“Miss, I believe I deserve at least a nod in response. After all, I am your lifesaver.”

Sion asked in an irritable voice, momentarily dumping all the water from the vessel. The effect was immediate, and a reaction came.

Agate, who had been sitting obediently, waved her hands and turned her head in different directions. When the waterfall-like stream finally stopped due to her small struggle, Agate raised her head.

Shamelessly, she glared at him for this playful water splash when he had jumped into that bottomless water pit because of her. Though there was no malice in this second expression he saw from her, there was something vexing about it.

While his gaze lingered on her lips, which seemed to be pouting, Agate suddenly turned her back.

She placed her finger on the mirror right beside the bathtub. The moisture-filled mirror was sufficient to serve as another paper for her.

Curious about what she found so unfair that she had so much to say, Sion put down the vessel and waited silently with his arms crossed for the letters to form.

When the first word was completed, Sion’s eyebrows rose diagonally.

[I’m sorry.]

It was surprising to see such a normal response for someone who had caused such a reckless accident.

“So you do recognize your mistake.”

Though he was curious about Agate’s expression, he couldn’t see it. The mirror was foggy, and because she had turned around, all he could see was her smooth, unblemished back. Somehow, his gaze lingered on that white skin, half-hidden by her hair.

Meanwhile, Agate raised her arm higher and began to write something else on the mirror.

She was so extraordinarily white that it aroused a desire to capture her in a painting. No, it was almost a foolish illusion that a woman from a painting was breathing before his eyes.

[I didn’t want to return because I didn’t want Adollo to find out I had fallen into the water.]

And at the tip of those thin fingers, words difficult to understand at first glance formed. Sion read and reread the water marks written on the mirror.

‘She stubbornly refused to return because she wanted to hide the fact that she had fallen into the water. Did she really think she could pretend nothing happened just by hiding her wet appearance and having the servants keep quiet?’

Was she innocent or simply stupid? Though water would eventually dry, she couldn’t hide her messy hair and dress. More importantly, before the moisture dried, she would have caught a cold from hypothermia.

Sion looked down at Agate with a pitying gaze. Eyes full of apology stared intently at him. As if trying not to miss any small change in his expression or what words might come from his lips that seemed about to open.

She wasn’t unaware. She knew she couldn’t bury the situation just by being stubborn. She simply felt so apologetic toward him that she had resorted to such reckless stubbornness.

Agate knew well that if any danger befell her, all of Adollo’s arrows of anger would fly toward Sion.

Perhaps she had wanted to apologize to him continuously from the forest until now.

Only when the steam rising from the bathtub began to cool did Sion interpret her intentions and exhale a breath from deep within. She was a vexing lady in many ways.

“…I’ll accept your apology for now.”

He barely swallowed the urge to add that if she was going to cause trouble recklessly, she shouldn’t feel so sorry afterward, or alternatively, she should have just behaved properly.

“What about falling into the water?”

His tone was filled with firmness—don’t think about deceiving my eyes, even if you can fool others. Agate seemed to have given up lying early on, faced with his knife-like attitude that showed no room for compromise.

She dropped her finger from the mirror and lowered her gaze to the water. No clearer answer existed.

Though Sion had obtained the truth he wanted, he couldn’t be satisfied. Now that he had received confirmation that she had thrown herself into the lake of her own will, he couldn’t gauge how to approach this problem, and his mind became even more confused.

For what reason? Surely not with thoughts of dying? Was that why she had tricked him into going to the lake from the beginning?

The few questions that emerged from his clever mind were all of this sort and not worth uttering. Irritated, he quietly chewed the inside of his mouth. A burning sensation, black as coal, rose from deep within his chest.

He glanced at Agate. How strange. He had no expectations to begin with, and she wasn’t someone worthy of his expectations. Yet what was this indescribable disappointment?

He felt profound disappointment in her, and even a sense of betrayal welled up. Though he had said he accepted her apology, he wanted to take those words back.

He might normally have tried to lighten the awkward atmosphere with his characteristic smooth talk, but he had no desire to do so. He wanted her to remain uncomfortable as she watched his reactions, unable to lift her head. Even that seemed too light a penance.

Her lack of self-regard was none of his business.

‘But if even you abandon yourself…’

He wasn’t Adollo, so he had no responsibility to lecture the lady.

Yet he had no desire to overlook today’s incident either. He had no perverse taste for living with a bomb that could explode at any moment.

The person she should be most sorry toward was herself, not him.

Where should he begin to point this out?

As the deeply contemplative Sion brushed back his hair, Agate’s hand rose again. Unlike before, her hand had a slight tremor.

On the mirror, newly coated with steam, she drew out the words held in her heart, one letter at a time.

[Are you hurt anywhere?]

“Unlike you, Miss, my body—’and my mind’—are strong enough that this much doesn’t affect me at all.”

When Sion answered in a hardened voice, as if he had been waiting, Agate’s arm, which had been hovering in the air, fell back into the water with a soft splash.

She couldn’t bring herself to turn around. It was easier to keep her back to him. The bathroom wasn’t a good place. The mirror was too narrow to extract all the language in her heart.

‘I must have been temporarily insane.’

Was it really temporary? What about now? What about the future?

Because Agate herself couldn’t be certain, she couldn’t make any excuses. She didn’t understand why she had jumped into the water of her own accord, as if something had entered and left her mind.

She seemed to have wanted to confirm something, and she had confirmed it. Even if it wasn’t the direction she wanted.

But was that answer worth disappointing her people? A question with no room for deliberation.

Adollo, who was like family and had attended her since childhood; the servants who had cared for her in every way since she came to the villa; and even her newly made friend who had taken her out of her white cage.

During the journey back to the mansion in his arms, Agate had heaped self-reproach upon self-reproach until her bones ached, but the situation remained unchanged.

As expected, Adollo was furious, and though she had intervened, it was only a temporary measure. Daniel would surely be punished somehow because of her.

The thanks she should have conveyed came out only as an apology. She learned for the first time that even saying thank you to a benefactor could be rude.

She also knew well that Daniel was angry at her admission. He had made it impossible for her not to know.

Though she wasn’t sure how much of his usual exterior was sincere, he had always maintained at least a faint smile.

So he also has such a frightening face. From the lake onward, aspects of him she didn’t want to know continued to be newly imprinted.

How could she make up for the mistake she had committed? No answer emerged from this complex worry—something she hadn’t experienced in three years.

Just as Agate was unable to find her bearings, a hand suddenly intruded into the bathwater where she was soaking. Agate looked at the owner of that hand with wide eyes.

“I didn’t know before. That your hair could become so beautiful. If it can recover so quickly just by eating properly, how neglectful must your self-care have been?”

The uninvited intruder into the bathtub unhesitatingly lifted Agate’s hair, which resembled strands of gold, and she instinctively shrank back.

As a part of her defenseless body fell into his hands, her wariness belatedly rose. His incomprehensible words barely registered in her ears.

“You’ll need a thorough examination, but you probably haven’t fully recovered your health yet. A body neglected by its owner for three years can’t heal in just a month.”

Sion’s touch didn’t stop at her hair. As his hand drew closer, Agate tried to avoid it by pressing herself against the tub, but it was useless. He pushed aside all of her long hair that was covering her body.