The woman tried to rise, startled by the sudden event. The granddaughter, quickly grasping the situation, handed her basket to Jens. He took it and scattered flowers over the partially visible woman.

Purple sage flowers concealed her form.

Jens spoke quickly in a low voice.

“Your description has likely been circulated. Stay there for now, though I understand this is awkward.”

“…”

“I’ll treat you both to a meal. Would you mind moving the cart outside the market? I’ll compensate you for your trouble, of course.”

“Ah. Certainly. Lena, let’s go.”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

The old man seemed to understand the situation and pulled the flower cart naturally, merely appearing to relocate.

Following at a distance to avoid appearing part of their group, Jens scratched his head.

The cart was loaded with heaps of flowers, suggesting they had just started selling for the day.

With an adult woman’s weight added, he wondered if he should help push the cart.

But joining their group would draw too much attention. The small-framed woman was buried deep among the flowers, though her brown boots occasionally peeked through. No need to arouse further suspicion.

Contrary to Jens’s concern, the old man pulled the flower cart containing the woman with ease.

Come to think of it, when he grabbed her wrist and tossed her into the cart earlier, she had felt almost weightless. Even a bouquet of flowers would have felt heavier.

Jens clenched and unclenched the left hand that had grabbed her.

Her wrist had been impossibly thin. When he grasped it, his fingers nearly touched each other as they wrapped around.

Tsk. Such a fragile woman had stepped forward, while he had hesitated to intervene for fear of revealing his face and causing trouble with the investigators. How shameful.

They had left the market, but crowds still surrounded them.

Seeing Jens’s uncertainty, the old man suggested going to his humble home. Jens nodded.

The old man’s house, which looked ready to collapse at any moment, stood on the outskirts of the slums—a small dwelling surrounded by a waist-high fence with a flower garden in the yard.

After stopping the cart and confirming no one was watching, Jens addressed the flower cart.

“You can come out now. I believe it’s safe.”

“…”

“It’s all right. Even if investigators discover you, I’ll vouch for your identity. Please come out.”

“…”

Facing the silent flower cart, Jens folded his arms. The granddaughter standing beside him offered a tentative suggestion.

“Perhaps she already slipped away unnoticed?”

“I’ve been watching the whole time… Let me check.”

Even the woman’s boots, which had been occasionally visible, were no longer in sight.

Jens parted the flowers to look inside.

If she had escaped safely, that would be good, but he wanted to treat this righteous person to at least a meal, so he would feel disappointed if she had disappeared.

As he lifted the flowers, the woman’s long skirt came into view.

So she hadn’t escaped. Then why wasn’t she moving?

Jens hurriedly pushed aside the remaining flowers.

Removing the purple sage flowers he had scattered and the heap of deep purple irises that had spilled during the movement…

“Ah…”

He hadn’t noticed at first. She lay still as a flower.

A red petal, seemingly fallen as he lifted the flowers, settled gently on her closed eyelid before sliding down her cheek with her faint breath.

The hat that had covered her face had somehow slipped down to her shoulders.

As he instinctively reached to catch the petal falling from her cheek, the flowers precariously piled above her head collapsed, covering her pale face.

She looked so delicate that she might suffocate and die buried under that heap of flowers.

Alarmed, Jens quickly reached out to cradle the back of her head, pulling her up from the sea of flowers.

A tingling sensation ran through his palm, like touching a butterfly’s wing—fragile enough to break, both heartbreaking and frightening. Yet he couldn’t let go.

“Sir, your face is red.”

“…Huh?”

While the old man had gone inside, the girl who had been watching the flower cart with him stared at his face and commented.

Flustered, Jens unconsciously tried to rub his face, removing one hand, but when the woman’s body began to sink, he quickly slipped his hand under her shoulder to support her.

She felt so fragile that even the weight of flower stems might crush her.

“She’s someone you know, isn’t she?”

“Someone I…?”

Never before had his voice sounded so foolish to his own ears.

Responding absently, Jens looked again at the woman he was cradling.

Her face, with a body too cold for spring, trembled on the verge of cracking, then…

“…Jens?”

She was neither sage flower nor iris.

What gazed at him hazily were purple eyes with golden undertones.

Such a color existed nowhere else in the world, except in one person.

Jens’s thoughts froze at the sound of his name, which felt both familiar, like it was wrapping around his ears, yet also like it had been too long since he’d heard it.

Besides his grandfather, his only remaining family, no one called him by name without any title…

“…Your Highness?”

She had already renounced her status and spent four years as a Republic cadet. This title no longer fits.

Yet, just as naturally as she had addressed him on the Nautile, he felt compelled to return the formal address.

A smile spread across her still small lips, pink like a drop of red paint on white.

“We meet again, Admiral.”

The woman closed her eyes again after speaking. Jens stared blankly at her eyelids, which looked like white petals resting on snow.

Her body remained cold, but his arms burned like they were holding glowing embers.

* * *

Aira remained unconscious even as she was removed from the flower cart.

Finally, unable to be impolite any longer, Jens removed his hat, and the old man, recognizing his face, was greatly surprised and invited him to rest as long as needed. Jens, putting aside propriety, decided to stay for a while.

Even as they shared the dinner purchased by the granddaughter with money Jens had given her, Aira still hadn’t awakened.

Having accumulated some medical knowledge during his time at sea, Jens checked Aira’s temperature and pulse with clean hands, then frowned.

Her pulse was racing despite having no fever—she was pale enough to be concerning.

More alarming was the wrist he held to check her pulse. It was far too thin.

What on earth had she been eating these past four years?

Fortunately, it didn’t appear to be an Emperor’s Disease attack. She seemed unable to open her eyes due to exhaustion and malnutrition.

Not having seen the news yet, Jens couldn’t understand why Aira, who should have graduated from Conifer, was here in this condition.

He briefly considered calling a carriage to take her to his residence but felt uneasy without knowing the full situation.

He didn’t even know where she was staying. He had deliberately told Kle to handle anything related to her.

Somehow it had felt necessary to do so.

But to reunite like this…

Jens rubbed his face in bewilderment.

The hour had grown late.

When the granddaughter, who had been watching Aira with him, began nodding off, the old man took her to his own room.

Leaving the door to the granddaughter’s room wide open, Jens loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and rolled up his sleeves.

When he turned around, he discovered a pale face staring at him intently.

He let out a brief sigh of relief.

“Are you conscious?”

“…?”

Aira just blinked, still lying down. Jens washed his hands once more in the basin and touched her forehead.

“Still no fever… Drink some water first. We’ll get you food after that.”

Jens poured water from the kettle and offered it to her.

Seeing no indication she would take it, Jens slipped his arm under her shoulders to help her sit up and was about to place the cup against her lips when he hesitated.

Should the cup rest against her lower lip or her upper lip?

Fortunately for the pondering Jens, Aira moved slightly and positioned the cup between her upper and lower lips.

Right. This is correct. What was I thinking about so stupidly?

As Jens tilted the cup, Aira parted her lips slightly to receive the water.

Gulp. Following the water that moistened her lips and overflowed, Jens noticed her soft tongue moving awkwardly, and he blushed intensely, pulling back.

Crazy. How closely was he looking to notice such details?

He had been lost in contemplation, staring at her lips so intently he swore he could have counted the creases in them.

Due to his sudden movement, water droplets formed under her short chin.

“Oh dear.”

Jens instinctively reached out to wipe away the water. But even after the water was gone, he couldn’t remove his hand from her chin.

His thoughts stopped.

He simply stared foolishly at her thin cheeks—like her childhood face refined with a carving knife—her elegant nose bridge, and those purple eyes whose color defied description.

Like being pulled by gravity.

Whoosh.

The short candle provided by the old man’s granddaughter must have burned down completely, as it suddenly went out, plunging the room into darkness.

The fireplace, lit despite their modest circumstances for the patient’s benefit, cast flickering shadows.

The wavering firelight painted multiple shadows of the two people on the wall.

Some were distant from each other, while others had been overlapping for a long time.

Jens, entranced, held her chin with four fingers and slowly moved his straightened thumb toward her lips.

The dew gathered at the corner of her lips looked about to fall. He needed to wipe it away.

It might ruin her if it got wet.

Just as his thumb was about to touch the small depression in her lower lip…

“…!”

The purple eyes grew enormously wide. Large pupils, alternately hidden and revealed by rapid blinking, now clearly focused on him.

With their faces close enough for their noses to almost touch, her pupils dilated, deepening in color.

“…Major Will… sir?”

What was that entranced moment just now?

Hearing his rank, he snapped back to reality, suddenly jolted to awareness.

Jens started violently and withdrew his hand. He raised both hands like someone showing investigators they were unarmed and moved away.

Turning his head, Jens asked to confirm her identity—this person who made him feel strange, who had somehow become unfamiliar.

“Aira Til… is that you?”

“…Yes. It’s been a long time.”