The sweltering summer finally passed, and early autumn crept in.

Autumn in the capital arrived with an unannounced downpour.

The sound of cold raindrops tapping against the window stretched on without end, persisting well into the late hours of the night.

“Achoo!”

A creeping chill swept across the back of her neck, and Dorothy couldn’t hold it in any longer. She sneezed. She always ran cold.

“This won’t do. Tomorrow I’ll have to ask Amy to get the bed warmer out….”

Dorothy sniffled and tugged the blanket up tightly past her chin, muttering to herself.

‘Cay’s coming back soon.’

Why was it?

She even marked the date on the calendar, yet it still didn’t feel real.

Dorothy blinked slowly in the blue-black dark.

‘When we meet again, how am I supposed to react?’

The word “reunion” was something deeply unfamiliar to the two of them.

Setting this time aside, there was never a point in their lives when they were apart long enough to warrant such a grand word as “reunion.”

‘This is a first, then.’

Being separated from Caden this long. Going years without trading the small, trivial stories of each day.

All of it was a first.

‘Hmm…. Should I burst into tears or something?’

But she didn’t feel like it at all.

That would just look too fake.

“Ngh.”

Dorothy let out a weak whimper, like a sick puppy, and flopped over onto her side.

The truth was, she lived very well over the past two years.

So well, in fact, that she was far too embarrassed to even consider squeezing out fake tears.

Her in-laws, the Marquis and Marchioness of Bessler, were wonderful people, and her daily life was utterly peaceful.

Marchioness Bessler was especially fond of Dorothy.

To give a sense of just how fond: she had a habit of saying, “Dottie is truly the child of my heart, hohoho!” as if it were a catchphrase.

Those around her laughed it off as polite exaggeration, but Dorothy knew.

Every word the Marchioness said was one hundred percent sincere, without a shred of embellishment!

She kept a hawk’s eye on whether Dorothy was eating well, sleeping well, whether she seemed low or struggling, and the moment she sensed anything lacking, she made up for it several times over.

If anyone ever asked Dorothy what it meant to be cherished, she could hold her head high and tell them to look at what the Marchioness did for her.

Wrapped in that kind of loving care, Dorothy was happy and at ease every single day.

And that wasn’t all.

Things worked out smoothly on the professional front as well.

After graduating from the Academy, Dorothy put steady effort into her craft, and a year ago, it finally bore fruit.

She fully established herself as a senior magic tool artisan.

She was now, in every sense of the word, a master artisan. She signed an exclusive contract with a prestigious Class A workshop in the capital under favorable terms, and was currently supplying her work to that workshop alone.

So, yes.

Living a life this satisfying and then breaking down in miserable tears was… something she simply couldn’t bring herself to do without burning with shame.

‘Or maybe I should run to him with a huge smile and throw myself into his arms?’

Dorothy carefully recalled the reunion scenes from a few famous romance novels she read before.

— Oh. Good heavens, my darling!

— Lydia, I missed you to death!

Whenever lovers reunited after a long separation, as if on cue, the heroine would laugh and cry at the same time, and the hero would sweep her up into his arms. They’d spin around like a top, and in the end, as though vowing never to let go again, they’d hold each other tight and share a passionate kiss.

Dorothy quietly placed herself and Caden into that scene.

— Oh. Good heavens, my Cay!

— Dorothy, I missed you to death!

But the moment she pictured Caden and herself throwing their arms around each other and kissing passionately….

Ugh.

Her stomach turned. Seriously turned.

Her toes and fingers curled up from sheer visceral revulsion.

“No. That is absolutely not happening….”

She even broke out in goosebumps, her skin prickling all the way up her arms. Dorothy rubbed her tender skin vigorously and kept muttering no over and over.

Some might wonder: even so, they’re a married couple, so what’s with this violent rejection? Are you secretly a fake couple in a contract marriage?

In an ordinary case, that suspicion would be perfectly reasonable.

Two people who practically break out in hives at the thought of kissing, and they got married? That’s definitely suspicious and a little fishy.

Regrettably, Dorothy and Caden did not fall into the ordinary category.

They were not in a loveless contract marriage, nor were they an empty fake couple.

They were deeply intimate, close, and in perfect sync. Like old drinking buddies, practically, though Dorothy lacked the relevant anatomy.

Close, comfortable, and deeply understanding of each other.

The only problem was that this intimacy and affection was not the kind that existed between a man and a woman.

‘Ugh. I don’t know!’

Clearly.

The texture of their feelings was different from that of an ordinary married couple.

What the two of them felt for each other was closer to family. Not the burning passion of lovers who feel like they’re dying if they go even a day without seeing each other.

If anyone asked why they bothered getting married when there was no flutter, no excitement between them….

She would answer: because their relationship was as solid as bedrock, as trustworthy as a dwarf’s bank.

They never said anything sappy like “I love you” or “I miss you,” but she had no doubt that when it truly mattered, they would quietly stand guard behind each other’s backs.

‘If I absolutely had to compare us to a married couple, we’re probably closer to an old couple who already spent half their lives together.’

Dorothy let her thoughts settle and exhaled a long breath.

There was none of the sweet, sticky, clinging passion of a typical newlywed couple, but between them there was loyalty.

And the reason they both readily accepted the proposal to marry was that they were people who understood: unwavering faith over the long run is far harder to come by than passion that blazes for a moment.

‘Still…. It would be nice if we could act just a little more like a married couple.’

Really. There’s no such thing as perfect in this world.

Then, out of nowhere, Dorothy recalled the day Caden left the capital.

She accompanied him all the way to the transfer gate to see him off.

Just before he left.

Caden waved at her for a long time.

The midday sun was at his back, so she couldn’t make out his expression clearly.

But even against the backlight, his turquoise eyes never lost their vivid color. They were fixed on her, unmoving, like a nail driven into place, watching her without a single waver.

Thump!

The image of Caden’s eyes flashed through her mind, and her heart suddenly pounded hard.

Dorothy raised her palm to her chest, puzzled.

Thump, thump, thump.

‘Why is my heart beating like this all of a sudden?’

Was it the excitement of seeing someone again after so long?

But her heart, fluttering nonstop beneath the thin fabric of her nightgown, and her slightly stiffened body were closer to the reactions of someone nervous.

‘Strange. It’s just going to see Caden Bessler. What on earth is there to be nervous about?’

There was no reason for her to feel flustered.

It was probably arrhythmia, or too much stress, or something like that.

Dorothy shook her head, thinking it was a truly odd thing.

Before long, the fluttering faded without a trace, and she sank into a deep, exhausted sleep, writing it off as nothing more than a baffling little episode.