chapter 10
“……”
If this were the Edith I knew, she would already be fuming in anger or crying and shouting.
Maybe because he didn’t get the reaction he expected, he muttered with a slightly dazed expression.
“…Amnesia?”
“Yes.”
“You… don’t remember me?”
“No.”
A heavy silence fell over the table.
Resting his chin on his hand, Vincent quietly observed me.
But only for a moment.
“Pfft… Hahaha—!”
Suddenly, loud laughter filled the drawing room.
“What? Amne—?”
“……”
“The best you could come up with, with that stupid brain of yours, is amnesia, Edith? Hahaha!”
“……”
“Ah, sorry, sorry. It’s just too funny… Anyway, this is entertaining.”
As if it truly amused him, Vincent even wiped tears from his eyes while chuckling.
I looked at him without expression.
Honestly, I didn’t care whether he believed me or not. I was starting to get irritated.
My nose was itching like I was about to sneeze.
‘Should I open the window again? No. I’ll be leaving soon anyway.’
Maybe he noticed that my thoughts were elsewhere.
He slowly stopped laughing.
“Alright. Let’s stop joking….”
“……”
“Where is Llewellyn?”
The smile from earlier disappeared as if it had never existed. He glared at me with chilling eyes.
Caught off guard by the sudden question, I asked back,
“The purifier? Why are you looking for her here?”
“Stop this ridiculous act. It’s not funny.”
“I’m not acting.”
“So you expect me to believe that nonsense about amnesia? If that were true, you should’ve at least pretended to be surprised when I used my ability earlier, Edith.”
“……”
“Or is your brain not capable of thinking that far?”
His tone, as if he were skillfully crushing me under his heel, made anger rise inside me.
But I clenched my teeth and endured it.
If I got angry here, it would only amuse him.
“I told you I was surprised, Vincent. And I already heard from the butler that you’re an awakened who controls wind.”
“……”
“If I’ve lost my memory, it would be rude to directly ask a guest who he is.”
When I answered calmly, Vincent let out a scoff.
“Didn’t that butler tell you what kind of relationship we have?”
“Well, he did add that we’ve known each other for thirteen years…”
At that, his expression immediately turned arrogant.
As if to say, how dare you act like this toward someone you’ve known that long.
Or as if he were waiting to see how long I’d keep pretending not to know.
I scratched the bridge of my nose and muttered,
“Is that important?”
“…What?”
“From what I saw today, it doesn’t seem like we were that close.”
“What are you—?”
Denying their relationship was something the original Edith would never have said.
She had clung desperately to those thirteen years, obsessing over them.
Vincent, who knew that better than anyone, stared at me in disbelief and suddenly shouted,
“You’ve known me for thirteen years, Edith! Since we were seven! You chased after me like you’d die without me—what kind of nonsense is this now?!”
“Really? That’s surprising. You come to visit someone who nearly died just to insult her, so I wondered how terrible our relationship must’ve been.”
“……!”
At my blatant sarcasm, his mouth finally shut.
Maybe he was starting to believe that I’d truly lost my memory. Confusion flickered in his puppy-like eyes.
“Unfortunately, I really don’t know where Llewellyn is. Of course, I heard that I used to hate her. I understand why you’d suspect me.”
“……”
“But that will never happen again. So for the sake of old times, I hope you’ll let it go. You were my long-time friend, weren’t you? You can do that much, right, Vincent?”
I thought that was a fairly decent conclusion.
Honestly, I wanted to say, ‘Think whatever you want,’ and walk out. But from Vincent’s perspective, I was still just the wicked woman who kidnapped Llewellyn.
‘And I’m a little scared he might suddenly lose his temper and use his ability….’
But unlike me, Vincent didn’t seem satisfied.
“Ha! There’s a limit to shamelessness… You almost killed someone and now you’re telling me to forget it?”
He laughed sharply in disbelief, then glared at me as if he wanted to kill me.
“Edith Blake. Fine. I get that you just woke up and you’re not in your right mind.”
“……”
“But think before you speak. Don’t just spout nonsense. What are you going to do when your memory comes back? Are you planning to never see my face again?”
That was ridiculous.
Wasn’t that something I should be asking?
I stared at him in disbelief.
“You almost killed me too, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“You saved only Llewellyn and pretended not to see me. I nearly died. Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
Had he never considered that Edith might bring that up once she woke up?
‘How stupid does he think she is?’
His face turned pale instantly, as if I’d struck a forbidden nerve.
“Who… Who said that? Which bastard is spreading that nonsense—!”
“You said yourself earlier that you thought I must have been badly injured.”
“That’s—!”
“Thanks to that, I was in a coma for a week and lost all my memories. I even became an idiot. Thank you.”
I was simply informing him that things had turned out exactly as he’d expected. Yet he reacted as if he’d been suddenly attacked.
“That was just an accident! The gate situation wasn’t good…! Look, you’re alive in the end!”
“Fine, whatever. I don’t remember anyway, so let’s say it was just an accident, like you said.”
“It’s not ‘let’s say’—that’s the truth! Who told you that nonsense? Was it Ethan? Or Dylan Frederick?!”
“Why does that matter? I’m saying I won’t make an issue of it anymore and will forget it. So I hope you’ll do the same.”
“……”
“You’re smarter than me, so you can understand what I’m saying, right?”
When I returned his own words to him, he stared at me, stunned.
Whether he understood or not didn’t matter.
“I don’t think we have anything more to discuss. Take care.”
With that, I stood up.
I was just about to walk toward the door—
When suddenly my skirt was pulled tight from behind, and a pitiful voice reached my ears.
“…Edith.”
“……”
“I’m in pain.”
I turned my head, feeling something strange.
Was I hearing things?
The man who had just been desperate to belittle me was now looking up at me with a miserable expression.
His pale face and bloodshot eyes made him look genuinely sick.
Like a child afraid of being abandoned, Vincent clutched my skirt tightly.
“My head is spinning… I can barely breathe. I think too much demonic energy has built up.”
“……”
“If this keeps up, I might lose control again. Are you really going to leave me like this?”
At his words, I remembered the past of the second male lead.
Right after awakening, Vincent lost control and caused his mother’s death. He grew up unstable.
The Marquis of Leandro, unable to lose his only son, borrowed an ancient artifact from the imperial family to temporarily seal his power.
Though he later became an S-rank awakened, he was extremely afraid of demonic corruption.
That trauma later became a key reason he fell in love with Llewellyn.
‘Right. That was part of his character setting.’
In the novel, he was usually a reliable, friendly lover. But whenever he sensed even a slight risk of losing control, he would cling to Llewellyn like a child and beg for purification.
A man who stimulated the heroine’s maternal instincts.
‘I thought he only acted like that with the heroine.’
Now that I thought about it, he must have behaved like this whenever things didn’t go his way.
If it were the original Edith, who knew his past better than anyone, she would have pitied him and accepted everything.
After grasping the situation, I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again—
71%
The rampage gauge floating above his head made my mind go cold.
It was about time he received purification, but it wasn’t immediately dangerous.
Compared to Eston, this was a level he could endure.
I decided to show him cold reality.
“So?”
“…What?”
“So what?”
“E… Edith?”
Just as I expected, confusion flickered in his eyes.
He must not understand why the fool who would panic and worry the moment he said he was in pain was acting like this.
His trembling red lips quivered.
“Go find Llewellyn and get purified. Or go home and isolate yourself. Don’t cause trouble here.”
“Trouble…?”
All expression disappeared from Vincent’s face.
It seemed he had never heard such words from Edith—or from anyone.
Too bad. The stupid girl he knew wasn’t here anymore.
“Yes. Trouble.”
I smiled faintly.
“What? It wasn’t enough that you pretended not to see me at the gate—now you want to drag me into your rampage and kill me too?”
This time, his hand gripping my skirt began to tremble violently.
Even that looked disgusting to me.
“How annoying.”
Smack!
Without hesitation, I slapped his hand away.
As I was about to walk off, something caught in my hand.
I looked down. It was the jasmine flower stem he had given me earlier, half-crushed.
With a sigh, I tossed it at his feet.
“And I don’t like flowers.”
“……”
“I’m allergic to pollen. Or was that on purpose, and I just didn’t notice?”
See? Thirteen years meant nothing.
With the image of his once-brilliant golden eyes shattering in shock, I left the drawing room.
