Chapter 12
Poisoning Plan (2)
Gypsies are shunned.
Then what is it that they want from us?
How does one win a person’s heart?
One must discover what they truly desire and present it to them.
From the very first page, the writing made no sense.
There were notes about the Reynolds family, and things she had learned that day.
Some entries had no dates at all, as if she had scribbled them down whenever something came to mind.
She couldn’t understand the intent behind those lines, but because they were left by her mother, she read them to the end.
“I love you, Edith.”
“My beloved daughter.”
“Today, Edith was truly beautiful. She reminds me of him.”
Each time she came across a line that felt like a doodle, she would burst into tears, and yet she read her mother’s journal again and again.
Only after repeating it many times did she finally understand why her mother had written it.
‘She meant for me to have this. She wanted me to use it as a weapon if anything ever happened to her.’
Her mother had known so much, yet died without ever wielding any of it, trapped inside the Marquis’s prison.
So Edith waited quietly, hoping for the day she could wield the weapon her mother left behind.
‘And yet I almost died without ever having the chance.’
Edith reached beneath her bed, where she had cut open a section of the rug to hide the journals.
She opened the one she had practically memorized and searched for the part about the “Plarin poison.”
“Plarin poison can be easily obtained from gypsies. They always carry its antidote, but they do not give it away easily.”
‘As expected, that’s all.’
The antidote that gypsies refuse to hand over.
There was no explanation of how to obtain it.
‘A doctor or an apothecary might have it. But if I ask for the antidote to Plarin, they’ll think I’m suspicious. Rumors might start later too.’
Edith had no one to seek help from or even discuss this with.
‘Mother must have felt like this too.’
Edith had been alone.
The darkness before her felt so thick she could lose her way completely, but she forced herself to stay focused and think.
A simple antidote wouldn’t work anyway.
If she drank the poison and then immediately took out the antidote, it would only look as though she had planned it herself.
Since she was already known as a deranged woman, they would think she was doing something insane again.
‘But if I don’t drink it, they’ll think that’s strange too. Even if the wine has poison in it, they’ll still accuse me of staging something myself. Should I talk to the Duke about it? No… he wouldn’t believe me.’
She still didn’t know what kind of person Grayson truly was.
For all she knew, he might repeat her words straight to Wyatt.
‘Never trust anyone. I have to solve this myself.’
Edith thought and thought again.
She needed not only a way to escape the danger, but a way to turn it into an opportunity.
***
The conference room in the Myers ducal estate was full early in the morning.
It was time for the weekly report.
As always, Grayson listened to each department manager’s report, his appearance flawless with not a single strand of hair out of place.
The managers kept glancing at him, clearly wanting to comment on the article in the morning paper, the Essex Post.
But instead of indulging them, Grayson concluded the meeting as soon as the reports were finished and dismissed them.
[Prince Falls Under Witch’s Curse]
Once everyone had left, Grayson pulled the Essex Post from his desk drawer and looked down at the article on the front page.
“This country must be truly peaceful.”
His loyal steward, Dwayne, knew his master wasn’t expecting a response, so he remained silent.
“For something like this to become news.”
He’d known his outing with Edith would spread, and he had even intended it, but he hadn’t expected it to appear on the front page the very next morning.
They apparently hadn’t managed to get a photo of Edith, because only a large photo of Grayson had been printed.
“When exactly was this taken?”
This time, he was asking for an answer, so Dwayne replied calmly.
“It seems to be from right after the sparring match with the Crown Prince, Your Highness.”
“Ah. The sparring match.”
Of course, he had been required to lose.
It was a match meant to highlight Crown Prince Cassius.
Participating only to play the clown irritated him so much that he hadn’t masked his expression very well.
Judging by the photo, the photographer’s skills were not great—the Grayson in the picture didn’t look annoyed so much as sorrowful.
His hair was disheveled after removing his helmet; sweat clung to his lashes; his eyes were lowered, lips slightly parted.
Anyone would think he was about to cry.
And now that image was immortalized on the front page of a newspaper.
He would have preferred to drag the photographer out and burn every copy of the picture, but instead he folded the paper neatly and pushed it aside before standing.
“Are you going to inspect the Academy, Your Highness?”
Grayson was running both a department store and a construction company, and he had recently taken on the project to expand the Centad Royal Academy’s dormitories under very favorable terms.
“Yes. I’m not going anywhere dangerous, so keep the escort minimal.”
Seated in the carriage, Grayson stared out the window at the passing scenery and sighed.
He had started his businesses to prove he had no interest in the throne, but it hadn’t been enough to ease the king’s and crown prince’s fears.
He routinely attended events where he was required to demonstrate that he was inferior to the crown prince.
And now, on top of all that, he was being forced to marry a woman known as a “witch.”
What more did he have to do to make the king and the crown prince feel at ease?
Did he need to die for this to end?
The carriage crossed the Tevern River and entered Alka Road.
After passing a street lined with bookstores and general shops, they reached the Academy’s front gate—just as something bright and fluttering red passed through Grayson’s field of vision.
He told the coachman to slow down and looked outside.
A red-haired woman was walking straight ahead, completely unconcerned by the slow-moving carriage, walking very quickly.
“I’ll get out here.”
The carriage stopped at his instruction.
Edith, with her bright red hair, had already passed the carriage and was heading farther down the road.
Grayson followed her at a measured pace.
He wasn’t exactly trying to tail her—he expected she would soon notice someone walking close behind her.
But Edith didn’t notice him at all.
Whether lost in deep thought or simply in a hurry, she walked without realizing Grayson was right behind her.
Her red hair swayed and shimmered like flames with every step.
She had worn it up last time, so he hadn’t realized—now he could see that her hair curled naturally.
The white coat she wore made the vivid red all the more striking.
Edith was about to enter the building when Grayson, intending to call her name, stopped himself and instead took out his pocket watch to check the time.
Getting out of the carriage early had delayed him.
After confirming that the building Edith entered was the library, Grayson turned away.
***
Edith was not strong-hearted enough to sleep soundly when she was at risk of being poisoned to death, so she did not sleep a single moment the previous night.
After spending the whole night thinking and overthinking, she reached one conclusion: in order to find a solution, she first needed to understand the poison they planned to kill her with.
‘I can’t search the marquis’s study. Someone might walk in at any moment, and I don’t even know if he keeps books about poison there. The Academy library is the best place.’
But the Academy library was not a place just anyone could walk into.
So Edith attended breakfast and, after finishing her meal, followed Wyatt as he rose from the table.
“Father, I’d like to visit the Academy library today.”
“The Academy library? Why would you go there?”
“I heard Duke Myers is a man of deep learning. After speaking with him yesterday, I realized I don’t know enough, and it left little for us to talk about. I thought that if I looked around the Academy library, I might have more to speak with him about next time.”
Using Grayson as an excuse worked perfectly.
Holding the certificate stamped with the Reynold family seal that Wyatt gave her, Edith headed for the library.
She walked alone, but she knew someone was watching her.
Whether a knight or one of the marquisate’s servants, someone would be checking to make sure Edith truly went to the library.
‘But they won’t be able to follow me inside.’
The Academy library was known for strictly verifying all who entered.
‘But once I’m inside, as long as I don’t enter the forbidden section, I’ll be free.’
Whatever she read inside, unless someone was specifically ordered to tail her through every aisle, none of it would reach the marquis’s ears.
