She finally escaped.
And this time, mercifully, she didn’t look like a walking corpse the way she had before.
Two days of being imprisoned, eating, sleeping, and washing on a regular schedule had left her face glowing with an almost offensive radiance.
Having had her soul comprehensively wrung out by Kael for two days running, she trudged across the garden in a daze.
‘Walk properly… the front entrance is about a hundred steps from here…’
…Kael was watching.
From somewhere behind her.
A moment ago, he had said, in that quietly authoritative way of his:
“You’re leaving?”
“I’ll see you to the door.”
“Is that really necessary? It’s less than five minutes from here. You really don’t have to—”
“If you stumble or show any sign of a relapse, treatment will need to resume immediately.”
‘…He wanted to watch with his own eyes as she crossed through the Florence estate’s front entrance.’
So he was still back there somewhere, watching.
‘Infuriating.’
Whether it was the sheer audacity, or the way he delivered completely unreasonable statements as though they were perfectly ordinary — she could never find the words to fire back at Kael. Something about him struck every comeback out of her head before it formed.
“Honestly. That’s what he calls treatment!”
‘Has he lost his mind? He wants to do that again?’
“Call it treatment all you like — you just wanted an excuse to lock me up the moment you felt like it!”
Kael was somewhere behind her, arms folded, watching for any slip she might make.
She was not going to turn around.
She was profoundly grateful he could only see her back.
Scowling deeply, she muttered her grievances freely into the air.
“Hmph! I am never faking an injury in front of you again!”
She planted her feet and marched with renewed conviction.
“Even if something genuinely hurts, I’ll endure it! Even if I’m on the verge of actual death, I will not let on!”
A second fake injury would without question result in permanent confinement — a life of complete isolation from the outside world.
“Wretched obsessive!”
She said whatever came to mind. She had held it in for two days.
In an enclosed space alone with him, cowered under that strange fear, she had never been able to say what she actually meant.
“Honestly. Looking like he could bewitch every woman he’s ever met, and he just ‘had’ to end up inexperienced! Of all the things! Insufferable!”
Kael’s hearing wasn’t superhuman. At this distance, he wouldn’t catch a single word.
“I am going to get broken up with by you. I absolutely guarantee it. Kael ‘Hardeion’!”
His infuriating face surfaced in her mind at exactly the wrong moment.
She was roughly halfway across the garden now.
She looked up — and there it was. Waiting at the end of her path, warm and familiar.
‘There it is… home. My home.’
She felt almost moved to tears.
Forty steps. Only about forty more.
She had kept herself tightly wound until the very moment she left the Hardeion estate this morning. Even in the carriage on the way here, her hands had been soaked through with sweat.
This was the man who had used a nonsense misdiagnosis to confine her for two days. If he changed his mind at any moment and decided to pull her back, she would have ended up an animal in his enclosure all over again. In his household, Kael’s word was law. Which meant there was no one in that estate who would take her side.
She looked up at the sky the way a person might after five years inside — drinking in its breadth.
Not a cloud in sight. Just clear, pure blue.
She closed her eyes and breathed in as deeply as she could. Drew the fresh outside air in until her chest expanded to its limit, then released it. Again and again.
“Ah, yes. This is it. Clean air, right down to the bottom of your lungs…”
And then —
“Miss!”
A voice broke through her reverie — and the relief that swept through her at the sound of it brought actual tears to her eyes. She looked up to find Emily standing there in her outdoor clothes, expression frantic.
“Emily?!”
Emily spotted her and broke into a run, gripping her skirts with both hands.
“Miss! Are you hurt? Are you all right?”
“…Emily.”
“The Hardeion household sent an urgent letter! They said you’d been gravely injured during a walk — that you couldn’t even stand!”
“…”
She ground her teeth.
‘The nerve of that man.’
‘Couldn’t even stand?’ As if he’d spared a single thought for the two nights Emily would spend unable to sleep from worry.
“You’re truly all right now, aren’t you, Miss?”
“…I’m fine.”
There was nothing wrong with her to begin with.
“Thank heavens. I actually wrote back saying I would come myself — I couldn’t concentrate on anything.”
“…And? What did they say?”
“That the Hardeion estate does not permit outside visitors under any circumstances… and that their highly capable personal physician had taken charge of your care, so there was no need for concern. They declined quite firmly.”
“…”
‘This man.’
‘Highly capable personal physician.’ The two of them were clearly in league from the start!
“He does have a reputation for discomfort around outsiders… but regardless. Miss — you’ve recovered enough to walk without trouble?”
“Emily. We’ve both been had.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Emily frowned, uncomprehending.
Ivelina let out a long breath and pressed on.
“Both of us. We were thoroughly played. By him.”
“Good heavens. Another failure? You mean it didn’t work this time either?”
“Complete failure. And his retaliation was locking me in his bedroom for two days.”
“Lord have mercy.”
Emily squeezed her eyes shut and crossed herself.
Ivelina waited quietly until she finished her prayer.
When Emily’s brown eyes finally opened again, Ivelina spoke.
“Emily — the black carriage. The one from the front gate. Is it still there?”
“…Yes. It’s still there.”
“Let’s get inside quickly. We can talk in there.”
* * *
Inside, she gave Emily a thorough, unflinching account of everything that had happened over the past two days — every strange and harrowing detail of her confinement.
“…That is not ordinary madness.”
In all the time she had known her, Emily had never met her match. She was too composed, too rational, too anchored to be genuinely thrown. Kael was the first person who had ever managed it.
“What are we going to do. What can we even ‘do’? I told you — I said he was genuinely frightening!”
“…I truly did not think it would be this extreme.”
Emily looked visibly unsettled. She rested her chin in one hand and tapped the table steadily with the other forefinger.
“…Do I actually have to marry him? Is this actually happening?”
“…”
Emily said nothing.
It seemed she was running out of ideas.
“We’ve lost, haven’t we. We were never a match for him to begin with.”
She sank in her chair, deflated, and muttered to no one in particular.
And at those words — something ignited.
Emily’s eyes went wide and sharp, lit from within by a quality Ivelina had never quite seen in her before. Different from anything Kael produced. A new kind of fire.
Her brown irises gleamed with a cold, determined brilliance.
“We’ve ‘lost’? ‘Us’?”
“…Emily? Are you all right?”
The unfamiliar expression startled her. She straightened in her chair and studied Emily with careful attention.
“Miss. There is no defeat in my life.”
In that moment, Emily radiated more sheer fighting spirit than Ivelina had ever seen from her. She had thought that well had run completely dry — reduced to cold ash.
“But — he’s completely outmatched us at every—”
“I will find a way.”
Emily spoke in a low, quiet, absolutely certain voice.
Whatever had been stirred in her, something Ivelina said had landed somewhere vital.
“Miss.”
Emily’s gleaming eyes grew sharper still as she said the name in a measured, deliberate tone.
“It’s time to try the direct approach.”
“The direct approach? What does that mean?”
* * *
