***

Only after taking exactly four steps up the castle wall did I realize something new.

‘Why is this body so utterly useless?’

Then, immediately after taking my fifth step, I remembered the fact I had forgotten.

‘Right. This isn’t my body…….’

Fiona Ferman.

Perhaps she was terminally ill.

Otherwise, how could her body be so frail?

I had only climbed one storey, yet my palms were already scraped raw and my feet were trembling uncontrollably beneath me.

Nevertheless, I could not abandon my attempt to scale the wall.

It would be absurd for a bride to be unable to enter her own home.

Fortunately, although my body was weak, it was remarkably light.

After struggling more with my own body than with the castle wall itself, I finally reached a second-floor window and shattered it with the fist-sized stone I had prepared beforehand.

It was only when I set foot inside the castle that I noticed my hands were covered in blood.

‘Oh dear.’

One of my fingernails had almost been torn off.

Who would have thought that climbing a wall could leave my nails in such a dreadful state?

As I brushed the dust from my clothes with my less injured hand, a sudden noise made me look up.

A petite woman was standing in the doorway, holding a cleaning rag in one hand and staring at me in utter shock.

‘Is she a servant? But she isn’t wearing a maid’s uniform.’

I started to walk towards her to explain the situation, but she flinched when I moved. She threw the rag aside and picked up a candlestick, holding it up like a weapon and pointing it at me.

She was clearly on the defensive.

“Are you a maid here? I am Fiona Fermen, Viscount Will’s intended bride.”

Although I explained myself slowly and calmly, the suspicion in the woman’s expression showed no sign of fading.

Keeping both hands raised, I approached her with deliberate caution and tried once more.

“Excuse me, but what is your name? If you are not a servant, please summon the butler or Viscount Will. If you doubt my identity, I will wait here quietly.”

The woman seized a second candlestick with her free hand.

She did not seem to understand a single word I was saying.

‘Could she be deaf?’

After observing her for a moment, I warned her in a low voice.

“I planted explosives beneath this castle. If you do not wish to die, you had better inform Viscount Will.”

She showed no reaction whatsoever.

‘She really cannot hear me.’

What should I do?

After briefly weighing my options, I used the blood coating my fingers to write slowly across the wall.

[Fiona Fermen, Viscount Will’s bride.]

The woman’s eyes immediately widened in alarm.

She stared at the words in bewilderment before hurling aside both candlesticks, seizing the hunting rifle mounted on the wall, and aiming it directly at me.

Her reaction made it painfully clear that we still could not communicate.

‘She cannot read.’

That was hardly unusual. Many commoners were unable to read or write.

‘In that case, I will have to summon someone else and explain the situation.’

Acting on instinct, I raised one hand, intending to summon the shadows and restrain her.

However, I quickly realized that I could feel nothing at my fingertips.

Of course.

I was no longer Iselin Eyrive.

‘……Hmm. Right. I can no longer control shadows.’

Then would I have to rely solely on hand-to-hand combat?

After loosening my neck, shoulders, and ankles in turn, I lowered my stance and darted swiftly to the left.

Startled, the woman instinctively pulled the trigger.

Bang!

A massive hole had been blasted through the old chest of drawers that I had passed only moments earlier.

I immediately ducked behind it, knocking her hand away from the hunting rifle, and threw her over my shoulder. I straddled her and pinned her firmly to the floor.

I grabbed the nearby rifle and fired three shots into the wall.

Bang, bang, bang!

I waited for someone to hear the commotion and come upstairs, but there was no sign of anyone approaching.

Could this woman really be the only servant in the entire castle?

Lowering my gaze, I saw that she was staring at me in terror. Her lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t uttered so much as a groan when I threw her to the floor.

‘……She cannot speak!’

This was troublesome.

In that case, should I leave her here for now, go downstairs, and retrieve my traveling bag?

Just then—

“Miss Moria! Are you shooting insects on the second floor again? How many times have I told you not to use a gun for such things? Of course, you cannot hear a word I am saying!”

The steady sound of approaching footsteps stopped directly outside the door.

The man who appeared was tall and burly, with a cigarette clenched between his lips.

His eyes widened when he saw me, seemingly startled, but only for a moment.

Tsk.

Clicking his tongue, he took another hunting rifle from the wall, aimed it at me, and spoke.

“Are you a thief? I do not know who you are, but release Miss Moria. Threatening her will gain you nothing in this castle. Viscount Will is so poor that he cannot even afford to hire a proper maid.”

His words startled me as well.

‘The Will family is so destitute that they cannot even afford a single maid?’

Why on earth would Fiona marry a man plagued by rumors of devouring his brides, who was also utterly penniless?

Moreover, she was to be his fourth wife.

“I won’t report you, so leave now. If you insist on taking something, help yourself to some food from the cellar. But if you do anything foolish, be prepared to lose an arm.”

White smoke and the distinctive scent of tobacco drifted from his mouth as he delivered this half-hearted warning.

Lowering the hunting rifle, I asked,

“Who are you?”

“Must I introduce myself to a thief?”

“I am Fiona Fermen, Viscount Will’s bride. No one answered no matter how many times I rang the bell, so I had no choice but to climb the castle wall.”

Thud.

The cigarette fell limply from the man’s lips.

He stared blankly at me from head to toe before letting out an incredulous laugh.

“Wait. Wait just a moment. His Lordship’s bride…… The wall? Did you just say that you climbed the castle wall?”

Instead of answering, I held up my hands.

More blood had seeped from them, leaving them completely drenched in crimson.

The man was speechless for a long time.

***

After extinguishing his cigarette, the man revealed my identity to the woman named Moria in a rather memorable fashion.

He led us to the drawing room on the first floor, then pointed alternately at the portrait hanging on the wall and at me.

“This portrait must be replaced, Miss Moria! With a portrait of her!”

Moria’s face instantly turned deathly pale. After bowing to me repeatedly, she rushed out of the drawing room.

Before long, she returned carrying a medicine kit in one hand and an axe in the other.

With astonishing strength, she swung the axe and split the portrait cleanly in half with a resounding crack.

Thud!

Only after Moria hurriedly dragged both halves out of the drawing room did I realize that the woman in the portrait had been Viscount Will’s former wife.

‘So Fiona’s portrait will hang there next. Then, when another bride arrives, will they split hers apart with an axe as well? How ominous.’

Afterward, the man took disinfectant and ointment from the medicine kit and carefully treated my injured hands.

“Goodness……. You should avoid straining your hands for the time being.”

“Are you and that woman servants at this castle?”

“My name is Joshua, and I am merely a food supplier. As for Miss Moria…… you may consider her the maid, cook, and gardener of this castle.”

To think they had burdened that small woman with so many responsibilities.

My first impression of Viscount Will, whom I had yet to meet, plummeted straight into the ground.

“From what I saw earlier, she also appears to serve as the castle’s guard.”

The man, Joshua, scratched the coarse stubble on his chin and laughed awkwardly.

“No, that was…… Anyone who saw you like that would have reacted the same way, Lady Fermen. Absolutely anyone.”

Did I truly look that alarming?

I looked down at my beige linen shirt, now stained with blood and dust, and became aware of how I looked.

It must have been an unsettling sight: a fragile woman standing before a shattered window, her hands crimson with blood.

I had momentarily forgotten that I was no longer Viscount Eyrive, but someone entirely different.

“My Lady, please wipe the blood from your face. Did I not give you a pocket mirror? Thirteen of them, in fact, because you kept losing every single one.”

“Sorry. Wait a moment. I think I brought it with me…….”

“You lost it again, did you not? Never mind. Here is your fourteenth pocket mirror. And you need not worry if you misplace this one as well. I brought a fifteenth with me.”

I had never paid much attention to Ciel’s constant scolding because someone had always been there to preserve my dignity, no matter how carelessly I behaved.

But now that I no longer had anyone like that, I would have to conduct myself with greater decorum.

‘Come to think of it, I wonder if Ciel is safe.’

I turned to Joshua and asked,

“What is today’s date?”

“You may speak casually with me, Lady Fermen. Today is August fifteenth.”

If it was August fifteenth, then very little time had passed since my death.

“Where is Viscount Will?”