She tilted her head, but folded the handkerchief neatly on the diagonal and tied it around her wrist. She would keep it safe and return it washed the next time she saw him. Or she could return it today, if she saw him then.

While she was distracted, the cat had retreated completely under the sofa.

Alisa sat back down with a dejected look. It seemed better to ask someone to pass the box along when the gentleman arrived. He didn’t seem likely to be back anytime soon.

She was just starting to think about leaving the shop when a loud voice rang out.

“Elinor! The shoot is soon. Has Evelyn still not arrived?”

“No, ma’am. But I’ve sent someone, so she should be here shortly.”

“Get her dressed and ready the moment she arrives, Elinor. Honestly, I told her to be here an hour early!”

Mrs. Ashford fanned herself and settled into the sofa across from Alisa. The white cat, which had been hiding underneath, shot out the moment she sat down.

She immediately called over another assistant and started talking while simultaneously putting in the earring she was still holding, which confirmed she was genuinely rushed off her feet.

‘A shoot……’

A high-end clothing shop calling in a model for a shoot — it would be for an advertisement photograph to run in a fashion magazine or newspaper.

Long ago, Alisa’s mother had done modelling work before she became an actress with the theatre company. All those photographs had been taken by Hannah, so there was nothing left of them now, but the image of her mother standing in dazzling outfits had never faded, not even in dreams.

“Miss Evelyn says she can’t come today! It seems her father found out she’d been doing modelling work!”

“What?”

Mrs. Ashford leapt off the sofa with something close to a shriek.

“How can she tell us now that she can’t come!”

“She’s locked in her house and can’t take a single step outside — we only found out by paying the footman extra. We never even got to see her face!”

“That’s exactly why I said no aristocrats. The airs they put on! Honestly, it’s not as though I was asking her to pose n*de or strike some indecent pose. All she had to do was play the part of a young lady in the latest fashions from Lander — and they treat it like some kind of taboo!”

Mrs. Ashford launched into her speech without noticing her carefully pinned hair coming undone. The other assistants exchanged miserable glances.

“What shall we do? Should we try to postpone the shoot, ma’am?”

“No. Any later and the advertisement won’t run until after the next social season begins. Does anyone know a model among their acquaintances?”

Mrs. Ashford asked desperately, but the assistants only looked at each other, and no one stepped forward.

Having missed her chance to ask someone to pass along the box, Alisa hesitated, then decided she had better leave before it got any later and reached for the glass door. The bird-shaped bell above it chimed softly, and every assistant in the shop turned toward the door.

Alisa smiled awkwardly and gripped the door handle.

“Sorry to interrupt, please continue your……”

“Wait! You there, come here a moment!”

“Me?”

“Yes! Quickly, quickly.”

Mrs. Ashford came rushing toward the door and took Alisa by the hand. She pulled her over to a mirror and took off her hat. Then she spread her fan wide open and held it beneath Alisa’s chin.

The eye was drawn first to the elaborate lace. But shift your gaze just slightly, and pure white silver hair came into view. Springy curls tumbled over the fan like falling snowflakes.

And those pale green eyes, still so vivid and bright!

Mrs. Ashford let out an involuntary gasp of admiration. She turned Alisa to face forward, took her by the shoulders, and whispered:

“My dear, have you ever thought about doing modelling work?”

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Mrrrow.

Eden frowned at the sound of a cat crying outside the window. He had told them a week ago to fix the fence to keep the stray cats out. It seemed even the gardener had started ignoring him.

The boy tried to keep his attention from drifting to the noise outside and looked back down at the book he was copying. But small cries kept slipping in between the scratching of the quill.

Meow, mrrrow, mrrrooow.

His already low mood sank further. Eden pressed his lips together and buried his face in the book. The hand gripping the quill tightened more and more — until snap, the tip of the quill broke off.

Rattle. The broken tip rolled across the paper, leaving a messy trail of ink. Eden crumpled the ruined sheet and tossed it aside. Through all of it, mrrrow — the plaintive crying went on without stopping.

“I hate this.”

The boy shoved back from his chair and walked out of the room. He went down the stairs, where red carpet ran along the steps, and the servants watched him with curious eyes.

“Your Highness, where are you going?”

“For a walk.”

“To the garden out front, then. Please take care.”

The butler, who had been directing the servants downstairs, bowed deeply. Eden walked past him without a glance and headed for the entrance. He stepped outside through the door a servant opened for him with a respectful bow.

The moment the boy set foot on the front step, greetings came from every direction.

“Good day, Your Highness.”

“Good afternoon. Going for a walk, are you?”

“Allow me to accompany you. There are many flowers in bloom this way, Your Highness.”

Eden walked on without responding to any of it.

The maid who had greeted him was his uncle’s informant. The servant who had hastily set down a water bucket was a fifth cousin of the lady-in-waiting his aunt employed. The gardener was a spy sent by his father.

In this luxurious place of exile, everyone reported on everyone else. All of them were trying to earn even a scrap of trust from the young boy — hated by the king, yet still holding the highest place in the line of succession.

Eden quickened his pace. He walked and kept walking, toward the deepest part of the garden. Only after receiving dozens more greetings did he finally find himself alone.

He leaned against the wall directly below his room and searched the surrounding shrubbery carefully. The cat’s crying had definitely come from this direction. Sure enough, from beneath the flower bushes on the left came a small mrrrow.

Eden crouched and moved toward the bushes. A kitten, so young its fur still looked downy, was hiding underneath. He rummaged through his pocket, then pulled his hand out with a deflated expression.

In front of the white kitten with yellow patches, a generous pile of finely cut fish had already been laid out.

“……I was going to do something kind for once.”

Eden clicked his tongue at the kitten gnawing on a piece of fish, then dropped down to sit in front of it. Watching it eat without a care in the world, he found himself thinking of the curly-haired girl.

A small smile crossed his face. The way she had pushed back and insisted she wasn’t a maid. The way she had called it hospitality and dragged him on a grand adventure all the way to the kitchen. Not a single thing about her had been ordinary.

‘It feels like a dream.’

He had simply fallen asleep in the attic, and somehow caught a glimpse of two hundred and fifty years into the future.

That morning, he had woken up in the attic of the estate. He had no idea how he had returned. Retracing the sequence of events did nothing to clear it up.

‘I hit my nose hiding under the desk and got a nosebleed. Then I was in a hurry, so I wiped the blood with the back of my hand……’

That was all. He had been holding his nose and holding his breath, and when he closed his eyes and opened them again, he was already back in his own time.

Eden stared at the kitten picking at the fish and shut his eyes. A pair of clear pale green eyes drifted through his mind.

‘Will I be able to meet her again?’

He had no idea how he had gotten there, or how he had come back. Perhaps it had all been a miracle born of extraordinary coincidence, and he might never see her again.

“A miracle…… a miracle, she said.”

‘If there’s something you desperately want, you have to desperately work for it. Miracles don’t happen to just anyone.’

Foolish. Childish.

But even so.

On the off chance — just maybe — something like a miracle really existed, the way she said. He couldn’t afford to miss it when it came by not being worthy of it.

“Doing something kind every now and then doesn’t seem so bad.”

Eden looked at the kitten for a moment longer, then got to his feet. If he stayed out too long, the servants would come looking for him without fail.

“Stay hidden. And stop crying so much.”

The boy stepped out of the shrubbery and onto the main path through the garden. A servant came running over at once and bowed.

“Your Highness, the Countess of Sheldrith has arrived. She is in the drawing room now.”

“Did I not say no one was to be admitted to the estate?”