“Why do you think I came out here?”

“I wonder?”

“I came to kill every last one of them who dares let that kind of gossip leave their mouth.”

“Is that so?”

“Who do you think I am, that someone like you would dare insult me? Worthless vermin.”

His eyes flashed red for a brief moment. Even as those mysterious green eyes changed, I gave no particular reaction and half-lidded my gaze.

“Gossip, you say. It is the truth, and it will eventually pull you down from that position. It is well-known that the man who marries your sister will be the one to lead the duchy one day.”

“Do you want to die?”

A small dagger was already at my throat. Something like this could not frighten me. Not after everything I had lived through.

“I’m saying this because I want to live. Make a deal with me.”

“Nonsense.”

“Is it, though. I know everything about your birth, your past, your future. If you kill me here, documents about all of it will spread across the entire world.”

A lie.

I had not prepared any such documents, and I had no close acquaintance who would do something like that for me if I died. Even so, I spoke without the slightest waver.

“If you want my mouth shut, then kill me. Go ahead.”

“……”

“You’re not going to kill me?”

I watched his hand tremble ever so slightly and gave the dagger at my throat a light push aside.

“The fact that my words shake you even a little means I’m right. Please, sit down first. No matter how quiet a cafe this is, standing around like this gives people reason to be suspicious, doesn’t it?”

He seemed to have his own uncertainties, and before I knew it, he had taken his seat. But it was not a willing surrender.

He made a point of driving the dagger he had been holding into the table.

“If you say anything out of line…”

“You’ll kill me? Do as you like. Would you like some tea first?”

“…I can’t tell if you’re shameless, or simply have no sense. Or perhaps you’re not afraid to die.”

“All three, or perhaps more. I need to spark your interest before you’ll listen to what I have to say….”

The fastest and most certain revenge. To achieve it, I had to make a deal with the brother of the woman who had taken up with my husband. A brief thought of whether I could pull it off, and then I smiled just slightly and met his eyes.

“Your mother was a dancer from the Intella Empire, and your father, the duke, abducted her.”

I looked at the silent Isen and cast my mind back.

From the moment Dertosse became Rechel’s lover, the situation had shifted rapidly. Driven by her desire to hand the family over to her lover, Rechel had pressed on her brother’s vulnerabilities, and Isen, who had already fallen out of the duke’s favor simply due to his ambiguous origins, was driven out of the duchy with almost pitiful speed.

In the end, Dertosse inherited the duchy as well.

The scandal that had rocked the noble families at the time was none other than the matter of young lord Isen’s birth. And not from just any country, but the Intella Empire.

“To be precise, she was a spy who had come to observe this country.”

That was the greatest problem that had sent him plummeting into ruin. And to make matters worse, she was still locked away in the basement of the duchy.

“Rumors have a way of picking up all sorts of tails as they travel.”

“Is it truly just a rumor?”

“Of course it is.”

“I see. Then you, choosing to brush it off as nothing more than rumor, will end up meeting the same fate.”

“You speak like someone who has been to the future and back. You do realize you seem unhinged right now?”

I skipped the tea and downed the water beside me in one go.

“Naturally. And I have, in fact, come from the future. Believe it or not, that’s your choice.”

What will you say now? I had laid everything bare before him. Would he simply dismiss me as a madwoman?

No. This man would take my hand in the end.

To draw his interest further, I poured out even the feelings I had buried deepest inside me.

“I can’t afford to stay sane if I want to survive. But what a shame. I think I could bring your sister down.”

His eyes, now returned to green, held the same contempt I had once seen in his sister Rechel.

“You want to bring down my beloved sister? You’re asking me to allow that? Who do you think you are?”

“You don’t love her. That’s just a performance. You act like a brother who loves his sister more than anyone, all to stay in your father’s good graces and secure your own position. In the end, you will agree with what I’m saying. Because I am the wife of the man your sister is having an affair with.”

I wondered how he would respond to all of this.

As I expected, that last line of mine seemed to catch his interest.

Isen stroked his chin and leaned his body forward. A person’s actions reveal their state of mind. Just like Isen now. Someone leaning forward means they are focused on what you are saying.

“So the woman Marquis Dertosse brought in and married, the one whose name no one knew, that was you?”

“Evian.”

What choice will you make?

“Why me, of all people?”

“Because with you involved, the person you had the affair with can’t so easily convene a noble council, can she? Though before that, you would need to bring down the sister you love so dearly.”

“…I can’t quite tell what you want. Is it revenge against your husband?”

“Ruin. I’m going to take everything away. So I want you to be my ‘horse.’¹말 can mean both “horse” and “words/speech.” Evian uses it as a metaphor for a piece she controls or an instrument of her plan”

He let out a short laugh and pulled the dagger from the table.

“On what basis? You know one story, and that’s supposed to be enough?”

“Hmm.”

I watched the man’s unconvinced expression and quietly slid a letter across to him.

“Read it later. And if you’re satisfied, please send just one maid into the marquis’s household. I’ll need a way to reach you.”

With those words, I rose from my seat.

Isen. There was no way he could pretend not to know my offer.

‘His standing has already shrunk about as far as it can go.’

“I hope to see you soon.”

And with that, I walked away from him.

If he read the letter and learned that his mother was still locked away in that basement, as I had written…… at the very least, he would take an interest in me. Simply making him understand that my claim of coming from the future was no lie was enough to count as a success for now.

And just as I stepped fully out of the building, his quiet voice reached me from a distance.

“So I’m not the only one.”

I couldn’t make sense of the words, but I ignored them and made my way to the carriage. I could not let him see me waver at his every word.

I had shown a resolve the old me could never have managed, and now that it was over, the tension finally drained from my body. I could barely move my trembling legs. The sensation of the blade that had been pressed to my throat earlier seemed to linger there still.

“Hah…”

I touched the spot lightly, and sure enough, a faint trace of blood came away. I pulled an old handkerchief from my pocket, pressed it roughly to my neck, and moved quickly. The carriage had stopped quite far from the jeweler when I was dropped off, so it took a considerable amount of time to reach it. After a long walk, I finally arrived.

The carriage my mother-in-law had given me was not one belonging to the marquis’s household. It was something far worse than any ordinary carriage on the street, without even the family crest on it. And perhaps because the coachman knew I was nobody, he was far from courteous.

The moment everyone learned that my status had been fabricated by Dertosse, every single person in the marquis’s household, my mother-in-law included, had changed in exactly the same way. They had once called me their young mistress and given me their best, and now they ignored me without a second thought.

When the water at the top runs foul, the water below runs foul as well.

“You’re quite late.”

“That’s because you dropped me off in the middle of nowhere. Now let’s go.”

The coachman, who had been looking me up and down, wore a startled expression at the change in my manner. Not that it mattered, since I had already ignored him and climbed into the carriage.

“Did you find what you were supposed to find!”

“Are you my mother?”

“Wh, what!”

“If not, then get moving. You said I was late. We need to get back. Mother will be waiting.”

The coachman, who had been carrying on like he was someone important, finally straightened his crooked posture and closed the carriage door. With a scowl that looked ready to start trouble at any moment.

Still, at least he let me ride in a carriage for now, which was something to be grateful for. Later on, they would tell me to walk all the way to the market, which was quite a distance from the household.

I let the memory pass and looked up at the sky through the open carriage curtain. The sky was remarkably clear today. Clouds drifting by without a care. The sight of them brought to mind that man with hair as soft and fluffy as those clouds.

“What choice will you make?”

The image of Isen from earlier burned itself into my mind.

‘You’ll end up destroying yourself in the end.’

If he did not bring his sister down, his future was plain to see.

I swept my hair back and lowered my head quietly with a lonely smile.

‘I’ve thrown the first die, so now I need to throw the second. I should look for that man, the one who seemed to be connected to my bloodline.’

The day Dertosse and his family branded me a criminal. The person I had met briefly during a recess came back to me with vivid clarity.