“I’ll call the doctor.”

After Laila hurriedly left her post, Nora, Mrs. Hover, and the old butler who had been waiting for Melissa’s recovery came to visit the room one by one. Now it was Rael’s turn.

Reizen sat in a chair beside the bed reading documents. It seemed he was handling work that should have been done in the study here instead.

Rael seemed uncomfortable with Reizen’s presence, constantly glancing his way as she spoke.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“Another lie.”

Melissa laughed silently as Rael grumbled.

Afterward, perfectly ordinary conversation flowed as if nothing had happened. Rael was conscious of the man sitting like a statue in his chair, turning pages of documents.

Rael came closer and whispered.

“Is he your guard? He’s watching us right now, isn’t he?”

Melissa slapped Rael’s shoulder, saying that wasn’t it. At that, Reizen lowered his documents and looked at the two women.

“Not guarding, nursing.”

At Reizen’s firm words, Rael turned to Melissa and said.

“Look how he’s listening to everything we say and correcting us. He’s great at self-defense. To me, it looks like guarding.”

“Rael.”

When Melissa scolded her as if it was rude, Rael’s brows furrowed deeply.

“There you go again, nagging.”

Rael shuddered.

Seeing this, Reizen’s crimson lips curved up smoothly. Soon, a faint shadow fell beneath his long golden eyelashes.

Reizen seemed not to mind whatever Rael said. As he sat quietly reading documents, Rael appeared to dislike every single one of his actions.

Rael mouthed “so annoying” before getting to her main point.

“Melissa. I’m leaving.”

Sitting cross-legged in the round chair, Rael wore a bittersweet expression.

Since she had asked last time if Melissa would leave with her, she had expected this day would come eventually. But the farewell came sooner than expected, leaving her taken aback.

They hadn’t even had a proper conversation since meeting.

“Where to?”

She managed to swallow and asked. Rael gestured to the man sitting behind her as she spoke.

“The guard here told me there’s a ship available to Tavania like I mentioned before.”

“You mean Arthur’s merchant ship?”

“Arthur?”

Rael blinked but Melissa was relieved. It would be better to take a ship belonging to someone they knew rather than a complete stranger’s ship.

Moreover, since it was transportation Reizen had arranged, the merchant ship’s crew wouldn’t treat Rael carelessly.

She had been worried about her leaving alone for such a distant place, but she was grateful to Reizen for looking after her sister without being asked.

Melissa’s gentle gaze turned toward Reizen. The man’s actions were the same as usual. But the look in his eyes and the atmosphere around him had changed.

‘What is this distance?’

Melissa felt uneasy but decided to focus on her remaining time with Rael for now.

“Ah, is that merchant’s name Arthur? That merchant?”

Arthur tended not to introduce his name. He would only introduce himself with fragmentary information like commoner, runs a merchant group in Tavania.

As Melissa chatted with Rael and the topic shifted to Clara, she burst into small laughter. She had seen from afar that the girl was like a squeaking baby monkey.

It was strange yet fun to see Rael imitating Clara. It had been so long since they’d sat face to face laughing about such trivial things since they were young.

“No way, so what did that little one say?”

What have you been hearing all this time?

“I told you she’s Arthur’s daughter. His only daughter.”

When Melissa laughed and scolded her, Rael got worked up again.

Seeing this, Melissa held her stomach laughing. Rael was just getting angry and jumping around like when she was young, but why did it make her so happy?

Her body felt weak as if she had been sick with a fever for a long time, and even laughing took effort. Still, she couldn’t stop laughing because this moment was so wonderful.

Seeing Melissa like this, Rael got more excited and chattered on.

After laughing for a while, tears welled up naturally. As she wiped her tears with her fingers and looked up, her eyes met Reizen’s. His eyes were slightly widened as if surprised.

The bewilderment in his blue eyes was clearly conveyed.

‘Was I not supposed to laugh?’

Just as the smile was fading from Melissa’s face after seeing him.

Knock knock, with a cheerful knock, Melissa’s door burst open.

‘Sister!’

It was Clara.

As the wind blew in, the documents in Reizen’s hands fluttered to the floor like butterflies. Melissa’s gaze lingered on Reizen as he picked up the papers, then fell away.

“Speak of the devil. Is she always this ill-mannered? Bursting into other people’s rooms?”

Though Rael had done the same thing when she came here. Melissa just laughed without daring to point that out.

‘Oh? T-two princesses?’

Clara was wearing a cute lace dress today too, with her hair tied in pigtails.

She had made a flower bracelet in the grass as a get-well gift for Melissa, but seeing a woman with the same face sitting there, she was surprised, not knowing who to give it to.

Clara pointed at Rael sitting in front of the bed and shouted.

‘It’s the witch version of Melissa!’

It would have been better if she hadn’t understood.

Wasn’t Rael the type of person whose mood would flip upside down when compared to Melissa? In that sense, Clara had hit Rael’s switch within 3 seconds of meeting her.

Rael, who had just been trying to act mature by reaching for a cigar from her pocket, got upset, threw the cigar away and stood up.

‘Come here. What terrible manners, you little brat, won’t you come here?’

‘Eek! Melissa turned into a witch!’

‘Shut up, how do I look anything like Melissa? Use your eyes properly! Hey! Come here and look!’

‘Kyaa!’

Clara seemed to find the chase game fun as she ran circles around the room before heading out to the corridor. Rael followed swiftly like a cat with its fur standing on end.

The sound of Arthur arriving late and apologizing profusely could be heard. That familiar scene could now be imagined without even seeing it.

Melissa closed her eyes quietly.

The matters she had put aside for now floated through her mind. Though she had lost consciousness for a long time due to the drug, there were things she vaguely remembered from that time.

It was confusing with reality and dreams mixed together, but thinking about it again, she could distinguish between them.

The dream was a good dream.

So good she never wanted to wake up from it.

However, reality was the problem.

With the corridor door open, the wind blew freely through the windows, making loud rushing sounds.

Reizen’s carefully stacked documents scattered across the floor in single sheets, and the curtains billowed like hot air balloons, obscuring the space between them.

Melissa sat with her hands neatly folded on the bed. Though the fluttering curtains should have hidden him, she could catch glimpses of Reizen’s seriously hardened expression.

Eventually as the wind died down, silence fell. The man’s golden hair fell pitifully across his forehead. His eyes somehow looked sad.

After taking a few deep breaths, Melissa spoke first.

“…Tell me now.”

What had happened.

Reizen spoke with calm eyes.

* * *

Two days ago.

Reizen visited the Empress’s palace for the first time.

In the past, the mere act of a child from the Rose Maze lurking in the Empress’s garden would have been impossible without having extraordinary courage.

To the children of the Rose Maze, the Empress was like a witch from fairy tales. She was said to exist somewhere but couldn’t be met, and if you happened to encounter her, you would lose your life – though the truth of this couldn’t be verified.

After all, none of the siblings who had gone to the Empress’s palace had returned alive to tell about it.

Thus, this was also Reizen’s first time seeing the Empress’s eyes this closely. She looked him over as though she were examining some filthy impurity.

“Tell me what you want, Reizen.”

Her fiercely distorted face had aged with wrinkles since the past.

Isn’t there a moment when you suddenly understand someone who you couldn’t understand and only feared when you were young?

At that moment, that’s exactly how Reizen felt.

Owen was certainly the Empress’s sore spot.

The prince who lost his leg at a hunting ground when young.

Though he was born to the Empress, he was disliked by the Emperor for walking with a limp and a cane.

Wounded by Vincent’s words to stay out of sight, the prince was more timid than the children of the Rose Maze.

Even during imperial events while other princes ran around noisily, Owen would just stand blankly watching beside Selheim.

Seeing this, the Empress would cut off both legs of anyone who dared to run in front of Owen. This was the reason for the bloodbath at the Empress’s palace until Owen left to study abroad.

When young, Reizen had thought she was a monster who cut off and ate children’s legs. But now that he was grown, he saw that she was just a selfish mother.

She loved her son with a twisted heart, pushing him to the cliff’s edge with her own hands as a hidden card.

Looking up at the Empress, Reizen smirked.