Her body trembled violently. The feeling of cold air that had enveloped her entire body wouldn’t fade. Was I trying to fall to my death, here……

Izer’s eyes reddened as he looked at the woman bristling with anger.

The first time Celian showed abnormal symptoms was on a night one month after the stillbirth.

On a night when unusually loud cicada sounds woke Izer from sleep, he urgently called out seeing the empty space beside him.

‘Lian?’

She had been standing in front of the window. To Izer who grabbed her waist while shouting, Celian had responded like a machine.

‘……The baby is over there.’

‘Lian, Celian……’

That night, he held Celian in his arms until dawn. Though he wanted to lock all the doors and windows, he couldn’t bring himself to go that far.

As soon as the sun rose, both Doctor Caleb and Doctor Owen responded to his urgent letters. The only difference was that Doctor Caleb wrote a thick letter, while Doctor Owen wrote a short card saying to see him right away without excuses.

Owen confronted him as if ready to grab his collar.

‘You promised to let Lian go if she struggled, didn’t you? You were the one who said you would do it first!’

Ah, those empty words from some day in early April.

Even then, now feeling distant, Izer knew his resolution would disappear like scattered smoke.

But Izer Chesterfield, who had just returned from death, was somewhat closer to being human. If there was ever a day when Izer made his first and only choice for Celian, it would have been that day.

However, the moment he saw Celian at the ranch, Izer withdrew his hollow promise to let her go.

The woman he loved had returned from death. What person could let go? It would be normal to find ways to keep her by his side. Even if people called him selfish, he couldn’t help it. People are selfish by nature.

Izer looked down at Owen with arrogant eyes.

‘I’m sorry. People’s hearts change as easily as flipping their palms. You should have stopped me when I said I would only send living expenses to the doctor.’

‘Hey!’

‘If you truly wanted Celian to escape from me, you shouldn’t have said she might die. The moment you said those words, doctor, you brought Lian back to my side.’

‘I told you, a doctor’s job is to save people. Back then you were my patient, but now Celian is my patient.’

‘And so?’

‘……’

‘I’ll die without her. How can you tell me to let Lian go when you clearly know I’ll kill myself?’

Owen snorted.

‘So, if she goes mad like this, or if she missteps and falls to her death — then you’ll follow her in death again? The baby would love that.’

‘……’

‘Keep Lian in this house any longer and she’ll die. Whether to kill or save your wife, Duke, that’s your decision.’

Several more days passed like that.

Celian grew thinner with each passing day. Her slightly grown hair were just lifeless. Even bringing her the finest food made no difference.

Even when Percy acted cute and Wendy came to visit, Celian only smiled then, spending her days sitting quietly in bed, and when night came, she would rise from her place as if possessed and wander around the house.

She didn’t remember moving around at night. Owen had also said not to tell her about it. Don’t add more burden to someone already under great psychological shock.

Adding the harsh criticism that the surest solution was to remove the cause.

Izer ignored Owen’s advice.

If wandering the mansion at night was the problem, then Izer could keep watch by her side all night as he had been doing. Taking his cursed insomnia as a blessing, he could follow Celian around and when she returned to bed, hold her in his arms and seek what rest remained.

However, short naps during the day had their limits. When Izer, who had dozed off briefly, woke up with a start, Celian had already left the bed.

In the damnably large mansion, there were many places she could have gone. Cursing himself for not locking the doors for the first time, Izer searched frantically for her who was nowhere in the rooms or corridors.

The governess’s room was what flashed through Izer’s mind as he ran around the whole house calling her name like a madman.

In this room alone, Celian was by herself and free from Izer’s surveillance. A place where she was out of his sight, even if she was trembling with anxiety about when he might barge in. As soon as he opened the door, he saw her leaning her body out the window.

While pulling Celian’s waist into his arms, Izer acknowledged it. She had instinctively sought out a safe place. Toward the only sanctuary where she could escape from him……

His legs gave out as he held her bony hands that were nothing but joints. Behind his wife who looked down at him on his knees with confused eyes, moonlight poured in.

“It’s been like this for a month. At night you wander around saying the baby is there, and always ends up at a window. One day I thought you wanted to go out so I carried you to the front door, but you didn’t even look at it and went to the window again……”

“……”

To her, doors were means of escape she couldn’t even dare to desire. Perhaps thinking windows were the only option she could try, Celian kept leaning out of them.

Hot tears fell to the floor drop by drop. Izer wailed.

“Is it that hard?”

“……”

“You really can’t stand being by my side? To the point that you think death would be better?”

He knew it was a foolish question. Celian had always been uncomfortable with Izer. Since bringing her back, they hadn’t even had s*x, let alone kissed more than a handful of times, but Celian tensed up whenever Izer came near her.

To make Celian even slightly more comfortable, he came to bed late and separated their studies. He wouldn’t speak unless she spoke first.

When he would return around midnight, suppressing his desire to go up right away and be with his wife and child, Celian would greet him with exhaustion written all over her face.

Surprisingly, she would look at him with eyes full of the unspoken message that she was dying of sleepiness but couldn’t sleep without him. The moment Izer tried to speak, she would instantly fall asleep.

Every time he lay beside the woman who slept as if unconscious and gently stroked her belly, Izer was seized by strong conviction that his decision had been right.

Celian’s place was by his side. Though she might be uncomfortable now, he firmly believed that with just a little more time, they could live like any ordinary couple.

But the tower he had carefully built began to crumble onto the sand. His wife’s verdict to him as he sobbed was too cruel.

“Yes.”

“Lian……”

Her opinion was an absolute command to him. A massive current that he would eventually have to follow even if he refused now.

The moment he had been putting off had come.

A different sensation from when he heard she had died dominated the man. His heart was torn by her active avoidance, refusing to reach for him even though he was right in front of her.

Gasping from the pain, Izer finally dropped his head to the floor. Instead of hands that could no longer hold on, he grabbed her ankles and begged between sobs.

“Celian, please. I’ll do better. If you just allow it, selling this house would be nothing. We can move……”

“……”

“Celian, please, don’t look at me with those eyes……”

Even Izer vaguely recognized that he wasn’t normal.

Just looking at his parents, love was something beautiful and fantastic. While marveling at their love, there was a time when Izer thought his love would be similar.

Who could have expected love to be this horrible, unpleasant thing that ate away at oneself.

Yet at the same time, ridiculously, Izer was certain his feelings were love.

What else could express this desperate madness and twisted affection, this completeness he could feel only for this woman, if not love? His world, which those in robes would simply define as mental illness, existed only for this woman.

Celian would never understand Izer’s feelings. She doesn’t know that the desperation of needing only her, the swamp he couldn’t escape from on his own, was stressful even to himself.

Because she didn’t love him.

Celian crouched down in front of him. Still, Izer had to look up at her. Though knowing he looked pathetic, he held onto hope until the end. Yes, it would be better if she at least pitied him.

“Lian, I’ll really die without you……”

Though he squeezed out the truth, she only tidied the messy hair on his forehead.

“I’m sorry.”

Tears also welled up in Celian’s eyes that reflected the moonlight.