It meant that she wouldn’t allow anyone to interfere in her domain.

‘She doesn’t bare her claws at me, but doesn’t completely hide them either…’

Indeed, she was worthy of being the young lady of the Winterdell family. I responded by raising the corners of my mouth leisurely.

“Then that’s fortunate.”

Ibelina, with an unchanged expression, finally greeted me properly before disappearing outside.

Seeing her greet properly, it was clear she was conscious of my words about assigning someone to teach her imperial etiquette.

I wouldn’t be surprised if her true intentions were shrouded in pitch-black smoke.

I thought everything would become easier once I met Ibelina and got a clearer picture.

But after actually meeting her, an uneasy feeling lingered.

After she disappeared outside, Marianne, who soon approached, couldn’t hide her anger.

“She’s like a fox. How dare she come here of all places.”

“…”

“Did she say anything strange to Your Highness?”

Standing outside, she seemed to have built up her anger by guessing the content of the conversation she couldn’t hear.

Indeed, coming here was an absurd idea, as Marianne said.

‘She probably came to find out about me.’

Her appearance revealed during this process reinforced my intuition.

That the strange familiarity felt from her head, eyes, and dress wasn’t just a coincidence.

‘How can her tone, behavior, and even her gait be so similar to my former self?’

I suddenly wondered if what I had perceived, and that uneasiness, was just my own thought or if it was visible to others as well.

“Marianne, didn’t you say you had seen Ibelina a long time ago?”

“Yes. It was probably during the first vacation from the academy. I saw her at the Winterdell family’s tea party.”

If it was during the first academy vacation, she would have been a teenager, a time when behavior and speech patterns are being established through education.

However, being young, it’s not easy to wear a mask, so one’s true nature tends to show.

This means both her appearance and inner self were unadorned.

The more I pondered, the more curious I became about whether her gait, behavior, everything that seemed odd, had always been similar to Rachel’s.

“How does she compare to back then?”

Marianne fell silent for a moment, seemingly lost in thought.

Then suddenly her eyes widened. As if she had remembered something unexpected.

“Well, now that you mention it, it’s strange.”

“What is?”

“She looked completely different, so much so that I didn’t even recall that day’s memory until Your Highness mentioned it.”

Completely different? Seeing my raised eyebrow expressing my doubt, Marianne quickly continued.

“Yes. Originally, she had red hair and golden eyes. I still remember, it was so beauti… I mean, striking.”

Marianne, watching my reaction, corrected ‘beautiful’ to ‘striking’ and lowered her head.

The ominous sense of déjà vu burned like kindling, leaving ashes of anxiety at the edges of my mind.

Marianne put a period to these complex emotions.

“Could she be imitating Lady Rachel? You know, for a while, when they said that lady was favored by His Majesty, her hairstyle and everything became all the fashion.”

As Marianne said, for a while, the magic tower made quite a profit producing expensive dyeing scrolls.

Dyeing her hair was one thing, but she had perfectly replicated my appearance as Rachel.

Everything became as certain as puzzle pieces fitting together.

Why Ibelina had entered the palace.

*

There was nothing better than moving one’s body to calm a complicated state of mind.

Of course, this exercise was part of a process for recovering magic power.

As I was about to take only the enhancement stone, the seed scroll prepared beside it seemed to be begging to be taken along.

I had prepared it because I was concerned about how barren my father’s residence was, but over the past few days, time had slipped by with various matters.

After hesitating for a moment, I took that as well and immediately headed towards Lake Wolfdor.

At the center of the path leading to Lake Wolfdor, the central building stood as always.

The lights were still brightly on even though it was late at night, perhaps because father was still working.

‘At this hour, work should be over, so he’s probably searching for something about the magic mirror.’

After finding the enhancement stone, whenever I headed towards the lake, the lit Wolfdor central building often held my feet.

It was because I could vividly imagine father searching for me late into the night, clinging to the last hope of the magic mirror.

I desperately wanted to go inside and tell father that I was alive, but I had to force myself to turn away.

Today too, I stood here for a long time, looking at the lit window as usual.

And then I silently uttered words that father couldn’t hear.

‘Father, I’m doing well. Please wait just a little longer. You need to stay healthy until I come back to you.’

Even though these words wouldn’t reach father no matter what I did.

I hadn’t been able to visit for the past few days due to the noisy issues of the autonomous region and Ibelina’s appointment ceremony as an aide… seeing him after a long time made my emotions well up even more.

The surroundings of the residence were still desolate, and the wind seeping through the sparse wood grain created a lonely atmosphere.

The pure white snow I had seen before only looked cozy… but now the snow felt particularly cold and biting.

‘Father must be experiencing days several times colder than mine.’

The thermal flowers that father had always planted around the entrance before I became like this had long since disappeared without a trace.

I remembered that father, who usually had little interest in beautiful and useless things, really liked those flowers.

“Rosemary flowers always make me feel good. Looking at them warms my heart.”

I knew that he planted them every year, remembering mother.

They say mother loved rosemary the most in the world.

It seemed that after I disappeared, father didn’t even have the energy to care about such things.

With my scarf wrapped to cover my face, I headed to the entrance of the residence and looked around once.

As expected, there was no one there.

It was already sunset, so everyone except father had surely gone home.

‘This much should be fine.’

As long as it wasn’t discovered that I was the one who made the flowers bloom, it would be alright.

Carefully, I sprinkled the scroll and applied force along with the enhancement stone, and soon beautiful purple flowers sprouted and bloomed.

Looking at the space that had finally become a bit warmer, I felt a little more greedy.

Applying force to my hand once more, this time a faint protective magic activated around the flowers.

It was only a very weak magic due to my insufficient magical power, but this much was possible.

Since using magic privately is strictly forbidden in the imperial palace, if someone invades near the flowers and this magic activates, all imperial knights will gather here.

Although I doubt anything would happen here, remembering Diarob who always targets father and Tikan, I didn’t want to be careless about anything.

However, when the magic activated, I felt a strange energy repelling mine.

When I looked up, an unfamiliar barrier filled my view.

The seals stamped here and there indicated that it was a barrier already set by Casius.

The barrier, having employed who knows how many imperial magicians, was layered several times surrounding this place.

‘Casius, who was angry at me, was doing this behind the scenes.’

I had expected it, but my heart swelled once again.

*

At that time, there was someone watching Vivian’s retreating figure.

It was Casius Wolfdor.

Wondering if he could trust Vivian this time, he stepped out to get some air and habitually headed towards the annex as usual.

That place, where he had always been with Rachel, had now become a place he visited when troubled.

He stopped in the middle of that path upon seeing Vivian lingering around the Wolfdor central building.

Her figure, moving with a hood covering her head without even an attendant, was suspiciously odd.

Ready to move if she did anything suspicious, Casius felt deflated seeing Vivian leave after planting flowers.

But that was only for a moment, Casius immediately called for Tikan.

“Summon Lord Rodgo at once.”

“…!”

Tikan, also finding it suspicious, nodded his head without any questions.

“Understood.”

While Tikan went to fetch Rodgo, Casius blankly stared at the rosemary Vivian had planted.

Beyond the flower bed, the shadow of Lord Siron, unaware of everything, was flickering inside the central building.

He knew well what the lit space at this hour meant.

He had heard that Lord Siron rarely returned to his mansion these days.

‘What have I been doing all this time, with such a person here.’

In the past time, Casius gradually sank into a quagmire between repeated despair and hope.

Ending each day with this damned life sustained at the cost of Rachel’s life, he tried to forget the pain by drinking every night.

And then he prepared for Rosemary’s future to wash away his guilt.

With such a petty heart to repay in this way what he couldn’t give to Rachel.

‘That’s why I didn’t even know while Vivian came all the way here to do such a thing.’

Casius let out a hollow laugh.

The image of Vivian in the blue hood, hurriedly disappearing, lingered in his mind like an afterimage.

The more he thought about it, the fiercer the flames in his heart grew.

It was a sense of betrayal.

In reality, it was an exaggeration for him to feel this as betrayal, as he believed he had never given even a corner of his heart to Vivian.

But Casius realized at this moment.

That despite being severely deceived recently, he was again believing her.

And thus, stupidly waiting for the rumor Vivian had mentioned.

‘How could I have thought to believe that.’

At that moment, a purple petal carried by the wind landed on his forehead.

It felt as if Rachel, watching from somewhere, had come and strongly slapped the back of his head.

Telling him to wake up.

Looking up at the sky, he exhaled a long breath, and white smoke puffed out of his mouth.

As he lowered his head again, a cold wind frosted over his blue eyes.

Casius’s sword had already swept through the purple flower bed.

Sad energy and anger were overlaid on the sword that fluttered like a dance.

With each swing of the sword, flowers fell to the ground in droves.

It was when the ground was full of purple corpses that Tikan returned with Lord Rodgo.

Tikan groaned upon discovering the devastated rosemary, and Rodgo, unaware of the situation, was shocked.

But he soon composed his expression and examined the flowers.

Blue magic penetrated through his fingertips, touching the purple flower buds, and the flowers bloomed in a new light.

After a short moment like that, Rodgo opened his mouth.