Leticia playfully added while shaking the glass vial containing blood.

“Honestly, this is nothing. What’s the big deal about drawing a little blood?”

“…It’s not just today.”

Aina could see multiple needle marks on Leticia’s forearm.

Some were faint, some were distinct—quite varied. Like someone who had been consistently drawing blood.

“I think it was better when you went around with Master Chamuka. At least then you weren’t alone, so you wouldn’t do things like this.”

“That’s ancient history…”

“It was just a year ago.”

Leticia turned her gaze away from Aina’s sharp eyes.

But Aina’s words didn’t end there.

“These days, you keep not returning to your room at night and staying here just to draw blood by yourself. Who knows, you might be doing something beyond blood drawing to your body.”

“….”

“You didn’t go this far before. Why are you acting like this lately?”

She might fool others’ eyes, but she couldn’t fool Aina’s.

Being a personal maid meant attending to when and where Leticia slept and woke up, what she wore, and what she ate.

Except for Chamuka from a year ago, who shared almost all of Leticia’s daily life, only Aina could now sense Leticia’s strangeness.

She had always been self-sacrificing, but recently,y Leticia was truly strange.

“It started this spring. Your Highness began acting strange. You rarely come back at night saying you have research to do, yet you don’t seem to be researching anything during the day. And needle marks keep appearing on your arm…”

“How would you know that I’m not researching anything separately during the day?”

At this somewhat sharp retort, which assumed a mere maid couldn’t possibly know such things, Aina let out a hollow laugh.

“I wouldn’t know. But your mentor would have to know. She called me separately and asked if something was wrong with you lately. She said you seemed to have lost interest in research and asked if I knew why.”

“So? What did you answer?”

“I said Your Highness had no problems.”

That wasn’t all. She had even asked back, ‘I don’t know exactly what Your Highness is researching, but perhaps she’s developed an interest in a different field?’

Leticia quietly spoke while fiddling with the glass vial in her hand.

“Thank you, Aina.”

“….”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d continue making such excuses when anyone asks.”

“Why?”

Leticia said while rolling down her sleeve.

“They worry. But honestly, this is really nothing.”

Aina, who had been quietly watching, finally had to ask her.

“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, but right now, I’m not in a position to talk to anyone about it.”

“When will it be okay?”

“Soon?”

Leticia just smiled at the disbelieving eyes.

“Really. Don’t worry too much. I’ll go to my room and sleep tonight. Just after I clean up this blood. Go ahead and prepare my bed.”

Leticia seemed like she would never answer, no matter what was asked.

Aina finally gave up and turned away, thinking that at least getting a proper night’s rest in bed was better than nothing.

After Aina left, Leticia, now alone in the workshop, placed the vial of blood on the table and stared at it blankly.

“….”

The red liquid in the glass vial swirled and gradually became clear.

Leticia took the vial, whose contents had turned as transparent as water, and left the workshop.

Though she had a room in the main building, lately Leticia tended to stay in a room on the first floor of the annex.

After going down the stairs and arriving at the first floor of the annex, Leticia headed not to her own room on the left of the staircase but to the room on the right.

The room’s occupant seemed to be already asleep, as there was no light in the room and nothing could be heard except for wheezing breaths.

Leticia quietly approached the bed in the room.

In the blankets, a small lady who was unmistakably of Basilinte blood was sound asleep.

“Kalia…”

Leticia mouthed almost without making a sound.

Kalia Basilinte.

The youngest daughter of her mentor and His Grace. A baby lady only 4 years old.

And…

…a newly awakened young magician.

Leticia habitually took Kalia’s hand.

Not a single bit of magical power flowed into Kalia. Even if she tried to force it in, it scattered as if blocked.

She wouldn’t be able to accept it.

Because Kalia Basilinte wasn’t a water attribute.

Rain, fog, or even lakes would be fine. Anything related to water.

But Kalia had awakened with fire. An attribute that could never accept Leticia’s magical power.

She was already connected to Leticia’s magic circuit like other Basilinte people and having her magic drained by the source of the curse, but magic transfer had become completely impossible.

It was a terrible situation.

When Leticia first realized this fact, she couldn’t even breathe.

If the magic transfer was cut off, the source of the curse would absorb Kalia’s magic instead of Leticia’s.

Then Kalia’s magic, which wasn’t as vast as Leticia’s, would soon run out, and eventually Kalia would die from magic depletion.

For 300 years, no magician had emerged from the Basilinte bloodline.

But why now?

Why now, of all times?

This spring, when Leticia learned of Kalia’s awakening, she somehow suppressed Kalia’s “fire” with her own magic.

Kalia Basilinte couldn’t be a magician. Not if she wanted to live.

Initially, Leticia poured out her magic to forcibly suppress Kalia’s “fire” and transferred her own magic.

That was possible for a very short period when Kalia had just awakened.

But before long, Leticia’s magic stopped entering Kalia’s body altogether.

From then on, Leticia secretly “fed” her magic to Kalia.

A magician’s blood contained dissolved magic.

When Leticia fed Kalia magic extracted from her blood, Kalia’s “fire” couldn’t handle Leticia’s magic and hid. Then, magic transfer became somewhat possible.

However, the cycle of Kalia’s “fire” appearing was becoming faster and faster.

The fire, which initially stayed hidden for a month after being fed Leticia’s magic, now appeared almost every three days.

“Ha…”

Leticia swallowed an anxious sigh as she looked down at the sleeping Kalia.

What if there comes a moment when even blood no longer works?

She hadn’t told anyone yet.

She couldn’t say it. That Lady Kalia might die.

For now, it was fine since Leticia’s blood still worked. According to her calculations, they could hold out for a few years.

‘Can I find a solution within that time?’

In fact, the most likely solution now was to eliminate the curse so that the source of the curse could no longer drain Kalia’s magic.

‘A curse that shows no sign of disappearing despite giving so much magic over the past 10 years, though it has weakened…’

If that had been possible, she would have done it already. Leticia smiled bitterly.

Everything seemed hopeless. She couldn’t know what would happen in the future or what she should do.

Like Kalia’s awakening, terrible accidents always happened without warning.

And a week later, Chamuka witnessed countless needle marks on the forearm of Leticia, who had collapsed from anemia.

It was another terrible accident that happened without warning.

Chamuka calmly went insane.

He was already showing separation anxiety symptoms from being apart from Leti.

It was the moment when Chamuka’s groundless delusion—”What if some madman suddenly appears and endangers Leti when I’m not around?”—which he had barely suppressed through numerous counseling sessions and treatments, went out of control.