Eden’s face was covered by the black hood. The boy who stumbled without being able to see stood on both feet on the platform.

‘Now.’

With shaking hands, Alisa poured the seawater she had collected in a glass bottle beforehand into her palms. She pressed her hands together and squeezed her eyes shut.

‘Stop.’

Stopping time was something like placing a large stone in a flowing stream.

Disrupting the current to create a brief pause.

And so, before long, the water that had backed up behind it would have no choice but to return to where it had been.

Cast into a moment of stillness, Alisa took her mother’s hand and moved toward the base of the gallows.

Sir Roben was working with his hands exactly as they had discussed. He cut the rope binding Eden’s wrists first, then removed the black hood.

“Your Majesty, are you all right?”

“Yes.”

Eden nodded and turned to look at Alisa.

He lightly rubbed her pale cheek.

“You look frightened.”

“…… I do not.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll do well.”

Alisa felt Eden’s fingertips brush gently across her forehead and let out a small breath.

She couldn’t help feeling anxious. What had just happened only required stopping time briefly after Eden’s face was covered and swapping him with her mother — but from here on, there was no room for even the smallest mistake.

“Alisa, see you soon.”

Roxia pressed a light kiss to her cheek and pulled the hood over her head. Eden caught Roxia’s arm as she swayed, then handed her over to Sir Roben.

“Sir, I’m counting on you to take care of her.”

“Of course.”

Alisa confirmed that the two were in position, then took Eden’s hand and ran. The moment the two of them had hidden themselves at the cliff’s edge, away from the crowd’s eyes, time began to move again.

Feeling the wind pick up once more, Roxia began playing the part of Eden with practiced ease. She looked around as though unsettled and unable to see, until the executioner’s hand came down on her shoulder.

“Stay still.”

“……”

Roxia flinched at the executioner’s words. Her hunched shoulders looked, to anyone watching, like someone who had made peace with death. And yet she neither stumbled nor begged for her life — it looked like the last shred of dignity left to a king.

Not a single person.

Not one of them noticed the prisoner had been switched.

The executioner stepped forward and placed the rope around her neck.

“If you have any last words, say them now.”

“……”

“If not……”

The executioner turned his gaze toward the soldiers. They stepped forward, ready to kick away the platform beneath Roxia’s feet.

Alisa’s eyes went wide. Not even a tenth of a second’s delay was allowed. The executioner lowered his hand in signal. And one of the soldiers stepped forward and kicked the platform away.

Thud — the platform that had been holding Roxia’s weight flew out from under her. Her body dropped, and the rope pulled taut, just before it snapped tight——

‘Now!’

Alisa stopped time once more.

The world froze. In the silence that swallowed even the rain, Roxia’s body hung suspended in midair. This time, for safety, she had to stop her mother’s time as well.

Before, her mother had needed to move on her own, but this was different. If her mother came to while hanging in midair, it could be dangerous.

“Alisa, let’s go.”

Eden took her hand and pushed through the frozen crowd, leaping up onto the gallows. Together with Sir Roben, he lifted Roxia’s suspended body and lowered her from the rope, then laid her on the ground. There was no way to check her pulse with time stopped, but examining the state of her neck came first.

“Oh, is Mum……”

“She’s all right. There may be some bruising, but……”

Alisa swallowed hard as she looked at the redness already forming on Roxia’s neck. She might have stopped breathing for a moment, but as long as she hadn’t died instantly, it would be all right.

Sir Roben adjusted the rope, loosening it so it hung slack. He had positioned it so her toes just barely grazed the ground, allowing her to hang as though dead without her neck being broken.

“This should do. The time she’ll need to hold on isn’t long, but it would be best to move as quickly as possible.”

Eden nodded, and together with Sir Roben, he helped support Roxia’s body upright. Then he draped her neck lightly against the rope and let her body hang in as natural a position as he could manage. With her head lolling without support, she looked exactly like someone whose neck had snapped.

“Alisa, we need to hide again.”

“…… Right, we have to go.”

Alisa hid herself again with Eden. Before she could even press a hand to her racing heart, the rain beginning to fall overhead told her time had started moving again.

The body hanging limp beneath the rope grew wet with rain. With every gust of wind, the torso swayed from side to side — it looked exactly like the body of someone dead.

Alisa could barely breathe through the anxiety, and then a cheer broke out from the crowd.

“He’s dead!”

“Good riddance. Good riddance!”

Sir Roben stepped forward himself to lower her body from the rope. Roxia’s form went limp across his arms. Eden watched in silence, then wrapped an arm around Alisa’s trembling shoulders.

“Leonard II has no right to be buried in this land. Cast him into the sea!”

“But Sir, the body should be taken to the capital……”

The executioner pushed back against Sir Roben’s words, but the will of the gathered crowd was clear.

“Throw him in!”

“Let the fish have him!”

“Our village was burned down for not paying taxes!”

“My daughter was buried without even a funeral — he should be grateful he’s getting a sea burial!”

Under that pressure, the executioner had no choice but to step back. Sir Roben carried Roxia down from the gallows, and as he descended, he glanced briefly toward where the two of them were hiding.

Eden took Alisa’s hand and moved slowly toward the cliff’s edge. The sheer drop where waves shattered into white foam rose up to meet them.

Alisa steadied her breathing and focused on Sir Roben’s movements.

“One, two……”

“Three.”

With the last number Eden spoke, Roxia’s body was cast into the sea. At the same moment, the two of them jumped, hands clasped together.

The sea wind struck her face, and then in the blink of an eye, cold water swallowed her whole. Even the sound of her heart hammering as though it would burst was no match for the silence of the sea.

She couldn’t breathe. She felt she might lose consciousness at any moment. But Alisa thrashed her arms and forced her eyes open.

Mum.

She had to find Mum.

They had jumped from nearly the same spot, so she had to be close.

She couldn’t tell whether her lungs were burning because she was running out of air, or whether her panic was burning through what little oxygen remained. Then Eden’s hand, still clasped in hers, began to pull her.

She turned her head in the direction he was pulling and found a woman drifting in the dark water.

Roxia was sinking. Her hood had come loose, and her hair fanned out through the water in dark, spreading waves. She seemed to have come to for a moment — she reached a hand toward them — but the current carried her away.

“Hh——”

Air was running out. A rush of water from her nose blurred her vision.

Eden pulled her hand hard. She kicked against the burning tightness in her chest and pushed forward. A little more. Just a little more. One more reach……

Tap.

Alisa caught her mother’s outstretched hand. The limp fingers kept slipping from her grasp.

‘Home.’

She thrashed against the seawater flooding her nose and wished with everything she had.

‘Our home. Send us back to the attic where Eden and I first met.’

Her vision kept blurring in the dark water. The waves kept crashing against them, as though determined to tear them apart.

Through her fading sight, Alisa looked between Eden and Roxia. Two people struggling for air, in pain, and yet neither letting go of the other’s hand.

Her throat was thick with swallowed seawater. She coughed and coughed, but every time her mouth opened, more water rushed in.

She fixed her gaze on the light of the surface growing farther away, and made one last wish.

‘Leonard Eden Reuben Roben is dead.’

…… So please, let us go now.

Darkness flooded her vision, and Alisa lost consciousness.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

The wind blew.

On the barren coastal cliff where nothing yet stood, sand drifted with every pass of the air. The stones, not long acquainted with the waves, still had gentle, rounded edges, and the shore was full of smooth pebbles that hadn’t yet become sand.

But Alisa knew.

Someday, a single yew tree would grow on that cliff.

Whether it came from a seed carried on the wind or a sapling someone planted, she couldn’t yet say — but it would push its roots deep into the earth and stretch upward as a new shoot. Higher and higher, until its shadow alone could cover every person who came to stand beneath it.

And from those branches, countless people would die. Even after long ages had passed and it remained only as an old story, it would still be standing in its place.

The way it had bitten into one corner of Alisa’s childhood, casting its shadow over someone’s life.

In the brief moment of watching time slip past, Alisa thought.

Why were you always under that tree.

Of all places, why there.

‘Leonard II was a tyrant.’

A lie.

‘I’m not saying this to frighten you. I’m saying it so you won’t pity him when you find out later.’

That was a lie too.

If he had truly wanted Alisa to forget him completely once everything was over, he should have said nothing at all.

He shouldn’t have been under that tree of all places. He shouldn’t have stayed by her side on the loneliest day of her life.

He shouldn’t have cheered her on when she said she wanted to be an actress, or helped her reclaim her house, or brought a gift for every birthday, or handed her cocoa on the days she wanted to cry.