“That’s right. Is there a problem?”

The look Rafez turned on Eldeo was sharp. It said: I don’t know why you’re still here, but what business is it of yours. It was as good as telling him to leave.

“……No. None at all.”

Eldeo read it perfectly, offered a hasty bow, and slipped out of the room.

“Is he returning to House Felista’s service? As your aide?”

Lacy had been watching Eldeo go, but turned to Rafez with the question. Someone she hadn’t seen once since the marriage was suddenly back inside the estate, standing at Rafez’s side — anyone would draw the same conclusion.

Especially at a time like this.

“I’m still thinking it over. Why — does it bother you?”

“No. It has nothing to do with me.”

“……Is that so?”

“Then why are you hesitating? He’s a loyal retainer who took a wound in your place.”

“Because of you.”

Lacy looked at him with startled eyes.

But Rafez meant it. With the situation already teetering on Mary possibly being installed as a mistress, Eldeo’s sudden appearance felt almost too convenient — like a script that had been written in advance.

Of course, seeing Eldeo return in good health was cause for genuine relief. But still.

“Let’s not stand here like this. Sit down and have some tea — our conversation isn’t finished yet.”

A soft clunk.

“Thank you.”

“Of course. I’ll leave you to it.”

Mollys set down the tea and withdrew. This was ordinarily the maids’ task, but since the poisoning incident with Louis, Rafez had grown particular about such things, and Mollys handled it himself when it came to Rafez.

“……I’m all right now. Fully recovered.”

“I know. It’s just — with the rain, something cool and fragrant seems fitting, doesn’t it?”

The sweet mintscent of peppermint felt familiar to him now, somehow.

When Lacy continued to stare at him without a word, Rafez smiled and gave a small nod.

“All right. I won’t worry. But I truly do like the scent.”

He took a sip of tea. Sitting across from Lacy like this on a rainy day, he found himself thinking of that night at the Grand Duchy.

Rafez had never liked rain. The capital was damp enough as it was, and he had always disliked the heavy, wet air it brought. Rainy days at the palace were worse — the Emperor’s temper grew fouler by the hour.

He had hated the sound of it, too.

But right now, he didn’t think it was so bad. Sitting like this with a cup of tea, listening to the rain.

“So — is the scent why you haven’t touched yours?”

“It’s too hot.”

“Is it? It should have cooled by now.”

Lacy looked down at the faint curl of steam still rising from her cup, and parted her lips.

“Your Highness, I——”

It was at that moment.

A sharp crash —

It happened in an instant. Rafez had knocked Lacy’s teacup to the floor, and it shattered.

“Your Highness.”

Lacy was startled — but Rafez himself looked more shaken than anyone.

“Why——”

Lacy looked at him, but his eyes hadn’t moved from the broken cup. So she turned to look at the floor as well.

The spilled tea had already soaked into the carpet, and jagged shards lay scattered across it.

The door swung open.

“Your Highness, what’s happened?”

The sound of the cup shattering must have carried outside — Mollys came rushing in. He too took in the broken pieces on the floor.

“……I’ll clean it up at once.”

Mollys didn’t know why the cup had been smashed, only that he needed to clear it quickly, and stepped forward to do so. But Rafez threw out his arm and shouted.

“No — don’t touch it!”

“Your Highness, what’s happened? Is something wrong with the tea?”

Unease pressed in through the frozen air of the room.

“Lock up every person who laid a hand on that tea. Not one of them is to be missed.”

“I beg your pardon? What do you mean——”

Rafez lifted his gaze at last and looked at Lacy.

And said,

“Someone just tried to poison the Grand Duchess.”

If Lacy had drunk the tea as it was — what would have happened?

The answer was plain enough. She would have died again, and he would have driven the blade back into his own chest.

If Lacy hadn’t said the tea was too hot. If he hadn’t noticed, from that, that her cup was a different temperature from his.

The tower he had spent so long and so carefully building would have come down again.

Like a sandcastle swept away by the tide.

***

“Grand Duchess, you know I’m right. Don’t you?”

Rafez and Lacy had moved to the bedroom adjoining the study. The poisoned tea had already soaked into the carpet and was gone, and neither of them could stand to remain in that room any longer.

Mollys didn’t seem entirely convinced by Rafez’s claim of poison — he likely thought Rafez was simply on edge because of what had happened with Louis.

“……And how is it that Your Highness knows?”

Lacy didn’t deny it.

“Does that matter right now? What matters is who in this estate tried to poison you, and why.”

Rafez’s eyes held fury — and something else, something harder to name.

It was like that time. Like the day he had shouted at her to stop dying. On the surface it looked like anger, but underneath it looked almost like grief——

Lacy shook her head, pushing the thought away.

Why. She couldn’t find the reason, and so she couldn’t trust what she was feeling to be true.

“You could have been vomiting blood and dying right in front of me! And you’re still this calm?”

“Your Highness.”

Rafez’s arm seized her.

“Why — why do you look so unaffected to me? I can’t understand it. I can’t understand any of it, Lacy — not whoever is trying to kill you, and not you, standing in front of me like nothing has happened, as though this is all perfectly ordinary!”

So why, Rafez — why does this enrage you so deeply? Because something happened under your roof?

She wanted to believe that. But Lacy knew it wasn’t true. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, she could no longer deny what she was seeing in him.

Was it pity? Anger? Something between love and hate?

She still couldn’t name it.

“Because I’m going to die anyway.”

“……What?”

Her voice was calm. Flat. Almost cold.

As though she were speaking of someone else entirely.

“What did you just say? Say it again.”

“What does it matter if someone who was going to die eventually simply dies a little sooner.”

Lacy’s expression was serene. He hadn’t misheard.

He had always wondered. Even as he pieced the situation together, what he still couldn’t understand was why Lacy was being used as a sacrificial pawn — why she had willingly drunk poison for the fall of House Felista.

She had said her health wasn’t well at the Grand Duchy, but still.

“What do you mean, going to die eventually.”

“Your Highness — do you know why my skin is this pale?”

Lacy’s pale skin was beautiful. Set against her black hair, it appeared even whiter by contrast. That beauty had been House Lennon’s pride, the reason she drew eyes wherever she went.

“Once, in a childhood I can barely remember, I collapsed without warning. The cause was never determined. After that, I grew paler by degrees, and it became harder to keep weight on. Others might envy it, perhaps. But in cases like mine — they say it’s difficult to live past thirty.”

Lacy explained it plainly, before he could even ask.

“Tuluneiz, I think — I don’t quite remember the name. It’s commonly called the noble’s daughter sickness. That’s probably right.”

Rafez was no medical scholar, but it wasn’t something he had never heard of. It appeared rarely, and only among noblewomen — and in any case, dying young from a fragile constitution was not uncommon in the empire, where medicine had yet to properly advance.

The Imperial Princess herself had been born sickly and had never once appeared in society, spending all her years shut away inside the palace. That said enough.

But Lacy — not making it past thirty.

“……Even so, that can’t be a reason to drink poison.”

Rafez’s face had twisted.

Because she couldn’t live long regardless, she had abandoned her own life and offered herself up as a pawn for the imperial family and the ducal house?

“All the more reason to want to live. That’s what you should want. Isn’t it?”

“Your Highness——”

“Thirty, you said? You’re only twenty-two now. That’s a full eight years still ahead of you. And you would throw that time away on poison?”

Rafez took her hand. Lacy flinched but didn’t pull away.

It was cold — her hand. Cold enough to make him doubt she was truly alive.

“Live. At my side. Until the very end. I won’t forgive you for throwing your life away on something like poison.”