Kyle would have gladly passed out on the spot. Being dragged away without even a chance to resist was as wretched a sight as could be. He would not be able to show his face in public for some time.

When Kyle was gone, a suffocating silence settled over the hall.

Only a handful of witnesses remained, hands clamped over their mouths as they watched.

Caesar pulled out a handkerchief, unhurried, and slowly wiped the wine that had splashed onto his hand. That leisurely motion only made the whole thing feel more unsettling.

“Are you… all right?”

Luna, who had watched the whole thing, asked carefully. The moment Caesar’s silver-grey eyes turned toward her, her body stiffened with a small flinch.

Rather than answer, Caesar took her by the wrist and headed toward a nearby room with a balcony.

Adrian, who had been watching the two of them as they walked away, smiled faintly with what looked like amusement and murmured to himself.

“Hmm… things are unfolding rather interestingly.”

Bang.

The door shut with a dull thud.

Something about Caesar’s manner was off. His sunken gaze still seemed to hold some lingering emotion.

He let out a short breath and raked a hand roughly through his hair, tousling it. Then he spoke in a low, flat voice.

“You couldn’t hold yourself together for even that long and caused trouble again. Have you forgotten what the guidelines say?”

“Wh-what exactly did I do wrong?”

She was a victim too. Luna’s voice rose sharply for a moment, as though a surge of indignation had gotten the better of her.

“First. Refrain from any conduct that brings disgrace upon the family name. And fourth. Faithfully fulfill your duties and conduct as Grand Duchess, to the degree that you appear to the outside world as a couple in love. Well, do you need more reasons than that?”

“I-I really have been wronged here. He was the one who approached me out of nowhere.”

Caesar’s eyes caught sight of Luna’s reddened wrist. A rough handprint against pale, slender skin.

It left a fouler taste in his mouth than he had expected.

Was it anger born from someone laying hands on what was his, or unease at the thought that the contract might fall apart?

He could not even identify what the feeling was.

Caesar moved toward Luna with an expression cold as ice.

The distance between them closed in an instant, his face drawing near until it was just before her nape. The scent of him that had brushed past her when they had danced hand in hand not long ago rushed in all at once, and Luna flinched reflexively.

“Dousing yourself in perfume you never usually wear. And what was that makeup? How long do you intend to go around stirring up trouble everywhere with those restless ways of yours?”

Even to Caesar’s eyes, still sharp with anger, the sight of her trembling with a pale face looked rather pitiful.

But with emotion getting the better of him, sharp words kept spilling from Caesar’s mouth.

Beneath the makeup that gave a distinct lift to the corners of her eyes, her skin shone with an unusual translucence today.

Luna, stung by the way he was picking at every little thing, snapped back at him.

“It was Your Highness who told me to take special care for tonight’s party! And you went off to see another woman and now you’re only scolding me? If you were that worried, you should have stayed by my side.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Lady Elisia Sheppert, or Rochette, or whatever her name is! The one who nearly got engaged to you, I hear. You went to see her and then…”

“It sounds like someone has been talking nonsense again. It is not true, so don’t make unnecessary assumptions.”

“Why? Does it sting because I’ve hit the mark? Then again, we agreed to respect each other’s private lives, so it’s none of my concern. But by that logic, aren’t you the same? Whoever I see, whoever I spend my time with…”

“That is different.”

“How is it any different? Don’t tell me you’re operating on some outdated notion of what’s allowed for you but not for me…”

Whoever I spend my time with is none of your concern? Those words stirred up a memory Caesar had taken pains to bury.

Bang!

Unable to contain the emotion that surged through him in that instant, he drove his fist into the wall beside him.

The dull impact reverberated through it, sending the decorative cabinet mounted on the wall shaking violently, and in the aftermath the ornaments inside toppled over with a loud clatter.

Luna seemed to realize in the next moment that she had crossed a line, and she pressed her lips shut without a word.

Caesar continued in a tone markedly colder than anything before.

“That is only the case when you are properly fulfilling the contract. Conducting yourself that carelessly in front of everyone can only be taken as a refusal to honor the contract. Well, do you want the repayment notice sent to Marquis Lutenberg after all?”

“Wh-who was conducting themselves carelessly…”

It was infuriating. Her eyes welled up almost immediately. With indignation welling up inside her, her glistening eyes looked ready to spill over at any moment.

“I will not allow that. If you want to do as you please, get pregnant, have the child, and do it after the contract is over. Understood?”

Luna bit down on her lower lip and answered in a voice that had shrunk to almost nothing.

“I… I understand.”

Caesar watched her in silence for a moment, then let out a short sigh and said one last thing.

“I am leaving ahead of you. Come back with Leonil.”

Caesar shrugged off his coat and tossed it over to Luna, then left without lingering any further.

In the cold evening air, Luna quietly pulled it up over her shoulders.

Grief and indignation rose all the way to the back of her throat, but she held back the tears to the very end.

After holding herself together for a long while, she finally managed to collect herself, and under Leonil’s guidance she returned to the Grand Duke’s residence late that night.

* * *

Late in the small hours of the morning, after that storm had swept through and passed.

When the tension that had stretched through the entire party released all at once, Luna was drained to the bone, and carried along by the haze of drink, she sank into a deep sleep.

How much time had passed?

A heavy silence blanketed the Grand Duke’s residence, and thick smoke seeped through the air.

“Cough, cough.”

Luna could not suppress the coughing and woke from her sleep.

The moment she opened her eyes, she realized her entire field of vision was shrouded in hazy smoke.

Acrid smoke, at that.

In an instant, a sense of dread seized her as she grasped that something was very wrong inside the Grand Duke’s residence.

Air that clung and stuck like something viscous, and a blurred field of vision.

In the dead of night, there was only one reason acrid smoke would fill a room. There was no question. There was a fire.

Luna scrambled up from the bed, but lost her balance and staggered for a moment.

Whether from having breathed in smoke while she slept, her throat burned as though scorched, and her head swam dizzily.

Gritting her teeth, she steadied herself and lurched toward the door, grabbed the handle, and turned it with all her strength.

Clunk.

But for some reason, the door did not budge.

Perhaps she simply did not have the strength to open it.

Luna, nearly in a panic, grabbed the handle again and turned.

Clatter, clatter.

She gripped the handle hard and tried turning it again and again, but the door would not move at all.

Her bedroom door had been locked so that it could not be opened from the inside.

Her breathing grew more and more labored, and the heat pressed in closer. A terror she could not hold back seized her at that moment.

Having given up on opening the door, she began pounding on it hard.

“Is anyone there? Cough, cough.”

Every time she cried out and drew breath, a cough tore out of her. The fire, which had started somewhere, spread rapidly, growing fiercer with each passing moment.

At this rate, she could truly die.

The fear that seemed to press down on her entire body grew beyond all control.

Luna pressed a piece of cloth over her mouth to stifle the coughing and pounded on the door again, but the door never opened.

So much effort all this time, and now I’m going to die like this, in such a senseless way.

At last, drained of the strength to hold herself upright, Luna collapsed to the floor.

As her consciousness dimmed, her eyelids slowly fell shut.

* * *

The scene that came into her blurred vision, accompanied by a hazy spread of light, was entirely unfamiliar.

The cream-colored furniture looked aged at a glance, and the neatly arranged decorations bore the taste of a noblewoman who had once been at the center of fashion.

On one wall hung a painting of angels blowing trumpets. It was a strangely out-of-place sight.

Is this heaven…?

It was clearly a space she had never seen before, yet strangely, it did not feel foreign.

Luna opened her eyes faintly.

Just then, a familiar voice reached her from close by.

“Have you woken, my lady?”

The figure that gradually took shape through her blurred vision was the maid Noah. She was looking down at Luna with a worried expression.

Luna blinked, her voice thick and heavy with sleep.

“Is this… heaven? Noah… did you come with me?”

At her question, Noah smiled gently, as though to put her at ease.

“You are safe and sound, so please don’t worry.”

Noah added, looking at Luna, who still seemed dazed and unable to fully collect herself.

“Out of nowhere, something like this… there was a fire at the Grand Duke’s residence last night. His Highness carried you out when you had collapsed.”

At her words, Luna slowly pieced together the events of the night before.

From the moment she had opened her eyes to the acrid smell.

To the moment she had tried desperately to open the door, failed, and finally lost consciousness.

The fact that it was Caesar who had carried her out of that room made her eyes waver slightly.

“His Highness…”

When she recalled raising her voice at Caesar at the party the Crown Prince had hosted the night before, something in one corner of her heart felt strangely unsettled.

“Yes. He should be arriving before long…”

Looking more closely, behind Noah stood several attendants and even a physician. From the aged furniture and unfamiliar wallpaper, it seemed that where Luna now lay was an old room in the Grand Duke’s residence that had gone unused for a long time.

It was then.

Fling—

The door swung open, and Caesar appeared.