“Something’s going on with you.”

Alexander had followed her into her room the moment breakfast ended and dropped himself onto the sofa. The impact sent a small cloud of dust into the air, and Lisette wrinkled her nose and waved her hand through it as she answered.

“Nothing is.”

“Nothing?”

“Right, nothing.”

“Really nothing?”

“Yes.”

She brushed him off with short, careless replies, as though pushing away something bothersome, and sat down across from him, picking up a book.

It was a clear declaration that she intended to ignore him. But Alexander paid it no mind and watched her at his leisure, legs crossed and stretched out long.

Tick. Tick.

The second hand of the clock ticked on and on as he stared at her without a word. Lisette turned a page and spoke.

“You’ll wear out my face.”

“I haven’t seen you in three years. This much won’t wear anything out.”

“Go say things like that to other young ladies outside.”

“Other young ladies don’t even need words. This face does all the work.”

Snap!

“Brother.”

“Something happened between you and Leon.”

Lisette had snapped her book shut with a sharp sound at his rambling, and she froze at his question. Before she could hide her wavering eyes, his sharp gaze cut straight into her, and she turned her head away to avoid it.

“Nothing like that.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Real…”

“Brother, what exactly do you want?”

His persistent prodding at something she had no desire to talk about made irritation rise in her before she could stop it, and she turned her head toward him with a sharp look. She narrowed her brows and let the cold feeling show plainly on her face. Alexander smiled with satisfaction and leaned back against the sofa.

“Nothing.”

He threw her own word right back at her. She shook her head at his infuriating tone and opened the book again.

“If you’re bored, go to the training grounds instead of wasting time like this. After you’ve swung a sword around like Brother says, you won’t have the energy to bother me.”

“I need someone to spar with for that, and it’s dull without Leon. I can’t be bothered.”

She paused.

Lisette looked up at his offhand remark.

“Leon isn’t there? Why?”

The man practically lived at the training grounds. Why?

“He’s sick, apparently.”

His shrug made Lisette nearly drop the book in her hands. She swallowed.

“Sick? He’s sick?”

“Yeah. He hasn’t been around for a few days. Last time I saw him his face was a mess, like someone had beaten him, and he was swaying on his feet, maybe from a fever… anyway, he looked rough.”

“So? What’s wrong with him! No, Brother, someone is sick! You just left him like that? A doctor? Did he see a doctor? No, I should…”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down.”

Alexander waved his hand to hold back Lisette, who looked ready to bolt out the door at any moment.

“Your dear brother already sent a doctor, and the doctor prescribed medicine.”

“……”

“Leon matters to me just as much as he does to you, you know? You think I’d just leave him?”

At Alexander’s words, Lisette lowered herself back onto the sofa and bit her lip. Even if she went to him now, there was a good chance he would not let her in.

‘Still.’

She found herself gazing at the forest visible through the window without meaning to, then turned her head.

“How long has he been sick? When did the doctor go?”

“Three or four days, maybe? I sent the doctor right away. But he still can’t seem to get up.”

‘Three or four days ago.’

She recalled the sight of Leon at the lakeside two days ago and pressed her lips together. She had already thought something was off, with his face in such a state and his whole manner so unlike him.

‘Was it because he was sick?’

But if he had been sick enough that he could barely move, what had he been doing at the lakeside at all. Lisette bit the tip of her fingernail, unable to make sense of it.

‘I didn’t even notice.’

When she had been caught in his arms that day, she had not been entirely unaware of the heat coming off him. She should have realized that his eyes, clouded and unfocused in a way that did not suit him, were that way because of a fever.

But in that moment she had been so consumed by her own feelings that she had not stopped to check whether he was ill. And he had been sick enough that he could barely move.

“Actually, to be precise, he started looking unwell the day after he came back, I think. You know that day. The one where you turned around and walked off.”

Alexander cast his mind back and looked at Lisette.

“He didn’t look good then either. I think there were heat rashes or something like them on his neck and body.”

“!”

The memory of that day surfaced in an instant and Lisette’s eyes went wide. A recollection she had buried deep had risen without warning.

‘The marks that had been on his body.’

Kiss marks.

The marks she had found on his body the morning after her first incubus dream, when she had run into him, had all been marks she herself had left on him the night before.

Across his chest, his collarbone, and up to his neck.

Her lips trembled faintly.

[My dear, whether your mother told you or not, if you walk into a fog-covered forest at dawn, you fall under the incubus’s curse.]

Lisette bit her lip as the demon’s warning came back to her. She had been so focused on her own curse that she had completely forgotten that moment.

‘Right. Leon had been in that fog with me that day… but hadn’t it said he would only be affected? That he hadn’t been cursed along with me….’

[I never said anything like that. Think back. Didn’t I say, quite clearly, that because of you, that poor soul would fall into ruin alongside you?]

“……”

The demon cut in like a nail driven into a truth she was desperately trying to look away from.

[It seems you remembered only what you wanted to remember and erased what was inconvenient. Humans. How can they be this foolish.]

The demon’s mockery buzzed in her ears. The voice drifted closer and farther in turns, endlessly reminding her of what she had forgotten.

‘Then he had been going through all of this too. It wasn’t just marks left behind.’

The feeling of her breath catching made Lisette squeeze her eyes shut.

She truly had not imagined, not even once, that for nearly ten days he had been dreaming the same dreams she had. She had only thought that his body was affected a little by the dreams she was having.

‘Then. The way he looked in the dreams, the things he said…’

The image surfaced of him, just a few hours ago in the dream, burying his face between her legs and smiling, saying she was beautiful with his lips slick with her. Lisette’s face burned red. And at the same moment, a pain so sharp it made her head go numb filled her chest and stole her breath.

‘How could I have…’

She bit her lip.

And only then did she understand why he was too sick to move.

‘I’m suffering this much too.’

Every single day she had been writhing over what to do about this curse. Every morning she had been rubbing herself below, unable to relieve this burning desire, nearly losing her mind trying to take care of it alone.

‘But for a man…’

She recalled a line from the romance novels she had read so often and bit her lip.

‘It’s because of me.’

How could she have forgotten that?

No, if it had come to this, she might as well just…

[Yes! Just sleep with him already!]

The demon’s voice pushed at her like a shove, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Anyway, I wondered if it might be some kind of homesickness, so I asked the doctor, but apparently it’s not… Lisette! Your face. What’s wrong?”

Startled by her expression, Alexander jumped to his feet and came to her side. His eyes moved over her wavering gaze and his face stiffened as he looked at her in alarm. Lisette shook her head.

“What, what did I do again…”

“No, it’s nothing.”

“You.”

“It’s really nothing.”

“……”

Her irritable tone made Alexander go quiet. The unfamiliar silence nagged at her, but she had no room to spare for anything else.

“Just…”

“I don’t know what happened between you and Leon, but he must be hurting in his own way too.”

Alexander swallowed the rest of his words and looked up at Lisette.

“Either way, I’m on your side, so just do whatever you want.”

“……”

He looked at her steadily, as though this was the very thing he had come to say from the start.

“Three years ago maybe not, but now this brother of yours has a bit of weight behind his words. So stop suffering alone and just tell me. I’ll help.”

At Alexander’s words, she bit her lip and lowered her head.

Honestly, she had resented him too. She had thought, and even hated him for it, that if he had not said he would take Leon with him to the front lines in the first place, Leon would never have had to go to war.

But those feelings had been gone for a long time now.

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“……”

Alexander said nothing at Lisette’s words, pressing his lips together. Lisette looked at him and smiled, the corners of her mouth lifting.

“And… all right. I’ll ask for help when I need it.”

“Me first.”

He held out his pinky finger. Lisette let out a small laugh and hooked hers around it.

“Yes, you first.”

“Thumb stamp, stamp, stamp.”

He repeated the words she used to say as a child whenever she was getting something out of him, then pressed his thumb against hers three times in quick succession. He released her hand, then pulled her into a hug.