Chapter 10

As she walked along the main road, where cars were constantly roaring past, Cecilia let out a sigh.

Arkan had been right. She had her medicine, and she had put a little money in her handbag, so at least she had avoided the worst.

The problem was where she would stay for the time being…

Arkan limped along the outer edge of the sidewalk and said,

“If things get really bad, I can find the money, so don’t worry too much. You’ll make your illness worse.”

He flashed his white front teeth in a grin, and Cecilia snorted.

This man… He can barely walk without his crutches, yet he’s overflowing with confidence.

“Are you stupid? How are you going to make money when you’re limping like that…?”

“It’s a husband’s job to provide for his wife, isn’t it? I’ll find a way.”

As he said that, he gave her a playful wink, trying to cheer her up.

Cecilia made a face as though she had bitten into a mouthful of stones, fiddled with her left ear, and then shook her head.

“No. I decided to become independent, so I should experience things like this too. I’ll try to find a short-term job until my luggage comes back.”

Then how much money do I have left right now?

She counted her money, folding down her fingers one by one, and soon slowed her steps in front of an old bookstore at the entrance of an alley.

It was a place she had always stopped by whenever she happened to come into the city alone to run an errand.

When Cecilia could hardly take her eyes off the bookstore, Arkan somehow saw right through her thoughts and suggested it first.

“We still have quite a while until lunch. Shall we go inside?”

Cecilia’s face immediately brightened.

“Can we?”

“Of course. Just because you’re on the run doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself.”

He slung her handbag over his shoulder and opened the bookstore door for her.

The moment they stepped inside with the tinkling of a bell, the smell of old paper welcomed them.

The bookstore was just as cramped and cluttered as Aida’s pharmacy.

The owner was fast asleep behind the counter, his ankles crossed and resting on the desk, with a magazine covering his face.

A black cat curled up by his feet slowly blinked at Cecilia.

While Arkan looked around the bookstore, Cecilia picked up a random book and pretended to read it.

Then, after clearing her throat, she quietly slipped farther inside.

In fact, the reason she had entered this bookstore was obvious.

There it is!

As expected!

A new volume had been released in the meantime.

For several years, Cecilia had been deeply addicted to a particular series of adult romance novels.

She frantically flipped through the pages, skimming the contents, when a horrified voice suddenly came from directly behind her.

“My goodness. I can’t believe the country openly allows such obscene books to be sold…”

Ah!

Cecilia screamed, and Arkan was startled as well. He hurriedly covered her mouth.

“Shh. We’re in a bookstore!”

Cecilia’s heart was pounding.

Arkan kept his index finger against his lips for a while. Once she seemed to have calmed down, he removed his hand from her face.

“W-when did you…?”

He bent down to examine the title of the book Cecilia was holding.

Then he scrunched up his face and whispered as though he had witnessed something truly horrifying.

“The Secret Rendezvous Between the Count and the Maid? No, even if commoners have risen in status, marriages between nobles and commoners are practically taboo. Do you really think it’s possible for a count and a maid to end up together in real life?”

“What? Are you doing this on purpose right now?!”

“Pardon?”

Cecilia suddenly snapped at him, making Arkan widen his eyes in surprise once again.

Oops.

Cecilia belatedly realized her mistake. She straightened her back and cleared her throat.

“I mean, it’s a novel. It’s a series I enjoy reading, so don’t insult it. I want to live long enough to see this series finished.”

“You certainly have strange tastes.”

Cecilia closed the book so he could not peek at the contents and said nothing.

After thinking about something in the silence for a while, Arkan eventually shrugged.

“Well, now that I think about it, it isn’t completely impossible. It’s only a rumor, but I heard that the late Countess of Winterhall was originally a maid in that household.”

Without saying a word, Cecilia put the book back on the shelf.

Arkan called out loudly,

“Are you not buying the book?”

“We need to save money until I find my luggage. And that’s not a rumor.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean Count Davion Sisledown Winterhall. He really did marry a maid.”

It had been a long time since Cecilia had said his name out loud.

The moment she did, it felt as though thorns had grown on the tip of her tongue.

Without realizing it, she shuddered and continued,

“The Duchess of Sisledown only made the truth sound like a rumor because she was worried her son’s reputation would be ruined. Everyone who was born and raised in this city knows that the Countess of Winterhall used to be a maid in that household.”

Perhaps she had sighed.

Cecilia’s shoulders trembled faintly.

Then, slipping out through the narrow bookshelves, she smiled at Arkan, who was standing there blankly, and added,

“If that weren’t true, why would the two of them have run all the way to the countryside to get married?”

It had already been a month since Cecilia disappeared…

No, since she had “come back to life.”

Davion’s days passed mechanically.

Unless he had some special appointment, he spent all his time searching for Cecilia.

Early every morning, he called the checkpoints and asked whether a woman matching Cecilia’s appearance had been found. If the answer was yes, he immediately headed there with Liam.

Even when the answer was no, there was not much difference.

After all, he drove around for at least three hours every day searching for Cecilia anyway.

But despite all those painstaking efforts, he had yet to find even a single strand of Cecilia’s hair.

It was as though his wife had simply vanished into thin air somewhere inside this city.

As his impatience grew, so did his smoking.

These days, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Davion was barely surviving by inhaling smoke instead of eating food.

That day was no different.

Davion stood in the basement of the mansion, waiting for Liam to come upstairs, a cigarette between his lips as always.

Just then, a cat with gray markings on its back walked along a nearby wall.

“Hey.”

Davion quietly called out to the cat so the constables guarding the basement would not hear him.

“Where is Cecilia?”

The cat stopped abruptly and turned its head, silently staring at Davion.

Perhaps because its fur had grown thick for winter, but Davion thought the cat looked unusually large and fierce.

“I mean Cecilia. A pretty woman with white hair and blue eyes.”

The cat blinked at him.

Davion’s thick eyebrows drew closer together, and he slowly rubbed out his cigarette against the wall.

…Could it understand me?

“She’s about this tall, she has dimples here when she smiles, and she especially sings very well…”

“My lord.”

Hmm.

Davion cleared his throat and turned around.

The moment Liam appeared, the cat darted away beneath the wall.

Liam’s appearance was a mess, as though he had just wrestled a bull.

He had rolled his sleeves all the way up.

“I can communicate with him, but he’s out of his mind because of withdrawal. He can’t even understand what we’re asking him.”

The man captured in Easthollow was, as expected, addicted to Lampy.

Lampy was notorious not only for its terrible addictive properties but also for its severe withdrawal symptoms.

Liam wiped the sweat from the back of his neck before suddenly saying, “Ah,” and smoothing down his disheveled hair.

Davion noticed a streak of blood on Liam’s shirt.

As he removed his wristwatch, Davion asked quietly,

“Did he hurt himself?”

“No, not that. But…”

Liam scrunched up his nose and whispered with a smile,

“He couldn’t hold his urine. The smell is absolutely terrible.”

“Not surprising. When I go in, don’t let anyone come near this area.”

“Yes.”

Liam answered as he took Davion’s watch.

Davion firmly rolled up both sleeves, as though preparing for some important ritual, and locked the basement door behind him the moment he entered.

Despite the overpowering stench of urine, he did not even twitch an eyebrow.

It was the kind of smell he had often encountered in the trenches on the battlefield.

In fact, he almost felt a strange sense of relief, as though he had returned home.

The attacker was tied to an iron chair, his arms and legs restrained.