At Shed’s words, the once-arrogant priest folded with humiliating ease.

“It is an honor to behold Lord Lester! May the grace of the divine ever be with you…!”

He scrambled into the carriage, shaking the dust from his soiled white robes. The driver snapped the reins in a panic, and the horses bolted. The white carriage clattered away across the plaza, vanishing into the distance.

Only then did Shed’s gaze return to the child.

Eve’s cheek was not merely flushed—it was bruised, a purplish welt spreading across the soft skin. With one side of her face swollen, her cheeks looked uneven, grotesquely mismatched. Shed’s lips tightened. Perhaps he should have evened it—struck the priest again, balanced the blow.

“Uncle…”

Tiny steps carried her toward him. No longer crying, she gazed up at him, her round eyes—so like Luise’s—steady and unblinking. Shed pressed his fingertips hard against his temple.

‘D*mn it. What in the hell am I doing?’

To have gone this far—for Eclace’s bastard.

He could not understand himself. The moment he saw that wretch lay a hand on her, something snapped. Seeing a child being beaten where no blow should ever fall, seeing her kneel and beg with trembling hands — it sent his reason spiralling into the abyss.

It had been pure, raw impulse.

‘So I truly am losing my mind…’

Lately, it happened too often—his temper breaking free, his body moving before thought.

And then—

A small, warm weight pressed against his leg.

“Thank you, Uncle.”

Eve had wrapped her arms around him.

Shed froze, caught off guard by the child’s sudden embrace.

“You—!”

“I was scared. He hit me…”

Her words trembled, her tears and snot soaking into the dark fabric of his trousers.

This child, every time they met, wept and wailed until she was a mess. Irritating. Maddening. And yet—

With a growl of exasperation, Shed lifted her clean off the ground. Her small body was absurdly light in his hands.

“You look ugly when you cry. Looking again, you don’t resemble Luise at all.”

Yes. Luise had been far more beautiful than this.

He brushed the dirt from Eve’s knees, muttering under his breath. The child had scraped herself on the uneven stones when she fell—tiny, round knees now marred with small, raw scratches.

“No! Everyone says I’m pretty…”

Eve’s chin trembled as she protested through her tears, her voice quivering with indignation.

She was crying, yet she still had to correct him. To actually claim herself pretty at a time like this.

Shed let out a short, involuntary laugh before he even realized it. And then, startled, he froze. A laugh—at Eclace’s child? Had he finally lost his mind? He couldn’t make sense of what this little girl stirred in him.

Then a firm hand seized his arm.

She turned to look at the tall woman standing beside him and frowned. He recognized her face. She was one of the Vitel merchants who had helped Eclace with the Ideana trade once before. Although she wasn’t Lupus, she was striking in her height, and the fact that she was unable to speak had made an impression.

“Isn’t this a bit hostile toward someone who just saved you from trouble?”

Shed glanced sideways at the hand gripping his arm; it was tense, as if it might break his bones. For someone who had just knelt before a priest, she was stronger than expected. The rough calluses on her hands were not those of an ordinary servant; they were the hardened marks of someone who had once wielded a spear.

‘So, another of Vitel’s hidden birds?’

The house had no shortage of them. Devious. Secretive. Layered in talents kept out of sight.

‘She knelt to the priest to avoid escalation, then.’

For someone without power, it was the wisest choice. For someone with too much to hide, wiser still.

“Well then.”

Shed said, prying her hand free with casual ease.

“Since fate sees fit to bring us together here, let’s go together. I, too, was out for a stroll through the city.”

Gretta tried to resist, but it was useless. Against Shed Lester, she could not win. Her hand trembled with the strain of holding on. The sight almost amused him. If she had a voice, he thought, she would likely have already cursed him raw.

But Eve noticed none of her frustration. To her, there was only innocence.

“Uncle Bad Guy, will you come sightseeing too?”

She asked, her round eyes shining with warmth, as though grateful to him for saving her.

That title—bad guy—grated, but still…

“Yes. If only to make sure nothing else happens to you.”

He answered, though his voice trailed off at the end. His gaze had fallen once again to the child’s knees.

Moments ago, they had been raw and bleeding. Now, the small wounds had closed completely, leaving unblemished skin behind. Even the bruise on her cheek had faded, leaving only a faint red flush.

‘This is unmistakably…’

For years, Shed had done everything in his power to find Liana. Chasing down traces of black magic was one of those efforts.

“I must learn about this so-called black magic myself.”

He had petitioned the temple for permission to access information on the subject. After all, he had earned merit in the witch hunts, and he bore the curse himself. Perhaps the temple thought it unreasonable to deny a victim all knowledge of black magic, or perhaps the weight of the name Shed Lester was simply too much for them. Either way, they granted him partial access to knowledge forbidden to the public.

Thus, Shed gained the chance to glimpse the secrets of black magic.

Whenever he had the time, he pursued its traces. He was no scholar, but he was persistent and intelligent.

‘If you want power, then learn.’

Even after being adopted into House Lester, he could not instantly shed the stigma of being a slave. His foster father, Joseph Lester, drilled him relentlessly to mould him into a noble. For a former slave, this was hardly enough time. However, Shed threw himself into every task that Joseph set him, whether it was literature, theology, philosophy, law or geometry. He even mastered the speech, manners and etiquette of nobles. He swallowed whole anything necessary to blend into their society.

“You’re telling me you memorized all of this in a single day?”

Joseph had laughed, surprised and amused by Shed’s results.

It wasn’t just intelligence. His greatest gift was his ability to become obsessed with something. Once he had decided to master a skill, he wouldn’t give up until he succeeded. He also had a talent for devising clever strategies and shortcuts to help him achieve his goals efficiently.

That, above all else, was Shed Lester’s way of survival. His weapon.

When it came to studying black magic, this survival strategy served him well. He pursued Ideana’s trail with such tenacity that he sometimes wondered if he had become a heretic himself. Yet no matter how far he dug, he always hit the same brick wall. There were simply too few surviving records.

Still, he had discovered some truths. There were clear signs of black magic.

‘Those who bear it possess extraordinary regenerative power.’

Minor wounds would vanish quickly—just as Eve’s had.

And one more.

“A… a crescent moon? Do you mean the mark of the demon, Mephisto?”

The same mark borne by Pamen.

And by Luise.

A chilling instinct pricked at Shed, and he quickly tugged down the child’s collar beneath her shoulder.
Her skin—soft, pale, and smooth as cream—was bared under the sunlight.

And there it was.

Faint, yet undeniable. A birthmark shaped like a crescent moon glimmered across the top of Eve’s chest.

“You…”

The very same mark.

In the very same place.

Exactly as it had been on Luise.

For an instant, Shed’s eyes slid toward Greeta.

‘Does she know? Is that why she stays close—to guard the girl’s power?’

No. Impossible.

Had Greeta known the truth, she would have stopped him the moment he reached for Eve. She would have fought tooth and nail to stop him from seeing the mark. Instead, she only glared at him, looking both furious and bewildered, as though she couldn’t fathom why he would do such a thing.

He came to a swift conclusion. She knew nothing.

He lifted the child’s collar back into place, concealing the mark. At the same time, a fierce thrill coursed through him. His suspicions hardened into certainty and his thoughts sharpened to crystalline clarity.

Luise.

Her child was here.

Her blood—her legacy—was right in his arms.

“I heard this girl’s mother was dead.”

He said, his voice deliberately steady to conceal the tremor of excitement beneath it. His eyes flicked towards Greeta, not demanding words, but a nod or a shake of the head.

But the reply came from elsewhere.

“Mommy… dead?”

Tiny hands pressed against his cheeks, turning his face back toward her.

“My mommy died…?”

The cherry-like lips trembled, the voice wobbling on the edge of a sob.

At her innocent reaction, Shed had to stop himself from smiling. Her untainted eyes pierced through the rot that had long festered in his chest, cleansing him with their purity.

In this moment, it didn’t matter that she was the daughter of the villainous Eclace.

“That’s what your father told me.”

Shed answered coolly, masking himself with coldness before the child.

Her little face crumpled instantly.

“Mommy—!”

From the eyes that so resembled Luise’s, fat tears rolled down in heavy drops.

Greeta pulled angrily at Shed’s arm then, her face taut with fury, perhaps panic, as she glared at him.

But what of it?

Shed found the whole scene endlessly amusing.

“I even dealt with that priest for you, and still you look at me with those eyes? That stings, you know.”

Shed did not hand Eve over to Greeta. Instead, he pulled her tighter against his chest.

“Mommy! I want to see Mommy!”

Eve’s small body shook as she clung to him; her wails were so loud that they threatened to tear his eardrums.

The more she cried, the greater his grim delight grew. Yes, her words made it plain. The feeling rising in him was indeed villainous. But if it meant finding Luise, he was willing to play the villain.

“Maybe your father was wrong, Eve.”

He whispered as though he were soothing something fragile that might shatter at the slightest touch. His fingertips brushed away the tears on her cheeks and he curved his lips into a gentle smile.

“So… shall we go and see if Mommy’s really there?”

The voice was so tender, so coaxing, it hardly seemed possible it belonged to Shed Lester.

And the guileless child, desperate for hope, bobbed her head in fervent agreement.