“You should go inside now, my lady.”

The elderly maid urged Helena in an anxious voice. However, Helena’s gaze, looking out into the distance, showed no signs of withdrawing.

The forest connected to the back gate of the mansion kept holding her back.

More precisely, the person—or people—the forest might be harboring.

“He said… he’d come today.”

Unlike her wishes, her voice fell with uncertainty. It only looked unsightly, covered by the steadily falling rain.

Helena closed her blue eyes, which had grown cold after hours of exposure, then opened them again. Still, there was no sign of Eugene.

Nevertheless, she stood guard stubbornly until darkness crept up to her toes.

As if he was merely hidden by the darkness, already standing before her eyes but obscured. She persisted in this futile act, knowing better than anyone how pointless it was.

‘I’m fine. It’s nothing.’

Because she didn’t want to admit her misery.

If she would be lonely whether alive or dead. If both here and there were hell for her.

She could hold onto the vain hope that he would return someday. She could be the foolish woman waiting endlessly. At least she could endure the hell where he was by her side.

“My lady.”

Finally unable to break Helena’s stubbornness, Madame Tara brought a thick fur coat.

Helena nodded reluctantly. Moving behind her, Madame Tara hesitated before carefully speaking again.

“My lady, His Excellency…”

“I know.”

Helena quietly dismissed the maid’s concern. Her voice was plain, devoid of any anger, impatience, or irritation.

Like a paper doll, she accepted the hands draping the fur over her shoulders and closed her eyes even more slowly before opening them again.

The soft fur brushed against her fingertips. The expensive fur woven from the white-eared deer of the Altaria Mountains. The luxury item, with only a limited quantity released annually, felt only damp and heavy.

As if to say she had no right to be in Evergail, unable to bear even this weight.

Helena repeated, this time with a slightly impatient tone, as if trying to erase him.

“I know.”

In the meantime, the last bit of sunset light had disappeared. The rain grew heavier, and night had fully fallen.

Though she stubbornly waited until the end, no one returned in the end.

Finally, Helena turned her feet towards the large mansion. And so, as usual, she spent the night alone. It was a bitterly cold night, like her chilled insides.

“Cough, cough!”

She grew sad at herself for doubting whether he would even care about her increasingly rough coughing.

In the middle of the vast mansion, Helena increasingly had days where she couldn’t even be sure of her own existence.

It was on the evening four days after the day he had promised to come that she was able to see Eugene’s face.

“You should have let me know if you were sick.”

The shadow she had been waiting for so long finally fell across the head of her bed.

What difference would it have made?

Helena swallowed her self-deprecating question and lay with her body turned away from him.

The clear sky shone through the neat window. The rain that had poured down while she endlessly waited for him had evaporated without a trace. Helena thought vacantly.

‘How long does it take from the villa to the mansion?’

And when will you come to me before that woman?

‘It’s only four days now, but soon it will be a month, and then a year.’

Eugene, who seemed to have rushed over as soon as he arrived at the Grand Duke’s residence, had a strange scent. A sweet and bitter amber scent that had started to occasionally be noticed at some point.

Helena disliked that scent. It always made her feel like it was taking him away from her.

It was ridiculous, considering she never had him to begin with. That made it even more pathetic.

“…Eugene.”

When she parted her parched lips, a heavily hoarse voice barely came out.

Eugene hesitated for a moment before leaning his upper body slightly closer.

“I’m here.”

The intangible scent grew stronger. Despite his words of being here, Helena didn’t feel like he was in the same space.

Still, she wanted to confirm. Helena painfully turned her head from the window to face Eugene.

“…Eugene.”

“Yes.”

“Will you be sad if I die?”

His golden eyes, always so firm, wavered at the single faint voice.

Eugene placed his hand on her neck, damp with sweat, as if to soothe her cracked throat. And as he carefully cradled it, stroking with his thumb, he murmured.

“Why do you ask such a thing?”

“It seems like you don’t love me.”

The hand caressing her neck paused. Eugene opened his mouth as if to answer immediately, then closed it again.

Helena’s face crumbled a little at the flat reaction. She felt resentful towards herself for expecting despite countless vows not to be hurt.

She let out a breath like a light mist and turned her head back to the window.

Then Eugene, who had stopped, moved again. He placed his hand on Helena’s forehead to check. It was very hot.

Eugene slowly brushed back the hair stuck to her forehead with the back of his fingers. Even though she had turned her head, he could see her long eyelashes blinking slowly.

Watching that flutter like a butterfly’s wings, Eugene gave a quiet answer.

“I won’t be able to be sad. I’ll have too much to do.”

Helena tried hard to attribute the moisture beginning to well up in her eyes to sweat.

It was natural for a cold-hearted man to give a cold-hearted answer. Nevertheless, there was no way to deal with the aching pain in her chest.

“What things to do?”

As her hand gripping the blanket gradually tightened, Eugene continued.

“I’ll turn back time.”

It was rather fanciful content for the usual Eugene. But Helena felt an ambiguous certainty.

It was a certainty that had come to her after a long time, to herself who had come to doubt even her own existence in the vast mansion. It was a strange attraction and repulsion.

Strangely, it wasn’t entirely welcome. It was because of the certainty that he would always hold the initiative of opportunity.

The first Helena already knew that it would be herself who would be dragged along like the hands of a clock.

Knowing this and yet willingly accepting it, it was truly a foolish and crazy love.

Feeling choked up as if something was stuck, Helena barely managed to ask back.

“You will?”

“…”

Instead of answering, Eugene moved his hand. Three or four strokes followed. His hand left the coolness of the outside temperature on Helena’s forehead and departed. He now gently caressed her cheek.

Helena maintained silence for a while before muttering softly.

“Don’t.”

A moment passed. The silence passed once more, and Helena slowly removed his hand from her cheek.

“Don’t do it.”

A louder voice than before escaped her dry lips, gasping.

“…”

And the room became completely silent.

Eugene didn’t answer this time either. He just briefly kissed her forehead, now fully exposed with all her hair swept back, and stood up.

“Go to sleep now.”

The heavy blanket pressed down on Helena’s heaving chest. She kept her eyes open until she heard the sound of the door closing, then closed them, inhaling the scent he had left behind.

As if trying to find Eugene’s original scent within the amber fragrance, she focused only on breathing in and out for a while.

Naturally, his afterimage flickered behind her eyelids. At the same time, a futile imagination arose.

‘If I never wake up from this… what kind of face would you make?’

She became a little curious.

Did I wish to see you even in my dreams, or did you not want to let me go even in dreams?

Thinking she might as well imagine as she pleased since it was her own dream, Helena shifted her body slightly.

“Ugh…”

The fever that had been gradually rising had now reached its peak, burning all her nerves. Even though she wanted to stay awake as much as possible, hating to just sleep like the dead, it was beyond her strength.

Struggling to even swallow a sip of water properly, she kept falling unconscious and waking up repeatedly.

Even when she managed to lift her eyelids, her vision was just floating. An incessant ringing echoed in her ears.

It felt like her body was floating in the air. She was completely covered in a stuffy, pale heat. She couldn’t even distinguish between dream and reality.

‘Hot. It’s too hot.’

She opened her mouth and exhaled, trying to release the boiling heat from inside her body, but nothing changed. Only her throat hurt terribly. The pain was like sand being scattered and roughly dug through, making her fear even swallowing her saliva.

Surely, her breath must be mixed with dry ashes. Convinced of this, Helena prepared to escape into sleep once again.

It was the only way to endure the heavy sensation pressing down on her entire body. She habitually thought of Eugene, waiting for drowsiness to push away the pain for a moment.

However, a moment later, what pushed away the pain was not drowsiness but a new sensation. The sensation that slipped in suddenly turned her mind upside down.

‘What is this?’

A chill that came clearly even amidst the chaotic ringing, the stubbornly unclear vision, and the throbbing pain.

Cool, soft, squishy, and constantly wanting to pull closer…

‘It feels good.’

It felt like the air that never reached her lungs no matter how much she inhaled had finally found its way.

It was like jumping into a cold lake on the hottest day of the year, pouring out all the moisture built up inside her body.

If only she could, she wanted to throw her entire body into it. Helena clung more tightly to that coolness, craving it like salvation.

Even in her hazy state of mind, she desperately yearned. She wanted that pleasant sensation to devour her entirely from head to toe.

‘I have to hold onto it. Don’t go. Please stay.’

Now her body trembled not from heat but from the chill. The coolness that seemed like it would only stay in her stuffy chest spread throughout her entire body as she wished.

Helena raised her arm with all her might, as if determined not to lose it. She clawed at the air with her fingers, as if she could grasp the force invading every corner of her body without even knowing what it was.

Then it was caught.

‘It’s cool.’

But only for an instant.

‘It’s hot.’

The chill that had been swimming around like in the sea lingered over her lips one last time before disappearing completely. At that moment, there was a small sound of water and a taste of mint.

Heat settled back into the space it had left. However, it wasn’t the sickly heat that choked her breath, but a comfortable warmth that made her whole body languid.

For the first time since collapsing, Helena fell asleep without thinking of Eugene.