‘That wasn’t my intention. I’ll make sure you won’t be troubled because of me.’

But Theodore only gave a cold, crooked smile. He pulled a handkerchief from his coat and scrubbed his palm as though something filthy had touched him before tossing the cloth into the waste bin.

“If that wasn’t your intention, then what? Were you actually trying to die?”

‘That’s not—’

Ayla tried to explain, but her teeth clamped shut.

She couldn’t.

Grid’s invisible shackle had snapped tight once again.

“I don’t care whether you live or die. But if you insist on doing it, then do it somewhere I won’t have to see it. It’s disgusting.”

A damp towel—likely the one brought to wipe her cold sweat—hit the floor with a wet slap.

Theodore jerked his chin toward the mess.

“Be in a more presentable state when I return.”

Bang!

He strode out without looking back, as if anything further would be a waste of breath.

“……”

Ayla stared blankly at the sheets—stained with blood, smeared with water from the towel.

A hollow laugh slipped out.

“Ha…”

She didn’t look remotely amused.

‘At this point, even if Theodore thinks I’m completely out of my mind… I have nothing to say.’

Ayla wiped the sheet mechanically. Then her fingers brushed her wrist and she finally broke down.

The flesh that should have been torn open like a shark’s gills was intact. Smooth. Unblemished.

The towel fell from her hand.

She rubbed at her wrist again. And again. And again.

Her delicate skin became raw from how hard she scrubbed, but the truth did not change.

Her ability had returned.

A single tear fell.

It added one more small, wet spot to the already soaked sheet.

‘How is this even fair.’

***

“Dammit.”

Leaving the room, Theodore covered his lower face with the hand still faintly tacky with dried blood. His broad chest rose and fell sharply, refusing to settle.

“Teo! Teo, look at me!”

Sophia’s shrill, bright, ringing voice echoed in his mind like a ghost from his past.

He was fourteen the first time he returned from the battlefield. He had been suffocating beneath the guilt of taking a life. Then Sophia had run up to him, her golden hair wild, with a fresh red wound carved across her wrist.

It was a wound she had inflicted on purpose.

He panicked and asked her why she would do such a thing. Her answer was brutally simple.

“Because Teo doesn’t care about me. All you ever do is think about other things.”

After that, whenever he ignored her, Sophia would sometimes carve into her own skin. Because no matter the reaction—even disgust—it meant he had reacted.

“f*cking Sophia Seymours.”

Theodore leaned against the cold stone wall. He could still feel the sticky smear of blood on his palm.

The grotesque overlap between Sophia’s warped habits, which were burned into his memory, and what Ayla had just done was difficult to bear.

“Get a grip. The princess isn’t the same as the lady.”

He forced himself to breathe.

He knew that.

Ayla was not Sophia.

But how was he supposed to interpret what had just happened?

Ayla had seemed genuinely terrified. But why was she so afraid?

“If your claim that you weren’t trying to trouble me is genuine, then why—”

“Your Highness?”

The question he had nearly voiced dissolved beneath an overly loud interruption.

Derek arrived, balancing a tray of soup prepared on Theodore’s orders—food Ayla would be able to stomach.

“Why are you out here? And this blood, did you get hurt?”

His barrage of questions made Theodore straighten his slouched posture.

“It’s not my blood.”

“Then whose—”

Derek gasped, eyes widening. He lowered his voice to a whisper.

“Surely it isn’t the princess’s blood, is it? Your Highness, no matter how much you dislike her, you can’t just—”

“It’s nothing like that. Just bring clothes. Something she can wear.”

Before Derek could allow his imagination to run wild, Theodore snatched the tray from his hands. He took the clothes that the maid had brought, told everyone not to enter and went back into the room.

But the moment he stepped inside, his brows drew together.

The bed was empty.

But that wasn’t all. It was also neatly made — nothing like the messy, blood-smudged state he’d left it in.

The faint stains were still visible, but the fabric had become frayed from being scrubbed so hard.

“Where could she have gone in that condition.”

A frustrated sigh slipped out.

Then he spotted it, a neatly folded note resting atop the quilt.

He unfolded the paper. Round, tidy handwriting greeted him.

〈I tried to clean it as much as I could. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the sheet.〉

“Ha… what is this, some kind of joke.”

As if a sheet mattered.

Theodore felt absurd—and simultaneously, something in his chest tightened.

Because of the last line.

〈And I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable. It won’t happen again.〉

“…Haa.”

Theodore rubbed his forehead with the hand that was holding the note.

Something inside him rattled, as though a kettle were about to boil over.

Everything kept veering off course.

His gaze drifted to the faint stain on the sheet.

Without hesitation, he tipped the tomato soup over it.

“Should’ve avoided doing anything you needed to apologize for in the first place.”

***

“Oh—she shouldn’t be up already.”

Trailing behind the palace physician, the young assistant tilted his head. He had spotted Ayla exiting the Crown Prince’s wing from afar.

“Hm? What did you say?”

“Over there. The princess is already walking around.”

He tugged insistently at the physician’s robes. But when the physician turned his head, Ayla had already disappeared behind a pillar.

“What nonsense. Don’t talk rubbish. Hurry up—honestly, you spouted nonsense in front of His Highness too.”

“It wasn’t nonsense… She really is sick. Poison—”

“Hey!”

The moment the word ‘poison’ was uttered, the physician clamped a hand over the boy’s mouth.

The force of it sent the assistant’s unkempt hair flying. Beneath the dry, tangled strands, a pair of narrow, yellow eyes flicked open — slitted like a beast’s — revealing his true identity.

Not human.

A merman.

The physician scratched his forehead in exasperation.

“Why must I be saddled with you…”

He smoothed the boy’s hair with both hands, then placed his glasses on him.

“If not for that cursed detox ability of yours… Ugh. Well, fine—the number of times I’ve benefited from you isn’t small either.”

The boy—Finn—accepted the touch obediently.

Finn, from fin, the doctor’s affectionate little nickname.

A name that acknowledged the boy’s nature as a merman.

“Listen here. If you run your mouth like that, both of us will lose our necks in this palace. So keep it shut, understand?”

Whether or not he understood what was happening, Finn simply dangled the oversized glasses and played with them.

Because of the backlash of his ability, he had the intelligence of someone much younger. The doctor sighed and shook his head in resignation.

“By the way, how was the work in the archives?”

“It was fun.”

Finn, who had been grinning innocently, suddenly grabbed the physician’s trouser leg and hid behind him.

“Hm? What is it now?”

“Did you give the princess the medicine properly?”

The physician, confused at first, went pale when he saw the shadow falling across the ground.

Balkan had appeared out of nowhere, blocking their path with a sly smile.

“Y-yes, of course. I did give her the medicine you provided, but… may I ask what exactly it was?”

The physician shot Balkan a nervous glance. The truth was painfully simple: the medicine he had given Ayla was the same antidote that Balkan had forced upon him.

And it was all because of Finn.

If he had known earlier that merfolk could recognize each other instantly, he would have hidden Finn the moment the Melshid delegation arrived. But he hadn’t. He had been careless — too careless — and that was how Balkan had discovered Finn’s identity.

After threatening to expose everything, Balkan had left him with no choice but to comply.

He had realized from the outset that Ayla was being poisoned, yet he had remained silent for the same reason.