“My lady!”

A bright, lively voice filled the room. Judith startled and stopped mid-step.

Standing inside was Rita — summoned just recently by telegram.

Light brown hair, eyes to match, and a scattering of freckles across her nose. Rita was the maid who had served Erika — in her body — at the townhouse.

Whether she shared an unusual bond with Erika, or was simply the sort of person who formed attachments too easily — it was one or the other.

Rita had been in the middle of sorting through the luggage brought from the Belheim household, but now came rushing toward Judith.

“……Rita. You’ve arrived safely.”

Judith slipped Rainer’s ring into her pocket as she spoke.

“My lady! Goodness, why is your color so poor. It must be from everything you went through — of course it is.”

Rita moved to take Judith’s hands with a worried expression, then hesitated.

Something in Judith’s bearing — cooler and quieter than before — had made her instinctively careful.

Her hands hovered uncertainly in the air. Rita fidgeted — then, as though a wonderful idea had just come to her, her eyes lit up and she darted to the desk.

“Oh, that’s right! My lady, look at this. There’s nothing better for lifting your spirits, is there?”

What Rita came back cradling carefully in her arms was a lacquered wooden box.

The very thing Judith had pressed Rita again and again to bring when she sent her word from the townhouse.

Rita beamed with a triumphant smile, like a child waiting to be praised.

“Just as you said, I stopped by the townhouse and brought it along properly. I was gone for over a week, so everyone at the estate thought I’d run off, can you believe it? Isn’t that funny? As if I would ever do that! What do they take me for!”

The exaggerated gestures and chatter were just as she remembered.

Rita set the box down on the table with a thud and stuck out her lower lip with an air of grievance.

“Truly, my lady — I couldn’t even tell anyone you’d sent me, do you know how difficult that was? You absolutely must clear my name with Head Maid Marta later. And you told me not to breathe a word to anyone when I came here either, so I was really in quite the spot!”

Rita tidied Judith’s belongings with her characteristic nimble hands, chattering all the while.

She seemed thoroughly delighted simply by the fact that she had carried out her lady’s request to the letter.

“The address you gave me already had someone else living there, if you can believe it! And the person I was supposed to wait for — it wasn’t them after all……. So there I was in Altmere for a whole week, trembling with nothing but the little note you wrote me. But you’d asked me to, so I gritted my teeth and waited!”

That was right. Judith had made that request of Rita at the townhouse.

“Rita — would you do something for me?”

“Go to this address and wait for someone. I’ll get word to you with the details later.”

“Please leave right away. This is for your expenses.”

Sending Rita to Altmere had been, in truth, simply because no other place had come to mind.

The primary intention had been to keep her separated for a time — so that the process of gathering information about Erika would not reach Lorenz’s ears.

And partly, I wanted to see what kind of person Rita was.

But in the meantime, her consciousness had been overtaken — and on top of that, a full week had passed — and she could never have dreamed it would end with her entering the Imperial Palace like this.

Not what I anticipated at all.

Truly, a person could not see even a single step ahead.

“You worked hard, Rita. The address changing must have been my mistake.”

Judith answered gently, with a note of apology.

She undid the latch on the box. Inside, neatly undisturbed, were the newspapers and gossip papers she had checked before, along with sweets and snacks — candy and biscuits.

Rita watched Judith look through the box and asked carefully:

“But my lady — are you really all right? Back then and now both, you seem far too calm compared to usual, and you’re also speaking formally to me……”

“……”

At Rita’s careful question, Judith’s fingertips paused for a moment. Just then, something glinted inside the box.

Judith reached her hand in among the sweets in their bright wrapping paper. Her fingertips met something hard and out of place, and she drew it slowly out.

It was a modest little hairpin in the shape of a sunflower, with a single cubic zirconia set at its center — far removed from the elaborate jewels Erika had reportedly favored.

“……Rita, what is this?”

Rita glanced at what was in Judith’s hand and scratched the tip of her nose with a sheepish look.

“You don’t remember? You gave it to me as a gift a while back. Said it was something you treasured. Ah — you did throw it at me, but still……! You said it was precious to you, so I tucked it in with the rest.”

“……”

“You always loved white lilies, my lady. So when you said you treasured the pin I thought it was strange. But somehow — the way you are now, I think sunflowers suit you better. Hehe.”

Judith turned the sunflower pin over quietly in her fingers.

Sunflowers…… are a flower I love.

Assimilation……

[Once assimilation begins, the souls start to mistake each other’s tastes, habits, and emotions for their own.]

Judith closed her fingers tightly around the pin.

Looking at Rita — pressing herself close without pause, forming a one-sided attachment — guilt kept rising in her, unbidden.

This girl did not know her mistress’s soul had been exchanged. She was simply chattering away, glad to be reunited.

“……”

Judith made up her mind. She lifted her gaze and met Rita’s eyes.

“Rita — listen carefully. The person standing before you right now…… is not the mistress you knew.”

Rita blinked her wide eyes a couple of times. Then, as though she had heard some kind of joke, she waved her hand lightly and broke into a laugh.

“Oh, my lady, really. Are you playing that kind of trick again? Speaking formally to me is already strange enough — if you start making jokes like that on top of it, I really can’t keep up.”

“I’m not joking.”

Judith’s voice dropped, low and heavy. The laughter faded gradually from Rita’s face.

Judith parted her lips, conscious of Rainer’s ring through the fabric of her skirt.

“Do you remember what I said I would tell only you, last time?”

“Yes…… I remember……”

“The truth is, I——”

Judith hesitated.

She had been certain she needed to tell Rita everything and ask for her help — but when the moment came, the words would not leave her mouth.

His Highness believed me, for whatever reason. And Dr. Hoffmann — I didn’t frame it as my own situation, but it falls within her field of research, so she had no particular resistance to it.

But Rita?

This girl — what would she make of it?

……Would what she was about to say not be a kind of violence, directed at a girl who trusted and followed her as Erika?

Judith worried at her lower lip, then continued.

“……I’ve lost some of my memories.”

She changed course and began weaving words together on the spot.

“Who I am, what kind of life I’ve lived. And Rita — I find I can barely remember who it was you knew me to be.”

“My lady, what do you——”

“I want to keep it a secret from my husband. I don’t wish to cause him worry. So Rita — it’s your help I need.”

……And yet she still needed to learn about Erika.

Judith looked steadily into Rita’s eyes.

“He will come before long. Help me until then. So that I don’t make mistakes in front of him — tell me what I used to love, and how I was when I was with him, the way you remember it.”

“……”

“You said you only saw me when I came up to the Capital, so you may not have much to go on — but that’s all right. Even the smallest habits of mine that you remember. Tell me about the me you saw, exactly as you saw her.”

Tears rushed into Rita’s eyes in an instant.

She appeared to have received quite a shock — but beyond that, she seemed glad, deeply glad, that her mistress was trusting and leaning on her.

Rita clasped Judith’s hands tightly in hers and gave a resolute nod.

“All right, my lady. I may not look it, but my powers of observation are exceptional — and my memory is excellent too. So trust only in me. I’ll read the room and help you through everything in front of the Duke as well!”

Her eyes shone with such pure, unguarded sincerity that a corner of Judith’s heart stung — knowing she was lying to her, and making use of her on top of it.

……But this was not the time to be particular about means.

Several days later.

“My lady.”

Judith had finished her duties as one of Princess Dorothea’s ladies-in-waiting and returned to her room — when he appeared before her.

“I have come to escort you.”

Holding the composed, unruffled posture she had always seen from him. Wearing that gentle smile.

Her husband. Lorenz Belheim.