[A prophecy descended before the Queen of Manderley, whose beauty made even the gods jealous. It was a prophecy commanding her to spend a night with the lowest person in the world.

The capricious god is like a calamity. Nothing can be predicted, and there is no cause for anything. Humans were merely weak beings before it. Like ants dying with burst bellies at a child’s gesture.

The King was furious but soon had no choice but to search feverishly for the lowest person in the world according to the prophecy. Rivers froze, and the earth hardened. The people, facing imminent starvation, demanded the Queen’s sacrifice.]

‘I’m sorry, Madam. But… unless I do this, I cannot find her. Please… Madam, don’t leave! If you would just listen to me a little longer…!’

[The King finally found the lowest person in the world.

Night came, and in darkness deep as the abyss, the Queen wept silently. She trusted the King. No, she didn’t. Unable to trust his love, she didn’t even wonder who spent the night with her. When morning came and she confirmed the frozen ground had thawed.

The Queen threw herself from the open window, down from the spire.

“No-!”

What emerged from the deep darkness was…]

‘Madam! Please… believe what I’m saying. Madam…!’

[It was the King whom the Queen had failed to trust.

For his Queen, the King had lowered himself to the status of the lowest slave, and to hide from the gods’ eyes, he took the Queen in complete darkness without even a tiny spark of light.

The King wanted to tell the Queen the truth but couldn’t. He could only pray desperately that she would trust him and hope the prophecy would pass safely.

But trust and doubt couldn’t coexist, and love without trust crumbled.

The King cried out, and the god…-]

I looked up from the book, wiping away the black ink stains smeared on the yellowed paper. Then I examined once more Vivi’s servant identification card lying next to it.

[Vivi Babette / (16)]

I couldn’t make sense of it at all. Bell Izak, who supposedly treasured this book, disappeared thirty years ago. Vivi was a girl who had just turned sixteen this year. There couldn’t possibly be any connection between them.

Yet Vivi behaved like someone who knew Bell Izak personally.

I closed the book with a thud and removed the glasses perched on my nose.

Regardless, I had no intention of scouring the entire mansion hand-in-hand with a suspicious maid. From the beginning, I was curious about only one thing: what happened to those missing women? Were they dead, or had they truly fled this mansion on their own two feet? Or perhaps…

Like the legend attached at the end of the report, had they become something else entirely?

Tap, tap. As I habitually drummed my fingertips on the stained cover, I suddenly noticed its strange, soft texture. The smooth, cool touch of leather felt like pressing palms with the dead.

My stomach lurched instantly.

My gaze dropped involuntarily. I thought of another book stored in the deepest, lowest drawer—a book once similar in material to this one, left to me by Lady Brandon.

‘It’s your ‘choice.’ You must ‘decide.’

I clutched the hand that had touched the book and stepped back.

The air was hot. The blazing fireplace made it difficult to breathe. I sank deep into the hard chair, tilted my head back, and took a deep breath. Only then did the nauseous feeling begin to subside.

It was a full moon.

A massive moon hung above the window, seemingly ready to engulf the entire sky. Its piercingly pale light dyed the blue-green maze garden in silver and blanketed the world in white.

The scene was so surreal it resembled what snowfall might look like.

Who would have thought that I, born in the warmest southern region of the kingdom, would continue my life in the coldest north?

A suspicious young maid, a Duke who never showed himself, and a Head Butler who seemed kind and gentle yet concealed her true thoughts. Surrounded by people I needed to be wary of, it would be a lie to say I didn’t miss my own people.

Though Miriam wasn’t by my side, I wanted to take a walk. When I lived in the South, I took evening walks almost daily. The garden with its lukewarm evening breeze, the hours spent in quiet conversation with Miriam, or pondering over letters from the Academy. Hours spent like that.

Just as I was about to leave after finding and putting on a thick shawl, thick gloves, and shoes lined with soft fur, my eyes caught Vivi’s book on the desk.

I recalled someone saying that magically treated text sometimes reveals hidden secrets under moonlight.

This story came from an elder in my family, so it couldn’t be entirely false. I picked up the book and headed outside where the moonlight had settled.

With each step, the thin moisture-laden grass sharply brushed against my ankles. I walked along the mansion, right and right again. Walking and walking toward the open space near the spire below where moonlight poured directly.

Since I had already prepared thoroughly to go outside, I resolved to examine the book meticulously there. Setting a goal and moving my body toward it helped clear my thoughts somewhat.

‘Brote, Ariel is sick.’

No matter how much I pleaded or tried.

Just as some things never change, like fate, I moved my legs deliberately, knowing I couldn’t stop thoughts that suddenly emerged without reason.

In that book.

It was written that a princess who had been tragically kidnapped ten years ago restored her identity and ended up with her lover, with whom she had shared love regardless of social status.

I believed in his tenderness, believed in his eyes, believed in his touch. And so, if all that wasn’t love, then nothing could be love. So this time would be different.

That’s why I desired nothing except Eric, and hid nothing from Eric except one thing. Despite believing this time would be different…

The world around me always unfolded exactly as written in that book.

So I could know without looking, without hearing, without trying to find out. What would happen next in the South I had left behind.

The thoughts surfaced so intensely because of that. Because that ending was now approaching.

“Grrr…”

In the empty clearing under moonlight. In the silent night. While the cold air caressed my cheeks like a comfort, one discordant sound mixed in.

By now, the mansion revealed its turning corner without filter, and the maze garden was already positioned far away in isolation. Suddenly,

“Awooo-!”

Where moonlight had seeped in, dense shadows began to increase in number, one by one.

“Woof.”

Though it was clearly Mike’s howling, for some reason, there wasn’t just one. Black, long shadows emerged one after another from various parts of the forest surrounding the clearing.

Had he gone mad?

Or was it an illusion caused by the full moon?

Faced with this incomprehensible situation, I hesitantly stepped back.

Directly in my line of sight stood that spire.

It might be the spire from which the Queen of Manderley had jumped, but what choice did I have?

“Awooo-…”

“Woof!”

“Grrr-“

Leaving the howling beasts behind, I dashed into the spire.

Outside the tower, dogs were barking and howling, and above was nothing but smooth darkness. Faintly, wind descended from above. I couldn’t go back outside anyway. There was only one path available. I felt like a herbivore forced to run even knowing the path ended in a trap, but…

Had staying still ever improved a situation?

I pressed against the stone wall and carefully climbed the stairs. Round and round, robbed of my sense of time and space in the darkness, I couldn’t guess how much time had passed or how many floors I had climbed. I simply ascended the path before me, again and again.

Then I discovered a door with light seeping through.

A flickering candle, a portrait of a pale-faced boy with torn edges and empty eyes. It was a cramped space containing only these things. Like a mortuary…

“My lady.”

A voice came from beyond.

“Who… encouraged my lady to climb up here?”

The voice coming from the remote darkness beyond the light’s reach was clearly looking down on me. Thud, the sound of shoes trampling the cold stone floor echoed. The man revealed himself in the light.

A man with hair so dark it was indistinguishable from shadow, with red eyes. The man who held his head high as if refusing to acknowledge me was someone I had seen before.

‘…We’ll see when you get to the North. Rondo!’

The wedding day. The very person who had taken the Duke’s magical device away from me. The Duke’s aide called Rondo.

“…Te? …Has no one told you? What day today is…”

Even though this was the North, different from the South, his words were beyond reasonable. North. Manderley. A world I didn’t know… Trying to understand and accept had reached its limit.

Even if I was merely a Duchess in name who hadn’t even spent the wedding night with the Duke, this was excessively disrespectful. “My lady,” indeed.

Even if this was a remote spire. Even if it was a space with only the man and me.

“His Excellency.”

“…What?”

“One who serves His Excellency should naturally follow His Excellency’s will. Isn’t that right? Show me proper respect. …Rondo.”

As if he had heard something amusing, the man laughed.

“My lady. Do you know how many have passed through this Manderley? How many of them do you think received treatment as a Duchess from me?”

With one swift step, the man approached right before me and reached out his hand. The action was so natural I almost didn’t sense anything strange. If not for the firm grip of his strong hand gently holding my chin.

“If you want proper treatment, you must fulfill your duties. Isn’t that right, my lady? I’ll ask again. Why on this day…”

Ha, as if realizing something, he stopped speaking and placed his index finger on his temple. Then,

“My lady. Let me give you some advice. Don’t trust the young maid too much.”

He twirled the finger placed on his temple.

“It hurts. Here. She sees things that aren’t there, hears things that aren’t there.”

If Vivi simply had a delusional disorder… what about the storage cellar? Unless I had entered Vivi’s delusion, the abandoned underground storage I saw with my own eyes and felt with my entire body that day wasn’t an illusion. No, from the beginning… the man’s words lacked supporting evidence. So… he might be lying to deceive me.

“You don’t believe me.”

The man tilted his head crookedly and whispered in my ear, his lips pressed close. With an acrid, sweet, and bitter scent—familiar yet unidentifiable—wafting strongly.

“Then. Let me prophesy one thing that will happen. That book. The young maid will approach you saying there’s a secret in that book. She’ll say there was a prophecy that descended before the King, too.”

“Prophecy…?”

“Yes, prophecy.”