When Livia stopped abruptly in surprise, he quickly pulled her into his embrace and led her deeper inside.

Taking her in his arms, he strode further inside and forcefully opened what appeared to be a wall-like door, revealing an indoor garden with an open ceiling.

Her eyes adjusted suddenly after being in complete darkness.

The warm scent of flowers and grass filling the cozy indoor garden, where dozens of fireflies wandered about, stimulated Livia’s senses.

Zagreus placed the startled and stiff Livia on a massive table created in the center of the garden.

‘Is this really Zagreus?’

She glared at the eyes behind the helmet while completely tensed up.

She had only vaguely assumed it was him without ever seeing the face behind the helmet.

Though she had heard his voice, the gods’ abilities were too extraordinary to be certain based on that alone.

Still unable to shake off her suspicion, Livia whispered to the man who had not yet removed his helmet.

“Show me your face, to prove you’re really Zagreus.”

The man quietly looked at Livia whom he had placed on the table, then nodded.

His heavy arm moved toward the helmet. The helmet, which must have been stifling since it was meant to cover his face, disappeared from atop the man’s head.

Silkily, fine black hair flowed down over his shoulders. A radiant face was revealed, contrasting with his massive build and thick shoulders. Beneath hair as black as the underworld, a face pale as ice turned toward Livia.

The man with ice-cold features met Livia’s eyes and smiled brightly.

“Is this better now, Livia?”

It was indeed Zagreus.

Only after confirming his face could Livia finally breathe a sigh of relief. She had been at a loss for how to find him, so how fortunate that he had appeared first like this….

“Yes. Thank goodness. Then Zagreus, about Lete….”

Just as the urgent Livia hastily tried to get to the point, Zagreus raised his hand to stop her words and stepped back.

Wondering why he did that, she watched as Zagreus plucked a bright flower blooming in the garden and approached her.

The man held out an unknown white flower he had picked with his rough hands. The petals before Livia’s eyes trembled faintly. It was a tremor transmitted from the fingertips holding the small, delicate flower stem.

“……”

For me, is he telling me to take it? Suddenly…? Why?

As she stared blankly in confusion, Zagreus smiled while tucking the flower he had brought behind her ear.

“It suits you well, Livia.”

His cold hand cupped her cheek, then took hold of her hands resting on the surface and kissed their backs before taking a deep breath.

Livia flinched and pulled back at his action that seemed as if he was inhaling her scent.

“I missed you. Seeing you in person is indeed much better than seeing you in dreams.”

There was something suggestive about the way he smiled with curved eyes while pressing his cheek against her palm. Those mysterious eyes and seductive expression clearly held implications.

Seduction….

Looking at him with bewilderment, Livia suddenly asked.

“…Why are you going this far?”

Previously, Zagreus had shown his ‘interest’ in Livia. But mere interest alone wasn’t enough to explain why Zagreus would act this way toward her.

Thinking simply, it wasn’t bad since she needed his help, but was that really all there was to it?

“You and I don’t really have any special connection. We’ve only crossed paths a few times in the underworld….”

Why go this far….

But there was something Livia didn’t know.

That for some, those few brief encounters could be stimulating enough to completely shake hundreds of years of life.

Moreover, he was a god with the wildness of a beast.

His wildness, with instinctive senses far more keenly developed than any logic… desired Livia. So intensely that his whole body burned with wanting to possess her.

“That’s why I’m trying to create a special connection from now on, Livia.”

Zagreus looked at Livia with what he thought was his most beautiful smile as he spoke.

“Because I want to be desperately entangled with you. That’s why I’m doing this.”

“……”

“Does that answer your question?”

If I had met you before him….

Zagreus repeated the meaningless hypothesis while keeping Livia trapped within his greedy gaze. If there was something impossible even for a god, it was turning back time that had already flowed…

Yesterday cannot become tomorrow, and today cannot become yesterday.

They say wishing for the impossible is called a miracle. Perhaps this desire to turn back time and change the order of things was exactly that.

Even though I’m the one granting what Livia wants now, why can’t I have her? Why couldn’t I have claimed her first?

Indeed, everything was a matter of order.

If I had met you first, if I had grasped you in my hands first, I wouldn’t have felt this emptiness….

He clenched his jaw so hard that veins stood out. Though he pretended to be composed, his heart was anxious, and sharp irritation tried to wedge its way through the cracks in his mind.

“I….”

The words those wavering eyes and hesitating lips would speak were obvious.

Instead of hurrying to hear her answer, Zagreus decided to prevent her thoughts from deepening.

Seduction wasn’t something that succeeded through great reason and conviction. It had to be impulsive, unconscious, sudden like an accident….

So he couldn’t give her time to think.

Time to remember that man.

“It’s time to meet your brother, Livia.”

“…!”

Livia’s hazy eyes suddenly widened. Her trembling lips that had been mumbling parted, and she rushed close to Zagreus as if she hadn’t just backed away, clutching his clothes.

“Lete… did you bring Lete here? Really?”

“Of course, Livia. I promised, didn’t I?”

He replied gently while taking something from around his neck. A glass bead about the size of a man’s thumb hung from the necklace.

“Is, is he in here? My brother?”

“Yes, look carefully inside the bead.”

Following Zagreus’s instruction, Livia peered closely into the bead he held out. Then black smoke dispersed inside the bead, revealing a human figure as small as a pinky nail. Livia cried out desperately with a sharp intake of breath.

“Lete…!”

Oh, heavens.

Livia’s eyes instantly welled up with tears. With a contorted face, she preciously held Zagreus’s bead close and silently sobbed while continuously murmuring her youngest brother’s name.

She could see little Lete curled up inside the bead.

Since he was young, Lete would often curl up like that when he was sick and suffering, and he looked exactly the same now. Livia showered the bead with endless wet kisses while whispering her brother’s name again and again.

“Can’t, can’t we take him out of here? Is this the only way to see him?”

“No, I can take him out. But remember that since this isn’t the underworld, his soul can’t stay out for long. I’ll let you know when time’s up.”

“Yes, yes!”

Livia nodded fervently with her tear-stained face.

As Zagreus had intended, Livia’s mind was now filled only with Lete. She had forgotten about Zagreus’s confession-like words, and even the thought that she should hurry back since Triton might look for her.

Zagreus wiped away the tears wetting beneath Livia’s eyes with his fingertips. Tears that felt warm to the point of being hot gathered in round drops on his fingers.

Though uncontrolled desire suddenly surged in his previously calm eyes, Zagreus barely managed to suppress that fierce passion.

Haah.

With his eyes closed, he took several short deep breaths before holding the glass bead in his palm and murmuring words of death that Livia couldn’t understand.

Then black smoke billowed up from the bead in Zagreus’s palm, and the body of a young man appeared on the massive stone table where Livia had been sitting.

“Lete!”

Livia got down from the table and approached Lete. She knelt down and sobbed for a long while holding the face of her young brother who lay unconscious with closed eyes.

Though it must be just his soul, he looked gaunt as if he had lost flesh. Perhaps it seemed that way because of his complexion that was paler and darker than even a dead person’s.

“Lete, Lete… it’s me, Livia. Open your eyes, okay? Lete… are you in much pain?”

“…Li…via.”

“Yes. Lete. It’s me. It’s me… your sister is here.”

“Livi…a.”

Lete kept calling only her name while breathing heavily. Her brother’s ice-cold temperature felt like it was tearing Livia’s heart to shreds. Rubbing her heated eyes roughly, Livia hurriedly tried to recall the spell the witch had taught her.

What was it, what was it again? Her mind was blank from sobbing. Could she not remember the spell she had mumbled and repeated countless times right when she needed it most? As she bit her lips and beat her chest, Livia suddenly remembered and shouted the spell.

Ailar.

The hazy light carried on her breath seeped into Lete’s soul.