Please forgive me for only resenting you when you loved me in your own way. Please pity me, a mere commoner. That Juliet would live well without her was both consolation and pain.

Rosaline checked the time, gathered her things, and left the room. But heading toward the back garden, the main building that should have been quiet at this hour was noisy. Concern arose, but she was about to ignore it, thinking checking would delay her, when—

“Rosaline, Rosaline!!!”

The sound from the main building rang loudly in the annex. Too desperate to simply ignore, Rosaline had no choice but to go inside and see who it was. In the corridor connecting the main building and annex stood a woman with tears brimming—Amy, the maid who’d traveled with Juliet.

Miss shouldn’t arrive for another two days.

Just as an ominous feeling arose, she noticed Rosaline and brightened, approaching.

“Rosaline, there you are!”

“Amy, what’s wrong? Has Miss arrived?”

“Barely. She suddenly fell ill four days ago, and now she can’t even stay conscious. Even bringing the most famous physician from the resort did no good, so we rushed back.”

Rosaline felt the blood throughout her body turn cold. Her voice wouldn’t come out properly at first, and only after clearing her throat several times could she speak.

“How is she now?”

“The fever shows no sign of breaking.”

Amy gripped Rosaline’s trembling hands tightly.

“The master heard the news and just arrived too. Fortunately, priests happen to be staying at the Montagues, so they’re coming to examine Miss.”

“I have to, I have to see her too……”

“Yes, the master was looking for you anyway. Let’s hurry.”

She was so out of it she couldn’t even remember how she got to the main building. Miss had never caught even a cold. But why suddenly? Familiar anxiety scrambled her thoughts.

Entering Juliet’s bedroom, several high priests she’d seen on the street during the day stood there. Near the bed were Lord Capulet with a gloomy face and……

“Miss!”

Rosaline approached Miss lying in bed as if collapsing. She knelt on the floor and bent down to meet the eyes of Miss lying pale.

“Miss, I’m here.”

“……Rosaline? Are you there?”

Juliet reached out her arm, groping as if searching for Rosaline. When Rosaline firmly grasped her hand, the lovely Miss smiled faintly.

“Ah, ah. Rosaline. You’re going to the grand temple? Congratulations.”

“Miss……”

Thinking she had to return Juliet’s smile, Rosaline found herself smiling back.

“It’s all thanks to you, Miss Juliet. I worked hard, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Father gave you a fountain pen too? That’s wonderful……”

“Yes, yes.”

“I’m glad I got to see you before you left. I missed you so much.”

“Me too, I really missed you too.”

Juliet wrinkled her nose and moved her pale lips.

“Sorry I couldn’t write often. Were you hurt? Paris was so jealous… but I kept everything you gave me. I brought gifts too.”

“Don’t apologize. I was never hurt.”

Rosaline rubbed her cheek against Juliet’s hand and smiled.

“Let’s open the gifts together, okay?”

She brushed aside Juliet’s hair as she breathed shallowly and kissed her cheeks and forehead. Juliet laughed briefly as if she couldn’t be helped.

“I’ll be fine. Such important people came just to see me.”

Juliet’s gaze, leaning back against the headboard, reached forward. Where her gaze landed stood several high priests and her mother. With unstoppable tears hanging, Rosaline also looked at the people in the room as if seeking saviors. But they only gazed at Rosaline and Juliet without any real answer.

Something was strange. Miss was this ill, yet weren’t they all quiet like people who’d already received an answer? Even her mother. In the midst of her puzzlement, a high priest suddenly threw out a question.

“You’re called Rosaline? Your baptismal name?”

Rosaline felt silent pressure in the rigid atmosphere. That old priest seemed to be the one who would save Juliet. She stood, clasped her hands together, and answered.

“Lunaria, brother.”

“Meaning moon, Lunaria.”

“……I’m truly sorry, but what exactly is wrong with Miss? If priests came instead of physicians……”

He nodded a few times, meaning he was listening to Rosaline’s words.

“Divine illness.”

Divine illness? Rosaline went blank for a moment and only blinked. Juliet seemed surprised too and swallowed. Considerate of them, the priest quietly continued.

“The Capulet heir died once in the past.”

Rosaline squeezed her eyes shut involuntarily at the rushing dizziness. Her mother and Lord Capulet must have already heard—they maintained only silence. Her mother’s exhausted face surely showed the aftermath of shock and dismay already passing through once.

“I don’t know the circumstances, but she gained life again. However, because the corresponding price wasn’t paid, she’s suffering like this.”

“……Price?”

“There’s no life without a price. Just as a newborn steals the mother’s marrow to be born, every life has a price.”

He sighed.

“You may not believe it, but that’s how it is.”

Far from disbelieving, Rosaline recalled the prayer she’d once offered.

“I will give You everything. My body and soul already belong to You, so if even my worthless love is acceptable, please take it.”

She could confidently say she’d been devout before regression. But Rosaline of the past few months couldn’t be called faithful even as an empty phrase. She’d been diligent all the same, but had wavered many times and been more negligent than before.

Pale, she asked with both hands clasped tight:

“Is, is there a method?”

“An offering must be made. Life for life—it must be a living sacrifice.”

A living sacrifice meant becoming Umbra. To become Umbra, no different from the temple’s slaves……

“But merely being alive isn’t enough.”

“……”

“It must be Miss Juliet’s blood relative.”

Blood relative meant only Juliet’s father in this room. Yet their gazes wouldn’t leave Rosaline.

“The same gender and similar age to her would be best.”

“……But I’m……”

“Rosaline.”

Lord Capulet’s voice fell from above her head. When Rosaline slowly lifted her head, he met her gaze and knelt.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier.”

“……What……”

“You are my and Sarah’s daughter.”

For a moment Rosaline thought he’d gone mad, but Lord Capulet’s expression, stained with fatigue and worry, was serious.

“My wife Beatrice had difficulty bearing children. After four miscarriages, her body had weakened considerably. I wanted to adopt, but my wife wanted a child with my blood.”

Behind him stood her mother, lips pressed tight, staring only at the distant window.

“So my wife desperately begged Sarah. If she would just bear a child with my blood, she’d raise it like her own without lacking anything. After long persuasion, Sarah and I finally accepted, but……”

Not long after Sarah became pregnant, Beatrice miraculously conceived too. Though they said they’d raise Sarah’s child like their own, for some reason Sarah opposed it frantically.

“Sarah didn’t even accept compensation. She said she’d stay at the Capulets and live as a nurse, and even extracted a promise that I’d never acknowledge you as my child.”

“Why……”

It wasn’t resentment at not enjoying what she could have at the Capulets. It was pure curiosity. Rosaline asked her mother vacantly, but her mother remained only cold.

“I thought you as a bastard would muddy the Capulet bloodline. That’s all.”

Rosaline didn’t accept it readily. No, surely there was something else. If she was someone obedient enough to the Capulets to ignore her own daughter, her mother’s indifference to Lord Capulet made no sense. Rosaline was about to press further when someone tugged her skirt.

Deathly pale, Juliet had grabbed Rosaline in terror. Her composure seemed to have vanished like a long-starved person losing reason before food.

“I’m scared……”

Just those words made Rosaline feel her entire body turn cold. All strength seemed to drain below her feet.

“Rosaline. What should I do? Am, am I going to die like this? I, I don’t even remember dying. Why? How……”

Juliet seemed to have completely lost her mind before the fear of death. But Rosaline couldn’t rashly comfort Juliet. She knelt on the floor until her chest touched the bed, entranced.

“Miss. You don’t know yet. They say it’s divine illness, but there might be another way.”

Of course Rosaline knew there was no other way. She’d witnessed Juliet’s death and returned.

But still.

We could part forever, and Juliet must know that Rosaline as an offering could never lead an ordinary life.

Whatever the case, they were half-sisters. If only she’d say let’s find another way together as real sisters, or stay by my side even if I die.

If only that beautiful, precious Miss would just say that, I would gladly……

“I really feel like I’m dying.”

Juliet pleaded. The woman full of dreams and high spirits had never experienced loss except for her mother, so she collapsed miserably before the enormous terror of losing life.

“Kata faith doesn’t kill offerings. Right, yes. You’ll just become Umbra. You won’t die. So just once… please. Rosaline, I, I really……”

In fact, Juliet’s reaction was extremely normal. Even between parent and child, one-sided sacrifice is difficult, and death pushes people to extreme fear and transforms them.

Despite understanding, Rosaline felt part of her soul sinking.

“I’ll get you out again by any means, okay?”

When Rosaline showed no real reaction, an anxious Juliet clung to her. But the desperate cries only circled around her ears, and the woman before her eyes appeared only as a blurred form of something, not the Miss she’d cherished so much.

Because the sadness was too great.

Because the emptiness couldn’t be expressed in words.

“What on earth are you saying!”

She came to her senses when her mother, unable to watch anymore, intervened. She grabbed Rosaline’s shoulders strongly and shook her.

“Don’t you grasp the situation? If you don’t go, Miss will die.”