CH 17

The door.

She suddenly had a bad feeling.

Ophelia jumped up and strode to the door, opening it wide.

“……”

But there was no one outside. Looking back at Sante, he just shrugged with a smirk on his lips.

“What’s wrong? Why did you open the door suddenly?”

“But you were…”

Ophelia closed her lips tightly, not continuing her rebuttal. Sante never said anything about the door, he just looked at it while referring to Dian, or Alei.

Feeling frustrated as though she was a child being teased in a game of peek-a-boo, Ophelia went back to the table. Only two broken quills welcomed her.

“Anyway, let’s get back to the topic.”

Sante was the one who spoke first. He touched the ring on his finger again, tapping it as he spoke.

“Then what do you need from me? I’m telling you now, but I can’t comply with many. I’m just cooperating under the condition that you take this off me.”

“I’m not greedy. You just need to do one thing.”

There’s time for more later anyway. She didn’t need to take out everything under her arsenal right now.

Ophelia held Sante’s hand—but to be exact, she held the ring.

No matter how much Sante tried to take it off, the ring gently slipped off only when she touched it.

As she placed it back on her finger, she raised her head to make eye contact. Blue eyes underneath heavy red lashes met with his gaze.

“Tell the magic tower that Alei regained his memory and came to Ladeen, and that he’s planning to return to the tower. Make sure that every single person in the tower knows.”

As he looked into her blue irises, Sante smiled helplessly without realizing it.

“Do you really think they’d be fooled by such a crude lie?”

“Why are you pretending to be so naïve all of a sudden?”

Ophelia asked him innocently while furrowing her brows and tilting her head to the side.

“Sante. By any chance, maybe, perhaps… Do you know many people would be swayed by these words?”

“…Ha. So you’re telling me that I have to compel the hearts of those waiting for Alei’s return?”

“Is there a reason why you won’t be able to?”

At this, Sante burst out into a jovial laughter for the first time in a long while.

But as he settled down, Sante’s green eyes turned to Ophelia insidiously as though he was a snake.

His tongue prickled. It’s tempting.

‘I thought it wasn’t normal from the very beginning.’

It’s beyond imagination.

Sante recalled the presence he felt beyond the door just a moment ago. Naturally, he didn’t look at the door only to count how many embellishments it had.

Even if his own mana was tied up, a siren’s five senses were still twice as more sensitive than a human’s.

Ophelia might not have sensed it, but Sante certainly did.

That person went in front of the door and tried to knock, but he never did. Sante couldn’t resist the urge to call his old friend’s nickname.

‘Dian.’

Sante didn’t know how far he heard, but he better stay alert.

If he lowered his guard even for just a moment, he’d be devoured right away.

* * *

Alejandro Diarmuid.

The man who owned this name was thrown into a spiral of confusion.

He was wondering if he had just imagined it all.

He thought about what he heard that afternoon—he thought about it until late into the night, but his confusion just wouldn’t go away.

Before this, when he returned to the Ladeen Castle after finishing his work at the road construction site this afternoon, Alei was in a good mood.

Perhaps that was only natural. He’d be able to meet Ophelia and shake off the questions he had that were bothering him all this time.

However, as he returned to the castle with a light heart, his surroundings were unusually chaotic.

He wasn’t familiar with the usual atmosphere around Ladeen Castle, but from one glance, he knew that there was something strange going on.

The castle right now was even more noisy than it was when they held a procession yesterday to welcome Ophelia’s carriage.

But this question was quickly answered.

A woman who had introduced herself yesterday as Ladeen Castle’s head maid grabbed Alei’s arm.

“Sir Mage! Goodness, so you were here!”

“What’s going on?”

Alei winced slightly. He didn’t like anyone touching his body.

However, the woman in front of him didn’t seem to have the capacity to care about that.

“Can you do healing magic? Milord is seriously injured and needs treatment, but there’s no mage in Ladeen, so if you can…”

“Your Lord? Do you mean Hydar Ladeen?”

“Yes, yes! Can you help?”

The woman looked desperate. The ward was already in a state of disarray.

If this were another time, he would have readily helped. No matter how much Alei hated doing tedious things, he wasn’t indifferent enough to ignore an injured person.

However, this time, he had no willingness to help at all.

He remembered the conversation he had with Ophelia yesterday.

—The Fief Lord is bothering me just because I’m an imperial princess. The Lord here also knows why I was sent as an inspector.

—What’s the reason?

—I’m being shown around as a marriage partner. I’m a princess who’s passed the right age to marry, but my father… the Emperor somehow wants to sell me at a high price.

To Alei, Ophelia’s voice as she spoke felt like a wall he once touched, one that was brittle.

It was a rough feeling, as though sand had passed over his hands—a distinct sense of desolation.

But even so, she didn’t sound sad because the wall had already solidified.

—Maybe they want to see you me become an innocent, stupid princess who can only fall in love.

He already placed his hand over that wall.

Alei opened his lips despite being reluctant.

“…I don’t know. I can only do simple healing spells.”

“R-Really?!”

Tears pooled over the eyes of the maid, who delightfully jumped.

“What a relief—oh, what a relief! We were worried about the glass fragments all over his body and his internal injuries, but I’m glad you’ll help.”

“How did he get hurt like that?”

“I heard the chandelier had fallen in there. The honorable guest room isn’t used often, so I was negligent in managing it.”

“…Honorable guest room?”

“There was a loud crash earlier, and it was from that guest room. Who would have thought that Milord would be there…?”

If it’s the honorable guest room, then that’s Ophelia’s room.

It felt like his legs had been jolted with lightning. No, his feet were already moving on their own.

“It’s enough of a mess because it’s daytime, but if it was in the evening, all those candles would have burned the cas… Sir Mage? Where are you going?! The ward is this way!”

The head maid was shouting all on her own, but Alei himself didn’t know what came over him to have rushed off like this.

It wasn’t until he was already in front of the guest room that he came to his senses.

Only after he saw the antique doorknob.

Come to think of it, it was somewhat strange. The accident happened earlier, but he went straight to the guest room.

Someone was teetering between life and death. Why was he here instead?

He heard there was an accident in Ophelia’s room. She might have gotten hurt. That’s why he’s worried…

‘I’ll check on Ophelia first and go.’

The Fief Lord was injured badly, so Ophelia might have been hurt as well.

Perhaps, as distant as their relationship was right now, Alei could worry about her to some extent.

If Ophelia got injured and died, he would lose his only hope of regaining his memories.

He was finally getting some clues, so it couldn’t end here.

As Alei lifted one hand to knock, he heard a familiar voice through the door.

“Alei… Alejandro lost all his memories and was exiled. You know that this happened. But do you know where he is right now?”

An indifferent voice called his name.

Alei couldn’t open the door.

The conversation he heard through the door was unfamiliar—even though he was sure that they were talking about him.

Alejandro and Dian were both names that he heard for the first time. There was nothing familiar in that conversation except for Ophelia’s tone as she mentioned those names.

However, as soon as Alei heard those names, he realized that they were both his.

Unfamiliar names that were somehow familiar.

What kind of emotion was this, to feel both familiarity and unfamiliarity?

However, sometimes, understanding wouldn’t be built on logic.

It gave him a sense of déjà vu.

That’s why he didn’t have to think of it rationally to know.

But Alei couldn’t recognize the voice of the person Ophelia was talking to.

Ophelia called him Sante.

It was a name more unfamiliar to him than both Alejandro and Dian. But as he turned the name over and over in his head, that was the time that he barely managed to recognize the identity of that voice.

A person who knew Alei, the head of the sirens.