“He didn’t extend his hand to the madam, but just showed his face, right? When the madam first entered this mansion. That must be because the master doesn’t want the madam to die in this mansion. It could be outside the fence, not inside the mansion. Normally, when you show your face, they run away on their own, so there was no need for him to take steps. Even humans, not to mention Oliver, who has been ignored for a long time…”

Seeing Yuvan’s troubled expression, Henna tightly held her hand.

“I know that the madam has grown very attached to Oliver. It has been a long time since we’ve been together, so I feel the same. We can’t inform the master or let Oliver die in the mansion, but we’ll be by his side.”

Yuvan mechanically nodded his head, but he couldn’t hide the melancholy in his heart.

Oliver’s pulse was slowing down day by day now.

Yuvan stopped cleaning the relatively clean west annex and concentrated on taking care of Oliver.

Fortunately, the painkiller seemed to work well, and Oliver’s whining sounds, even in Yuvan’s absence, had significantly decreased.

The problem now was that no matter how much pain Yuvan absorbed for him, Oliver couldn’t eat anything, not even food or water.

On the contrary.

While the situation in the west annex was urgent and sad, the atmosphere between Yuvan and Cladd was quite peaceful.

The reason why the Fallen Prince couple relatively maintained peace was simple.

They slept well at night, and during the day, Cladd’s condition had improved to the point where he could gradually look at the things he had been avoiding for ten years, thanks to the subsiding aftereffects.

Now, his once black half of the skin had turned close to caramel.

Although he never really looked in the mirror, he couldn’t hide his excitement from the butler and Ranslet, who saw him every day, blinking in surprise.

‘In such a peaceful atmosphere, can I bring up the story about Oliver?’

Henna heard that on the night when this mansion was burning. From the surviving people, she learned about the rumor that Oliver was seriously injured while trying to save Princess Apollini.

Regardless of the truth, Oliver hadn’t met the master even once after that night, so it was pitiful no matter how you looked at it.

‘After losing your grandmother, Mrs. Margaret, Princess Apollini, and the knights who were close since childhood on that day, the master has hated anyone dying in this mansion since then.’

Whether it was a critically ill patient or a rat caught in a trap about to die, there were no exceptions.

Claude Yufrys had expelled them all from the mansion. He lived for the past ten years like that.

‘Don’t cross the line.’

The voice brushing against his head made Yuvan’s lips firmly closed.

To the face that was calm without any anger and the face that spoke without any expression of anger, he must have answered, “Yes.”

“Why are you behaving like a fussy puppy?”

“Yes?”

“You keep biting your nails like a fussy puppy.”

Surprised, Yuvan looked down at his own thumb.
After coming to the black mansion, the wounds that had healed became fresh again.

‘What on earth is so frightening about me?’

When he was overwhelmed by the immense patients gathered in the next room.

When Louise, sent by his uncle, didn’t return until late.

When Louise left the mansion with two large bags and didn’t return for a year.

The days when he confidently declared that he neither wanted to die nor live here and trembled with anxiety in Count Cladni’s carriage flashed back.

Then, the long eyelashes that extended over the eyelids and even the face of Cladd, who had a calm gaze.

Is there a place for me in that man’s eyes as if a place for me has been created in this mansion?

‘If I talk about Oliver again, will I be kicked out?’

I don’t know why, but it seemed like the wounds wouldn’t heal, but they wouldn’t drive him away.

By necessity or by something else.

At that moment.

Claude’s hand, which unknowingly reached out to Yuvan, who was biting his nails, stopped.

“Oliver!”

Henna’s new scream cut through the rain that had been tapping on the window since a while ago and flowed into the bedroom.

Yuvan held his breath and suddenly stood up.

When he wiped the curtain that let in the hazy sky color a little more and wiped the white-frosted window with his hand, Oliver appeared.

Oliver, who noticeably lost strength and looked weary, was staggering, shaking off the rain, heading somewhere.

It was in the direction of the iron fence gate, the entrance to the mansion.

“Your Highness.”

Yuvan called Cladd, holding back the itching in his nose and the distortion of his lips.

“Your Highness. Oliver is in a lot of pain.”

An awkward silence, almost heavy enough to be awkward.

“He says that as an old dog, it wouldn’t be strange for him to die right away.”

“…….”

“Do you know? Oliver always looks at the side where Your Highness’s bedroom is and lies down.”

As he saw Oliver trying to go out with slow steps, dragging one hind leg almost limply, Yuvan’s nose itched painfully.