Chapter 17
Mikhail placed his index finger to his lips and gave a quiet nod. The atmosphere was tense—enough to rival a 007 mission—and I swallowed hard.
In an instant, Mikhail’s long arm flung the window wide open. His arms shot out into the night and seemed to successfully seize something.
“Forgive my discourtesy.”
“Eek!”
With a strangled cry, Davina was hauled into the room. Once caught, she must have decided resistance was pointless, because she didn’t struggle much.
Her pale gray-blue eyes rose and fell rapidly as she faced me. A flush spread across her fair cheeks, and then her tiny hands clamped over her mouth.
Holding her breath, my little sister stared at me without blinking before finally releasing it along with a heartfelt exclamation.
“Sis, you’re so pretty.”
“You can still say that right now?”
“You’re even prettier up close. From head to toe, you’re so beautiful it doesn’t seem fair. You should be preserved just as you are, so that generations of Vallienors will know your beauty.”
…Let’s pretend I didn’t hear that.
I let her words go in one ear and out the other, quickly changing the subject.
“How did you end up like this?”
My little sister’s white nightgown looked as if it had been pulled from a chimney, and her silver hair was tangled as though she’d been dragged around in a fight.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to throw myself at you looking like this.”
“…Huh?”
“I have eyes. I’m not dumb enough to ruin a perfect work of art.”
“…Right.”
I’m so touched, really.
I rubbed at my brow as I looked at her overly sunny smile. This kid clearly had no idea what she’d done last night.
She probably thought she’d just hidden until my anger cooled, then decided to sweet-talk me when the time was right.
“Where were you all night? Did you even sleep properly?”
“Uh-huh. I just followed you around. The moment I saw you lie down, I went to sleep too.”
“So you were right behind me the whole time I was looking for you? Without me noticing?”
“Uh-huh. You really didn’t know?”
…Sorry I didn’t.
I shut my eyes tight and shook my head. I had no idea where to even start scolding her.
Deciding to put that off for now, I focused on the more urgent matter.
“Davina, sit here for a moment.”
“…Sis, are you still mad?”
“I’m not mad. Just sit down quietly.”
She eyed me warily before shuffling over and plopping down onto the sofa.
“Mikhail, the potion bottle.”
As if waiting for the cue, Mikhail immediately set a small vial on the table. Davina flinched at the sight of it.
“Davina, where did you get this potion bottle?”
“…”
Her frightened, colorless eyes darted between me and Mikhail. Her small lips remained firmly shut—she clearly meant to keep silent no matter what.
100… 99… 98… 97…
I began silently counting down from one hundred, giving her one last chance to confess. If I reached one without an answer, I was delivering her straight to the Duke.
“Davina, if you don’t open your mouth in the next ten seconds, we’re going to Father together.”
“W-wait! S-sis, wait a second!”
The moment I threatened to tell Father, Davina jumped up in alarm, waving her hands frantically. As expected, the Father card was the ultimate trump.
“L-let’s have a family meeting. Just between us. Don’t tell Dad, Brother, or the nanny.”
“Why would the nanny be part of a family meeting? She’s obviously not invited.”
“That potion bottle belongs to the nanny.”
“What?”
“I stole it.”
“???”
Five question marks might as well have popped up over my head. I needed a more detailed confession to make sense of this.
“Why did you do that?”
“…”
“If you tell me honestly, I’ll let you sleep in my bed for a night.”
With a heavy heart, I dangled the bait my clingy little sister couldn’t resist. As expected, she answered at lightning speed.
“She said if you drink it, your hair turns silver!”
Suddenly, I remembered the conversation between Davina and Jeremiah that I’d overheard.
In the past, Davina had actually given Ariel a potion to turn her hair silver. The results hadn’t been good, and she’d been scolded—but if she was trying again, there had to be a reason.
“Davina… you want my hair to be silver?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
“Because if your hair turns silver, you won’t be sick anymore, and you can live with us in the main house.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Last night, the nanny said you’re not fit to be a Vallienor, so you need special training. She told Father she’d either lock you in the annex forever or send you to a boarding school under a false identity. I couldn’t let that happen, so—”
“So you stole the potion to give it to me?”
“Y-yeah!”
Judging from her tearful expression, she wasn’t lying.
My thoughts tangled into chaos. I’d expected the nanny to strike back after the embarrassment I caused her, but this was far beyond my expectations.
That’s when Mikhail cautiously spoke up.
“My lady, may I say something?”
“Go ahead.”
“That potion does not turn hair silver. It is a special drug that induces a comatose state.”
“So the nanny lied to Davina?”
“Yes, my lady. And a Lapath potion cannot be obtained by chance.”
His comment instantly cleared the fog in my mind. He always managed to give me exactly the information I needed.
Lapath—poison that induces coma. A nanny who lied about its effects. Davina who stole it.
The puzzle pieces spun in my head, seemingly unrelated but fitting together in a web of disturbing coincidences.
And the end those coincidences aimed for… was Ariel’s death.
If no one was actually trying to kill me, then the nanny just happened to get a magician-made poison, just happened to lie about it, and Davina just happened to try giving it to me.
Ha. Ridiculous. This was no accident.
“Davina, they’re saying this potion doesn’t turn hair silver.”
“I—I didn’t lie! The nanny really told me so. She said she had a secret potion that could turn hair silver. She shook this very vial when she said it!”
“And then?”
Looking flustered, Davina recounted the whole sequence of events.
The nanny had always emphasized the importance of silver hair to Davina.
In her eyes, Davina was a true Vallienor, while Ariel was a defective half-measure. She had convinced Davina that her sister’s lack of silver hair was the reason she was sick and confined to the annex.
Then she told Davina about a “potion that makes hair silver,” leaving it somewhere easy to find, and added that she intended to lock Ariel away forever—deliberately provoking her.
It was all so that Davina herself would give me the poison.
And it wasn’t even a lethal poison—it simply induced coma.
Given that I’d spent more time asleep than awake recently, my slipping into a coma could easily be brushed off as a natural decline in health.
“But why?”
Why would the nanny want to kill me? Wasn’t torment enough—why go so far? She was just a servant. What could she possibly gain?
Don’t tell me…
A chilling realization tightened my chest. My mouth went dry. The most logical conclusion flashed before my eyes.
Could it be that in the original story, Ariel didn’t die from illness… but from poison?
Mikhail’s red eyes narrowed as if he’d read my thoughts. Our gazes locked for a long moment.
“Doesn’t this all seem too strange? Even if I provoked the baron, that’s no reason to kill me. And the method is too underhanded. The only one who’d be blamed is Davina.”
After all, she was the one who stole the vial and tried to give it to me.
The air in the room grew heavy. Sensing the tension, Davina’s wide eyes trembled.
“S-sis… did I almost kill you?”
“No. This isn’t your fault. The nanny is the bad one for lying to you.”
“I… I’m just stupid and messed up again. If I hadn’t been born a Vallienor, I’d be completely useless.”
Her thoughts had taken a sharp turn toward self-loathing—a result of the nanny’s constant gaslighting.
Anger surged in my chest, hot and sharp. I wanted to storm over and shake the nanny by her hair, but calming my sister came first.
“Davina, forget everything the nanny ever said. Even if you weren’t a Vallienor, you’d still be valuable and deserve love.”
“…Really?”
Her lips jutted out like a little bird’s beak. The redness in her eyes and the resemblance to the Duke gave me chills.
“Of course. You know how much I like you. And today it’s been proven the nanny is a liar. If she lied about the potion, she probably lied when she said bad things about you too.”
“…Really? But it’s true I cause trouble every day.”
“When you’re your age, causing trouble is normal. Don’t put yourself down over it, okay?”
“…Okay. Sis, you’re really an angel. From head to toe.”
A faint smile spread over Davina’s flushed face. I returned it calmly—while in my mind, I was finalizing plans to make someone disappear.
