Lacy had taken in everything unfolding around her and pieced it together. She had already reached her conclusions, and now she was asking Rafez without a trace of distress.

A frightening woman — one who treated even her own life as something trivial.

With Lacy already knowing everything, Rafez had no choice but to answer.

“……Yes.”

“So I can no longer die by my own hand — and that’s why someone is trying to kill me instead. To kill me and frame you, just as you said.”

A clear, precise answer.

With Lacy’s words, silence settled over the room.

Rafez and Lacy held each other’s gaze without looking away. Siz remained kneeling on the floor, watching the two of them with uneasy eyes. Mollys had stood witness to everything, listening to it all — but what he had heard was so startling that it seemed he could hardly believe it. He wasn’t even certain he had understood it correctly.

“So then — will you simply die for them, the way they want?”

Now he understood the ducal house’s trap, and Lacy’s willingness to become that trap herself. But understanding it changed nothing — he still couldn’t accept it, still wanted to overturn the whole arrangement.

He couldn’t allow things to unfold the way they wanted. The way she wanted.

“Then what would you have me do? Even today’s attempt — it was only stopped because Your Highness discovered it first. Had you not caught it in time, I would have drunk the poison today.”

“Which means you don’t know who was behind today’s attempt either.”

Lacy gave a small nod.

In truth, Lacy hadn’t known from the start that Siz was a spy for the ducal house. She had only suspected it, watching the way Siz quietly looked after her without making it obvious.

But to use the Marquess Jin household as a cover — even from Lacy’s perspective, as someone on the same side, Hereis was a thorough and frightening man.

“Then is there any way to tell in advance whether something has been poisoned?”

Rafez had been lost in thought for a moment before posing the question — grasping at any thread of hope he could find. If they were willing to go as far as using poison, surely they had some means of detecting it.

But it seemed the ducal house had no interest in cultivating anything so generous as hope.

“……No.”

The answer came after a long silence, and Lacy shook her head.

“Ha.”

Rafez lowered his head at her answer, and Mollys, watching from the side, looked utterly at a loss. Stopping Lacy’s death was critical — but the poison could just as easily reach Rafez.

That was what puzzled Lacy as well.

This time, Rafez truly could have drunk it. Had the ducal house known that and acted anyway? Did they consider Rafez’s death acceptable?

If not, then——

“Siz. From now on, you will serve as a double agent between House Felista and the ducal house.”

“……Pardon?”

“Whatever orders come down from the ducal house — bring every word of it to me without omitting a single thing. If you value your life, that is. Do you understand?”

In the brief moment Lacy had been lost in thought, Rafez appeared to have already arrived at his own conclusions. He had lifted his head again, and his expression was cold and composed.

“Your Highness, my own life is not something I hold dear. But——”

“Is that so? Then what you fear is Lacy’s death. If you refuse to do as I say, or make even the slightest misstep — I won’t use poison. I’ll put a blade through your mistress myself.”

Siz fell silent at his words, fear stopping her mouth. He had found exactly the right answer. Lacy’s death was precisely what Siz feared — and beyond her, what Pierre feared as well.

“Do you think me incapable of it? Even if I don’t kill her myself, I’ll be convicted of murder regardless — so I might as well actually do it.”

Lacy was no less startled by Rafez’s words, and Siz trembled as she answered.

“Your Highness, I am — yes, I am connected to the ducal house, but I am also a spy for the Marquess household. I pass word to the Marquess household on occasion, but I have no direct dealings with the ducal house.”

So using the Marquess household hadn’t been solely to avoid leaving evidence of ties to the ducal house?

Rafez’s brow furrowed.

“And exactly who in the Marquess household do you pass word to?”

“……Young Lord Pierre Jin.”

Siz answered carefully, watching his reaction.

Pierre. To hear that name again here.

Rafez couldn’t quite shake the strange, unpleasant feeling that settled over him.

“Ha. So Pierre has been receiving reports on the Grand Ducal estate through you — and still had the audacity to come visit Lacy today as though he knew nothing?”

Siz could no longer answer. Lacy said nothing either.

“Mollys.”

“Yes? Ah — yes, Your Highness.”

Mollys had been watching the scene unfold until the sheer complexity of it left him dazed, but Rafez’s voice snapped him back at once.

“Have all of Lacy’s things moved to the Grand Duchess’s chambers right now. Siz as well.”

“Pardon?”

“Is what I said difficult to understand? Shall I repeat it?”

“Ah — no. I’ll see to it immediately.”

Mollys bowed and left the room with Siz. It wasn’t an order he fully understood — but doing something, anything, felt better than staying in this suffocating room a moment longer. Much more of this and he’d lose the ability to breathe entirely.

“……We still haven’t finished discussing that.”

“Do you think you still have a choice in the matter?”

“Your Highness——”

Rafez’s eyes were blue, yet somehow they looked like blazing fire. As though she might be swallowed whole.

“Call me Rafez. My name.”

“Pardon? What do you——”

“Why not? You call the young lord of the Marquess household by his given name, yet you can’t bring yourself to call your own husband by his?”

Lacy went quiet.

Rafez had known about the tea party as well. She had suspected as much — he would have had her watched, and word would have reached him — but he had shown no reaction at the time, so she had assumed it didn’t matter to him.

“What is your relationship with Pierre Jin?”

“He’s simply a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Yes. Rather like you and the young countess.”

Lacy had turned it back on him with Mary — and at that,

“Is that so? Mary is in a position to become my mistress — are you saying Pierre stands in the same relation to you?”

Rafez raised one eyebrow with an expression of mild interest.

“Actually, that would make sense. He’s even planted a spy to receive reports on your wellbeing. Hasn’t he?”

“……It’s true that our families discussed a match when we were children. But I’m married to you now.”

“Now that is the first thing you’ve said that pleases me.”

Rafez smiled at last.

“That’s right — you married me, and you are my wife. It’s only natural that you remain at my side. Don’t forget that.”

“You call me your wife knowing the truth of this marriage? Then say the word — let’s divorce instead!”

Lacy couldn’t make sense of Rafez’s true intentions. Knowing better than anyone that he had walked into a trap — how could the word “wife” still come so easily to his lips?

Now that everything had been laid bare, a marriage that continued to drag on would serve neither of them. Rafez had every right to feel wronged by the situation, but there was no clean way to hold the ducal house accountable — and with the plan already exposed, holding on any longer wasn’t easy for Lacy either.

“I didn’t expect to hear you be the first to say it. When I was the one asking for a divorce, you said no.”

“What do you——”

“That’s right. You wouldn’t remember. It was only in a dream.”

It was almost funny.

The woman who had said she couldn’t divorce for the sake of her family was now the one demanding it first.

And Rafez knew it well — even with the spy and the poison uncovered, there was still no way to prove conclusively that it was House Lennon’s doing.

Siz had said her own life meant nothing to her, so if he tried to use her as a witness she would sooner take her own life — and Lacy was the same. With the Marquess household’s traces still attached to Siz, she would be recognized as a spy for the Marquess house, nothing more.

Divorcing now would free him from the immediate trap — but the ducal house’s spies would still remain inside the Grand Ducal estate, and if things were left unresolved, it was plain that the ducal house would use poison again at any opportunity.

Until Rafez was dead.

Duke Lennon was a man who valued appearances, which was likely the only reason he hadn’t moved directly against Rafez yet — but if he set his mind to it, he could do to Rafez exactly what he had done to Louis at any time——

He could try to poison Rafez just as he had poisoned Louis.

All of it — every last bit of it — was almost laughable.

“I’m afraid not. Not anymore.”

“……What are you saying?”

Lacy looked at him with eyes full of wariness, but Rafez reached out with a composed expression and took hold of her chin.

“Did you think I would give you a divorce?”

Lacy’s startled eyes wavered.

“Do you still not understand? You are my hostage now.”