Why had it repeated itself exactly the same way.

Why was he standing before this blade again.

If she had died from poison in her food — had that been Lacy’s own choice, or someone else’s doing?

Why — why on earth — did she have to vomit blood and die again?

He had been certain this time would be different. He had believed it. And yet……

To face her death again, like this.

It was a blow he hadn’t been prepared for. And now he understood even less than before.

“……But.”

That was precisely why he had to turn back time and go again.

If he couldn’t divorce her — then he had no choice but to face her again inside that estate, to collide with her again, to find a way through.

If the sight of her dying from poison frightened him, then all the more reason to face that face head-on. Even if the image of her bleeding rose up before him every night.

The more fearsome the enemy, the more often one must confront them — that was how courage was built.

That was the lesson he had carried all his life. Through terrible wars. The method he had learned for surviving. For winning.

Rafez drew the dagger and drove it into his heart without hesitation.

“……Ugh!”

And so once again he lurched upright, clutching his chest.

It was the third time — and yet the pain didn’t seem to have dulled in the slightest.

“Hah — don’t tell me I’m going to have to keep doing this.”

An ominous feeling crept over him, one he couldn’t quite name.

Rafez shook his head. That couldn’t be allowed to happen.

But then — an ominous feeling is never wrong.

* * *

“Your Highness, the head maid is requesting an audience.”

“……Come in.”

Glen entered, greeted him with a bow, and reached into her clothing to place a small bottle on the desk before him.

“Your Highness.”

He knew perfectly well what this was.

He had proposed divorce — and then Lacy had been poisoned anyway. His mind was tangled all over again.

Had this poisoning been Lacy’s own doing? Or had someone else arranged it?

Or had she truly been poisoned against her will by another party entirely?

If it wasn’t her own doing, it meant there was either a spy inside the estate, or someone who bore Lacy enough ill will to want her dead.

But if someone had hated her enough to kill her, they wouldn’t have held back for six months.

His thoughts were too knotted to act on, so in the meantime Rafez had left everything untouched. He had gone to the ball just the same, conducted himself exactly as he had the first time he regressed.

And the result — this bottle had appeared before him again.

He had said they shared a particular history, this poison and him. He hadn’t meant it quite so literally — and yet here they were, bound together in a way he couldn’t have anticipated.

They say words have a way of coming true. In truth, it was something he had never wanted to lay eyes on again.

Rafez stared down at the poison and let out a long sigh.

* * *

“Your Highness the Grand Duchess.”

After much deliberation, Rafez had summoned Lacy again.

“Sit down.”

Sitting across from her in his room, those memories were already beginning to creep back up.

Before long, Lacy would crumple to that floor again, bleeding.

He felt not even a flicker of hope that things might end differently. Now, every time he looked at her, the only thought that came was that she would bleed and die again.

Right. If I’m going to watch it happen regardless — I may as well find out more this time.

Rafez set the bottle of poison on the desk between them.

Lacy showed no surprise, just as she hadn’t the first time.

Come to think of it — why had she shown no surprise back then either?

He hadn’t thought to find it strange at the time. But reflecting on it now, it didn’t seem like a natural reaction at all.

Seeing the same scene a second time, he was starting to notice things that hadn’t caught his eye before.

By Lacy’s own account, this bottle was her sanctuary — something she held whenever anxiety overcame her. If it had gone missing, and then appeared in Rafez’s hands — surely that would be cause for surprise?

How had she taken it so calmly, answering his questions without so much as a flinch?

But that was something to think on later. Right now, the poison deserved his full attention. It wasn’t something he could get to the bottom of in this moment anyway.

“What is this?”

“Must I tell you?”

Lacy’s answer was the same as the first time.

“Let me ask differently. What is the name of this poison?”

Rafez knew this poison — but only that it worked with terrifying speed and that it was lethal. He didn’t even know its name.

Something shifted ever so slightly in Lacy’s eyes.

“Lacy.”

Rafez called her name with quiet composure — but Lacy’s lips did not part.

“I know this belongs to you. I’ve seen this poison before, but I don’t know what it is. So I would like you to tell me. What is this poison?”

“……You’ve seen it before?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean, you’ve seen it? You haven’t been poisoned by it?”

It seemed to make no sense to her. Not that he had been given it — only that he had seen it.

“……My father was a victim of this poison.”

Lacy would die again before long, and this would once more become a past that only Rafez remembered.

The moment he had sat down across from her, Rafez had made his decision.

“What?”

The reason he had been unable to hide his shock the first time he saw this poison.

The reason he had had no choice but to suspect Lacy and corner her over it.

The reason Louis Felista had grown so frail that he had no choice but to retreat to the Grand Duchy to recover.

Because he had been given this very poison.

In the past, Louis had nearly been assassinated. He had raised a tampered goblet to his lips — and Rafez, catching it in time, had knocked it from his hand. Because only the smallest amount had passed his lips, Louis had barely survived.

But even the smallest amount was still poison.

Its potency was such that Louis never recovered his health.

Afterward, no matter how thoroughly Rafez investigated, he found nothing. It could not be obtained anywhere, and there was no source of information about it to be found.

And yet here he was, facing it again.

He had carried the image of Lacy vomiting blood the moment she drank it — and thinking that had he failed to knock that goblet away, Louis would have met the same end, it made him shudder to the bone.

That had been before he left for the war — before he had obtained the dagger, before he had the ability to turn back time as he did now.

If he had lost his father to their hands, one after the other following his brother……

It was too dreadful to contemplate. Could he have held the Grand Ducal title together, inheriting it while still a teenager who hadn’t even come of age?

No. He would have ended up dead in turn, following his brother and father. At the hands of his enemies.

“I had never heard anything of the sort……”

“At the time, it wasn’t something we could make public. We couldn’t let it be known that my father was gravely ill. So we tried to find the culprit quietly, on our own.”

And so the moment he had laid eyes on this poison, he had become certain — what had happened back then had been the work of House Lennon.

And he had believed that Lacy had brought this poison into the estate once again to kill him.

The Imperial family and House Schkotz were enemies too — but why did things keep going so much worse with House Lennon in particular?

That was why he hadn’t believed Lacy then. But watching her reaction today, she seemed to have no knowledge whatsoever of what had happened to Louis.

“Why do you have this poison? Is it to assassinate me?”

Lacy did not answer.

There had been a time she had said boldly that she had no intention of using it on him.

Rafez found himself hoping she would speak just as boldly now. He already suspected it hadn’t been brought here for him.

“I see. Perhaps it is only natural that you suspect me, Your Highness.”

“Then tell me how you came to have this poison. Everything about it. If you want to clear even a little of my suspicion.”

In that moment, Rafez was desperate.

Anything would do. He wanted even the smallest thread to pull on.

“……I’ve had this poison since I was very young — so young I can no longer remember. So I’m afraid I can’t tell you how I came to have it.”

Lacy spoke, and as she did, she reached for the bottle.

Since she was very young?

Last time she had called it her sanctuary — and now she was saying she had carried it since childhood?

None of it made any sense. The idea of poison as a sanctuary was absurd enough — but what kind of parents would give a child poison to carry?

“I’m afraid there is nothing more I can tell you, Your Highness.”

“What?”

“You said you wanted to know everything about this poison. Then this is the only answer I have to give you.”

“Lacy!”

Lacy smiled — and drank the poison again.

“Remember this well, Your Highness.”