What are you doing here?”
“The damn princess wouldn’t let me see you, so I had to sneak in! Hey, instead of asking dumb questions, maybe you should—”
Just as Mother was about to climb through the window frame, a voice echoed down the corridor.
“...Emelline...”
A voice I knew all too well.
Erik.
Heavens, no.
I slapped Mother’s fingers off the window frame.
“Ow! You little—!”
“Go down! Now! I’ll come down too!”
I roughly plopped myself onto the window sill, right where Mother had her fingers hooked in. Just before I crushed her hand, she yanked it away, landing with a soft thud on the ground below.
Not now. Absolutely not now!
Screaming internally, I flung myself out of the window right after her. As always, our landing was an absolute disaster.
My backside throbbed, but I didn’t care. No way was I going to face that strange man—the one who had embraced me without hesitation the moment I asked—
not like this.
✵
✵
✵
Under the dark night sky, in the inner garden of the Princess's manor, Helena lowered the hood of her robe.
She rubbed her sore fingers—the ones I had smacked—and glared at me.
“Damn, that hurts!”
“Well, what were you thinking, breaking into the princess’s quarters?! If we got caught climbing the walls, it’s straight to the execution grounds!”
I traced a finger across my throat in a dramatic slash.
But my mother—Helena—wasn’t the type to fear such things. Hands on her hips, she shrugged it off like it was nothing.
“So I’m supposed to sit quietly at the estate without even knowing if my daughter is alive or dead? Besides, Erik owes me something…”
“Owes you what?”
Why did the words
my daughter
make my chest sting so badly?
Only now did I realize how anxious I had been. I’d betrayed her—ran off without a word—and yet I was still terrified she’d abandon me.
“What else? Money, of course.”
My expression went cold the moment she said that.
“Take the money and get out.”
The writing on that crumpled note flashed through my mind.
I avoided her gaze, pretending to brush dust off my sleeve.
“What money…”
She scoffed in disbelief.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t open the journal I gave you? Or the note?”
Seeing my expression freeze, Helena nodded knowingly.
“You read it, huh?”
“Where did you even get something like that…”
“Found it in the shed in the forest. Supposedly the servants who manage the woods use it. I just stumbled on it.”
“So then… it was dropped in the forest…”
“If we’re being thorough, maybe a servant picked it up and set it aside somewhere.”
The forest...
My brows furrowed.
Helena frowned at me.
“What are you even conflicted about right now?”
“I’m
not
conflicted.”
I snapped, avoiding her eyes. Helena shook her head.
“You are. Of course you are. Otherwise why would you still be here, sulking around like this? Did you show that journal I gave you to Young Lord Erik?”
“...?”
I blinked at her, confused. Just then, something shifted at the far end of the darkened garden. A presence. A movement.
...But maybe I was just fooling myself.
“Why would you show that to the Young Lord?”
There are rules, even in the world of schemers...
I remembered Eric earlier, tormented by his nightmare.
It had only been a few days since he found out the one who killed his mother was his own father. I couldn’t just shove that journal in his face now.
“...?”
Helena stared at me like I was speaking in gibberish.
“Did you hit your head or something?”
She was saying the same thing Philip did. My whole family really thought the same way.
When she reached out to touch my forehead, I instinctively stepped back. Her eyes widened in shock as if she hadn’t expected me to pull away.
What. Why. I kept my mouth tightly shut.
“I told you, that Duke’s a psycho. That journal is the proof. So what are we supposed to do?”
I clicked my tongue and gave her the answer I knew she expected.
“…Blackmail the Young Lord with it—tell him if he wants to protect the family name, he’d better pay up?”
As I recited the script, Helena looked at me like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
And now, it finally made sense—how my mother had gotten her hands on the Duke’s secret ledgers.
She never planned to live a peaceful life with the Duke after marriage. She’d intended to blackmail him from the start.
That’s why she was snooping around the manor. That’s how she found those hidden books and journals.
“Exactly. Turns out the Duke’s a lunatic. Once that truth comes out, what do you think’ll happen to the House of Orléans? Eric won’t be able to ignore that. He’ll have no choice but to give in.”
“He won’t fall for it.”
I shook my head firmly.
He
won’t.
Eric wasn’t someone who’d value his clan’s reputation or his own authority over justice. To him, punishing the wicked took priority. Helena could never understand someone like that.
“Don’t be naïve. Nobles are all the same.”
I used to think so, too.
I pressed a hand to my forehead, torn.
“Your face is plastered all over the front page right now. If Marina gets her hands on you, we’ll all be chained up again. So we need to get money from Eric and run—just the three of us.”
Just the three of us, again.
Squeezing money from someone, getting through another crisis, not to be happy, but simply to be
less
miserable.
Just the three of us, always.
You did it to protect Philip, didn’t you? That’s what it was… right?
Protecting each other.
That’s what family was, right?
Right?
I clenched my fists.
It’s true I doubted you. And I might doubt you again… but…
Whether this marriage is real or fake, I’m still your husband. I’ll protect you. If anything happens to you, I’ll be the one to face it.
Yeah. That’s what family means.
Even if you can’t trust each other… you still protect each other.
That’s what it
has
to be.
But you know what, Mom?
Getting caught by Marina and being forced back into that filthy den, doing all those awful things again…
That’s a thousand times worse than being hunted by the Duke.
Helena said. “You lied about being pregnant, didn’t you? And honestly, even that so-called marriage with Erik feels suspicious. What if there’s something else going on behind the scenes—especially if it’s connected to that journal—”
“No.”
I cut her off with a low, steady voice.
Mother furrowed her brow.
“What do you mean,
no
? You’re saying the pregnancy wasn’t a lie?!”
No, no, that’s not what I meant…
Hearing Helena’s voice spike in panic, I quickly waved my hands to calm her. That lie couldn’t be exposed—if it was, everything would collapse.
“I mean the part about there being some hidden scheme. That’s what’s not true.”
“What?”
I spoke firmly.
There’s no running away. Not anymore. Not if we truly want to survive.
Especially if the Valdek Clan decides to use the sins committed by our family while under the banner of Bluebeard Trading as a pretext to hunt us down.
But convincing Helena with talk about merfolk graves or prophetic dreams wasn’t going to work. Unlike in the dream realm, Helena in the waking world only knew that Valdek had killed his own wife.
So I made a choice.
Rather than trying to convince her with truths she couldn’t understand, I would deceive her—just a little.
To protect Mother. To protect Philip.
To protect what remains of my family.
But Helena saw straight through me.
“Don’t lie. You always give yourself away when you lie.”
No, I don’t. Everyone else says I lie just fine. Only Mother can tell.
“In my eyes… yes, that Erik d’Arléans—he’s just as kind and sincere as you described in your letters. But if… if you’ve really fallen for him—”
Her expression suddenly turned pained.
I tried to suppress the lump in my throat.
But I knew it.
The reflection of my own face in those familiar brown eyes, now heavy with sadness, mirrored hers.
That’s how it always is with people who are truly connected. They reflect each other’s pain, their joy—because no one wants to be the only one hurting. We want to hurt together, smile together.
Because that’s how we fend off loneliness.
So if Helena looked sad… it meant I was already wearing the same sorrow on my face.
“If you really loved him, you would’ve told me. You wouldn’t have left a goodbye letter like that. You would’ve come to me and said it directly.”
“You even asked me once, remember? ‘Do you love the Duke?’ And I said no. Because I didn’t. So if you came to me now and told me that you love Young Lord Erik… why would I stop you? Why would I ever be against it if it’s truly love?”
Everything she said was right. Painfully right.
Even her voice wavered, as if her heart trembled with each word.
Helena gazed at me, just like she did the day she asked—
“Do you want to be my daughter?”
That look in her eyes again.
I clenched my teeth and met her gaze—those brown eyes that were the mirror of my own.
She spoke.
“Look me in the eyes. You can’t lie to me.”
“…”
“Do you really like him? Is that why you’re still here?”
My lips parted slightly.
Do I really like Erik? Truly?
I knew this much: if I lied, she would drag me away—no matter what it took. And she would know if I lied.
At last, I opened my mouth.
“I want to protect him.”
Chapter 44