It was a risky errand, he knew that much.

  But when the other party was offering terms at knifepoint as well as riches he couldn’t possibly refuse, the butler of the Livroche household was quick on the uptake. His circumstances were desperate too—the old Duke had been captured by the royal guards on grounds of treason, and it was just a matter of time before Lady Estel also succumbed to the same fate. He wasn’t even certain that the servants of the household would be spared; but even if they were, his fate would be sealed the instant the guards discover his embezzlement over the years.

  “My dy, where are you heading out to at this te hour?”

  Straightening her hood and cloak, Estel put a finger to her lips and quietly opened the front door.

  “I won’t be out for long, Gerald…just need to go on a walk, that’s all.”

  He held out his oil mp towards her. “At least take this with you, my dy. I wouldn’t advise travelling into the woods without the illumination of a mp.”

  “No need to fret, I have the nightshades to guide my way. Keep this a secret from Adrianne for me, please?”

  Nodding his head, Gerald waited until she was well past the perimeter of the manor grounds before hastily making his way to the kitchen.

  “I can’t believe it, the Lady really is going outside tonight just as she said,” he muttered under his breath as he rummaged through the pantry. “Darn it, I swear I stowed it inside this cabinet…where did that vial go? Maybe it got pushed all the way to the back…ah, found it!”

  He grabbed his oil mp and walked up the stairs to the second floor where the bedchambers were. The dy-in-waiting would always prepare a pot of sleep tea for the Lady inside her bedchamber before retiring into her own quarters; he had personally witnessed Estel drinking from the pot when she was too emotional to fall asleep, and after the Captain’s visit in the morning, she would surely drink the tea before going to bed.

  “Forgive me for my intrusion, my dy,” he murmured out of habit, taking out the master key from his pocket.

  The door to Estel’s bedchamber creaked open as the lock yielded, revealing a darkened room lit only by the silvery moonlight filtering in through the windows and spilling onto the empty four-poster bed. He set the mp on the dressing table and crossed the room to the nightstand where her tea set was meticulously arranged.

  His veiny hands trembled slightly as he retrieved the vial and uncorked it, the smooth gss cold against his skin.

  “You are going to die anyway after being targeted by the Crown Prince, so why not make your death beneficial at the very least?”

  Taking a deep breath, he removed the lid of the teapot and poured the poison inside, tipping it to tap the st of the clear liquid out. A swift act, yet he had to take a moment to steady his shaking hands before carefully repcing the lid back into pce.

  The butler stepped back, surveying the scene to ensure that everything was as it should be, before hurriedly retracing his steps towards the door and picking up his mp. A cold sweat clung to his brow as he struggled to turn the key in the lock.

  “Gerald?”

  Estel’s voice from down the foyer jolted him like a bolt of lightning.

  “Gerald? Are you there? Where did you go?”

  A sharp panic surged through his body. Without a second thought, he stashed the empty vial in the breast pocket of his bck vest and walked to the staircase nding.

  “M…my dy, you’re back,” he said, managing to eke out a proper greeting despite the visceral fear that gripped him. “How was your walk?”

  “Good. It was uneventful,” she replied, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. “What are you doing on the second floor?”

  “Just doing my usual rounds, my dy.” He slowly descended the marble steps. “Would you like me to prepare a bath for you before you retire for the night?”

  Estel didn’t immediately answer; instead she averted her gaze to a curious L-shaped apparatus in her hand, which seemed to give off a faint whitish light on its own.

  “What is that?” Gerald asked, genuinely intrigued. “Did you find it in the woods?”

  “Oh, you mean this?” The Lady kept her gaze on the apparatus, though there was now a certain look in her narrowed grey eyes. A look of mencholy perhaps, he wondered—

  “No, you’re wrong.”

  “…beg your pardon, my dy?”

  “You’re wrong, Gerald.” Estel flipped the apparatus shut with a loud snap. “It’s not a look of mencholy, if that is what you’re thinking in your mind. It’s a look of resignation.”

  “…”

  The butler’s lips moved, yet nothing came out of his mouth.

  “Everything that you have done while I was away has been recorded here,” she revealed, holding the flip phone up to the candlelight. “In your perspective too, might I add.”

  He forced a polite smile. “I don’t quite understand what you’re trying…”

  “…to say, my dy,” she interrupted, flipping the phone open such that the screen faced his frightened eyes as she stepped towards him. “The butler, who feared that Estel could see the turmoil roiling beneath his composed exterior, suddenly found himself stuck at an impasse. Should he continue to put on an act of innocence, and risk incurring the Lady’s suspicion, or should he just give up and end it all there and then?”

  Gerald took a hesitant step back towards the stairs.

  “Why is this happening to me? How did my pn go awry so fast?” Estel continued, gradually closing the distance between them. “He couldn’t make sense of his current predicament in the slightest. But there was one thing he was certain about—if the Lady already suspected him from the beginning, then he had no choice but to…”

  “But to kill you—!”

  Gritting his teeth, the butler swiftly let go of the mp and shot his hand into his vest, pulling out the dagger that he had prepared as a backup. The gss enclosure shattered upon crashing to the floor, extinguishing the fme within and plunging the foyer into a sudden darkness.

  She quickly retreated, her eyes widening but her composure unbroken.

  “I see, your backup pn has changed to a dagger,” she murmured. “The Witch’s prediction turns out to be true again. Some details have been altered, but your gambling addiction backstory and your desire to kill me haven’t changed, Gerald.”

  “You shouldn’t have known,” he whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and determination. “You weren’t supposed to find out.”

  “This is madness, Gerald,” she said, slowly stepping back towards the wall. “Put that dagger down before you do something foolish.”

  The moment stretched, heavy with unspoken words. He seemingly hesitated for a moment, biting his lip to keep his emotions in check, before tightening his grip on the dagger’s hilt.

  “My apologies, but the dice is already cast.”

  The butler immediately lunged at her, the sharp end of his bde aimed at her chest.

  Her instincts took over. She sidestepped his attack and reached her hand towards the brass wall candlestick, the rush of fear and adrenaline coursing through her veins heightening her senses.

  “Stop this!” Estel cried. “Think about what you’re doing, please!”

  Gerald turned, his wild eyes mirroring the same fear and despair in her own. He lunged again with the dagger held high, the jagged bde catching the glint of moonlight.

  “NO!”

  Without hesitation, she swung the candlestick with all her strength. However, her aim faltered in the heat of the moment—the candlestick swished through the air, the momentum of her swing causing her to momentarily lose her bance and trip over her own feet.

  But because of that, the bde missed her head, instead plunging into a portrait hung up on the wall. The sound of tearing canvas reverberated in her eardrums as she stared at the vicious, gaping ssh right through Mother’s serene face.

  Gerald cursed, trying to free his dagger from the frame of the painting as he yanked at the hilt. “Shit, why is it stuck?!”

  Estel stood clutching her candlestick, her knuckles white with tension. Her heart pounded in her chest—a wild, erratic rhythm that seemed to drown out all other sounds. Panic cwed at the edges of her mind, threatening to overwhelm her, but she fought to keep it at bay.

  This was her chance—her only chance—to end this.

  But Gerald…Gerald had been by her side since her birth. Loyal to Father for even longer. How could he have a heart as evil as what the Witch described?

  The butler’s movements grew more frantic, his eyes flickered with sheer desperation as he banged his free fist against the ripped canvas.

  “Gerald…”

  Estel let out an anguished sob.

  “Please, I don’t want to do this…please, I beg you, stop…”

  The butler paused.

  “My dy…”

  Gerald turned to her with reddened eyes.

  “I’m afraid I cannot…do that,” he choked. “The voice…her voice…I can’t get it out of my mind…”

  “H-her?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut in pain, as if a thousand needles were poking into his eyeballs.

  “Yes, her…” Gerald groaned. “The voice of the Duke’s daughter…Lady Estel…”

  “W…what are you talking about—?!”

  Screaming out a ragged cry, the butler freed his dagger with tremendous force and charged towards her, his already-red eyes now completely bloodshot. Estel barely had time to raise the candlestick in self-defence before his bde cshed against the brass stem, causing red-hot sparks to fly.

  “Ugh!” The sheer impact sent a violent shockwave ripping through her arms, knocking most of the air out of her lungs. The candlestick, despite being made of solid metal, suddenly snapped into two halves under the dagger’s pressure.

  Before she could even react, the butler grabbed her shoulders and smmed her against the wall with so much force that she was instantly immobilised.

  “Please…forgive me…” he croaked, lifting his dagger over her neck. “It will be over once you close your eyes—”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  Estel inhaled a sharp gasp of air as her arms were abruptly freed from the butler’s vice-like grip, the broken candlestick cttering on the floor next to his unmoving body.

  “Jesus, did you forget about everything that I told you just now?” the Witch fumed, turning to her with an exasperated expression. “I didn’t write you to be such a spineless viliness, Estel!”