When Evelyn came to, a whole day and a half had passed. It was Sunday afternoon. She was in her room, her feet ached, and her head was still slightly ringing. Her grandmother was seated at her desk drinking a cup of tea while Mildred was standing beside her. They were mumbling something to each other, neither noticing that the girl had woken up.

"Nana?" she whispered, her voice still hoarse.

The two women, in an almost silent debate, turned their heads to the small girl.

"Finally, you are awake, Eve!" her grandmother exclaimed, her voice equally hoarse.

I tried to sit up, but the pain wracked my body fiercely before I gave in, allowing myself to slide back into the bed.

"I'll go get something for her to eat," Mildred said, excusing herself with a small, weary smile on her face.

"Eve, I don't know whether to thank or curse the heavens," Nana began.

"What happened?" I asked, feebly. "How is Luca?"

"He is fine. Luckily, his condition wasn't as severe as we thought, but he will be staying at the hospital under Varn's care for a while. He passed out after arriving at the cave, is what Bram said."

"Evelyn, why did you go there? I've heard from others. I've read the letter you left for Bram, and I can't wrap my head around it. There was no treasure in a chest. We've never had that type of money here, so why would we put it in a chest out in the middle of nowhere? I never got round to telling your mother about my family mines either, so I know for sure that she wouldn't make up such a story. So where exactly did this story come from?"

What should I do now?

"The book," I whispered.

"What book?"

"The one I carried up the mountain. It had that information."

"Where is it now?"

"Where we met the wolves," I said.

"Wolves?! Oh my god! When? Where?"

"I don't remember. Luca saw it… uhh, my head feels so light."

"Eve! Eve!" she called, but I had already faked passing out.

When the Marquess arrived home around noon on Saturday, he found the situation had resolved itself. Evelyn and Luca had been found, and they were still alive. He couldn't express how much fear he felt. A man who had spent decades waiting for his death on the battlefield experienced a fear he couldn't imagine. But despite the chaos it caused, the tragedy had opened a gate he had not thought possible. A diamond mine so vast that it took Bram and the other knights a day's worth of hiking to map out, and yet the end was still far.

After seeing both the children to ease his own fears, he rode off again early Sunday morning to see the diamond mine himself.

The mine was a volcanic shaft that ran across the mountain range and down towards a long-extinct volcanic vent. The Marquess stood by the place where they had found Evelyn, his hands and legs shaking. What fortune was this? How could such luck exist? Years of poverty, death, and starvation, yet the people who needed it most walked past this great fortune every day to slave away for the coal which had become scarce with each passing decade.

He had to make plans to develop the mine immediately. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The hospital, the food—Ismere had a chance, for once.

As he thought about the endless plans that were possible, a memory flashed before his eyes.

"More than this town has seen in a hundred... no, two hundred years, child." That's what he had told Evelyn. And yet before him was wealth that even Valtherion as an empire had not seen in the last three hundred years.

That child... was it just pure coincidence? Why is it that when she is involved, an answer follows?

That said, he could not overlook Evelyn's recklessness. Her actions had not only endangered herself but Luca as well. How would he face Aldric if she had caused the death of a close and long-standing friend's son?

He had to address the issue with Evelyn properly, and he had to issue a suitable punishment.

To pool together resources and begin preparations would take time, given that winter would peak soon. It was too treacherous to start development immediately, and it would endanger the lives of the miners who would be exposed to the cold. It had to be put off until spring. Meanwhile, he had to make sure the mine's ownership had been relinquished to prevent legal issues. There was a great deal to be done.

So when the Marquess got back to his office that evening, having heard that Evelyn's condition had eased and that she had even been awake briefly, he finally sat down to write two consecutive letters—one to the Duke of Ashford and one to the Emperor.

The one to the Duke of Ashford was to inform him that Ismere was soon to develop a mine. This was standard protocol because, despite Ismere's autonomy, major projects were still to be reported to the head of each dukedom. This would protect Ismere from greedy nobles who might come back to claim rights to the mine after abandoning their claim centuries prior. The one to the Emperor asked for the rights to monopolize the wealth of the mine and to offer 30% of the gems to be exported to the Emperor and national coffers as tax.

Marquess Darius reasoned that with the quantity of wealth available, 30% would be but pennies in a bucket, but to the Emperor—who hadn't seen the mine—it might suffice. With both the Duke's and Emperor's seals of approval, all rights would belong to Ismere.

The winter period passed slowly—three months, to be specific—as the year ended and a new year folded over. Evelyn, who had been grounded within the castle, was just a week away from finishing what she would later describe as her prison sentence. Spring was rolling in, which, despite still being cold, was a great deal warmer than the initial winter itself. Evelyn now shared a room with her personal maid, Clara, who had moved in as per the Marquess's instructions.

They are treating me like a flight risk criminal, she thought, rolling off her bed. It was early in the morning. She hadn't seen Luca for a long time. He had moved back home to keep his father company. In her heart, she feared Freya and him were avoiding her, and she couldn't blame them either. She just wanted to apologize properly.

Clara had already woken up and set Evelyn's breakfast on the desk.

Another lonely breakfast. I guess just one more week, then I can apologize to Luca and Freya and make amends with Grandpa and Nana.

The month after the incident in the mine, Evelyn had spent sickly and was constantly nursing a persistent cold that refused to leave her. Her grandmother had stayed with her during that time. Any moment she got, she tried to pull the answers out of Evelyn, but Evelyn wouldn't budge, and so she let it go and stopped asking altogether. It was clear Evelyn was lying, but what more could she do? It became even more apparent when Darius received a response from the Medical Bureau in Vespera, the capital. His old associate responded with much confusion, citing that such facilities—hospitals—did not exist.

When the Marquess heard this, he wanted to question Evelyn, but she had remained confined to her room with sickness. He confided in his wife, who was still questioning Evelyn's mine story. The both of them sat in silence, unsure of what to think. The conflict in both of them came from the fact that the hospital was working and that there was indeed treasure in that mine. So many people had received healthcare services that they could not have received otherwise. The mortality rate of Ismere had dropped greatly, and now they had the funds to save Ismere. So what if it was a lie? What harm had it caused?

But to set their minds at ease, they wanted to get Varn's professional opinion on whether they should continue with the hospital or not.

One afternoon into the second month, Varn was called in to meet with both of them.

"Good evening, my Lord and my Lady," he bowed.

"Varn, we'd like to discuss something with you... it's about the hospital," Eve's grandmother began.

"What we mean to say is that... we have reason to believe that hospitals do not... actually exist in the south," the Marquess clarified, a bit reluctant.

Varn took a long pause, his facial expression neutral.

"I know," he said finally, breaking the silence. "I wrote to a friend—Kester—two months ago in the capital, enquiring about the books... he said no such publications existed in the south."

"Why didn't you say anything?" the Marquess questioned, horrified. "What if the books had false information and led to the death of a person?" he half-shrieked.

"That's the thing, my Lord. Though the books' origin is a lie, the information is correct. There is no remedy I have not tried out on myself and on the patients."

"Oh god, you used yourself as a test subject?" Eve's grandmother shrieked.

"My lady, I only tried the medication on myself. As for the surgeries, I tried them out on patients from whom I had consent, but I practiced over and over with lab specimens before making a human trial. When I confirmed that they were all safe, I started using them openly, and they all bore very positive results."

"Oh, that's good, I suppose," the Marchioness said, exhaling a sigh of relief.

"They all work. No remedy or surgery has fault or has caused death," Varn answered thoughtfully. "I already suspected that these types of books wouldn't exist. This type of information requires research that has never been accepted. Human experimentation was never allowed—not when I worked in the research department of the Medical Bureau twenty years ago, and definitely not now. Or I would have heard of it, and I would have stormed off to take part in it already," he said, chuckling. "You know how I am."

"I suppose so," the Marquess answered with a small smile.

"I suspect her tutor was conducting this research secretly, because the books I was given were all in her handwriting. She must have made copies of his books, that way they couldn't be traced back to him. That's definitely it," Varn echoed, which seemed to resonate with the grandparents. That did, in fact, make sense.

"And the hospital must have been her tutor's idea as well. This person must be a radicalist of sorts, and his way of thinking might be what drives the young lady to implement these things here. I think we should embrace these radical ideas, because look how far it has brought us, don't you think, my Lord? I am more impressed by her resilience to protect her tutor's identity," Varn added.

The argument seemed sound enough to turn the wariness Evelyn's grandparents had into ease.

"What now?" Evelyn's grandmother voiced her thoughts out loud.

"I think, instead of cornering her, we should hear her out. If she ever suggests something completely out of reason, then we should stop her before it's too late. Otherwise, confronting her might not lead to anything useful, don't you think? She is just a kid who wants to help out—that's how I see it," Varn said, answering her rhetorical question.