Chapter 30
The voices of men rushing past them jolted Calyx back to his senses.
He stared ahead, swallowing the agonizing pain that felt as if every muscle in his body were being torn apart.
Behind the fallen chandelier, as the thick smoke began to clear, a silhouette huddled on the floor came into view.
What had looked like a single, tangled mass was actually Crown Prince Patrick and Charlotte. She was held so tightly in Patrick’s arms that they appeared as one.
“Your Highness! Are you alright?”
“I am fine, so find the culprit who dropped the chandelier first. Someone dared to attempt the assassination of the Crown Prince of this nation.”
“An… assassination?!”
“They couldn’t have gone far. Catch him, and we shall make him confess who the mastermind behind this threat to the royal family’s peace is….”
Patrick’s words, which were strangely calm for someone who had just faced death, cut off abruptly.
The men surrounding Patrick followed his gaze and fell silent as well.
“Brother.”
Calyx Valdea stood before them.
Noticing where his cousin’s gaze was fixed, Patrick smirked.
Patrick pulled Lottie deeper into his embrace as if to show her off, causing Calyx’s face to twitch.
“Do not look so recklessly.”
At that moment, the fainted Lottie slowly opened her eyes.
“She is my woman.”
The first thing that entered her field of vision wasn’t Patrick, who had pulled her from the brink of death, nor the tragically shattered chandelier, nor the chaotic ballroom.
It was Calyx, looking at her as if he had been standing in that spot since the beginning of time.
“…….”
It was merely a useful tool that had almost been broken.
So why are you making that face? Why do you look…
‘As if you are about to collapse.’
“We found him! This is the culprit who shot the chandelier down with a crossbow!”
Just as Lottie averted her eyes from Calyx, the Frostis family servants approached.
A young man, grabbed by the collar, was thrown onto the floor. He was a youth with rare turquoise eyes and a large mole near his left eye.
“Beat him without rest until he opens his mouth!”
“No! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!”
The young man prostrated himself and cried out.
“I only did as I was told! The, the Crown Prince told me to shoot the chandelier with the crossbow the moment he reached the exact center of the ballroom….”
The youth pointed a trembling finger at Patrick.
Everyone’s hearts sank. It was a relief the attempt failed; otherwise, it would have been a capital crime that shook the kingdom.
“Then can you say it? Who dared to instigate you to assassinate the Crown Prince?”
As if he had been waiting for the question, the youth looked toward a specific spot in the ballroom.
Though he couldn’t point with his hands bound, the look in his eyes was enough.
“…….”
Calyx, accused as the mastermind, remained still and silent.
He did not argue that it was a frame-up, that it was an absurd claim, or that if the man’s words were true, he wouldn’t be standing here instead of fleeing.
To those who didn’t know him, it might have seemed like a silent admission of guilt.
In truth, what had robbed him of all protest and explanation was a single sentence.
A sentence that couldn’t be uttered was clogging his throat, making it impossible to say anything else.
“He is a traitor who instigated the assassination of the Crown Prince. Take him away and imprison him at once! I shall interrogate him personally!”
Patrick issued the command. Since it was the solemn order of the Crown Prince, the officials could no longer hesitate.
Everything proceeded with clinical efficiency.
Even as he was bound by both arms and dragged away, Calyx’s eyes never wavered from Lottie.
‘This makes no sense.’
The falling chandelier, the loss of an anonymous life, and the claim that Calyx Valdea was the one who instigated it—was none of this a dream?
Just as her breathing grew ragged from the shock, the face of the youth who claimed to be under Calyx’s orders caught Lottie’s eye.
‘This is… impossible.’
Lottie’s face turned deathly pale at a coincidence that could be either a curse or a blessing.
In the midst of this, Patrick was relishing his victory and the woman in his arms, repeatedly asking Lottie if she was alright with feigned concern.
It was that one sentence—easy and natural for some, yet a sentence others had to swallow because they lacked the right to say it.
With Calyx Valdea accused of masterminding the assassination attempt on the Crown Prince, a fire was lit under William’s feet as well.
The investigative authorities had announced that, along with the arrest of the suspect, they would conduct a search of his residence.
‘The original Merchant Ship Contract is in that house.’
Even if the fatal contents were written in code, the moment it fell into the Queen’s hands, that wicked woman would surely find a way to decipher it.
It was only a matter of time before the specific details and their conspiratorial relationship were revealed.
“The officers will raid the house soon. Go and find it before those bastards strip the place bare. You must not be caught. Never!”
Receiving the order, William’s subordinate set off quickly. Though the path was pitch black, it was as clear as day to him, having traveled it many times.
At the same time, there was another figure who had set out under the cover of darkness.
‘Crazy bastard.’
It was Lottie.
Though she didn’t have eyes accustomed to the dark like some, she knew that a woman wandering alone at night was not a good idea, so she strode through the night streets dressed in men’s clothing.
“Patrick…. Patrick…!”
Muttering that name she wanted to grind between her teeth, Lottie recalled the face of the youth who claimed to have been hired that day.
It was a familiar face. To be precise, it was a face she knew from the future she had already lived through.
—I only hid under the bed as the Queen instructed! She told me we would share a bed once the maids withdrew….
A reunion with the man who had framed her for an affair that never happened.
No, since it was a memory held by only one side, the word ‘reunion’ might not be appropriate.
However, precisely because it was a one-sided memory, there were things only Lottie could see.
The youth had been captured without a trace of resistance, as if he had no intention of fleeing from the start.
The weapon he had produced as if he’d been waiting to show it.
The answers that came out a beat too fast, as if he were reciting a memorized script.
Even the investigation that proceeded so smoothly based on just a few words of testimony from the youth.
Everything was unfolding like a trap aimed at a single person. Just like the time he had framed his wife for adultery to secure a divorce.
Perhaps all of this was mere speculation.
The appearance of the ‘adulterer’ might just be a coincidence, and perhaps someone really had used that man to try and kill Patrick.
If Patrick hadn’t pulled her away at the last second, she might be burning in the sulfurous fires of hell right now, so perhaps she should be grateful to him instead.
‘No.’
That can’t be it. My guess is correct.
She, the one who had danced with him, knew best that Patrick had suddenly tried to move away from the center of the dance floor right before the incident occurred.
The place where he finally stopped happened to be a spot that narrowly missed the impact zone.
The fact that a light had flickered once near the second-floor balcony like a signal just before the fall was also evidence.
The moment Patrick saw that and jerked his body away, it happened.
‘He set a trap using his own life as bait….’
Because of that reckless and stupid man, a young girl in the prime of her life had lost hers under the chandelier.
Was that all? The people, shocked by the news, were essentially being deceived by their Crown Prince, and Matila, serving such a foolish man as their next King, had no choice but to confirm its tragic future once again.
Therefore, he must pay the proper price for his crimes.
He must apologize to the girl who lost her life to his foolish scheme, and he must apologize for deceiving the people under the title of the nation’s Crown Prince.
He must suffer while poignantly realizing his own stupidity, and.
And….
“…….”
When the memory of those reddish-brown eyes that couldn’t look away from her until the moment he was dragged out resurfaced, Lottie squeezed her eyes shut.
When she regained her composure and opened them again, a dilapidated building came into view.
If that youth truly was under Patrick’s orders, he would be here.
Thanks to the maids not emptying the trash cans on time, she had been able to send a short note stamped with the seal of the Danger Palace to the youth.
She wrote that the plan had changed and told him to wait at the slaughterhouse on 36th Street in the West District, signing it with Patrick’s name.
Hope gleamed from the slightly ajar slaughterhouse door.
Stepping quietly inside, Lottie saw a silhouette pacing in the darkness.
“Is that… Your Highness the Crown Prince?”
The youth’s familiar voice explained everything at once.
‘It’s over.’
“What… it’s a woman?”
The youth’s tone instantly became biting.
“There’s no way he would have sent you.”
The youth said, taking a step forward in the darkness.
“Who are you? Are you itching to die?”
“You certainly have a strange way of introducing yourself.”
“What?”
“Aren’t you the one itching to die?”
Despite facing a man who might be holding anything, she strangely wasn’t afraid at all. Perhaps she was so terrified beyond her limit that all her senses had gone numb.
“Impersonating the Crown Prince to send you the letter, and instructing you to come here. I did all of it.”
“You… what?”
“You’re finished now. The moment I leave here, I’m going to report you along with the Crown Prince for fabricating the assassination attempt.”
Suddenly, she felt a surge of murderous intent amidst the thick, vibrating smell of blood.
The youth, glancing around, spotted a butchering knife hanging on the wall. He snatched it and began to stride toward Lottie.
She couldn’t move. Even though she had expected this, terror had shackled her legs.
Staring straight at her approaching death, Lottie screamed.
“Even if you kill me here, the future where you die won’t change!”
“…! What?”
The youth stopped dead just a few paces away.
In his hand, he held a sharp, cold iron blade. Lottie forced her gaze away from the knife that drew her like a magnet and looked the youth straight in the eye.
“You’re going to die. Carved into so many pieces they won’t even find your corpse.”
“What…!”
