“Will you really greet me every day?”

“Of course. Your father does too, doesn’t he?”

“He does.”

“Then I should do the same as your mother. If that’s what a kind mother is, I can do that as much as you like.”

“Will you bake me sweets too?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Zenon asked with an anxious look.

What had happened to this child?

Raelia let her smile fade and looked at Zenon with a slightly somber expression.

“I’ll be a really good and well-behaved child, so please keep your promise.”

The child’s last words ached.

Does he think he has to be good to deserve love?

Raelia couldn’t speak for a moment as emotion surged up in her. There had been a time when she’d wanted desperately to be loved. She’d thought she’d forgotten all of it, but apparently not.

“Zenon.”

She didn’t know what had happened to him, but she wanted to say this.

“You don’t need to be a good child, Zenon. You’re already a wonderful child just as you are.”

Cassian and Hill, standing outside, heard her words too.

“Just grow up healthy, exactly the way you are now. And don’t force yourself to be good. Open your heart to me, and be the kind of child who tells me honestly what you dislike and what you love. A child who cherishes yourself, and cherishes your mother, and cherishes your father.”

〈I’ll be a good child. Please don’t throw me away.〉

She’d begged those same words once, in a past life.

And what came back was cold, hard reality. So she’d believed she’d been abandoned because she wasn’t good enough.

That her birth father had hated her and left her because of that.

But she knew now that wasn’t true.

The stepfather she’d met in her previous life, after her mother remarried, had been a warm man. When she’d clung to him and pleaded to be good so he wouldn’t leave, he’d said this to her.

〈You don’t have to be a good child. You’re already my daughter. Just grow up bright and honest and healthy.〉

Raelia’s expression turned sad as she saw her own shadow in Zenon’s words.

“It’s alright to grow up and cause trouble along the way. When you lose your way, I’ll be there as your gentle guide.”

Raelia’s words settled quietly in the air. They seemed to reach something inside Zenon. The child’s eyelashes trembled softly.

“Really?”

“Of course. I’m a kind mother, aren’t I?”

Raelia shrugged and smiled.

Tears welled in Zenon’s eyes.

“You really are kind!”

He murmured it over and over as he cried against her. Everything he’d been quietly carrying, every worry and hurt, spilled out of him.

Raelia held him close.

Cassian watched from outside, and something in his expression shifted. He pressed a hand against his chest.

His thoughts grew complicated, but Raelia didn’t know that.

* * *

Raelia, Cassian, and Zenon walked slowly through the garden. She’d packed a parasol in her bag in case the sun got strong, and it seemed about time to take it out.

‘Let me enjoy this a little.’

“Zenon, isn’t the sun hot?”

Zenon nodded at her question, his eyes still a little puffy.

“It does sting.”

His eyes were probably stinging from crying, but Raelia found him so sweet for agreeing with her that she said nothing and simply took out the parasol.

“I just bought this one.”

Zenon came over as she opened it.

Cassian stopped walking and watched them.

It was as if flowers were gathering around her. The floral-patterned parasol matched her dress so well that Cassian stood there for a moment, just looking.

They hadn’t known each other long, but Zenon was already completely taken with her.

Zenon often behaved in ways that seemed too grown-up for his age.

It had made Cassian wonder at times whether he’d been asking Zenon to be a child, or whether he’d unknowingly expected him to be more like an adult.

Now, watching them, it occurred to him that what Zenon had needed beside him was someone like Raelia.

To him, marriage had been nothing more than a union between families and a search for a suitable lady. Love was unnecessary, an emotion he could do without. What he needed was a marriage that met the right conditions.

But Raelia had asked, before anything else, what kind of mother Zenon wanted her to be.

Watching her over these past few days, he found himself wondering whether he’d ever truly been ready to build a family.

‘Raelia is focused on building the relationship itself.’

Where he’d been focused on matching conditions, Raelia was working to meet the child’s heart.

That was a significant difference.

“This is the best spot!”

Zenon’s voice broke through his thoughts.

He looked over to see Zenon tugging Raelia’s hand and running ahead.

It was the place he and Zenon sometimes came to in spring. A hidden corner of the back garden that only someone who’d spent a long time at the residence would know, and Zenon had brought Raelia there.

Cassian followed and came up beside Raelia.

“Close your parasol for a moment.”

Raelia folded it at his word.

She stepped into the center of the open space, guided by Cassian and Zenon. Dense shrubs and trees enclosed the area on all sides, and the sky opened up in a perfect circle overhead. It looked like a place where you could lie down and rest while gazing up at the sky.

“Look up!”

Raelia lifted her head at Zenon’s call.

Petals carried on the wind were drifting down in a slow, circular fall. The sky, framed by leaves like a round window, filled one by one with flowers.

“It’s so beautiful!”

Raelia’s admiration was genuine.

Cassian nodded.

Raelia standing among the falling petals looked extraordinarily beautiful.

This must be what it means when people say someone is lovely.

It wasn’t like him to be moved this way, but it wasn’t unwelcome.

* * *

Sara poured tea from a finely crafted teapot. Viloten had gone to attend to business, and Archan had gone to his lessons, so she was drinking alone.

An ordinary noblewoman with time to spare on a quiet afternoon like this would have hosted a tea party and gathered other ladies around her, but Sara rarely did that.

She was an outsider here. A commoner who’d become a marchioness. Of course she was.

Besides, today she had things to think through on her own.

She recalled Raelia’s composed expression when she’d said she’d marry a grand duke whose heir was already decided.

And then Raelia had suggested that Archan should start attending banquets.

‘There was no deception in what Raelia said.’

It was true that the Darhan comital family had sent an invitation. But they’d sent only one, making it clear they wanted Raelia alone. It had always been that way, so it wasn’t surprising.

That made Raelia’s offer to bring Archan to the banquet nothing short of a bombshell.

Still, if Raelia had made up her mind, there was no reason to refuse.

‘What could have happened.’

Raelia’s behavior had become impossible to predict.

The old Raelia had actually been easier to understand.

The way she’d quietly kept her distance from Sara and Archan back then.

Days had passed without a conclusion. Sara gave up trying to figure it out and set down her untouched cup.

The Darhan banquet wasn’t far off. She’d need to confirm whether Raelia still meant what she’d said.

“Bring Raelia to me.”

Sara decided to speak with her directly.

* * *

Seria braided Raelia’s hair. She’d done it in a different style today for the first time in a while, and Raelia watched the mirror with a fluttering heart.

“How is it?”

“Not bad.”

Raelia admired her reflection. A change like this wasn’t unwelcome.

“Don’t you think His Grace will like it?”

“I hope so.”

“He will!”

Raelia looked closely at her face in the mirror.

Seria was right. She looked quite pretty today.

She nodded and smiled again.

‘I had such a good time with Zenon yesterday.’

He’d shown her his favorite spot too. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so genuinely moved by flowers, and it had made her truly happy.

Both Cassian and Zenon seemed to like her well enough.

‘But I still don’t really know what a kind mother is.’

Zenon had given her quite a difficult assignment, when she thought about it.

She didn’t know exactly what she was supposed to do. She’d have to keep communicating with the child constantly. She couldn’t afford to miss anything. He’d already been hurt somewhere along the way, so she’d have to be even more attentive.

She absolutely couldn’t forget any of that.

Raelia was deep in thought about Zenon when Seria, finishing up her hair, glanced at her cautiously and asked.

“By the way, Miss, why have you been keeping Juan at a distance lately?”

“Hm?”

The sudden question pulled Raelia back to the present. Seria added carefully.

“It’s just that you haven’t called Juan in at all these past few days……”

Come to think of it, she hadn’t summoned Juan separately either, but Juan hadn’t come looking for her much either.

Was he up to something?

The thought crossed her mind briefly, but she decided to let it go. Good riddance.

She’d never want someone like that anyway.