“How do you plan to take responsibility, Princess?”

“For what?”

“For making me pine like this, you should compensate me somehow.”

Whoosh, the princess’s face turned as red as burning firewood. She glared sharply at the malicious smile appearing on Genoa’s lips.

Genoa glanced at the book in the princess’s hand and said,

“It seems you’ll be reading to me today.”

“This isn’t for Duke Ivanstein, it’s for me.”

The princess answered in a curt voice as she sat in the chair next to Genoa’s bed.

“It’s quite tiresome to just stare at the Duke’s face until you fall asleep.”

“Others say they like it though.”

The princess narrowed her eyes, trying to discern Genoa’s intention as he teased her unusually playfully. But seemingly unable to read anything, she soon let out a small sigh and opened the book.

Flutter, flutter.

Only the sound of pages turning under the princess’s touch echoed through the quiet bedroom. Genoa closed his eyes without saying anything more to her. He felt the fatigue knotted in his mind slowly flowing downward like a stream.

“I’m curious about something.”

Just then, the princess’s soft voice was heard. Genoa answered in a drowsy voice, not wanting to lose the feeling of his fatigue melting away.

“Keep it brief.”

“……Alright.”

Thud, the sound of the princess closing the book was heard. Genoa felt slightly disappointed but kept his dulled ears open.

“Is it true that the slave who resembled me really ran away?”

The purple eyes that were hazily blurring alternately hid behind eyelids and revealed themselves halfway. When Genoa received this question, he was half asleep. After suffering from devilish insomnia for days, the sleep that finally came was unbearably sweet.

“A slave. Ah……, Mel.”

In his foggy mind, his wariness about why the princess would ask such a question became blurred. Within those smeared boundary lines, he recalled that child’s face — the last he saw before being dragged into ‘that place.’

“Please, please escape from here. Come with me. I’ll serve you. I’ll serve you until the end, so please……”

“There, in that place, people die meaninglessly!”

Mel’s fair face had been stained with despair, tears streaming down. Taking her small, trembling hand that clutched his sleeve, Genoa had said:

“No one can escape from Ivanstein.”

What had Mel’s face looked like then? He couldn’t remember. Only the sensation of the child’s hand falling away from his sleeve remained vivid even now.

Had that child ran away thinking Genoa had died there? Or had she ran away alone because he rejected her proposal to escape together? Or perhaps his words had sparked her will to escape?

The thoughts he had when he heard that Mel had died while trying to escape resurfaced chaotically in Genoa’s mind.

“She should have just not died. Then I could have made sure she never escaped from Ivanstein.”

Genoa’s breathing became even. For a while, those steady breaths faintly echoed in the silent bedroom.

“……”

Mel froze, still holding the closed book. Her wide-open eyes grew red, unable to blink.

Though his voice had been barely audible, she could clearly feel the sharp emotion contained in the words that flowed between his moving lips.

“So you’re certain I ran away.”

Mel muttered quietly.

She wasn’t worried about Genoa hearing these words. She knew well from experience that once he fell asleep beside her, nothing could wake him.

A tear that had welled up in Mel’s unblinking eyes dropped onto the thick book cover with a plop. She hurriedly wiped her cheek with her hand. Though she felt her eyes, no more tears flowed.

“……”

Mel stroked the book cover with an expressionless face. She had read the resentment still knotted in Genoa’s heart.

‘I knew it, but I’m shocked anew.’

She had known. Known that Genoa misunderstood that she had run away, and because of that, he became someone who hated slaves. Even knowing this, the reason she was mulling over it again like this was because of her own feelings that she had unconsciously realized.

‘Actually, I must have resented him too.’

Mel hadn’t run away. She had even nearly died while doing her best for Genoa. But all those efforts had vanished without reaching him, buried under a single misunderstanding that she ran away.

She stopped trying to console herself with the thought that it was enough if Genoa was safe. That was a lie. In truth, she wanted Genoa to remember her fondly, to notice she was alive and come find her.

Whenever she received near-abusive training from Amelia in Reibritton, whenever new scars accumulated on her back, Mel thought of Genoa. Hoping he would come save her. Just as she had helped him escape that hell, she hoped he would help her too. Every night, Mel fell asleep dreaming that he would come rescue her like magic.

‘I dreamed foolish dreams.’

She didn’t know he resented her this deeply. Those days of dreaming such dreams seemed ridiculous now.

Mel furrowed her brow as she looked at Genoa’s sleeping face.

She wondered why Genoa misunderstood that she had run away. And she was curious about where that misunderstanding had originated. But in the end, she hadn’t gotten answers to the things she was really curious about.

‘This was when he was most vulnerable……’

When he couldn’t sleep for days due to insomnia and sought Mel as a substitute for a sleeping pill, that was when Genoa was most vulnerable. He wouldn’t remember conversations from around this time, and he would even overlook Mel’s words that he would normally be wary of.

“Huu.”

Mel let out a deep sigh to console her regret. Still, she had realized one thing.

‘I could die if I’m discovered.’

That was her intuition that she must never let Genoa discover her identity until the end.

Even if she told Genoa her identity herself and cleared up the misunderstanding, would Mel be able to stay in Ivanstein like she did now?

‘No.’

Mel shook her head. Even then, the kindness Genoa showed now could never fully belong to her. There was a noble difference in status between Mel the slave and Genoa the duke.

The reason she could talk with Genoa like this now, revealing their calculations to each other at eye level, was all because she wore the shell of a princess. So all of this had to remain buried in the past, with Mel the slave girl who’s presumed to be dead.

Just like the book she had just closed.

‘No noble would believe a slave’s words anyway, so there’s no way to clear up the misunderstanding.’

A bitter smile appeared on her  lips.

‘I never thought I’d be envious, but you must be pleased, Lady Amelia.’

Mel gritted her teeth as she thought of her former master who must still be living in hiding somewhere.

If Amelia hadn’t imprisoned Mel in that castle and fled, she would have been the one facing Genoa here now. The deals with Genoa, his favor, and perhaps even watching him sleep so vulnerably like this — all of it might have belonged to Amelia.

That thought began to fill the emptiness in Mel’s heart with an unseemly emotion.

It was clear jealousy toward Amelia, who had fled despite possessing the noble status that Mel could never have unless she was reborn.

‘Let’s obtain freedom quickly.’

Mel rose from her chair. She placed the barely-read book on the chair. The book’s title was “Please Recognize Me,” a poetry collection considered the bible of Raon Empire’s literature.

“……”

Before leaving the bedroom, Mel stared at Genoa’s sleeping face for a moment. She imagined that composed face contorting, then imagined it laughing dejectedly. But no matter how much she looked, she couldn’t imagine the face smiling at her like it used to.

Mel stepped out of the bedroom with a bitter smile. The butler and head maid waited for her outside.

“Duke Ivanstein is asleep now, so I can return, right?”

“Yes. Thank you, Your Highness.”

Mel walked away as she heard the butler’s words of gratitude. The head maid followed behind her. While walking familiarly through the corridor, she spoke without turning to look at the head maid.

“You don’t need to escort me to my room.”

“No, this is my natural duty as head maid.”

“……Hmm.”

She remained silent for a moment, considering the head maid’s intentions. Since the day she had pressured the head maid with blackmail when she tried to drive Lin away, their relationship had been like walking on thin ice. The head maid had treated Mel almost like a ghost except for minimum obligations, so it was suspicious that she would deliberately speak to her like this.

“I prefer people who speak honestly when they want something.”

“……”

This time the head maid remained silent for a while. She was probably choosing her words. Mel thought this as she tried not to furrow her brow at the throbbing headache.

Her emotions had become thoroughly complicated in Genoa’s bedroom before she could properly sort them out, so the head maid’s behavior felt somewhat tiresome right now.

“I heard you’ll be entering the empire’s social circles soon.”

“……Didn’t you see it rather than just hear about it?”

Refined words didn’t flow from between her lips. She found it detestable that the head maid pretended to have only heard about it when she had seen all of Mel’s preparations for entering society.

It seemed she wanted to ask Mel for a favor, but even while doing so, the head maid didn’t completely erase her dismissive attitude.

‘As the head maid of House Ivanstein, it’s natural for her to have a higher nose than most nobles.’

Finally unable to bear her worsening headache, Mel pressed her fingers against her temples and said,

“I’d appreciate it if you’d speak directly instead of beating around the bush. I have a headache right now, so if you speak indirectly, I might not understand. Please keep it as simple as possible.”

At Mel’s words, the head maid swallowed hard, as if holding back her prepared response. Then, with a careful expression, she slowly opened her mouth.