself at being adept at using the sword.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Lillian is secretly in love with Evris herself, but never told her due to the stigma against same-sex relationships. Instead, she decided to do anything she could to ensure Evris' happiness.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Evris asks Ciel why the crown ‘Prince’ of another nation would propose to her, Ciel reveals she couldn’t stand the idea of leaving someone like Evris to live in misery. Shortly after Ciel tells Evris that, she quickly realizes that she has been holding back her emotions. Evris begins crying shortly afterwards because she can't bring herself to hold herself back anymore.
- Bridal Carry: The cover of the first chapter depicts Ciel carrying Evris in this manner.
- Cannot Spit It Out: When Evris asks Lillian just why the latter is so dedicated to her personal happiness, Lillian refuses to tell her. Once she leaves, Lillian thinks to herself that it's because she's in love with Evris.
- Chick Magnet: When disguised as a prince, Evris noted that a number of female nobles were hoping to become engaged to 'him'.
- Cleavage Window: Evris is depicted as wearing a dress like this during a party in Chapter 3.
- Color Failure: Evris is depicted as going through this when she finds out that 'Prince' Ciel is actually the girl that she helped out earlier.
- Condescending Compassion: This turns out to be a major issue with Lillian.
- Lillian does, in fact, care about Evris, to the point of treating her happiness as her top priority. However, due to her belief that "it is the duty of a prince to protect a poor princess," she takes unilateral actions (like breaking up Evris' engagement to Mark) that she believes will lead to Evris being happy, without taking Evris' actual thoughts, feelings, or personality into consideration.
- When a horse goes berserk during the party the three are attending, Lillian's first and only thought is to try and protect Evris; she's outraged when she thinks Ciel ignored Evris and didn't do anything to help her. Evris, who easily dealt with the rampaging horse and caught the culprits behind the incident all by herself, corrects her: Ciel trusted Evris to take care of herself and resolve the situation. Evris goes on to explain that her ideal partnership is built on mutual trust and equal standing. Lillian takes the words to heart, realizes that Evris isn't someone who needs constant protection, and makes peace with Evris and Ciel's relationship.
- Cry into Chest: In the first chapter, Evris cries into Ciel’s chest after she stops holding back her emotions between the discrimination she's faced, being mistreated by her family, and being betrayed by Lillian.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Ciel easily defeats Mark in a duel to claim Evris as her bride.
- When Lillian arrives at Ciel's castle to try and take Evris home with her, she easily knocks out the guards who attempt to stop her.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite betraying Evris, Lillian believes Mark forcing Evris to become his servant is going too far. This becomes subverted once it's revealed just why Lillian betrayed her.
- For Your Own Good: This is revealed to be the reason Lillian "stole" Mark from Evris. Lillian does genuinely care about Evris and wants her to be happy, and also recognized that Mark was too much of a jerk to ever be a good match for Evris. She deliberately broke up the engagement to spare Evris an unhappy relationship and hopefully set her up with the much nicer Ciel (not being aware of Ciel's true gender at the time). However, she never actually told Evris about any of this, making it look like she betrayed her trust for no good reason.
- Once she finds out Ciel is actually a woman, Lillian goes to Ciel's castle and tries to take Evris home with her, refusing to believe that a woman could actually make Evris happy.
- Foreshadowing: For any readers that didn’t read the summary, it became abundantly clear Ciel and the girl Evris helped are the same person. Evris tells the girl where she is going, and shortly after Mark nearly forced Evris to become his servant, Ciel arrives on the scene.
- Heir Club for Men: Implied to be the case due to Ciel dressing up as a man and supposedly being first in line for the throne when she is apparently acting as a body double for her older twin brother who is MIA.
- Hypocrite: When Lillian confronts Ciel over secretly being a woman, she accuses her of being a fraud and seemingly expects Evris to agree with her. Evris calls her out on this, pointing out that Lillian really has no business calling someone else a fraud after betraying Evris' trust the way she did.
- Karmic Jackpot: Evris helps out a girl and her entourage when their wagon is stuck. This leads to said girl quickly falling for her, making Evris her fiancé, and promising to make Evris her Empress.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Mark breaking up his engagement to Evris leads to Evris encountering Ciel's broken carriage, which she uses her magic to lift up. That, in turn, leads to Ciel deciding to propose to Evris in front of both Mark and Lillian, which subsequently led to Ciel easily defeating and humiliating Mark in swordsmanship.
- Meet the In-Laws: In Chapter Three, Ciel introduces Evris to her parents, but their reaction to the fact Evris has dark magic similar to their son appears to make them feel uneasy.
- Most Common Superpower: Ciel apparently will have power capable of being the most powerful Empress, and she is an extremely skilled swordsman. In addition to this, she has the biggest bust out of all the females introduced so far.
- Nice to the Waiter:
- Ciel is depicted as being nice to her servants as well as being courteous to people of lower standing of her, such as Lillian.
- Interestingly, the servants of the Bradley estate treat Evris with disdain due to her being born from a concubine. Evris is shown to get along with Ciel’s servants after moving in with her.
- Rags to Riches: Evris goes from a noble on the verge of being disinherited and forced to work as the servant of her ex-fiancé to becoming the fiancé of the 'crown prince' of a neighboring company that apparently is much larger than her country by comparison.
- Open Secret: While the public and most of noble society is unaware of Ciel’s identity, apparently some members of the nobility are aware which led to Prince Mark being aware of it.
- Riches to Rags: After her engagement with Prince Mark is broken, Evris is threatened by her father that he would remove her from the family due to being a failure. Luckily, this is averted by Ciel who takes her as her fiancé, and she goes on to live in a large palace.
- Rescue Romance: The premise of the series is Ciel rescuing Evris from her unfortunate circumstances.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The end of the first chapter makes it clear that crossdressing, specifically changing out of her attire, is quite painful for Ciel.
- The Unfavorite: Evris' father doesn't make it a secret he doesn't care much for Evris partly due to her being an illegitimate child. After her engagement is broken off by Mark, he doesn't hesitate to call her a failure even though the circumstances were beyond her control.
- There Is Only One Bed: In the fourth chapter, Evris is embarrassed by the idea of sharing a bed with Ciel.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: The first chapter ends with Evris finding out the 'prince' she is engaged with is actually a 'princess' that was in disguise.
- We Used to Be Friends: It is quickly established that Lillian used to be Evris' friend before she became Mark's replacement fiancé. It becomes played with later, however, since Lillian does still genuinely think of herself as Evris' friend. Evris and Lillian reconcile to an extent in Chapter 3.
- Wholesome Cross Dresser: Ciel dresses up as a man to take her brother's place. It is established at the end of Chapter 1 that crossdressing is painful for Ciel.
- Yuri Genre: It is quickly established this manga belongs to the Yuri genre as the title is literally about the engagement between Evris and Ciel along with their developing relationship.
