Looking around the empty room, Eloise unconsciously let out a sigh of relief.

Just moments ago, when Sinclair asked if she had possibly misspoken about Ryan during their conversation, she felt her heart sink.

Fortunately, she had been turning her head to organize the books beside her; had they been face to face, she wouldn’t have been able to hide her stiffened expression.

Luckily, Eloise had managed to compose herself before turning her head back.

But the conversation hadn’t been comfortable afterward either.

Sinclair kept probing about Ryan, noticeably more than usual.

She would even abruptly steer the conversation back to Ryan while discussing other topics.

Eventually, Eloise had to pretend to be tired and leave. Just before entering her room, she realized she had left her book on the sofa.

‘How distracted was I when I left!’

That’s how uncomfortable the conversation with Sinclair had become.

But it felt awkward to leave the book behind, so she quickly went back to retrieve it and return to her room.

‘Has Sinclair gone back to her room?’

But her teacup and belongings were still there, suggesting she would return soon.

‘I should just grab my book and leave quickly.’

As Eloise quickly gathered her book and was about to turn around, she noticed a tray with an envelope placed in front of Sinclair’s seat.

It seemed a maid had left a letter for her.

It wasn’t something Eloise needed to concern herself with, so she could just ignore it and leave.

But Eloise’s gaze fell on the address written on the envelope.

[Rial Street 73, Apartment Complex 12, Unit 513. N11 8PR]

At first glance, it seemed like a very common address. But Eloise knew better.

‘Rial Street only goes up to number 55, doesn’t it?’

Coincidentally, the mansion her godmother had left her was nearby, so Eloise had noticed the end of the street numbers while walking around the area.

At that time, she had noted that the streets ended in the 50s, but now the envelope had street number 73 written on it.

Finding this strange, Eloise memorized the address. Then, carrying her book, she quickly went into the corridor and turned the corner toward her room.

A moment later, Sinclair’s grumbling voice could be heard from the reception room corridor.

“When I’m not around, don’t just leave it and go. Make sure to find me and deliver it personally, understand?”

“Yes. I’m sorry…”

The maid responded in a dejected voice as Sinclair, who rarely spoke harshly, addressed her sternly.

“You may go now.”

With those words, Sinclair closed the reception room door with a thud. As if she didn’t want others to see what she was doing inside.

The maid who had been lingering outside finally hung her head and returned to her post.

Eloise stood still for a moment longer, holding her breath, and only after confirming that no one was around did she carefully return to her room with muffled footsteps.

“Haa, haa…”

As soon as she closed the door to her room, she exhaled the breath she had been holding.

After catching her breath, she immediately went to her desk and wrote down the address she had memorized.

“Rial Street 73, Apartment Complex 12, Unit 513… and then… N11 8PR.”

Holding that paper, Eloise unfolded a map of the capital she had bought on the street.

She found Rial Street on the map and immediately looked for number 73. But as expected, Rial Street ended at number 55.

Just to be sure, she thoroughly searched the surrounding area and checked if there was another Rial Street, but there wasn’t.

Since there was no number 73, neither Apartment Complex 12 nor Unit 513 existed either.

Eloise’s gaze then fell on the letters N11 8PR at the end. This was a postal code issued separately by the capital for people who found it difficult to write out lengthy addresses.

She flipped the map to check the postal codes, but the address for that code didn’t exist.

In other words, only the street name was real; everything else was a nonexistent address.

At that moment, Eloise thought of the Lenskian book she had seen in the study.

That book with creases all over.

* * *

The next day, Eloise hid behind the curtain from dawn, looking out the window.

‘I need to visit the inherited house and write a letter to Richard, what am I doing?’

Though she couldn’t understand why she was doing this, Eloise didn’t take her eyes off the window.

As winter deepened, sunrise was getting later, and the capital’s sky was still filled with dark clouds.

Because of this, despite the approaching morning, the outside of the mansion was still shrouded in darkness except for the light from the gas lamps on the street.

A moment later, someone crossed through that darkness. It was Sinclair.

Without even taking a carriage, she quickly left the mansion with one servant, and her figure soon disappeared.

After confirming Sinclair had left, Eloise went outside.

The second floor where she was staying housed Sinclair, the mansion’s owner, and guests.

Most of the Lenskian people who had been staying until recently had left, so Eloise was now the only guest on the second floor.

Because of this, there were no maids on the second floor now. After all, the owner had gone out, and upstairs was just a guest who still had time before getting up.

Besides, cleaning wasn’t something to be done in the afternoon, was it?

Taking advantage of the silence, Eloise headed straight for the study. Despite being a heavy wooden door, it opened silently and smoothly thanks to good maintenance.

She immediately approached the bookshelf and took out the familiar book. It was the book Sinclair had received as a gift from the Lenskian people.

Hiding it under her outer garment, Eloise closed the door again and hurried back to her room.

“Whew…”

Having successfully returned to her room without anyone knowing, she wiped the cold sweat from the back of her hand. Who would have thought retrieving a book from the study in the house would be so nerve-wracking?

Anyway, there was no time to hesitate. Eloise planned to return the book to its place before the maids came up to prepare her breakfast.

Opening the book, Eloise first examined page 73.

It was filled with sentences of boring content. After examining the first word of each line, Eloise looked at page 12.

That too was just an ordinary page from a history book.

“73, 12, 513, 11, 8…”

These were the numbers from the nonexistent address.

Eloise recalled the decoding method for code books she remembered and tried combining the first words of each sentence.

But as expected, most of them made no sense.

‘Revolution spoon distribute’ or ‘Ticket wedding bright.’ As she was combining the first words of each line that didn’t make sense, Eloise’s hand suddenly stopped.

“Angirten, strait, arrival, January, 8th?”

Finally, there was a place where a comprehensible sentence was formed.

“Angirten Strait…”

Although it was an Albion strait, it was a place whose name appeared quite frequently in historical documents from various countries, as ancient people used it as a port.

Eloise tried to recall its location.

‘It’s very close to Gilia.’

When discussing maps with her father, Mr. Surberton, he had explained several times that it was truly an excellent natural harbor.

Wondering if this sentence was just a coincidence, Eloise examined the book under candlelight.

And she noticed.

Under the words she had seen, there were faint nail marks, as if someone had examined them for a long time.

* * *

“Any letters for me?”

Richard asked as soon as he entered the safe house, taking off his hat.

Another soldier inside chuckled and said, “Did you tell your lover to send letters here? You’ve been asking about letters constantly these days.”

“I’d be happy if it were from my lover…”

Richard rubbed his face with both hands. He was anxious to death, not knowing when Eloise’s angry letter would arrive.

“Hope it hasn’t come…”

“Richard! A letter for you!”

At that moment, the door burst open and another soldier appeared holding an envelope.

Receiving the letter with a resigned expression, Richard sighed repeatedly upon seeing Eloise’s name written on it.

While everyone was snickering and joking about which woman had caught him, Richard’s face suddenly hardened.

Then he shouted:

“Contact the military headquarters immediately! January 8th! Angirten Strait!”