Cedric removed the hand that had touched Ariante’s forehead. If her father had done this before, she would have been uneasy, Ariante thought. She would have been anxious, fearing that he might suddenly push her away with a cold face.

But it wasn’t like that now. Whatever happens… Cedric wouldn’t push her away like that, no matter what.

Maybe her thoughts were wrong, but even so, there was Mayana. There was Swan, Ventina Ivina, and Bridget… Ariante reassured herself by recalling their faces one by one.

“I had to protect you.”

Ariante’s eyes widened a bit at Cedric’s words. The tears that had been flowing were now stopped, and only curiosity, suspicion, and almost invisible anxiety, like the shadow of a ghost, remained.

“Why? Why did Father have to protect me? Who was trying to harm me?”

“To tell the truth, yes. It could have been like that.”

“Then what about my… my mother, and my real father? Were they harmed by those people too?”

Cedric fell silent. They were harmed. He thought. In ways no one had thought of, with malice no one had imagined, they were harmed. And I was foolish enough to only suspect that fact a few years later.

‘Even knowing all of that, I don’t know if you’ll forgive me. I don’t know if you’ll keep calling me father.’

Ariante stared at Cedric with eyes that demanded an answer. Despite being a child, her gaze was unbelievably calm and seemed to be wise.

“Did Jocelyn do that?”

Ariante suddenly asked. Although the format was in the form of a question, the certainty contained within it was firm. Cedric almost said ‘yes.’ He knew it couldn’t be done.

A lie was still needed. Ariante is only seven years old. It was cruel to push confusion, revenge, anger, and sadness into the small head of a child.

“No, Ariante. Berbo and Lilia… it’s not true that someone harmed your parents.”

“Then why did they die?”

“It was an accident.”

Ariante didn’t persistently ask about what kind of accident it was. Either because she thought it was useless or because she saw through Cedric’s lie, her reaction was ambiguous.

“I want to see what kind of people my parents were.”

It was a small voice. As if doing something she shouldn’t, Ariante was deeply embarrassed. Shaking with a sense of guilt that couldn’t be clearly expressed, she trembled at the fingertips.

Cedric hugged Ariante and stood up. Ariante’s eye area became even redder with a sniffling sound, as if she were doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.
“Where are you going, Father?” Ariante asked. Cedric, who lightly kissed her on the round forehead, replied, “Let’s go see what kind of people your parents were. I’m happy that you can tell me how much you resemble Berbo and Lilia.”

“Is it okay for me to want to see my parents?”

Cedric smiled gently. Although there was a somewhat lonely expression that seemed to be somewhere in his smile, Ariante secretly felt relieved that his embrace was still warm and, above all, reliable.

“Of course. How can I stop the feeling of wanting to see them?”

Cedric had arrived in El Rautika slightly earlier than when he heard all the facts from the forester Becher.

Jocelyn, who arrived at El Rautika, seemed to have no interest in the luxurious scenery and buildings of the capital. She immediately had the carriage driven to the jewel shop, as Cedric had said.

“Don’t delay.”

The arrogant command heard from inside made the coachman inwardly snicker. If she were a bit more talkative and had a personality that would immediately spit out the thoughts that came to her mind, it was clear that she would have said something like this.

“She thinks she’s some kind of duchess. She’s definitely deluded into thinking she’s something like a duchess or something. Even if her head spins, she’s nothing but a beggar!”

But the coachman was naturally taciturn, and above all, he was inexperienced in expressing the thoughts that came to his mind in concrete language.

Because it took quite a long time to organize his words—especially because he couldn’t finish without stuttering once he started speaking— he chose to leave the thoughts in his mind as he usually did.

And his silence gave Jocelyn more satisfaction than she had imagined.

She would swear that she had never coveted anything from the duke’s household, and that oath was largely true, but there was one thing cunning Jocelyn was overlooking.

Despite having spent a lifetime in the duke’s house, eating, sleeping, and working, she had not even seen a silver teaspoon, let alone a single crumb of a cookie. But Jocelyn held something even bigger and more valuable in her hands as if it were her own.

It was the misconception that she possessed a part of the reputation of the Balthamster family, the very fame that created and sustained the current duchess.

All the influence Jocelyn exerted on Cedric, the way she treated Berbo and Lilia as if they were mere cooks, and the fact that she regarded Ariante, whom Cedric had designated as his successor, as a thief who should be expelled immediately…