The annex was located about fifteen minutes on foot from the main castle. Whether they had been notified in advance, the knights were lined up in two rows to greet them.

Judging by the smaller number than she had heard of, it seemed the entire knight order had not turned out.

While the maids were busily moving the luggage, a particularly tall man stepped forward.

“I am Mayer Robb.”

He appeared to be in his mid-thirties. A long scar that could not be hidden ran across his face, which was made up of bold, strong lines.

When Iela stared openly at the scar that crossed his right eye vertically, he smiled with mild embarrassment and said,

“It is not a glorious wound earned in battle. I got it from picking fights without knowing any better when I was young, and it has been quite a hindrance in finding employment.”

The man laughed and gestured to the knights standing behind him.

“I am told my men came out of a one-against-ten fight with only a single scar each, so I hope my lady will bear that in mind.”

He seemed to have an easygoing personality. She could tell he was making an effort to ease the atmosphere so that Iela, meeting him for the first time, would not feel awkward.

“I hear the flower garden here is quite something.”

But she was not the sort of person to appreciate someone’s efforts and play along, so she cut straight to the point.

“I would hesitate to call it a flower garden, but there is a rose vine. Would you like to see it?”

The flustered man offered with an awkward smile. Iela ignored the hand he extended and gestured with her chin. For someone who had been a mercenary, he seemed to have picked up unnecessary formalities.

She had no patience for being escorted. Iela’s position was that she had two perfectly functional legs and had no need to be supported like an invalid or an elderly person.

Diana had invested a great deal of time trying to persuade Iela otherwise, but ultimately failed.

Diana had consoled herself with the rationalization that it would be fine since the man her younger sister would meet would be no higher than middle class anyway, and yet here Iela was, having become a lady of the house.

Following behind Mayer as he led the way, Iela recalled what had happened before she came here. It had been quite a disaster. Primarily for Anton.

Valentin had subdued Anton even at the cost of putting himself through pain, but he had not been able to overcome Iela.

She needed time to think. What it was that Valentin was hiding, and if her suspicion was correct, whether it would prove to be to her advantage or her detriment.

‘That also explains why Anton Mivela denied the curse so vehemently.’

The rumor alone of a lord who could not show himself in public and was hiding away due to a curse was enough to draw swarms of worthless flies.

For now they were nothing more than flies, but if the rumor were proven true, it would become a matter serious enough for the royal palace to dispatch an envoy.

Setting aside the question of whether the curse was real, Valentin’s obsession made sense if she assumed it was. She seemed to deflect the curse like a shield.

‘Everything up to this point makes sense, but I still cannot find an answer as to why I am the only exception.’

She was still at the stage of suspicion. Iela could not negate in a single moment the more than twenty years she had spent believing in neither witches nor curses.

She also had to keep in mind the possibility that master and servant were both mad together.

Perhaps Valentin had simply been babbling whatever his hallucinations told him, and perhaps Anton had been led along by it and unwittingly come to believe he had been thinking such thoughts himself. Who could say.

And so Iela had insisted on going to the annex. She needed to observe Valentin from a slight distance.

Her plan was to select one of the more obedient knights and send him on an errand to the main castle.

If Valentin, who would surely shut himself back in his bedchamber without her, noticed a knight who had only made it as far as the castle entrance before turning back, that would be sufficient grounds for this absurd hypothesis.

“Here we are.”

While she had been thinking, Mayer stopped walking. Iela looked up and surveyed her surroundings.

It was a rose vine that seemed out of place tucked into a corner of the desolate garden, much like the main castle. Above all else, it was the color.

“They are blue.”

Valentin’s color.

“No wonder someone would want to steal them.”

“Is that so? The color is a bit rare, but they are just roses.”

“They are blue.”

Blue roses were, so to speak, the exclusive domain of the upper class. Since they did not bloom naturally, artificial pigment was used to give them their color.

Even knowing they were made, people paid whatever price was asked. And yet here were blue roses blooming with their roots in the ground.

It was no wonder Philip Lorid’s eyes would roll back in his head. If a cutting were to succeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that gold would come rolling in.

“Even so, yes. As you say, they are just roses.”

“I have heard that blue roses are rare, but they are not entirely impossible to obtain, are they?”

“If you were to cut one of these fresh flowers and knock on the door of any noble household, Sir Mayer, you would receive a warm welcome and a reward generous enough to last you a lifetime of leisure.”

Mayer looked as though he did not quite understand.

“But they are just flowers. Looking at them now, they are unmistakably flowers without a doubt. Look at those tiny thorns. They are presenting what would be no obstacle at all to me cutting them as though it were a weapon.”

“I… so I am beginning to lose track of whether my lady is saying this flower is precious or worthless.”

“It is both precious and worthless.”

Iela answered. Mayer’s puzzlement only grew, but he was not the sort of young upstart who would pester his superiors to satisfy his own curiosity.

A man of considerable worldly experience, he swallowed the question hovering at the tip of his tongue and waited for Iela to give further instructions.

There was one more reason she had insisted on coming to the annex, beyond Valentin’s secret.

It was to see these roses.

“That is enough.”

Let us go to the room, she said, and this time Iela led the way. Mayer, who had been following along without thinking, overtook her and properly guided her when she confidently headed off in the wrong direction.

Iela decided to use the entire third floor. Partly because the knights occupied the first and second floors, and partly because of Anton’s strategy that creating an atmospheric setting would be useful for luring in the journalist who was coming to catch a ghost.

After all, ghosts were said to prefer high places. A shadow glimpsed at a third-floor window would cause fright, but a shadow appearing on the first floor would be dismissed as a person.

“Welcome, miss.”

The maids, who had been finishing up the tidying, greeted Iela. She looked around briefly and nodded, and each of them let out a sigh of relief. Some of the maids even showed signs of delight.

As expected, Iela opened her purse and placed a pile of silver coins on the table.

The maid in charge of overseeing the others came forward and divided them precisely into four equal portions.

“It is narrower than the room in the castle, but it is cleaner, so the cleaning was finished quickly.”

“Lord Bahar is quite untidy.”

“That is not quite what I meant…”

“It is fine. There is no one here but us. I never punished you for complaining a little back home either.”

One of the maids, Mary, carefully glanced outside before speaking.

“Miss, are you truly all right?”

“Do I not look all right?”

“You look perfectly all right.”

“And yet?”

“I cannot help but keep worrying because the lord does not seem like an ordinary person. I know you are not the sort of person who needs our concern.”

Ann, who had just finished cleaning the bathroom and come out, understood what the conversation was about and nodded.

“Not every nobleman would want to listen to the sounds of his wife bathing.”

“Or the sounds of changing clothes.”

Anna, who was in charge of clothing, chimed in as well. Anna, who had just placed the last perfume bottle on the vanity, also wore a troubled expression.

“Even for you, miss, it is best to be careful around that sort of person.”

Iela opened her purse again. She placed four gold coins on her palm and rolled them around, and four pairs of eyes went wide.

The maids’ concern was probably not entirely false. She was aware of how she was treated by her maids.

When they behaved well, the rewards were not small. Relationships bound by money were sometimes more steadfast than those bound by close affection.

“Do you want to go home?”

Her tone was as though she were asking something trivial. Mary, who had been glancing at the other maids in turn, answered on behalf of them all.

“With you, miss.”

Iela set the gold coins on the table and thought for a moment. This was worth making use of. She wanted to see just how far Valentin’s obsession with her went.

To be honest, she had been slightly disappointed to find that his obsession did not contain the same kind of affection as Diana’s.

She had thought she had stepped into a trap, but it turned out he was a hunter who had been waiting for prey from a distance, just as she was.

“I left the earrings my sister gave me in my room, the one you all cleaned first. Could you bring them? Even if I were to run away, I would not want to leave those earrings behind.”

Saying this, Iela took out one more gold coin.

“This is a bonus.”

“I will go.”

Ann stepped forward. Not to be outdone, the other three maids also said they would go, and a light squabble broke out.

“It does not matter who brings them. Let me know once it is decided.”

Iela gave a small yawn and headed toward the bed.

“I need to be awake tonight, so I will sleep first.”

“Rest well, miss.”

“We will wake you before dinner.”

The maids said their farewells in turn and quietly closed the door behind them so as not to disturb Iela’s sleep. Left alone, she sat on the edge of the bed.

She pulled a plump pillow into her arms and searched for the source of the unease she had felt throughout the entire walk to the annex.

“It must be the roses, after all.”

Murmuring to herself made it clearer.

Anton had proposed an exchange of one rose for Iela. Philip Lorid had accepted.

However difficult it was to obtain even with a great deal of money, it was ultimately just a single flower. Which led to the conclusion that Valentin placed her worth at no more than that.

But if his curse was real, Iela’s worth would rise.

“At the very least, I need to be worth more than one rose for it to be worthwhile.”

Thinking that she would somehow manage to drive up the price that Philip Lorid had dragged down to the floor, Iela tore at the innocent pillowcase.

Now that she had seen the rose with her own eyes, she was so irritated she could not stand it.

Philip Lorid who had bought and sold her, Anton Mivela, and Valentin as well. How wonderful it would be if she could reduce them all to the same sorry state as this pillow.