Mark froze, forgetting even to breathe in the spine-chilling tension.

‘What should I do?’

Should he say he came to check the greenhouse because he was surprised?

But this wasn’t his territory.

Although he managed the entire garden, the greenhouse in the back garden was excluded.

“……Suspicious.”

Click.

Mark gritted his teeth at the eerie sound of a gun.

The one fortunate thing was that even if he failed or died here, the contracted amount would go to his family.

Of course, there was a possibility that he might not keep his promise.

But strangely, Mark trusted Karl Winger.

‘……Sorry, Rania.’

He tightly closed his eyes and ran toward the explosion button buried in the ground.

When he moved, Landers immediately shot from behind him.

Bang!

Bang, bang!

Fortunately, it was a dark night with poor visibility, and Landers’ accuracy was reduced because he wore an eye patch due to his injury.

But the indiscriminately fired bullets grazed Mark’s calf and shoulder.

“Urgh!”

He gritted his teeth and desperately dug the ground.

Soon, his fingertips touched cold metal.

He quickly took out the button and pressed it.

There was no time to hesitate.

Click.

Along with an incredibly light sound, sparks flew.

Soon, a bomb exploded about 10 meters away along the connected wire.

BOOM!

“……!”

With a thunderous noise, glass fragments from the greenhouse shattered in all directions.

Mark quickly crouched down to try to block the fragments, but he couldn’t prevent the pieces from embedding in his back and shoulders.

And the same happened to Landers.

Both collapsed to the ground simultaneously.

A large wooden piece stuck in Landers’ forearm, making it difficult for him to hold the gun again.

But Mark was also in a situation where he could hardly escape due to the gunshot wound and glass fragments.

“……How dare you!”

Landers staggered to his feet.

Mark tried to escape, but his body simply wouldn’t obey.

‘I failed.’

Should he commit suicide?

He collapsed to the ground with self-deprecating thoughts.

Sparks from the explosion ignited the oil that the mother and daughter had secretly sprinkled throughout the flower beds.

He looked at Landers approaching him while watching the burning greenhouse.

With trembling hands, he grabbed a glass fragment that had fallen nearby.

Killing himself here seemed cleaner than being captured by Landers and tortured into revealing his employer.

Karl Winger would somehow take responsibility for his family.

Strangely, he felt no fear.

Just when he was about to bring it to his neck—

Bang!

With a gunshot, two masked men quickly ran toward Mark.

“Can you stand up?”

One of the men instantly ran over and hoisted Mark onto his shoulder.

“……!”

Surprised, Mark looked down at the man who had started running with him on his shoulder.

“Wh-who are you?”

The answer came not from the man carrying him, but from the one covering them while running.

“Someone is waiting for you, so how can you give up so easily?”

Mark was shocked when he recognized the man’s voice.

He was carefully observing the surroundings while firing warning shots at the pursuing guards, and his movements were surprisingly nimble and sharp for a businessman.

“Wh-why……”

Why was Karl Winger here?

To him, Mark was merely a mercenary he bought with money.

So he couldn’t understand why this man had come to rescue him personally.

“I came to see that spectacle with my own eyes, so don’t worry about it.”

Karl spoke lightly and shot at Landers’ feet when he tried to pursue them.

Bang!

Landers quickly hid behind a nearby ornamental tree and shouted angrily.

“Over there! Guards! Catch them! Guards!”

Just then, people rushed in from the distance.

Among them was Schultz, who seemed to have jumped from the second floor.

He collapsed on the dirt ground and screamed when he saw the burning greenhouse.

“N-no! Nooooo!!”

Karl glanced at that scene and thought,

It was a satisfying sight worth the risk he had taken to come here.

* * *

‘……Karl!’

Lumiere woke up with a start from an eerie feeling.

She abruptly sat up from the strangely chilling sensation.

“Wh-what? When did I fall asleep?”

The studio bathed in pale darkness.

She rose from the makeshift bed in the studio and brushed back her disheveled hair.

“……Right, I finished that yesterday.”

Glancing to one side of the studio, a completed painting sat on an easel.

A dark night, a huge mansion brightly lit.

Stars poured down, and a crescent moon hung in the sky.

The warm, gentle breeze filled with the scent of spring flowers.

The friendly laughter of people enjoying their meeting.

“……”

Lumiere stared at her painting with a strange look, then turned her gaze to the desk.

〈Burning Spring〉

The title of the play pierced her eyes like thorns.

Gulp.

Lumiere swallowed dryly and slowly got up from her seat.

She gulped down Tamia’s tea with her scratchy throat, then slowly opened the first page of the script.

[The Buchanan Castle always announces spring first.

That’s why people called the March banquet held at the Buchanan family ‘Spring Welcoming Ceremony.’

On that day 13 years ago, the ‘Spring Welcoming Ceremony’ was held without fail.

Even in that year when the tragedy of the beloved Crown Prince couple of Levania and the Buchanan family began……]

Lumiere read the script frantically, absorbed in the words.

She couldn’t stop the goosebumps spreading throughout her body with each word she read.

She instantly devoured the rather thick script right there.

Befitting her reputation as a genius playwright, the text vividly and realistically described the scene of ‘that day.’

“Hic, hic……”

And before she knew it, Lumiere was shedding tears while reading the script.

With each page she turned, her heart felt torn.

The vivid memories of that day that the words couldn’t fully capture came flooding back.

The fresh spring castle that people couldn’t help but admire.

The summer castle is full of memories of the Russell River not far away.

The autumn castle that Father loved, saying it had become his favorite season because it resembled her and her mother’s hair.

And the winter castle where the whole family would come out to enjoy snowball fights whenever it was covered in white snow.

“……No, this can’t be.”

Lumiere buried her face in her hands, trying to stop the ceaseless tears, and sobbed uncontrollably.

Whose happy memories were these overflowing in her mind?

‘Are these memories really mine?’

Memories from before she was adopted into the Lashantia mansion, before entering that cold orphanage.

‘Run away, Philia! Hurry!’

‘Rudels! No! Brother, I want to stay here. Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad are over there……!’

‘Shh, Philia. Forget it. Forget everything. You go outside first through this tunnel. I’ll come for you. Don’t be afraid. I’ll save Mom and Dad and come out.’

‘But, but Rudels, but…….’

‘We can only escape if you get out safely. Understand? If someone finds you when we’re not there, you must say you’re not a Buchanan. Remember, Philia. You’re no longer a Buchanan from now on!’

The 14-year-old boy pushed his 10-year-old sister’s back.

He was the brother who teased and bothered her every day.

But he always played hide-and-seek with Philia once a week because she loved it, and he was her little knight who always came running to save his sister from bugs and nightmares.

“Rudels……”

She called the name of her blood relative for the first time in 13 years.

Lumiere collapsed in that spot and wept endlessly.

Why did she remember this only now?

For the past 13 years, she couldn’t even mourn those who had left.

Because she had no memories, because she didn’t know who she was.

It was probably because of her brother’s last words.

‘You’re no longer a Buchanan. Remember, you must say you’re not a Buchanan!’

Those final desperate words stuck in her mind like soot from the fire.

Crawling through a passage barely wide enough for a child, she muttered Rudels’ last words all night.

‘Not a Buchanan. Not a Buchanan. I need to go out first, then Mom and Dad will come out, he said. Rudels doesn’t lie. I’m not a Buchanan.’

Her heart felt like it was being torn apart.

A sorrow like the sky falling pressed down on her.

Lumiere clutched her throat while sobbing, feeling suffocated.

She heard the faint sound of hooves when her eyes were swollen and reddened.

She quickly raised her head at the sound and ran to the window.

From her studio, she could clearly see the mansion’s entrance and the adjacent road.

The street at dawn.

In the complete darkness where even moonlight seemed to dissolve in the damp moisture, she saw the familiar black carriage.

“……Karl.”

Lumiere immediately ran out of the studio.

The sound of her hurried footsteps echoed through the quiet mansion.

She flung the door open with a bang and rushed outside.

Karl, who must have been watching her from the carriage, came out with a surprised face.

She flew to him and jumped straight into his arms.