It didn’t matter who or what the man and monster were. Catherine rushed into the manor and raced up the stairs. The unexpected situation had thrown her into a panic. She couldn’t expect the monster to compensate her for her destroyed house, so who would take responsibility for it?

Catherine reached the top of the stairs, panting. Even though she was inside, a cold gust brushed her face. She stood in front of the wing where her bedroom once sat, staring ahead in a daze. It had taken her less than a minute to rush upstairs, and yet the goat-headed monster she had just witnessed shouting was collapsed on the floor and quickly disintegrating into a tiny pile of ash.

“Tsk.”

She heard the man standing in front of her click his tongue. Catherine cautiously walked up to him, finding the back of his head looked awfully familiar. His hair, neat and silvery as mermaid scales, blazed in the light of the setting sun. She grabbed his shoulder and turned him to face her.

“Look here.”

His cobalt eyes gently peered at her. Of course, it was him—the man who had tossed the hundred rieds at her. And this was not just any man but the grand duke, at that!

“What have you done to my house? I worked my butt off over the past week to get this place clean!”

The man seemed to have expected Catherine, and he casually shook her hand off of him.

“Cleaning?” he echoed. “Do you mean to say you plan to clean this enormous manor all by yourself?”

The glass sword had disappeared without a trace. As the man looked over the mess that had once been Catherine’s bedroom, he muttered loudly to himself, “Your stamina is impressive.”

“I asked you a question! What are you going to do about my house?”

At this point, Catherine had completely lost regard for the man’s impressive status. She had worked so hard to clean this place so she could have a happy future. When she thought of all that work gone down the drain, her limbs grew weak.

“Calm down, Miss Panya.”

Even though he was the cause of this whole incident, he somehow managed to arrogantly say the least comforting words possible. On top of that, he gave her his typical soulless smile as he did it.

Catherine seethed with anger and irritation. “Calm down?” she said through gritted teeth. “My house is falling apart, and you’re telling me to calm down?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the man replied. “Why don’t you open your eyes and take a look around you? You’re not sleepwalking right now, are you?”

Catherine couldn’t understand what inane things this crazy man was saying. She clutched her spinning head and took a step back. The thought occurred to her that perhaps she ought to calm down—and then call Sir Mel to come and haul this man away.

But then something changed.

“Look, nothing is wrong with your house. The hallway is exactly the same as it was. The house you ‘worked your butt off to clean’ is exactly how you left it.”

How was this possible? I saw the place collapse with my own eyes.

Catherine quickly inspected the tidy bedroom. The ceiling had reappeared over her head, and all the destroyed furniture was standing in its rightful place, unscathed. Even the tattered canopy that had just been fluttering in the breeze was restored. The change had happened in an instant.

Is this some sort of dream within a dream? She looked and looked again, but everything around her was fine. She couldn’t even find a single hole in the canopy. The same held true for the faded old carpet and the grandfather clock, though that had never worked in the first place.

Catherine finally turned back to the man. His hair was once again plain silver, no longer sporting the colors of the sunset. Only a handful of people in the entire land could cast such incredible magic.

“Are you Grand Duke Christopher?” she asked. For a great sorcerer like the grand duke, this sort of magic would be a trifle. Perhaps she was right about her hunch. Catherine felt herself break out into a cold sweat. What would he say?

Would he answer, “Indeed, I am the ruler of this territory, Grand Duke Christopher!” Or “You’ve only just realized that now, you pathetic rube?” Surely he wouldn’t deny it.

“No, I’m not,” he said.

What?

“You’re not?” Catherine repeated.

That was impossible.

Wide-eyed, Catherine studied every detail of his face. It was obviously identical to the one she’d seen on the front page of the paper earlier that day. It’s impossible to forget a face as handsome as his. Does he mean to imply two people in the world are this good-looking?

“People often tell me that we look alike,” he added with disinterest, before sitting in a nearby chair.

He must be lying. Although what reason did a young noble lord have to hide his identity? She couldn’t fathom what he was thinking. Catherine began fidgeting with anything in reach, and the man, acting like the true owner of the manor, watched her. If he wasn’t the grand duke, what was she supposed to do with this lunatic?

“Wait here for a moment,” she said.

She only knew one thing for certain: nothing good would come of becoming involved with this man. Catherine dashed downstairs and retrieved the hundred-ried note from where she’d stashed it in the bookcase. She was worried he might disappear as suddenly as he’d appeared, but she returned to find him still sitting in the same chair.

She held out the banknote to him. “Take this. You don’t need to pay me for the tea.”

The man didn’t take it right away. Worried that she might be holding it for a while, Catherine opted to place the money on his knee. The man gazed at the lone bill on his lap before he spoke again. “You might as well keep it and use it to buy a new house. I don’t take back money I’ve given to others.”

“What are you saying?” Catherine shot back.

“If I take back what I’ve given, it’ll all be in vain.”

All in vain? Why is he worried about his vanity? Charity was a difficult notion for Catherine to wrap her mind around, as she’d always been careful with money.

“Sorry, but I have no intention of leaving this place,” she said. She had already invested so much effort into her new home that she planned on living in it until the day they put her in the ground.

“Think on it some more,” he replied. “I don’t imagine you’d be happy if the events of today were to repeat often.”

“I already told you several days ago,” Catherine said, heedless of his words. “If you came here again, I said I would call the security office.”

Upon hearing this threat, the man closed his eyes. It was a harmless motion, but for some reason, anxiety rose in Catherine and stuck like a lump in her throat. A short silence fell upon the bedroom. When those blue eyes under their sloping, thick eyebrows finally opened again, they were looking not at Catherine but somewhere else.

“If you were to die, you wouldn’t be able to speak, much less report me.”

Catherine suddenly noticed a ticking sound. At some point, the broken clock had started to work again. She looked back and forth between the faces of the clock and the man. A mysterious violet color seemed to swirl in his eyes before disappearing.

“I’m not saying I would kill you,” he clarified. “You saw it for yourself, Miss Panya. Horrible, inhuman monsters inhabit this place. They want this manor, or more specifically, the ground on which the manor had been built. There’s no way of knowing when something like this could happen again.”

He spoke in a clear, calm voice, yet Catherine couldn’t focus on his words. She had something much more important on her mind—that flash of violet she’d seen in his eyes. As far as she knew, violet eyes weren’t natural. That could only mean one thing. Catherine quickly folded her hands behind her back to hide how much they trembled. This was impossible. Could this man be one of them? The man seemed to notice Catherine’s agitation, but it appeared he believed she was upset because of his threatening words.

“I’m only advising you for your own sake,” he said. “What would I want with an old building like this? It’s too far out of the way.”

Catherine hastily turned away from him. His eyes had returned to their usual cobalt blue. They only seem to change color when he uses magic.

The man was silent for a while. When Catherine had finally calmed her racing heart enough to look back at him, his face was icy cold. She didn’t have the confidence to ask why monsters wanted her land. Only with great effort could she unfreeze her tongue enough to speak.

“I’ll definitely have to think about this.”

Now that she’d heard what he had to say, she wanted him out of her house as soon as possible.

“I’m glad you understand.”

The man smiled, but only enough to appear polite. Once again, the dark smile did not reach his eyes.

***

After the man left the manor, Catherine stood rooted to the spot as she stared blankly in front of her. A sorcerer with violet eyes.

With a heavy heart, she recalled a long-buried memory.

“Species that are born with innate magical powers can be distinguished just by the color of their eyes. Those with violet eyes are the most dangerous ones. Catherine, no matter what, beware of anyone with violet eyes. They...”

However, this man’s eyes were blue. They had just changed for a moment. Was he using magic to disguise his eye color? That would make him the very thing her mother had warned her about. Now that she knew the man’s identity, she saw no point in thinking about it further. She had worked hard to escape from Orlean, to achieve freedom. If she clung to this house just because she had cleaned it, her life might come to a pathetic end instead. This was just how much the man’s identity had shaken her.

“It’s only logical,” she told herself. “That’s the most reasonable choice... I should pack my things.”

She could always find another house. In addition to the original hundred-ried note, the man had left an additional nine hundred rieds, leaving her with a total of one thousand. It was a clear sign that he wanted her to get lost.

She didn’t have it in her to turn down his offer this time. With one thousand rieds, she could find a nice place to stay in the center of Christopher. Just as the man wanted, Catherine would take the money and get lost. She first packed the box that she kept hidden under her bed. This contained her mother’s keepsakes, so it was her most valuable possession.

She next moved to the bookcase. Catherine didn’t have many friends, but reading was one of her few hobbies. She plopped herself down on the floor and started pulling out her old novels and poetry collections.

“Huh?”

As she took a book, she felt something brush the back of her hand. It was stuck to the top of the lowermost shelf. Catherine set the books aside and removed the piece of paper she found stuck there. It was a drawing, likely done fairly recently, of an elegant lady sitting in this same bedroom. Catherine recognized the woman instantly.

“Mother...?”

Catherine clutched the picture so tightly her fingertips turned white. I know her.

Her mouth fell open. She couldn’t believe it. Her mother, who had either perished or gone missing a decade ago, was the previous owner of this bedroom.

Catherine didn’t sleep a wink that night. She set a lamp next to her bed and stared at the picture of her mother until the sun rose. Studying it carefully, she decided it had to have been drawn within the past ten years. Catherine had long suspected that her mother hadn’t truly died, but she had no idea she would learn the truth in this way.

Mother...

She was everything to Catherine.

Catherine still treasured the memories of having her mother at her side. Back then, she felt like the whole world was hers, and that she had nothing to be afraid of. She had learned everything from her.

Why did you leave me?

This was the question she’d asked a thousand times over for the past decade. Even after escaping from Orlean, she was never free from her doubts. Catherine both resented her and missed her so much it made her eyes sting. She wanted nothing more than to see her and hold her and cry.

To think Catherine would find traces of her in this manor—a manor that a sorcerer with violet eyes wished to possess.

She let out a sigh.

Catherine had to take stock of what mattered, although, since her mother’s disappearance, she’d had only one priority.