[I’m telling you it’s not.]

The dream that had felt ready to set her whole body ablaze from the tips of her ears, the unfamiliar voice that made her realize it had not been a dream at all but reality. Lisette pressed a trembling hand over one ear.

‘No.’

That can’t be.

She shook her head, desperately denying it, and Alexander, startled by the color draining from her face, grabbed her wrist.

“Lisette, you!”

But Lisette shook off his alarmed hand and stepped back from them both. At the movement that looked like flight, Alexander’s expression hardened in confusion. But she could not think about anything else.

“I, I want to go. Let’s walk another time.”

Driven by the single thought that she had to get away from this place right now, she turned and walked down the corridor without so much as a glance in Leon’s direction, forcing her neck stiff so she would not look back, and clenching her thighs tighter with every step.

* * *

“Miss….”

“Nanny, later. Don’t follow me in.”

The nanny pressed close behind her as she walked quickly down the second-floor corridor. She pushed the nanny away firmly, went into her room, and locked the door completely.

“Miss? Miss.”

The nanny’s worried voice came through the door, knocking hard, but she did not answer. She let go of the firmly locked door handle, and the tips of her fingers trembled.

She clenched her fist.

That way, her hand stopped shaking. She walked to the vanity with her whole body held taut.

“Hoo.”

She looked at her face in the mirror, her expression no different from usual, and then at her body in turn, and let out a long breath.

‘It won’t be.’

Lisette squeezed her eyes shut, released the tension in her clenched fist, and brought her hand to the buttons on the front of her dress. Her fingers shook and shook. She opened and closed her fist repeatedly and undid the buttons covering the lower half of her neck, and as the front of her dress fell open, vivid red marks came into view.

“!”

Not just one, but a scattered bloom of them, like a rash of heat flowers. She yanked the collar open to see them in the mirror, and then pulled both sides apart so hard that an undone button snapped off and rolled across the floor. But she had no time to care about that, and Lisette stood bare before the mirror.

Her nape, her collarbone, her chest, and the hollow between them. There was not a single spot free of those marks. And they were exactly where he had pressed his lips and sucked in her dream the night before.

‘Just like the marks she had left on his body.’

Lisette swallowed. The confusion in her mind would not settle. It had been a dream, surely. There was no sign that he had entered her room, nor that she had entered his cottage.

Then how….

[It’s a dream, but it isn’t.]

She drew a deep breath, and at the voice that came with it, now grown familiar, she turned her head. But it was a voice without a body, and she had no idea where to look. She turned to the empty air, and beyond the mirror she saw a pure white angel figurine.

“That’s.”

[Right, that’s the one you tried to break.]

At the voice that pressed into her mind and spoke in a way that left no room for denial, Lisette turned to face the angel figurine. It looked somehow different from the one she had known, and she swallowed.

“Then the one speaking now is also.”

[Right, it’s me. The Angel Figurine.]

She blinked at the angel figurine.

The thought that she was really having a conversation with this lump of stone, along with the suspicion that she might have completely lost her mind, tangled her thoughts.

“How.”

[Curious about what happened?]

She nodded, drawn in by the figurine’s words.

“Tell me.”

[Simply put, you’ve been cursed.]

“A curse? I didn’t do anything.”

[You did. You went into the fog-covered forest.]

She bit her lip at the figurine’s words, which cut through her denial. She had made a mess of things again. But at the same time, she felt a surge of indignation.

“I only went into the forest.”

[Child, did no one teach you? Enter a fog-covered forest at dawn and you fall under the curse of an Incubus.]

“…….”

[A bird in a cage, I suppose you thought it could never happen to you.]

The figurine spoke with a click of its tongue. Its flat, indifferent voice stung somewhere in her chest.

But she could not say a word.

Because it was true.

[Anyway, that’s how you got cursed, you foolish human. Because of you, that poor soul will fall into ruin alongside you.]

At the figurine’s mocking tone, Lisette, who had been biting her lip, lifted her head.

“Alongside?”

[You weren’t the only human in that fog-covered forest.]

The figurine’s words knocked the breath out of her.

“Then.”

He remembered all of it too. Every mark left on her body.

“That can’t be.”

[Why can’t it? You saw it with your own eyes.]

She looked up at the figurine’s words.

[Didn’t you? Those marks identical to the ones on your body, that lewd act of….]

“I saw it. I saw it.”

She shook her head at the word she had no wish to hear from the figurine’s mouth. At that, the figurine made a small clearing sound and fell silent.

In the quiet that followed, Lisette held her breath and then pressed a hand to her forehead. She had ruined everything again.

As if blocking his path three years ago and making a wreck of things had not been enough.

‘Now I’ve gotten him cursed.’

“Ha.”

Perhaps her very existence had been a curse to Leon.

She drew a long breath, feeling she now understood why he kept pushing her away.

“Then is there no way to break the curse?”

[Your tone has gotten more polite.]

The figurine shot back with a note of mockery, but…

“You haven’t said there isn’t one.”

The fact that the word “no” had not left its mouth was enough for Lisette to see a thread of hope, and she lifted her head.

“Is there?”

At her voice, one step ahead of itself, the figurine paused for just a brief moment and spoke shortly.

[There is. Shall I tell you?]

Lisette swallowed dryly.

“Please tell me.”

[Hmm, and what will you give me in return?]

The greedy voice suited the angel figurine not at all. But she could think of no way to refuse that greedy voice.

Because it, that unknown something, knew how to break the curse.

“What do you want?”

[Your life.]

“…That.”

The figurine’s true intent came out so coldly in that instant that Lisette’s lips began to move, and then…

[Is something I’d have no use for. I was joking.]

“Ah.”

Those words had been so chillingly serious that she had taken them as genuine. A joke, apparently. A joke, at any rate.

She let out a breath of relief.

“Then….”

[Well, I’ll just tell you. You did wake me, after all.]

“You’ll just tell me?”

She blinked at the figurine’s words, which came right after it had been threatening her so menacingly.

“Why?”

[Hm. Why, don’t you want to know? Or shall I ask for your life after all?]

“What? No! No, no. No.”

She shook her head in a rush at the cool tone. She waved her hands as well, and she could feel the figurine’s voice turn sharply dangerous.

[But not a word of thanks, not a word of gratitude, just why?]

“Because everything has a hidden motive….”

[Says who? Your mother?]

Lisette nodded at the figurine’s words. At that creaking nod, the figurine spoke with something like a scoff.

[I told you. You woke me. I’m telling you as thanks for that.]

“I woke you?”

[Yes, you woke me.]

The figurine’s face, watching her with something like a blank expression, somehow seemed to be smiling. It was unsettling enough to raise goosebumps along her arms, but that voice was still far too alluring.

[Yes, you threw me onto that hot pile of ash. That’s what woke me up.]

“Oh.”

[Of course, that wasn’t your intention.]

Her chest pricked at the figurine’s words, and she bit her lip.

Because it was right. The figurine had only been something to take her anger out on. There had been no good intention behind it.

[Either way, you helped me, so I’ll tell you how to break the curse, no conditions attached.]

She still felt a flicker of doubt at those alluring words dressed up as goodwill.

Her mother’s teaching that she should not trust people easily, and everything she had been through, passed through her mind one after another, but.

‘There’s no other option right now.’

“So, so what do I have to do?”

The end of her words stumbled slightly without her meaning it and came out rough and broken, but she did not release the tension she had kept in her chin until the very end.

No, she held her body even more taut, straightened her posture, and lifted her head, as though that were the last of her pride. Of course, in the mirror it was plain to see her knees knocking together. But she pressed her lips shut with her fists clenched tight, trying not to let it show, and then she heard a small scoff.

[Humans.]

She turned her gaze toward the figurine at the mocking laugh, and then…

[All you have to do is make one night’s dream into reality.]

The voice continued as though nothing had happened, and then…

[Have s*x with Leon.]

At the words that followed, Lisette’s mouth fell open.

[Realize your desire.]

[And you will be free from the curse.]

“…….”

And in that moment, a vague suspicion hardened into certainty.

“Who are you? You’re not an angel.”

Right, that was no angel granting wishes, it was…

[Right, I’m not an angel. They can’t do things like this.]

“Then.”

[A demon.]

“…….”

[The only one who can make your desires come true.]

A demon.

[Your savior from the curse.]

And a wicked demon at that.