Chapter 11

Chapter 11

“Wake up, child,” Kallen said. “Wake up.”

My eyes snapped open and I looked up.

“Are you all right?” Sion inquired, his brow wrinkled in worry.

“I must’ve dozed off,” I said, my hand twitching unconsciously. My unwitting nap was the least of my concerns. “What’s today’s date?” I asked Sion, my voice trembling slightly.

“Today is August 9th. Why do you ask, my lady?”

The way my insides had twisted and my left arm had throbbed had been a sign. My unconscious mind had remembered that today was the day I was to be murdered. Chapter Seven, The Fortune-Teller Murders.

I could vividly recall the events of the plot, and so was able to learn the truth behind the case. It’s no coincidence that the red-haired women died from heart attacks. Kallen, the royal family, and the police still only suspect some link between the incidents, but…

“The fortune-teller…” I whispered.

“Come again?” Kallen said, leaning in closer.

The culprit was the fortune-teller. Three women of different social classes, both rich and poor, who shared nothing but their red hair… A heart attack had been their cause of death, true, but it had been no mere happenstance.

My thoughts continued to race. All three women had recently visited the same place: The home of a fortune-teller. This is our clue. The common denominator on which we must focus.

I felt nauseous, unease seeping into my gut. I didn’t want to die. It was the fortune-teller I had met on the street. She was the perpetrator. If she had dragged me away earlier today, I would’ve died, just like in the novel.

I tightly gripped Kallen’s coattail. “Y-Your Grace...”

“What’s the matter?” Kallen asked, taken aback.

“You know the cases you mentioned earlier? About the women who died of heart attacks.”

“What about them?”

“Well, I suddenly had a strange thought.”

Jade and Sion looked at me with surprise.

“If someone murdered them or perhaps hired someone else to do it… Wouldn’t that mean the three women had been engaged in the same activity just before their deaths?”

Kallen raised an eyebrow and leaned in curiously. “What are you saying, exactly? Could you elaborate?”

“I mean, what if they’d all visited the same place? Something like that.”

“Why do you suspect such a thing?”

I forced a smile. “Because I remembered something from my days in the slums.”

The duke stared at me and nodded as if telling me to go on.

“Noblemen enjoy many things that can be found only in the slums. Fighting pits, gambling dens, curios and oddities shops. Madams and ladies, on the other hand, visit the slums for one reason and one reason only.”

“The reason being?” the duke asked.

“To meet fortune-tellers,” I whispered. The kingdom’s inhabitants enjoyed having their fortunes told, and the slums were said to be home to many skilled fortune-tellers. “I imagined that if the three ladies had anything in common, it was a fondness for fortune-tellers. It was all I could think of, given their difference in social status…”

I paused to think. “After all, people go to restaurants, tailor shops, and stores that align with their social standing. But the best fortune-tellers all can be found in the slums. Or so I’ve heard.”

“I see,” Kallen said quietly, stroking his chin. “That’s an interesting thought.”

There was a slight smile on his face. At that moment, the phantom pain in my left arm intensified. It was unbearable. I gagged, and Sion held out his gloved hands.

“Take your time, my lady. It’s okay if you need to vomit. Just let it out. You will feel relieved once you have.”

Is Sion telling me it’s okay to throw up in his hands? He’s being so kind, but frankly, I’d rather die.

Jade gently stroked my back. “Maybe your stomach’s upset from dinner,” he suggested. “Your face looks pale, too.”

Wait, something is off. Why am I feeling faint? I closed my eyes as my head began to spin.

It’s a relief to be in this manor, where things are safe. I’m glad the Leweltons are by my side. I felt a strong arm wrap around me and lift up my body, as a subtle woody scent enveloped me. It was Kallen. He had taken me in his arms with his bare hands.

Oh no! Unable to tolerate the dizziness any longer, I gradually lost consciousness.

* * *

What happened to me? Oh, right. I went into shock. As I lay unconscious, I began to dream. The dream was about the death of a beggar girl from the slums. In other words, it was about my own death.

“Your hair color is very pretty. Shall we begin with your left arm?”

A woman murmured as she crept toward me with a saw.

No, please don’t. I’m so scared. In the dream, I screamed. Even though my left arm had been severed, I remained fully conscious. The woman then clutched my right leg. I still hadn’t stopped bleeding. I could hear myself pleading with her to kill me instead.

Stop! Someone help me! Please! At that moment, someone swung the door open.

“Do you have a fetish for red hair? You crazy wench. I ought to chop you into pieces, shouldn’t I?”

A man in a black tailcoat strode toward us, a spine-chilling smile on his face. It was Kallen.

“Poor child. I’ll get this over with and fetch a doctor for you.”

He whispered through the bars of the cage in which I was trapped. But in the next moment, my eyes widened in shock. From out of the darkness, an arrow had flown and pierced Kallen’s back. I’m certain that this was all meant to happen tonight. This was the last chapter I read from the novel.

In my past life, I’d died soon after reading this scene. I’d fainted, book in hand, before being rushed to the operating room. Unfortunately, I’d never woken up.

Everything was clear now. The puzzle pieces were falling into place.

This was the last chapter I could remember… The version of me that lay in the hospital bed began to meld with the version trapped in the cage. One was a bedridden fifteen-year-old girl and, as I watched, a book slipped out of her grasp. The book’s cover remained obscured.

* * *

I opened my eyes with a gasp. A large hand covered my forehead. I knew right away who the hand belonged to.

“Your Grace?” I whispered.

“Are you all right?” Kallen asked, withdrawing his hand.

I watched Sion, with his sleeves rolled up, wring water from a towel over a washbasin. He then pressed the cold, wet towel against my brow.

“Do you feel better now?” Jade asked from a chair in the corner of the room. He stood and walked over to the bed.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You fainted.”

“Oh…” I sat up and looked outside. The sky was already pitch black.

“You were talking in your sleep,” Sion said softly, wiping my forehead.

My heart dropped.

What if I said something foolish?

“What did I say?” I asked.

Instead of Sion, it was Jade who answered instead. “You kept asking for help and whimpering that you were in pain. Did something happen to you in the past?”

“No, not at all.”

“You don’t need to hide anything from us. You can tell us.”

I firmly shook my head. “It was only a nightmare. A very scary one.”

Sion examined my face before turning to Jade. “Why don’t you retire for the night, Master Jade?” he said quietly.

“All right,” Jade replied with a nod, but he didn’t move.

I could sense his unspoken worry for me. I felt like I was in a daze. From the door came a sudden knock. Sion walked over and opened it slightly. Through the gap, a servant passed over a few documents.

I wonder what those are.

Sion approached Kallen, who was seated at my bedside. “Here are the documents you requested, Your Grace.”

“Already? That was much quicker than I expected.”

There were three sheets of paper in total. If my memory is correct, those are the reports on the comings and goings of the redheaded women just before their heart attacks.

In the novel, Kallen had received the documents in his study, not in my room. He had requested that the police and the Intelligence Guild investigate the women’s last activities, and a response had arrived within a few hours.

I see. So all of this happened tonight. I had even told Kallen about the fortune-teller before my memories returned to me in my dream.

Then, if Kallen goes to the fortune-teller tonight, will he get hurt? My throat felt tight. There was an hour-by-hour account of the deceased women’s whereabouts. He only needed to skim over the document to unearth the most important clue.

Details from the murder case suddenly came to mind. All the women who’d died of heart attacks had consumed a magic elixir prescribed by the fortune-teller, claiming it would make them beautiful. Of course, it had been a blatant lie.

It raised the body’s temperature, causing the cheeks to flush and the skin to clear, but these effects were only temporary. It was all a deception. What they had drunk was a poison, not a potion, one that had been brewed to trigger shock after a long incubation period.

His Grace can’t go out tonight. Tonight’s events wouldn’t end with me losing a few limbs. If they continued on this trajectory, Kallen would be the one seriously injured.