Mariya seemed to agree and nodded.

“Then who will you go with? I have to wash the bedding today.”

“……I have someone.”

Rodion Nikolayevich had proposed a contractual courtship, after all. It seemed worth having a more in-depth conversation about the terms.

Not for any other reason.

But as it turned out, I was unable to reach Rodion that day. Nor did I receive any reply to my letter from him before the day of Samsonov’s ball.

The man who had so boldly asked me to be his fake fiancée ignoring my messages for two weeks was one thing, but there was a more pressing problem.

In nineteenth-century Russia, a woman of my standing, effectively an “unmarried woman of age,” could not attend something like a ball without a chaperone.

Katerina had no friends her own age, and no cousins other than Dmitri.

And Ivan…… Ivan was entirely out of the question. First, he was still unwell. Second, the last conversation we had left far too many loose ends. And third, being seen with another man to provoke Ivan’s jealousy was one of my secondary objectives at this point.

The problem was that even with the master of the house personally sending an invitation, I now had no way of actually getting there.

Should I just go alone and act like I didn’t care? What were they going to do about it, really? Point fingers?

I had gotten that far in my thinking when I spotted an unfamiliar carriage turning into the alley outside my window. Before long it stopped in front of our house, and a familiar figure stepped out.

“Katya!”

Ivan spotted me and waved both arms over his head.

He was dressed in a clean formal coat and frock coat. Anyone could see he was dressed to escort a lady somewhere.

“What, how……”

I shook my head. How Ivan had known my plans was entirely beside the point right now. For him to come for me at exactly this moment was a completely unexpected turn of events.

Not necessarily a bad one, of course. My goal, after all, was to make Ivan fall in love with me. A Saturday night ball was about as ideal a setting for building affection as anything could be.

The problem was that my plan to make a dazzling entrance and stir up Ivan’s jealousy by scattering rumors had now been derailed.

‘But I can’t just leave a sick person standing out there……’

By the time I came downstairs, Ivan was already waiting for me in the entrance hall.

“Ivan Ivanovich, are you feeling well enough?”

“Thank you for your concern, Katerina Vladimirovna. But I’m fine. Shall we get in the carriage?”

Ivan’s face was pale, though, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Cold sweat at fourteen degrees below zero was no ordinary sign of illness.

“……Ivan Ivanovich.”

“Let’s get in the carriage first. I’ll explain everything on the way.”

“……”

As expected, the carriage was headed for Samsonov’s estate. I watched Ivan across from me with a skeptical eye. Had he come all this way because he suspected something between me and Samsonov? Now that it had come to this, should I change course and let him witness a flirtation with another man firsthand?

Even having decided to throw away things like conscience, that felt too…… destructive.

“Here.”

What Ivan pulled from his inner pocket was a letter envelope. Specifically, the very envelope I had sent to Rodion.

“How did you……”

“I’m not that oblivious. It was addressed to me, wasn’t it.”

Had the fever cooked his brain? Never mind the ball, at this rate I was going to end up looping again.

The thought crossed my mind that it was rather inhumane to be thinking this in front of a sick person, but I had seen far too much by now to worry about that.

Frankly speaking, I had already had Ivan’s brains splattered on me more times than I cared to count.

“What made you so certain that letter was meant for you?”

Ivan blinked at my question.

“Look, Katya, it’s just the two of us here. The misunderstanding’s been cleared up. I know you care about appearances, but can’t you just call me by my name like you used to?”

The misunderstanding. He must be referring to our conversation two weeks ago.

He had been firmly convinced that I was in love with Samsonov. If that conversation had cleared things up, that was fortunate, but……

At the same time, another thought occurred to me. Had he seen my letter to Rodion and jumped to some even larger misunderstanding?

“Ivan, about that letter you say I sent……”

Ivan nodded readily.

“The one where you said you wanted to break off the engagement?”

“Right, do you still have it?”

“No.”

“Pardon?”

“I burned it. It hurt too much to look at.”

“……What?”

Ivan sighed. He leaned back against the seat with some effort, as though even sitting upright was a strain.

“You know, Katya, I think I forgot how precious you were to me for far too long. When we were very young…… we were each other’s dearest friends.”

“……”

“But it’s all right now. Because…… you called out to me again. You’re the only one who worries about me, Katya.”

Ivan smiled faintly.

By this point I was beginning to wonder whether I had been operating under some tremendous misconception all along.

All this time I had been trying to persuade Ivan, yet I had never actually tried to listen to him. But what exactly had changed?

The only thing I could say for certain was that the Ivan before me now was nothing like the listless, cynical Ivan Ivanovich of the original story.

It might simply be the fever talking, but……

“Come to think of it, something feels different today……”

Ivan murmured.

“Wh, what does?”

“You’re being too kind to me, Katya.”

“I am……?”

“Actually, I’d been feeling guilty about being cold to you last time. But then you…… invited me like this…… you have no idea how happy it made me.”

I was briefly at a loss for words.

“……You did check the name on the envelope properly, didn’t you, Ivan?”

“You mean the one with that officer’s name on the outside? Ha, always so mischievous. I know what you were doing. Getting back at me for suspecting something between you and Samsonov, weren’t you?”

“Oh……”

I opened and closed my mouth without a sound. Ivan suddenly turned toward the window and exclaimed.

“Look, birch trees!”

I turned my head on reflex, and sure enough, a gleaming white birch forest spread out before us.

“Do you remember, Katya? That story you told me when we were little, about the demon of the birch forest.”

“……Did I tell you something like that?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

Ivan looked at me and smiled like a boy.

“You told me a demon lives in the birch forest. That if you could find the demon without losing your way at midnight, the demon would grant you a wish.”

A demon.

If a demon appeared in “The Death of Ivan Ivanovich,” it would most likely be a narrative device to suggest a character’s deteriorating mental state.

A novel this dry and cynical had no room for anything supernatural.

But a thought struck me then. The fact that I had transmigrated into this novel in the first place was about as supernatural as anything could be. In that case, perhaps it wasn’t so strange for a demon or two to be living in a birch forest.

“I’ll say it now, but I was a little afraid of you when I was young.”

Ivan said with a shy look.

“Understandable, when a child goes around saying gloomy things about forest demons.”

“Ha, maybe. But I’m not joking. Right now…… you feel like a different person somehow.”

“……”

“Maybe, Katya, when you saved me from the river that day, you were completely reborn as someone new.”

I looked at Ivan for a moment, lost for words.

“……It wasn’t me who saved you, Ivan.”

But Ivan didn’t answer. He only smiled at me with fever-bright eyes.

A short while later we arrived at Samsonov’s estate. The grand hall was packed with dressed-up young people. Mariya, who had followed us in a servants’ carriage, was bouncing with excitement.

“Miss, we’re staying until late tonight, aren’t we? We are, right?”

“Depends on how you behave. More importantly, have you seen Ivan Ivanovich?”

The moment Ivan stepped out of the carriage, he had gone off saying he would find Samsonov. He told me to sit and wait comfortably, but there was no chance of that.

“Now that you mention it. He didn’t look well at all. I hope he hasn’t gone and collapsed somewhere.”

Mariya was right. But I couldn’t go rummaging through the estate without even greeting the host.

“Oh, isn’t that the officer gentleman from before?”

She was right again. I spotted Rodion being welcomed into the estate by someone.

“Ugh.”

I decided to slip into another room before he could notice me.