This confirmed that Donata was responsible for both the murder of Madam Fedroti with a dagger and the strange incident at the Count’s estate.

Moreover, Donata Seidler herself was a practitioner of black magic.

Not only had she used relics from the forbidden land, she also possessed the power to wield black magic personally.

However, it was Madam Fedroti who had directly cast the hallucinations.

Sirion discovered the hidden hideout through divine guidance, along with the strange book filled with dense annotations on every page.

‘Then why didn’t Donata cast the hallucinations herself? Was Madam Fedroti simply more skilled?’

Ailie wasn’t sure where hallucination magic fell on the black magic spectrum, but it was clearly no ordinary spell, given that it was potent enough to destroy someone’s life completely.

The Imperial Palace was, of course, protected by barriers designed to block outside magic.

To break through these barriers and torment her for so long, the perpetrator would have needed exceptional skill.

Moreover, Donata was the same age as Ailie.

As the hallucinations had begun before Ailie first met Benate, Donata could not have been older than fifteen at the time.

Could someone that young truly break through the palace’s defenses and wield black magic powerful enough to do all this?

Of course, it was possible that she was a prodigious genius.

But that seemed far less likely.

After all, the amount of mana a person could hold within their body was naturally limited at such a young age.

‘Which means…. Madam Fedroti may have been Donata’s accomplice—or perhaps even her teacher?’

As soon as Ailie started to wonder where Donata had learnt black magic, the answer became clear.

She had never heard any rumors linking the Seidler Count family to it.

In fact, it was the Count and Countess themselves who had fallen victim to Donata’s magic, and had been left unconscious for a long time as a result.

This made the possibility of the Seidler couple teaching Donata black magic extremely unlikely.

However, it was equally difficult to believe that Donata had learned everything entirely on her own.

Unlike ordinary magic, black magic had been outlawed long ago, leaving almost no legitimate way to study it.

Every related book had been burned.

Most black magicians had been executed, while the few who survived were eventually captured and stripped of their mana.

Even if such knowledge could still be passed around in secret via underground channels, it would have been almost impossible for a young noblewoman to access them alone.

Therefore, the most likely explanation was that Donata had learnt black magic from someone else — an outsider.

“I remembered something Miss Donata once told me. She said her dance instructor was an extraordinary person who could do anything—that they could save someone standing at death’s door and even rescue those who had lost everything.”

“That woman claimed everything she did was for the sake of her benefactor. Endangering the Empress, living the way she does now… all of it. Though whether any of that is truly the truth, I cannot say.”

No matter how she thought about it, that so-called dance instructor was suspicious.

Could they possibly be the same person as Madam Fedroti?

“Thank you. Thanks to Your Majesty, I obtained a rather convincing lead as well.”

“I’m glad I could help. A lead, you say?”

“About the circumstances that led Donata to learn black magic. Though we’ll need to investigate the upper floor before we can be certain.”

As she spoke, Ailie shared every conclusion she had reached so far with Benate.

If they could secure the cooperation of the Count and Countess Seidler upstairs, they would be much closer to uncovering the truth.

Judging by the calm nod he gave, Benate seemed to agree with her reasoning.

Once their conversation had ended, he touched the golden brooch again, and the voices around them slowly returned.

It seemed that Dea and Maren had spent the brief silence enjoying their reunion.

A faint smile touched Ailie’s lips as she stepped closer to Dea and spoke.

“You can finally rest easy now.”

“Yes, yes…. Thank you so much, Your Majesty.”

“Th-thank you… truly….”

Maren also expressed her gratitude, her voice thick with emotion.

How many people had suffered because of a woman named Donata?

This thought filled Ailie with bitterness and anger.

At that very moment, Donata Seidler was probably somewhere in the Forbidden Land.

They needed to bring everything to an end as quickly as possible, before she could cause another disaster and innocent people became victims.

However, now that they knew their enemy was a black magician, they could not afford to act recklessly.

‘We need certainty. About Donata’s motives, the source of her power, and whether there’s someone else behind her.’

A bad feeling lingered heavily in her chest.

One tiny mistake could plunge not only the Empire, but the entire continent into chaos.

***

The group knew how exhausted Maren must have been, so they gave her time to rest before hurrying to awaken the other two maids sleeping on the ground floor using the magic tool.

Only then did they make their way upstairs.

The ground floor, where the owners had once lived, was completely empty, as though thieves had stripped it bare.

Even the flooring and wallpaper were luxurious enough to rival those of the Imperial Palace itself, crafted from the finest materials and exuding extravagant elegance.

However, without furniture or decorations and covered in a thin layer of dust, the mansion resembled an abandoned palace, forgotten by time.

As Ailie walked through the darkened hallway, she slowly lifted her gaze towards the strangely bare ceiling.

They had even torn down the chandeliers.

‘Just how desperately did they need money?’

Assuming that Ailie’s deductions were correct, the thief must have been Donata Seidler, too.

No other plausible culprit came to mind. If she had not been responsible, nobody else could have bypassed the black magic placed on the front gate.

This meant that Ailie’s conclusion was almost certainly correct.

The stolen belongings had undoubtedly been sold and exchanged for gold coins.

She must have done this because she needed a lot of money.

But why?

Why did she need so much money?

“As long as you can pay, that is.”

At that moment, Ailie remembered what Dea had said about Donata’s dance teacher.

Come to think of it, Dea had tried to steal the Emperor’s possessions in order to enlist the dance instructor’s help.

After all, it required an enormous amount of money.

‘Then perhaps Donata also needed something from that suspicious instructor?’

It was a plausible theory.

Still, it would be better to uncover the instructor’s true identity before drawing further conclusions.

Ailie was walking through the corridor while lost in thought when—

“Hm? What’s that?”

Behind her, Breni pointed toward a crumpled sheet of paper lying near the entrance to the Count couple’s room at the end of the hallway.

The moment Dea saw the paper, she let out a short sigh for some reason.

“I’ll check it first.”

Liton spoke calmly and strode forward.

Although it seemed unlikely that a discarded piece of paper would contain dangerous magic, it was still best to be cautious.

Even after he picked it up, the magic stone at his waist remained completely still.

After unfolding the crumpled paper and briefly reading its contents, Liton’s calm, dark brown eyes distorted momentarily.

Seeing this reaction, Benate quietly asked.

“What is written on that paper?”

“Ah, this.”

Liton smoothed the paper carefully before handing it to Benate.

Glancing at it from beside him, Ailie realized that it was a short letter.

It appeared to have been written by Count Seidler to Donata.

[My beloved Donata, you must have been terribly upset.]

[Even so, your birthday should still be celebrated properly. Think of this as repayment for granting my request. I put a great deal of thought into choosing your birthday present.]

[Happy birthday. From Father.]

She sighed without realizing it as soon as she had finished reading it.

Judging by its contents, the Count had written the letter to accompany a birthday gift for Donata.

Although Ailie did not particularly admire the Count’s parenting style of endlessly indulging his daughter, she was still left with a bitter taste in her mouth when she saw such sincere affection being repaid in this way.

Carelessly throwing a letter onto the floor, putting her own parents into an unnatural sleep with black magic, and stripping the estate of everything valuable enough to sell.

What on earth had driven Donata to such desperation?

Recognizing the letter from her previous visit to the mansion, Dea offered a bitter explanation.

“It was inside the pendant the young lady received as a birthday gift. The pendant itself was gone, but the letter was lying around like this.”

“Ah….”

She had even sold the pendant that had once held the letter.

With a bitter smile, Ailie lowered her eyes to the letter once more.

Why had the Count tried so hard to please Donata?

It was almost as though he felt guilty towards her.

“But what exactly had upset her back then?”

“I was only a maid, so I don’t know the details, but I heard the young lady had been expecting to obtain some kind of position, and it ended up falling through.”

A position?

Ailie’s eyes widened at the unexpected information.

At most, she had assumed Donata was upset because she could not obtain something she wanted.

“She kept whining about wanting it returned to her…. Something along those lines. For a very long time. Then, after that dance instructor appeared, she suddenly quieted down completely. I think it was probably around that time.”

Again, the dance instructor.

Ailie stared at the closed door leading to the Count couple’s bedroom.

‘These people must know something. But….’

It would become troublesome if, after all this chaos their wayward daughter had caused, they still chose to protect her and keep silent.

‘How can I make sure they tell us the truth?’