76.
I got down from the carriage. A little ways behind me, I saw the four-horse carriage come to a stop as well.
‘Unbelievable…….’
It didn’t look as if he had any intention of hiding the fact that he’d followed me.
The carriage door opened, and a pair of long legs stepped down to the ground.
Clicking my tongue, I quickly slipped into the alley.
‘If he wants to follow me, let him. What else would that make him but an accomplice?’
If anything, this worked out well, since there were things I wanted to ask him too.
I ignored the footsteps calmly trailing behind me in silence.
‘If I turn this way…….’
Right.
Only after checking the address from my memory again and again among the houses packed close together front and back did I become certain.
‘That’s the house.’
I walked casually along the wall, then seized the moment when there was no sign of anyone passing through the alley and nimbly climbed over it.
Just before dropping down on the other side of the wall, I unfortunately met his eyes for an instant, but…….
‘Surely he won’t follow me in this far.’
I circled the outside of the house, checking for an open window. There was no sign of anyone inside.
Only, I could see someone moving back and forth by the window of the house opposite.
Avoiding their line of sight, I quickly climbed up the drainpipe. Then, stepping onto the windowsill, I pushed open the window that had been left slightly ajar.
With my head bent low, I slipped my body inside.
My foot landed on the carpet.
The room I had entered was a bedroom. For some reason, it felt bleak.
‘First, I search everything.’
I was in the middle of thoroughly searching the room when it happened.
The window, which had been left half-open because I’d come through it, creaked and swung fully to the side.
Because the body entering was large.
I stared at him with a dumbfounded expression.
“Why are you coming in?”
“Why can’t I?”
Rohwinas landed in the room, patted the hems of his trousers, and straightened up.
I realized my mistake.
“……Count, why do you keep being such a nuisance?”
“Didn’t we decide you’d speak casually to me again?”
“…….”
“You’re going to do it anyway once you get angry, aren’t you?”
Rohwinas replied as if it were nothing and looked around the room.
“So, why did you come here?”
I opened my mouth in sheer disbelief, then simply turned away.
I’d searched the bedroom, so now it was time to go to the next room.
Rohwinas followed behind me.
While I searched the study, he neither helped me nor hindered me.
He just watched me.
‘I didn’t find the pattern here either.’
Lastly, I walked toward the bookcase that filled one wall of the study.
It was packed tightly with books, so checking them all seemed likely to take quite some time.
‘But it can’t be helped.’
I repeated the process of taking them out one by one and quickly skimming through the insides.
Rohwinas lightly perched on the corner of the study desk and glanced over the books I had pulled out.
Then he picked one up and read a few pages with a bored expression.
The sight made me want to snap, “If you’re that bored and have nothing to do, get lost and go home,” but…….
Fortunately, I hadn’t forgotten yet.
That no one could break that man’s stubbornness.
A damnably disobedient man who could only feel satisfied when he did everything his own way.
That was the essence of the man named Rohwinas Kanesion.
At any rate, while he stubbornly insisted on having his own way and hovered around me, he was, unfortunately, handsome, had a good body, and at least in front of me, knew how to pretend to be obedient and cater to my mood.
Of course, in the end, everything still went his way.
But before that, he always put me in the mood to let him, so strangely enough, there was never any trouble afterward.
‘In the end, I suppose I was completely taken in like that.’
Of course, I had known from the beginning that all of it was an act, nothing more than a ploy to win my heart.
He hadn’t tried to hide it in the first place.
And I had liked that.
That he did not try to deceive me.
That he dealt with me only in unvarnished truth.
To me, who had just entered society and was confused about what was false and what was true, that had been my only guide.
A heart so vivid, so clear.
‘Though it was fake.’
It was then.
A leather-bound volume sitting squarely in the center of the bookcase caught my eye.
‘Sacrifice and Offering.’
If I hadn’t come here already suspecting he was someone connected to heresy, I might have passed over it without a thought.
That was how many books were on the shelves, and the leather wrapping the book was dark and somber in color.
When I reached toward that book.
And when the tip of my finger just caught against it, making it tilt.
A powerful hand yanked me back.
The path of wind brushing past my ear, a chill running down my spine, my heart pounding wildly.
Rohwinas was holding me in his arms.
“What…… what are you doing?”
“Do you walk around without using your eyes?”
Rohwinas jerked his chin.
Dozens of needles were embedded in the spot where I had been standing only moments ago.
“……Because I touched the book?”
“Yes.”
So it had been a trap.
I’d been trying to check because people often hid things inside books on a shelf.
Rohwinas sighed and let me go.
I pulled away from him with an awkward expression and stood apart.
“You could have just pulled me away. There was no need to hug me…….”
He did not answer.
He merely clenched and unclenched his fist over and over, as if there were no blood flowing to his hand.
There was still a trace of shock on his face that he had not managed to erase.
“Anyway, thank you.”
“…….”
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
Rohwinas clicked his tongue and replied.
“Worry about yourself.”
For a very brief moment, I felt as though he and I had gone back to the way we used to be.
His eyes still resembled the color of leaves stained with shadow, trapped among sunlit thickets.
And his gaze, too, was just as it had been, giving off a somehow dusky feeling even with light so close at hand.
Of course, all of this was nothing more than a fleeting illusion.
As if he would ever worry about me.
I quickly turned my attention away.
“The fact that they set a trap on that book, of all things…… means there’s definitely something they feel guilty about.”
Having gained further certainty, I approached the bookcase again.
Perhaps because the commotion just now had made the books spill to one side.
For an instant, I saw a groove carved into the inside of the bookcase.
I immediately thrust my hand inside and pulled on whatever caught at the end.
With a clattering sound, the bookcase sank backward.
In the space that opened up, I could see something stuffed tightly inside.
It seemed to have been tied together with a cord, and just as I gripped the end of the knot—
“You!”
Rohwinas yanked me back.
I felt the cord caught at my fingertips pull taut, then snap, unable to bear the weight. At the same time, a heavy mass came bursting out.
Before I knew it, Rohwinas was blocking my field of vision.
But the things falling in every direction over Rohwinas’s and my heads turned out, anticlimactically, to be bundles of paper scattering into loose sheets.
The smell of old paper brushed the tip of my nose. The heavy scent of ink as well.
I picked up some of the papers scattered across the floor.
It was there, the pattern.
‘It’s what I was looking for.’
I let out a low breath.
Just then, I noticed a sheet of paper, yellowed with age, tucked among the documents.
It was a half-burned scrap of paper, its creases starkly visible.
I unfolded that first.
Beneath a large, clearly stamped crest.
I saw a sentence written in neat cursive.
“The time has come, so report that fact to House Peregrine. Your identity will be protected—”
The rest of the sentence was cut off, replaced by black scorch marks.
Still, the date engraved at the bottom of the paper had not been completely burned away, so I could make it out.
“……”
It was dated exactly ten days before the day Rohwinas had left, saying he would visit his main family estate for a while.
It was not definitive proof, but…….
A certain premonition brushed through my heart.
It was clearly something related to me.
“What is that?”
Rohwinas cast a shadow over the scrap of paper in my hand.
“Do you want to know?”
“What?”
When I raised my head, my eyes met Rohwinas’s.
“Do you want to know, Rohwinas?”
“……”
“Until now, you never wanted to hear a single word I said. Did you suddenly have a change of heart?”
“……”
Rohwinas bent one knee and sat down beside me, bringing himself to my eye level.
It had been a long time since our gazes met head-on.
In the past, he had never let me look up at him.
For a man born with a nature so endlessly arrogant and cold.
When it came to love alone, he was a man who would bend without limit.
……Even if the love I received was fake, the person I loved must have been real.
That would only be fair, Rohwinas.
I smiled faintly.
“Does Lady Peregrine know you’re here?”
As if I had stabbed him in the lungs, Rohwinas’s face twisted.
“You weren’t planning to tell her later either, were you?”
I sneered.
“And when the lady leaves your side like that, are you going to try to hold on to her again then?”
Rohwinas seized my wrist. His face was plainly offended.
“Even if she is a lady of Peregrine, she has no right to interfere in my private affairs.”
“Isn’t that just what you want to believe?”
“……”
“If you truly cherish her.”
“……”
“Then you should never even have thought about getting close to me again like this.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions. I have not the slightest intention of doing that.”
“Really? Then that’s a relief.”
“……”
“Then why on earth are you here?”
After a silence, he finally called my name.
“Roxan.”
The hand gripping my wrist slowly tightened.
“There’s only one thing I want to know.”
“……”
“That potion. Was it really you who fed it to me?”
He was sincerely seeking my answer.
The very thing I had so desperately wished for in the past.
For him to at least ask me,
For him to at least listen to my explanation.
And yet…….
You’re only doing that now.
The moment I realized it, laughter escaped me.
I covered my mouth with my palm, my expression crumbling, then lowered my head and burst into laughter.
Over and over again.
“Ah, this is really hilarious.”
I raised my head.
“Now?”
“……”
“What, am I supposed to answer you whenever you get curious?”
I shook off Rohwinas’s arm and rose to my feet.
“Why should I?”
“If there’s something you want, say it. ……Don’t just act emotional like this, however you please.”
Rohwinas’s complexion was cold.
But if one looked closely at his expression, his eyes were actually wavering, and his face was darkening deathly pale.
But now, I no longer felt any desire to try to discover what his true feelings were.
So, Rohwinas.
“Let’s make a deal.”
“……So there was a reason you let me follow you all the way here.”
A twisted sneer spread across Rohwinas’s lips.
Well, he wasn’t exactly wrong.
“Me first.”
“Speak.”
If there is even the slightest thing left between you and me.
“Who was the first person to tell you about the potion?”
“……”
“Was it Peregrine?”
This is all there is.