The servants of the black mansion were pacing anxiously in the garden late into the night, unable to find Yuan.

The guards too, with tired faces, hurriedly changed shifts and retreated to their rooms.

Anxiety crept over the faces of the remaining servants.

Just as they were overcome with worry that perhaps the lady had truly run away.

The heavy iron gate creaked open during the changing of the guards.

“My lady! My lady!!”

“Oh my, my lady!”

The master of this mansion, Clard Yufris, returned carrying his wife on his back.

Both were soaked like drowned rats, so some servants hurriedly brought large towels and handed them over.

Behind them, other servants realized Clard had come out without his mask and froze, eyes wide, forgetting even the fact that Yuan had finally been found.

“My lady−!!”

As the doctor Hille came running out with mismatched shoes, Clard brushed past him and went straight up to the second floor bedroom.

From the entrance, Henna, her eyes swollen, quickly changed Yuan’s clothes while bringing dry towels.

The examination was swift and decisive.

Hille instructed Henna to prepare various things for the unconscious Yuan.

He glanced at Clard, who was standing with a composed face until late, then bowed his head deeply and withdrew.

In the bedroom where everyone had left.

Clard stood by the sleeping Yuan’s side, looking down at her silently for a long while.

The next morning.

Yuan opened her eyes suddenly as if someone had pushed her off a cliff, and frowned at the sunlight seeping into her pupils.

“Mmm−.”

She certainly tried to raise her hand to rub her eyes. But her body didn’t move an inch.

Yuan soon bit her lip hard at the pain that came over her and looked around, then was startled.

“Ah!”

Clard was looking down at her with bloodshot eyes.

Yuan then realized that where she was lying was Clard’s bed, and that Clard was sitting hunched over next to her with his arms crossed, glaring at her.

“……Does it hurt?”

“?”

Yuan tried to carefully assess the situation.

Yesterday she had fainted upon hearing that Louise was missing. And then half out of her mind, she had gone alone to chase the traces of those who had taken Louise……

‘You didn’t come.’

Flush.

Her face became very hot.

Yuan barely managed to move her creaking hand and pulled the blanket up almost to the tip of her nose.

Clard looked like someone who hadn’t slept a wink.

It wasn’t that his body had changed and he couldn’t sleep because he had taken some of her pain just before she collapsed yesterday.

‘Did he watch over me all night?’

Clard quietly reached out his hand to her, who was rolling her eyes with only her eyes showing.

She instinctively hunched her shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut.

Though his touch was awkward, his cool fingertips briefly touched her rounded forehead before quickly pulling away.

It was an ambiguous gesture, unclear whether he was tidying her fallen hair or checking her temperature.

“I, I’m thirsty.”

Her cracked voice stretched out to Clard. The front of Clard’s eyebrows lifted up simultaneously.

Yuan waited anxiously for Clard to silently offer her water.

When his hand touched her forehead, her body had tingled so much that she had spoken, but seeing the water rippling before her eyes, her mind went blank.

……Is he going to do this?

“My body doesn’t move well−.”

He wordlessly propped her up and sat her against the headboard of the bed.

Though their bodies only touched slightly, it felt as if his warmth was soaking her entire body.

A familiar soap scent briefly brushed her nose and disappeared through the slightly open nightgown.

Yuan took the offered water glass and lowered her gaze to her fingertips.

Her heart was beating too hard from the morning. She couldn’t relax for fear he might hear the sound.

“……Does it hurt?”

“I think it hurts.”

“What do you mean you think it hurts.”

−Growl.

Yuan hastily clutched her stomach at the sound that flowed through the strange silence. The corner of Clard’s lip twisted up crookedly.

“It’s not that you’re hurting, but that you’re hungry, isn’t it?”

“……It’s both.”

“How picky.”

Did Clard Yufris just call me ‘picky’?

Yuan gaped at him for a moment, dumbfounded.

But Clard soon picked her up and moved her towards the lavishly prepared −clearly Ralph the chef’s fuss− patient’s meal.

“Why, why are you doing this!”

“That’s what I should be asking. Stay still. What are you trying to do.”

When Yuan flailed in surprise, Clard frowned deeply and replied.

Yuan clung tightly to Clard’s neck with the strong premonition that he would throw her. But Clard only hesitated for a very brief moment and did not throw her.

“Is this a dream?”

“What is.”

Yuan, who had been gently seated, looked up at Clard with a dazed face.

Clard’s tired-looking face was slightly, but noticeably, red.

When Yuan looked at him with curious eyes, his eyebrows undulated. He didn’t look particularly pleased.

Well, that’s more like it.

It was more comfortable to think that he was irritated from being forced to take care of her, rather than it being strange that he was treating her too well outright.

Dr. Hille must be busy brewing some medicine or other.

Needless to say, the servants are busy every day.

After that too, Clard silently waited on her meal.

Just as Yuan had looked after his meals.

Sitting beside her, he grumbled as he wiped up anything she spilled, and when her hands shook too much to pick up food well, he picked it up himself and brought it to her mouth.

The shock was so great that Yuan, wondering if she was really dreaming, remained dazed until the worried-looking butler came in to ask after her and clear away the dishes.

But surprisingly, that wasn’t the end of it.

“Get up.”

During the short break, Clard’s attire had changed.

Clard, dressed in a glossy black formal uniform, awkwardly brushed up his bangs and urged Yuan.

Yuan stared at him blankly, not understanding the situation.

To think the man who always wore only a robe was in outdoor clothes.

“Your elder sister. Let’s go together to where she’s newly buried.”

“!”

“It’s not far.”

Following that, a black dress that seemed hastily prepared was put on Yuan.

The deposed imperial couple got in a carriage together for the first time.

As Clard had said, there was a cemetery owned by Marquis Lev about 3 hours away from the mansion.

The vigorously running carriage slowed down, and the voices of the guards guarding the place and Mr. Mazarin overlapped, then soon there was a knock from outside.

Until then, Yuan thought Clard wouldn’t get out of the carriage.

“What are you doing.”

“……You’re getting out?”

“Stay here if you don’t want to.”

Yuan stared at Clard without answering.

He sat back down after starting to stand up, and was staring at Yuan’s face blankly as if waiting for her answer with an extremely insensitive expression.

Yuan had been even more dazed than in the morning since he had nonchalantly come out of the bedroom.

Yuan looked at the mask covering half of Clard’s face. Clard had come out even though he didn’t want to show his face.

To bring Yuan himself.

“Go. As long as you want.”

While Yuan was still dazed, unable to grasp reality, Clard said as he leaned back more comfortably against the carriage wall.

With his long legs crossed, he folded his arms and leaned his head back completely against the wall as if he was going to take a nap.

And with languid eyes, he looked alternately at the carriage door where the knock was heard again and her eyes, and moved his chin slightly.

Yuan’s hand, which had been holding the carriage door handle, hesitated. Somehow she didn’t want to go alone. After hesitating for a moment, Yuan spoke up gravely.

“If I ask you to come with me…… will you come?”

“I don’t know which tune to dance to.”

Clard, who answered crisply, put Yuan behind him and opened the door first.

As his large body exited the carriage, Mr. Mazarin bowed his head with a surprised face and immediately reached out his hand to Yuan.

Yuan, who got out of the carriage holding Mr. Mazarin’s hand, was startled to see unexpected people waiting in front and slightly hid behind Clard.

“Those people are……”

As if prepared in advance, there were five or six clergy waiting for the deposed imperial couple.

At first she felt like her heart had dropped, thinking they were people from the imperial family, but soon she saw the tall hats and the temple emblems hanging around their necks, and Yuan breathed a sigh of relief.

“Did you commit a sin?”

Yuan whispered softly enough for only Clard to hear as she rolled her anxious eyes here and there.

“……Duke Kompani said that my elder sister should be burned.”

“Who does he think he is.”

“He said it’s the law……”

“That bastard’s a parachute. An ignorant fool who only knows how to run his mouth.”

Whether Duke Kompani was really a parachute or not, it seemed really true since Clard said so.

The priests who greeted the deposed imperial couple were very polite.

Looking closely after greeting them, the priestly robes they wore were very worn, and compared to the young priests of the small chapel, these men who were over middle-aged looked decrepit.

The deposed imperial couple followed them deep into the cemetery.

Familiar names and unfamiliar names passed by in turn in Yuan’s black pupils as she looked around.

Befitting a family that had produced many historical figures from ancient times, there were quite a few gravestones engraved with names she had only seen in history books in the Marquis Lev’s cemetery.

They soon found a gravestone placed in a very deep spot.

Though nothing was written on it, Yuan instinctively felt certain that Louise would be buried under that gravestone. And as if to confirm that certainty, Clard nodded very slightly.

Yuan pressed down on her lips that were about to contort and looked around at the well-maintained surroundings.

Under the white gravestone buried in the ground, her elder sister is sleeping.

Not in a corner of the small chapel’s communal cemetery, but in a piece of this cemetery where precious people are buried.