Once, she had asked him whether he found joy in living this way, tormenting each other. She had asked whether he hurt and suffered just as much as she did.

〈It’s painful…… Don’t you feel the same? Living with me is painful, isn’t it.〉

She had been left speechless by Kailen’s answer, the way he nodded readily, almost in acknowledgment of that pain.

〈Yeah, but I’d rather we both suffer than suffer alone.〉

So divorce was out of the question, he had said.

Adeline had always wanted to keep Kailen from getting entangled because of her. She knew he was a remarkable man who could bear the risk she posed without easily breaking.

Still…… setting aside the emotions they had built over a lifetime together, as one person to another. She had already caused him so much loss, and she no longer wanted to bring him any more harm.

But he refused what she considered her best effort.

I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.

So there was nothing left to do. After telling Tanya not to follow her, Adeline stepped out through the front entrance and was hurrying toward the street to hail a rental carriage when it happened.

“My lady!”

Vardi, the head butler, called out to her, breathless. A man so habitually calm and composed had no business rushing toward her like this. On top of that, several sturdy servants appeared from somewhere and fell in behind him. A sense of dread crept over Adeline, and her brow furrowed.

“My lady, the visit has been cancelled.”

That person again……

Kailen. He always controlled and bent people to his will this way.

But for Adeline, for Leopold, today was the last day. It was the final day she could look upon the face of her only remaining family, whom she would never see again.

Was it truly so great a desire, so grave a sin, to want one last look at the face of a blood relative she would carry in her heart and long for?

Yes, even if it were a mortal sin…… even if she were to be stoned to death as punishment, Adeline could not back down today.

“I’m sorry, but today is the one day I cannot follow the head butler’s wishes.”

She had no desire to trouble the old butler, who had done nothing wrong. But Adeline, with no intention of complying, turned away from him. Yet the head butler stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

“My lady, please come inside first and let me explain……”

“I truly don’t want to make things difficult for everyone, so please step aside.”

The man who was always composed showed an uncharacteristic flicker of anxiety. Adeline’s sigh deepened, uncomfortable at making someone his age stand there like this.

“All right, I suppose it can’t be helped. Then I’ll be the one to step aside.”

The sky was unusually clear that day, without a breath of wind, yet strangely, a chill settled in her chest. Adeline smoothed the hem of her coat and moved to step around him, when Vardi spoke up in a rush.

“My lady, please hear me out. I was never trying to stop your visit. I only came to inform you that a notice arrived saying today’s visit was unavoidably cancelled.”

The visit was cancelled?

What does that mean?

“Cancelled…… a notice?”

A hollow laugh escaped her.

“Did that person pull strings again? Of course…… It’s obvious without even looking. He must have cancelled it. Who else would it be.”

“No, my lady. That is not……”

The old butler’s lips parted slowly, wanting to clear up Adeline’s misunderstanding about Kailen.

“……The thing is, Lord Leopold passed away in the early hours of this morning.”

What?

The moment the two words, Leopold and passed away, struck her ears, every expression drained from Adeline’s face.

……Her brother was dead?

“Yes, it was a sudden occurrence, and the cause is currently under investigation.”

Vardi added a few more words about the cause of death being under investigation and the scene being under control, but none of it reached Adeline. In a silence where all sound seemed to vanish, she stood frozen in place.

Why? It wasn’t supposed to be yet.

Not today…… not today……

Adeline had accepted Leopold’s death sentence with her own two eyes and her own two ears. But she could not process the unexpected news that had just fallen before her, and her head tilted ever so slightly.

No……

No, that can’t be right.

Her handbag slipped lightly from her grasp. But the strap caught on her stiffened fingers, and it hung dangling in the air, unable to fall.

“My lady, please go inside for now. I will relay any further news to you the moment it arrives.”

The old butler, watching Adeline’s unfocused green eyes as she looked ready to collapse at any moment like a puppet with its strings cut, took her handbag from her.

“What are you all standing there staring at? Escort my lady inside at once!”

He then gave firm orders for the servants to bring her inside without delay.

* * *

After losing consciousness upon hearing that Leopold had died by poison before his execution, Adeline finally opened her eyes on the fourth day.

On top of the emotional shock, she had been bedridden from malnutrition and dehydration combined. She sat in the drawing room and received a careful report from head butler Vardi.

“The cause of death is reported as poisoning. In the investigation records, it has been classified as s*icide.”

Presumed s*icide? Absurd.

Adeline did not believe it. She was certain Leopold would never have taken poison himself. She was convinced it was not s*icide but murder by poisoning.

Others may not have known, but Adeline knew Leopold’s conviction that one cowardly escape was enough. He was a man who felt sorry for the family he would leave behind, yet intended to atone to Krauben with his own blood. And he had taken his own life? The day before his execution, no less.

It makes no sense……

Would someone who intended to drink poison have endured all that brutal t*rture?

If he had access to poison, why hadn’t he taken it sooner?

No, if he had taken it the moment he was arrested, wouldn’t that have been far easier?

The questions knotted inside her chest and roiled like screams, but Adeline could not bring herself to voice them aloud. Who could she possibly say such things to?

“The possibility of foul play was also mentioned, but there was no evidence and no witnesses. The inspectorate concluded it as ’indeterminate.’”

Yes, of course. Leopold had already been a condemned man, and the whole world had wanted him dead.

“Since his execution had already been confirmed, there has been an official announcement that no further investigation will take place.”

Then again, Leopold was not the only one the world wanted dead. Everyone wanted her dead just the same.

“My lady…… I am sorry for your loss.”

Looking at Vardi as he added those words of condolence was too much to bear, and Adeline could not even manage a reply.

Of course, unlike in her more naive years, she now had some vague sense of what face to put on for others in moments like this. But she had no strength left to put on any face at all, and now she even doubted whether her own thoughts and judgments were sound.

The world had upended itself twice over. As the princess of a fallen royal family that had led a nation to ruin, Adeline had thought she had grown accustomed to an isolated life, whether by choice or by circumstance. But now that very familiarity weighed on her unbearably.

A longing for someone to come find her washed over her chest like a wave. The realization that she had been waiting for Kailen without even knowing it, like a solitary island in a vast and empty sea, made her eyelids tremble for a moment before going still.

“……”

At some point after they had drifted apart beyond recovery, she had come to think it was better if they did not see each other’s faces at all. Yet strangely, in this one moment, she desperately wanted him to appear before her, to cross that threshold, to walk through that door.

Because he was at least someone who would give her an honest answer about this. He was the one person she felt she could bare her true feelings to.

So she thought she could ask him directly about Leopold, in detail. She knew a cold reply would come back to her, but even so, she felt it would clear something out of her chest. That was why she was waiting for him, she concluded, and a hollow smile brushed across her lips and disappeared.

After sitting in the drawing room chair for a long while, Adeline finally rose and wandered without knowing where to go, letting her feet carry her until she found herself at Kailen’s bedroom.

But the moment she opened the door, only cold air greeted her.

“……He’s not here.”

The bedroom and the inner study beyond were both empty. Not even a trace of recent use remained, and his presence did not linger anywhere in the room.

Adeline slowly leaned against the edge of the couch.

In the darkness, she ran her fingertips once across the tassel of the cushion where Kailen must have rested, then turned her gaze toward the firmly shut door.

But even as the night wore on, the door did not open once.