In the deepest part of the gloomy main castle, in the bedchamber hidden away at its very core, Valentin was watching the noisy annex.

The torches held high moved busily about. He found himself trying to make out Iela’s shadow among them, then realized what a pointless thing he had been about to do.

A long pipe that had not been touched in some time was held between his bony fingers.

There was a refined elegance to the way his neat lips drew from it and exhaled smoke in a repeating rhythm, the kind one could watch indefinitely.

But Valentin’s bedchamber was a forbidden zone where no one dared to set foot, save for Iela or the maids she had brought with her, and so the captivating subject remained alone in solitary splendor, undiscovered by anyone.

How long had it been since he last threw open the curtains. Valentin found himself sinking into a moment of wistfulness and glanced at the thick curtains he had drawn back with his own hands.

In such a short time, Iela had already brought about so many changes.

He looked at his own face reflected in the window and gave an awkward, lopsided smile.

It was a face that was the spitting image of the first lord, a man he had never even known. What had once been called a blessing had soon revealed its true nature.

It was a secret no Mivela knew. Yet even Valentin had to reluctantly acknowledge that the third Mivela had handled things rather cleverly.

“True love resolves all problems, was it?”

The argument Anton Mivela had put forward was thin in its basis, broad in its scope, and amounted to nothing more than grasping at clouds. Yet when it came to the curse Valentin carried, it held true.

Because this had been a hatred born of love from the very beginning.

And so he did not doubt Iela’s affection.

The very fact that the curse had no effect on her alone was no different from proof that she alone could be the condition for breaking it.

Standing on the foundation of that unwavering belief, Valentin had approached Iela readily, without fear of being rejected.

“And yet Iela has gone over there.”

The hollow smoke clouded his vision once more. He tapped his fingers against the window frame to conceal his restlessness.

For all the effort of frightening Anton, Iela had gone to the annex anyway. And now Anton was there with her, enjoying a lively adventure.

Valentin knew well enough that someone like Carpenter was hardly worth calling an adventure. But it did not make him feel any better to know that the two of them had joined forces to deal with a mere fly.

Valentin pulled the shortened cigarette from the pipe and crushed it with his bare hand. His appearance gave an impression of fragility that bordered on delicacy, but he had always been numb to physical pain.

To say it was thanks to a wretched childhood would not be quite accurate. A more fitting explanation was that the prolonged mental *ssault over so many years had worn away his nervous sensitivity.

Looking into the minds of others, with all their noise and clamor, was not the least bit pleasant.

It was no different from being locked in a resonant prison where an indeterminate number of people chattered without pause.

And in other words, it was t*rture.

Unless the circumstances were thoroughly prepared, it had little practical use either. Voices all tangled together were nothing more than noise that could no longer be called voices.

It was a pain that made his ears ring until it felt as though his eardrums would tear. Was it not said that even three people gathered together made a crowd?

Valentin sincerely understood the truth of that.

The sheer volume of thoughts packed into a single person’s mind was staggering, and when three of them came together, it became impossible to distinguish one voice from another in the barrage that bombarded his head and ears.

“Come back soon, Iela.”

The man bathed in moonlight whispered with longing.

The flickering torches carried with them a distant noise that seemed to drift in from far away. This much was bearable, but Valentin had now come to know what true quiet was.

With a touch of irritation, he stuffed a new cigarette into the pipe, then immediately flung it aside in a fit of nerves. What needed to be there was Iela.

And so Valentin shamelessly wanted all of Iela’s heart.

Without a moment’s thought for what she might go through because of it, or how she might change, he simply demanded that she hand over his remedy.

* * *

Iela was watching the thrilling chase with great interest.

She had brought a plush chair near the window, was sipping jasmine tea, and was listening to the rough commotion with her ears perked.

The man who had been made to reluctantly wear a dress was, as expected, of little use.

Peter Carpenter, who had boldly brought along his colleagues, caught only a fleeting shadow passing by and was thrown into confusion when he recognized the male frame beneath it.

Peter Carpenter was sharp-minded. He had spent considerable money summoning mercenaries, and the fury of discovering that the result was not a supernatural phenomenon but a cross-dressing pervert led him to change his objective to catching the man and giving him a thorough thrashing.

“Ease your expression, Anton Mivela.”

“You can say that even after seeing how things have turned out?”

“It worked out well. Now there will be no more rumors about Lord Bahar being cursed or ghosts haunting the castle.”

“Instead, there will be rumors about a pervert living here.”

Anton muttered gloomily, his face pressed against the window as he watched the situation unfold.

“Admit it, Anton Mivela. There is already a pervert living in this castle.”

“My lord is not that sort of person. He is simply giddy from being newly wed.”

“If all newlyweds lived like me, there would be a murder every other day.”

“Most people think of separation first. If my lord were to be killed, Miss Lorid would be the first suspect. I thank you for sparing me the trouble.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Iela answered the sarcasm breezily and took a sip of warm tea.

The mere absence of Valentin, who always wanted to be looking at her, was remarkably comfortable. With her eyes gently closed in time with the shouts that swelled and faded, a smile rose to Iela’s lips.

She took pleasure in the misfortune of others. And since that particular other was someone who held a low opinion of her, these screams were positively sweet.

She had not been born with refined tastes, so she found greater enjoyment in light, immediate stimulation that gave instant amusement.

And right now, with the sight of the man who had looked down on her running energetically in a dress being realized before her eyes, her appetite for entertainment was being satisfied more than anything else could have managed.

“We cannot have him running forever.”

Anton asked with his gaze what she planned to do next. Iela shrugged.

“I was not the one in charge of the plan.”

“It was Miss Lorid who twisted the plan I had made from the very beginning.”

“Then rebuild the framework from there, Anton Mivela. Pressing the person who provided the idea will not produce any sharp solutions.”

“Produce one then, a sharp solution. If Miss Lorid had not gotten in the way, Peter Carpenter would already have been caught and sent to the dungeon.”

“Is there a dungeon here?”

Iela asked. Anton pressed his forehead against the cold glass to cool it.

“The plan is a bit sloppy. What were you going to do once you locked him up?”

“It would demonstrate that the lord is real and has every intention of exercising his authority.”

Tired as he was, he answered faithfully.

Anton had always believed that diligence was the surest path to future reward, but lately a suspicion had been bubbling up that it was in fact a method that only ever resulted in loss.

Resting her chin in her hand, Iela tried to picture Valentin exercising his authority. He was a man suited to a throne of gold.

Yet what rose to her mind was the pitiful image of him sitting in a shabby wooden chair, reaching his fingers toward the sunlight.

Well, with a face like that, even sitting on the bare floor would not diminish the scene.

“Drive Peter Carpenter so that man can catch him.”

She said it offhandedly, still not quite free of the vision of Valentin.

“My lord’s dignity…”

“Cut the tail.”

“The tail?”

“Dismiss him. Do knights use a different word? Excommunicate him. A pervert who goes around wearing women’s clothing is a tremendous stain on the knight order’s reputation and cannot be tolerated. Is that not a rather fitting reason?”

“I seem to recall it was Miss Lorid who put forward the sophistry that it was not cross-dressing but dressing as a handful of dust.”

“Did I? I have no memory of that at all.”

“Was this your intention from the very beginning?”

“Certainly not.”

Iela drained the rest of her tea in one go and opened the window. A fierce wind poured in.

Unlike Anton, who reflexively drew back and made a show of shielding himself from the wind, Iela faced it head-on.

“Good heavens!”

Anton stared blankly at Iela as she shouted at the top of her voice.

“One of my dresses has gone missing! I was told there were nothing but knights in the annex, so who on earth could have done this!”

The theatrical cry carried on the wind and spread far and wide. It was a voice loud enough to reach even the ears of the knights currently sweeping through the annex in pursuit.

The revised plan, changed at the last moment, had not been communicated to everyone due to lack of time.

As a result, only a handful of knights knew exactly who the man currently running about in a flapping dress was.

They had simply received orders to cleverly assist the intruder in chasing after the person dressed as a ghost.

Because of this, Iela’s shout sounded as though the person hired to impersonate a ghost had committed theft.

The knight order, not suspecting for a moment that there was a thief among their own, quickly shared the new information.

“I am sorry to interrupt at such an important moment.”

Mayer, who had been silent, opened his mouth with some difficulty.

“I believe I should inform you that it would not do for me to catch you in the act of framing someone.”

“That is excommunication, which falls under my authority.”

Iela tilted her head at the knight captain’s sudden invocation of authority, having nearly forgotten he was there.

“And so?”

“I feel I ought to tell you that it would not do for me to witness this framing firsthand.”

Iela looked at Mayer, who was doing a rather convincing impression of a knight despite not truly being one, and snapped her fingers.

Her faithful attendant brought over a heavy purse and held it out. Mayer accepted it out of habit, weighed it in his hand, and his lips spread into a wide grin.

“I saw nothing and heard nothing.”

“I saw and heard everything.”

Anton interjected abruptly.

“You have a habit of buying people with money, Miss Lorid. That is a very bad habit.”

“I only buy people worth buying. I have excellent judgment.”

Iela snorted and continued.

“You need never worry about being bought, so rest easy.”

Mayer, with the pleasingly heavy purse fastened at his hip, stared blankly at the wall as though he could hear nothing at all.

The part where he would later open the purse after everything was settled, find a handful of copper coins inside, and rub the back of his stinging head was a matter for later.