Kasalin finally seemed to understand what it felt like to be so dumbfounded that words failed her.

She was sick and tired of Shalen’s pathological victim mentality and irrational behavior of trying to blame her for everything, to the point of going crazy.

“I persuaded His Majesty the Emperor? I didn’t know I was such a remarkable person.”

“Stop being sarcastic and just answer the question.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re completely mistaken. I haven’t even encountered His Majesty the Emperor recently.”

“Wrong. That’s not what you should say. Try again.”

Shalen, furious to the tips of his hair, purposely circled the room once as if trying to appear composed.

Kasalin quietly followed his slowly moving shadow with her eyes.

“Why don’t you blame Her Majesty the Queen who assigned me to ghostwrite?”

“The Queen has already sincerely apologized to me. From the beginning, my wife is on a different level from you in terms of character, so she doesn’t make petty excuses like you do.”

She’s just a bit slow to learn, but she has a kind heart.

The blind man muttered this as he picked up the coffee cup Kasalin had been drinking from until just now.

He scanned the rim of the cup with a subtle gaze, deliberately finding the part where a faint lip mark remained and put his mouth there.

Kasalin’s face twisted with disgust.

“Let me say it one more time, I had no involvement in this reading event. If there’s any fault, it’s only that I had to do what Her Majesty the Queen should have done.”

“Wrong. Again.”

“What kind of answer do you want to hear from me?”

“If you’re really asking because you don’t know, I’m terribly sorry. In this situation, is there any other answer you should give besides ‘I was wrong. Please forgive me.’?”

“Shalen. You’ll definitely regret this.”

“Regret? Me?”

Shalen let out a deflated laugh between his teeth as if he couldn’t believe it.

“I regret… Yes. That wouldn’t be a bad scenario for a novel.”

The coffee cup fell helplessly from his hand and shattered on the floor.

The black liquid that was half-filled splashed everywhere, leaving dirty marks on his shoes.

He extended one of his dirtied shoes and nodded.

“Clean it.”

“…What did you say?”

“Kneel at my feet and clean it well with that skirt of yours, and I’ll pretend none of this ever happened.”

Humiliation and shame filled her lungs instead of air.

She felt hot tears welling up between her faintly trembling eyelashes.

But fortunately, they didn’t end up streaming down her cheeks.

“If you want to vent your anger, you should have chosen your target more carefully.”

Farnese, who had entered at some point, said this while forcefully pressing down on Shalen’s shoulder as he approached in an instant.

As if he had been on his way somewhere with his subordinates, there were many of them lined up at the door.

His voice was so low and vicious that it was like scraping the bottom of the underworld with a blade.

Shalen’s startled gaze turned towards the doorknob.

The sturdy door that he had definitely locked was crumpled like a thin sheet of paper.

It seemed they found it strange that there was such a commotion inside while the door was firmly locked from the outside.

“At such a late hour… How?”

Shalen desperately tried to act as if nothing had happened, attempting to pick up his already spilled dignity.

Judging by his expression, he seemed to have at least some awareness that what he was doing now was a vile and cowardly act.

Farnese didn’t bother to respond to his meaningless question and instead cast a glance at Kasalin.

“…”

Farnese’s face, breathing calmly and evenly as usual, showed no sign of agitation.

However, Farnese himself felt as if something hot and unpleasant was about to well up from deep within his chest.

Kasalin looked extremely precarious.

Her face, which had always been radiant with a confident smile, never intimidated even in front of haughty nobles, was now on the verge of crumbling as if about to cry.

He couldn’t understand.

Why did it feel like his insides were twisting every time she made that expression?

Why did it feel like his stomach was turning inside out every time the smile disappeared from her pale face, replaced by deep sorrow and anguish?

He truly couldn’t understand.

There were probably two reasons.

Either she had cast some strange spell on him.

Or his head had gone strange.

“If you thought this body would be swayed by a mere maid who is nothing special, that’s a great misunderstanding, Your Majesty.”

Farnese said this while still fixing his gaze on Kasalin’s drooping eyes.

Shalen’s brow furrowed deeply as if faced with an incomprehensible problem, then slowly began to twitch.

Eventually, he looked at Kasalin with eyes that suggested something had gone terribly wrong.

It wasn’t really your doing?

That’s what his eyes seemed to ask.

“Then why did you humiliate the Queen in front of everyone? She is still young and inexperienced. Don’t you think that was too harsh?”

“You’re so busy protecting the young and inexperienced Queen, yet you can’t wait to devour the diligent maid who’s doing her duty?”

“That was merely a form of education…”

“You and your Queen should put your heads together and think long and hard about why I did what I did today. Well, I’m not sure if you two, who don’t even know the affairs of the country well, can find an answer even if you rack your brains together.”

Farnese continued, casting a gaze at Shalen that was neither contemptuous nor smiling:

“Don’t you think it’s right to blame your Queen, who thoroughly disregarded the meaning of the sacred reading event, dared to deceive me, the Emperor who hosted it, and shamelessly tried to turn the maid’s efforts into her own glory?”

Shalen’s entire face turned red in an instant, as if he had been struck, and he couldn’t continue speaking.

Leaving him behind, Farnese was about to turn and leave as if there was nothing more to see, when he suddenly tapped the broken doorknob.

“I seem to have broken it without realizing. Hey, you there. Pack your things simply and follow me. I’ll give you a new room.”

Kasalin realized a beat late that his words were directed at her.

As Kasalin struggled to come to her senses in the situation that had flipped completely with his single appearance, Farnese impatiently snapped his fingertips.

“What?”

“I told you to follow, why are you standing there blankly? Such a clever girl occasionally loses her mind.”

“Ah… Yes. I’m coming.”

Kasalin glanced back at Shalen, who was standing alone in the middle of the room, as she gathered her belongings.

He was twitching his hand regretfully, as if wanting to hold back Kasalin who was leaving the room following Farnese.

The sparsely lit candles flickered in the gentle breeze, and the chained chandelier creaked, making an eerie sound.

Unlike the bright and splendid daytime, the palace corridors at night were somewhat dark, making it easy to lose one’s way.

Kasalin hurriedly walked behind Farnese, who was walking ahead, hugging her belongings tightly with both hands.

“Your ankle.”

He asked when she was wondering how far they were going.

His gaze was still facing forward, so it seemed like he was talking to himself, but it was clearly a question.

Kasalin answered to his back, which looked particularly broad today.

“Thanks to you, it’s all healed. I can even run without any problem.”

That was the end of the conversation.

She hadn’t expected any pleasantries like ‘that’s good’ or ‘be careful in the future’ to begin with.

“Here it is.”

After walking for quite a while, he finally stopped in front of a door.

A servant who had been quietly following behind opened the door with a key, and as they entered, a space too wide and luxurious for a mere guest room came into view.

A spacious balcony overlooking the tulip garden, and a generous dressing room fit for princesses.

Even the adorable teddy bears occupying the entire bed.

Come to think of it, this room was close enough to cross over directly from the Emperor’s palace.

He could have just told her to use any spare room and left.

‘As expected, he’s a kind person even though he pretends not to be.’

She couldn’t understand why there were such terrifying rumors about him being a great tyrant or a madman who regarded human lives as less than ants.

He’s just a bit gruff and curt, but when you get to know him, he’s actually quite a decent person.

Kasalin bowed her head to Farnese as she entered the doorway.

“Thank you for everything.”

Farnese’s brow furrowed slightly in the bluish darkness unique to dawn.

“You shouldn’t thank me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I used you.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by using me, but you personally came to clear up the misunderstanding and took care of me. As if you had intended to do so from the beginning. So I think there’s enough reason to be grateful.”

Kasalin said this and smiled brightly, showing her white teeth.

The sadness that had been on her face until just now was completely gone.

Seeing this, Farnese felt relief without realizing it himself.

That at least a smile was beginning to bloom again on her small face, such…

‘I must be crazy.’

What do her smiles or whatever have to do with me?

Farnese clicked his tongue and withdrew his gaze from Kasalin’s face.

He felt that if he kept looking at her any longer, the unidentified lumps of emotion stirring in his mind would become even more unruly.

As Farnese turned his back silently, Kasalin reached out into the air.

“Um, just a moment. I’d like to do something in return, would you like to have some herbal tea before you go?”

“That’s enough. Go in and get some sleep.”

“I’m not the type to sleep much. Despite appearances, I tend to study consistently at night.”

“If you don’t sleep early, you won’t grow tall. You’re already so tiny I can barely see you.”

“What?”

Leaving behind Kasalin, who was speechless with disbelief, Farnese disappeared along the long gallery.

A helpless laugh escaped from Kasalin.

Somehow, it felt like she could fall asleep in a not-so-bad mood today.