After a long while spent working with Madame Dubois to adjust each detail and finalize the dress design, the Madame pulled over a long piece of lace from the front and held it up in response to Hailey’s answer about lowering the ribbon.

“Then shall we add lace here as well?”

“Lace… yes, that’s fine. However.”

“However?”

More lace piled on top of lace that was already there. This was a design Hailey simply could not accept.

“I’d like it a little less elaborate than what you’ve shown me. And please use the fabric next to it.”

The Madame paused for a moment, seeming genuinely surprised. The Madame of this dressmaker’s shop at the far end of the capital was a seamstress Marianne frequented even before the family fell.

The Madame joked that she saw Marianne so often she could recite the number of moles on her body. So she seemed to doubt her own ears at Hailey’s words now, but Hailey had no intention whatsoever of drawing attention with an elaborate dress. It would obviously look awkward and off, like lipstick smeared crookedly on a face.

“Less elaborate?”

“Yes. The decorations already in place are more than enough, Madame.”

“What’s gotten into you, Rianne? You’re acting strange.”

Tartie, looking at other dresses nearby, chimed in.

“There’s nothing strange about it. Tastes change.”

“Oh, quite right. Tastes are called tastes precisely because they change.”

The Madame agreed with Hailey’s words, and Tartie stuck out her lip and promptly closed her mouth. After that, the dress order went through without a hitch, and Hailey stepped out of the shop feeling lighter.

“Please send the dress to the residence once it’s finished. Oh, no… I mean, to the house. I’ll pay the rest then.”

“Of course. You can pay the remainder on the fitting day, same as last time.”

‘Same as last time? I’ll have to look through the ledger when I get back.’

She managed to secure the red fabric, so she would almost certainly make it onto the first-round list without trouble.

‘The problem is what comes after.’

She had no sense of whether it would go well or not.

“Ugh, it’s cold.”

Tartie, standing beside her, shivered and looped her arm through Hailey’s. The sky was perfectly clear, but it was the kind of winter where cold wind slapped sharply across the cheeks. Times like this made Hailey think of her aunt in Luns County.

That place has no winter and no summer, just warmth all year round.

“Rianne.”

Tartie called out to Hailey without warning, pulling her out of her thoughts, and just before climbing into the carriage, she gave her a sideways look and shook her arm.

“Your way of talking has been off since yesterday, and the things you’re doing are suspicious. Could it be…?”

‘Could it be?’

Hailey’s heart lurched, wondering what she was about to say.

“Ahem.”

She cleared her throat on purpose and looked away, and Tartie leaned in close and whispered. Hailey nearly pulled her head back without meaning to.

“Rianne, is it over between you and the Young Lord?”

“What?”

The Young Lord, meaning Damon?

Hailey froze and stared at Tartie without answering.

‘How much does Tartie know? And not just Tartie, who else knows?’

Tartie tossed out the question and hopped into the carriage. Hailey climbed in after her, doing her best to look unbothered and stay calm, while inside she was turning over the right vague answer to ‘is it over.’ Fortunately, Tartie, who loved to talk, began pouring out words the moment the carriage door shut.

“There’s been no news since you mentioned going on a date. The gossip papers are going on and on about the Lady this and that, saying the couple of the century might be born. But aren’t you ahead of the Lady? Hm? What happened?”

For a moment she grew curious what reaction she would get if she simply told a lie.

‘Let me test it.’

Hailey deliberately held Tartie’s gaze, then turned to look at the swaying carriage window. She let her eyes go quietly, endlessly sad.

“It seems the Young Lord intends to throw me aside. Or go to the Lady.”

“What? Don’t tell me the Young Lord is weighing his options?”

The shock on Tartie’s face reflected in the carriage window was plain for anyone to see. Hailey deliberately turned back to face her and shook her head.

‘I need to land the finishing blow.’

“…I don’t know. He told me he loves me, but he doesn’t take me to public events, so I can’t read him at all. It’s truly upsetting.”

Tartie was a well-known ‘parrot.’ The nickname came from how she carried words she heard here and there to other people, just like a parrot repeating what it hears.

If Tartie dragged Marianne into a scandal, Hailey planned to use the opportunity to ruin Marianne’s reputation so thoroughly she could never set foot in society again. On the other hand, if Tartie stayed loyal, she intended to dig deeper into what was going on between Marianne and Damon.

“I don’t want to become the talk of the town. You understand what I mean, don’t you?”

Hailey pressed once more, and Tartie gradually went quiet and nodded slowly. But the unexpected words that followed made Hailey feel like her heart dropped straight to the floor.

“So… the Young Lord spent the night with you, and he might still throw you away?”

The night? He spent the night with her?

The moment she heard that, she was swallowed by a shock she couldn’t contain. A feeling far more violent than what she felt the moment Damon kissed her surged up inside her. Her head grew heavy, like she might collapse on the spot.

So Marianne and Damon slept together before they were even married?

‘It really… went all the way.’

“Am I right, Rianne?”

“……”

Tartie’s voice barely reached her. Horrifyingly, the image of the two of them together formed in her mind on its own. But with Tartie right in front of her, Hailey hurried to compose her expression and hold it together. Her heart was pounding harder than it ever had.

“Rianne?”

“Yes…”

“Are you all right?”

No. The more I find out, the more of a piece of trash you are, Damon.

“Tartie, what should I do…?”

Damon took Hailey around ‘officially,’ so Marianne was probably the one who suffered more. Either way, she could understand well enough why Marianne kept her relationship with Damon hidden. But she had no desire to fully sympathize with her situation. The fact that she went along with all of it and made a fool of her together with Damon remained unchanged.

“Rianne.”

“…Go on.”

“Obviously you should choose whatever makes you happy. Whatever that may be.”

‘Whatever makes me happy?’

Surprisingly, those few words seemed to settle something inside her.

“Whatever it may be? Truly?”

“Yes. Everyone has the right to be happy.”

“Even if it means hurting someone else?”

“You mean Hailey?”

Tartie seemed oblivious, but she was anything but. She clenched her small hand into a fist and her eyes lit up.

“She’s the one who got in the way, not you. That’s not hurting anyone at all! If anything, it’s the other way around!”

Neither answer was particularly satisfying, but the one thing that gave her some comfort was that she had someone entirely on her side right now. Whoever that person may be.

“Right. Thank you.”

From now on, Hailey resolved to deceive everyone for her own happiness, just as Tartie said. Because until now, she lived as a fool who knew nothing, all for the happiness of this woman called Marianne.

***

“Hmm, this ledger is terribly sloppy.”

Several days passed since she came to the Schrant house. After becoming Marianne, Hailey found herself wondering.

‘How on earth are the people of this household living in the capital? The family fell and they’re living as commoners.’

The more she looked through the ledger and the more time she spent in the house, the more that question answered itself naturally.

“Tartie…”

Tartie, in love with Brick, was supporting this fallen family. Hailey felt sorry for her.

‘A young lady blinded by love, keeping another family fed. Trusting a man is always a pointless thing.’

To safely return to her original body, becoming the goddess’s lady-in-waiting was important, but she also needed a plan for what came after. And for a revenge that would truly satisfy her, she had to think of a way to bring both Damon and Marianne down at the same time. But she still hadn’t come up with a good idea for how to tie the two of them together.

She spent quite a long time quietly going through the Schrant family’s ledger. She was so absorbed that she didn’t notice the sun going down, and her head began to throb.

“Ugh.”

Stretching as she stepped outside, she heard the sound of a marble rolling away after catching on her foot.

“Hm?”

She followed the sound with her eyes and spotted a familiar-looking piece of stone in the corner of the corridor.

‘Oh…?’

The pebble caught in the moonlight, glowing with a translucent pale blue. It was a color she recognized from somewhere. A sense of déjà vu came over her, and she picked up the stone, went back to her room, and examined it quietly.

“This is…”

It sparkled, so an ordinary person might see it as a simple gemstone, but this was a key material produced jointly by her own family, the Hersen ducal house, and the Hoople ducal house. It was a ‘crystal’ made by processing the raw material that served as the source of magical power in the Kingdom of Onyx.

‘But this is just rolling around inside the Schrant house? What on earth happened here?’