“Don’t interfere anymore.”

His tone grew firmer, partly because Martiana had spoken, but also because of an instinct honed by experience.

It was late.

A mother arrived alone.

A child had been left behind.

He had seen too many similar cases. The fact that it involved a young child made him even more alert.

Sensing the shift in the atmosphere, Ramelata’s smile stiffened.

“Please don’t look at me so seriously. Do you think I abandoned my son? Of course not. I was just teasing my sister-in-law because she was so startled. Alex is at the hospital.”

‘Again.’

This reaction.

Unfamiliar—yet not entirely. He had seen it before. That blind fixation.

Even earlier today, hadn’t she done the same?

‘At the annex.’

She said she was going to visit the Countess of Pumilum and her child.

Once again, it was the same people.

The same figures. The same presence.

She had fled the dining room the moment she heard the butler speak. It was all one and the same.

Martiana was obsessed with those two.

Deeply. Severely. Almost pathologically.

“Why? Why can’t I?”

Her clear voice rose from just beneath his chin, cutting through his thoughts. Siliar lowered his gaze and met her eyes.

Her irises were a mysterious violet color, brimming with something akin to resentment.

“They said the child is ill. Then as family, we should go. The child is sick. A child, alone at the hospital—”

“The Countess went. There’s no need for you to.”

“But, but—!”

Her eyes widened briefly before narrowing again.

She trailed off, but her face clearly showed what she was thinking.

How could he not know?

She looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment.

He knew exactly what she wanted to say. He knew the thoughts that had driven her to seek them out.

‘You’re mistaken.’

No—more precisely, she was projecting.

Projecting their own child onto her younger sibling’s child.

‘Was Mother right?’

She had once said something like that.

“If a child were running through this estate, what do you think that would feel like to her?”

The reason his mother had insisted Martiana be sent away from the estate.

At the time, he had not thought deeply about it.

But now—

“And does it resemble her? It would have been difficult enough if it were just any child.”

The problem was that she resembled her too much.

Martiana had never officially seen her niece. But somehow, she must have found out.

She had the same hair as Licorice. The same eyes. They were even the same age.

That was why she was so restless.

She was desperate to see the child because of it.

She still couldn’t forget their daughter.

“Martiana… that child is not her.”

Having made up his mind, Siliar tried to calm her down. He had barely uttered a word when he felt his throat tighten.

His hand, gripping hers, trembled with longing.

At his words, her expression changed, too.

“Did you see her?”

Her voice quivered, faintly threaded with tears.

Siliar exhaled shakily and nodded.

“I did.”

“What was she like?”

“……”

“I heard she has the same hair as you. The same eyes.”

Martiana lifted her gaze to meet his. Her eyes shimmered, on the verge of spilling over.

“The child looks like Pameli.”

Siliar answered slowly and haltingly. He was telling the truth, yet each word felt unbearably heavy.

Perhaps he had wanted to be wrong, too.

But he should never have done.

“Pameli…”

Martiana echoed the name softly. Her gaze drifted back toward the entrance where Ramelata’s carriage had departed.

She looked absent. Hollow.

“Pameli…”

“Martiana.”

“I was only… curious. Just… be—”

The end of her sentence dissolved. The breath she drew in shuddered, as though caught against stone.

“Our…”

It would not come out.

She could whisper the name easily enough in her own mind. Alone.

“Our…”

But between the two of them—she could not.

“I know. You don’t have to say it.”

Siliar held her again. If he let go, she seemed likely to collapse completely. He didn’t know what else to do.

All he could do was repeat the same reassurances while her broken murmurs continued.

“We don’t even know how she would have grown by now.”

“Right.”

“We don’t know how big she would be.”

“I know. But that child isn’t her.”

It was a gentle truth, and yet unwavering.

An honesty that must have felt like her heart being torn apart.

“I know. I know—I know that. But Siliar, just once. Can’t I see her just once?”

“Martiana.”

“Just once is enough. Only once. I won’t insist again. Siliar… please. Let me see the child just once.”

At last, her tears broke free. Gripping his arm, she begged him.

Perhaps these were tears she should have shed long ago.

He could feel her trembling endlessly in his grasp.

“Just once… please…”

“Forgive me.”

He felt a crushing sense of guilt bearing down on his shoulders, heavy as gold.

Ultimately, it was his fault.

Siliar had not found their daughter quickly enough.

How could he have forgotten?

They were not all right. Not at all.

It didn’t matter that her voice had returned. She had demanded a divorce.

That didn’t mean she was healed.

Had he mistaken her livelier demeanr for recovery?

Had he convinced himself that she had finally moved on?

“Don’t cry. Please, stop crying.”

But they are still hurting.

The wound festers again like this, leaving behind scars that may never fade.

“I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”

Holding the broken Martiana in his arms, Siliar swallowed his tears.

***

When she came to her senses, it was already dawn.

Pitch-black darkness surrounded her. The only light came from the faint moonlight filtering through the window.

“Ha…”

Martiana lay on the bed, staring blankly ahead.

Her entire body felt drained and lifeless, as if the breath were escaping from her lips. She could not remember when she had fallen asleep.

After Siliar appeared, and after Ramelata mentioned that the child was ill, her mind had gone completely blank.

Or perhaps she had been absent even before that.

“Pfft.”

That laugh!

From the moment she heard it echoing near her ear.

It had been small. Faint.

And yet it shook her to the core.

It would not be wrong to say it struck home.

To a woman desperate to see the child, Ramelata’s attitude was unmistakably contemptuous. Of course, nothing showed on the surface. Ramelata remained polite to the very end.

“Sister-in-law, sister-in-law.”

She had said sweetly, her voice lingering in Martiana’s ears even now.

But—

‘Her eyes.’

Her gaze had not been polite.

Her eyes had said this: You don’t have a child, so you came to see mine?

How could that subtle sense of superiority be described?

The victory she never wanted to understand.

The shame that accompanied it.

For a moment, she wanted to flee. To leave that place immediately.

But she could not.

Instead, Martiana bit the inside of her cheek.

She had to find out where the child was.

She had to know.

The answer she received was—

“She isn’t here.”

A hollow, crushing emptiness.

Even worse was the news about the child’s condition, which Martiana had been unaware of.

When she heard that the child was ill, she became flustered. Nothing else mattered.

It didn’t matter if Ramelata mocked her.

All she needed to know was whether the child was safe.

However, Ramelata had never intended to tell her until the end.

Even as she was leaving, she refused Martiana’s request.

And in that moment, Martiana understood.

‘She was never going to let me see her child.’

Perhaps others could.

But not Martiana.

Why?

Siliar had already seen the child.

Then why not her as well?

“Why?”

She pressed a hand to her forehead, struggling with the unanswered question.

There was something else troubling her about Ramelata.

After she left, Martiana had seen something familiar at the entrance.

More precisely, she had noticed it when she tried to follow Ramelata, who was carrying the child’s toy bag.

She had stepped on something.

“……!”

The chill that ran through her then had stolen her breath. She had nearly collapsed on the spot.

Fortunately, Siliar had caught her before she could fall.

“That black thing…”

Afterwards, her memory of the conversation with Siliar about the child had become blurred.

But she was certain.

That chilling, nauseating sensation could only have been caused by one thing.

It wasn’t as though she had experienced it often.

‘Where did I see it before?’

Before she saw Ramelata’s.

‘The annex.’

And—

‘In front of the guard station.’

She could not yet tell what those places had in common.

For now, the only thing Martiana could do was—

“Tapnad.”

Turn to someone she could trust.

“I have a favor to ask.”

And ask for help.

That was all.