Chapter Twenty-Nine
A Lot Of Fuss For A Handkerchief
“Bellaaaaaaa,” I whined, holding my arms out the moment she walked into my room. “Help me!”
Panic flashed across her face. “What is it, my lady? What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Are you ill?”
“It’s worse.”
She froze. “I’ll get the Grand Duke!”
“You can’t! No, wait!” I scrambled up from where I was sitting on the bed, grabbing my embroidery hoop. “Shut the door!”
Bella shoved it shut behind her. “Did you prick your finger, my lady? If so, this is a lot of fuss—”
“I ruined it!” I waved the hoop through the air. “It’s all knotted at the end, but we’re leaving in an hour! I can’t give him a ruined handkerchief!”
She looked at the hoop, then back up at me. “I’m sure His Highness would be thrilled with whatever you give him.”
“Nooooo!” I dropped onto the bed, screaming into my pillow. “All this work! All this time! I can’t!”
The door burst open, and the distinct shing of a sword being unsheathed cut through the air as Rina appeared, holding the blade in front of her. “I heard a scream. Lady Alicia, are you all right? What’s going on?”
Bella gasped. “Dame Rina! Please put that away!”
“Rinaaaaaa!” I wailed, dragging myself across the bed. “Bella’s being mean to me.”
Rina looked between us both. “Well, I don’t think I need this for that.” She sheathed her sword and closed the door once more. “What’s wrong, my lady?”
“I messed it up.” I held out the hoop again, and my eyes stung as my frustration got the better of me. “I don’t have time to get ready and fix it. I can’t give this to the Grand Duke!”
“My lady, don’t cry!” Bella shuffled from one foot to the other, holding her hands up in a panic. “Your eyes will be all puffy!”
“Help meeee,” I sniffled, burying my face in my bedcovers.
“Goodness me. This job comes with more drama than I was led to believe. Let me have a look,” Rina said, walking over.
I turned my face as she swiped the hoop out of my grip, and Bella rushed to my bathroom. Presumably for some cold towels, lest I commit the grave sin of having puffy eyes in public.
“How did you manage this, my lady?” Rina asked, peering down at me. “It’s as if you got completely distracted and stopped paying any attention at all to what you were doing.”
“I, er…” I sat up, scratching my cheek. “That’s a painfully accurate conclusion you’ve arrived at, Rina.”
“What distracted you this much?”
Oh, nothing much. Just the memory of Kalon kissing me over and over again on the terrace last night.
I blushed, immediately turning away from her. “That’s not important. Can it be fixed?”
“This isn’t like you. You’re acting very suspicious.”
“I—I’m due on my period.”
“No, you’re not. That’s not for another week,” Bella said, carrying in a small bowl of water and face towels.
Way to rat me out, Bella.
“It doesn’t matter why I couldn’t focus—”
“Please lie down, my lady.” Bella pushed me onto my back and unceremoniously pressed an ice-cold towel to my eyes. “Five minutes.”
“—But I’ve spent days on this. I’ve barely slept.”
“That’s because you forgot about it until His Highness mentioned it.”
I’m going to fire her.
I wasn’t, but the thought made me feel momentarily better.
Rina sighed—at least I think it was Rina, given that she was next to speak. “I can probably undo much of the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, but the final thing depends greatly on what it looks like under this bumbling knot.”
I raised the towel and peeked out at her. “Really?”
She smiled. “Really. I’ll do my best.”
“Leave the towel alone, my lady!” Bella tapped my fingers, making me drop the wet towel.
“Sorry, sorry.” I linked my hands over my stomach. “Can you get Rina the embroidery kit?”
“Of course. Here you are, Dame Rina. Right, my lady—”
“Hold on, where’s Annie? It’s awfully quiet in here.”
“Is this what you consider quiet?” Rina muttered.
That was rude.
Bella patted my cheeks with another cold towel. “I was just about to explain that. Annie was taken ill with a fever during the night. The Head Maid had a doctor sent over, and when I checked on her before coming over here, her fever had gone down. He’s advised she rest for at least today.”
“Hmm.” I kicked my feet. “Didn’t that happen a couple of days after we arrived in Stein, too?”
“Some people are extra sensitive to mana, and overexposure results in a cold-like illness that can appear anywhere from twelve hours to days later,” Rina said from somewhere over by the window.
“It could be that travelling through the magic circles is too much for Annie, especially if she’s not had much to do with magic until now. ”
“That’s a problem, since we’re here and not in Stein. Is there not a remedy for it anywhere? It’ll be two weeks of travelling on the road otherwise.”
“The mages will likely have a temporary solution to reduce her exposure to the mana for the journey back, but they’ll probably advise that she doesn’t travel by them again unless it’s an emergency.”
“It is quite unpleasant,” Bella said, peeking at my eyes. “There. Luckily you calmed down before your eyes swelled too much, my lady.”
“It’s a true miracle granted by Khimos himself,” I quipped.
“Yes, now quickly, get into the bath. There’s no time to wash your hair, but we only did that last night. Dip in and dip out.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I got up from the bed and allowed her to hustle me into the bathroom.
She was running this like a military operation.
Mind you, I was the one who’d told her to let me sleep a little longer this morning, so this rush was all my fault.
Finishing the handkerchief for Kalon wasn’t the only reason I hadn’t slept well last night—but he was.
Him and that damn kiss.
I must have replayed the entire evening on a mental loop ever since I’d bundled into bed. I’d expected Kalon to be as he was in the book—cold, standoffish, completely uninterested in me.
This touchy-feeling, needy, clingy, obsessive version of him was completely new. I’d had to physically send him away at the ball last night because we couldn’t be in two places at once and there were people who wanted to talk to him while I was with my friends.
I’d not sent him far, mind you. I’d kept him close enough that I could rush over and swoop in if Lillia had tried to talk to him again… Which is exactly what he’d done when Crown Prince Torin had made his way close to me.
Clearly, Kalon had been right when he’d told me that the Empress hadn’t given up on her desire for me to become the Crown Princess.
Which was yet another fluctuation from the book’s storyline. In the world I knew, the Empress had seriously considered Alicia, but had ultimately given up after her marriage to Kalon and quickly set her eyes on the young, easily manipulated Lillia as the perfect partner for her son.
Whatever was happening in this world, it was not in line with my expectations. Absolutely everything was changing—and the only conclusion I could draw was that it was down to my arrival in this world.
However it’d happened, my soul appearing here had thrown everything else off its axis. It’d warped the timeline and tossed emotions into disarray, and I had no idea what was going to happen next.
Even if Lillia had appeared earlier than I’d expected her to, I’d still thought Kalon would fall in love with her.
But he hadn’t.
Not even close.
He’d called her a ‘doe-eyed sycophant,’ for goodness’ sake. Those were not the words of a man in love. Those were the words of a man who’d seen right through a relatively solid attempt to garner his attention.
Yes.
On the day I’d expected Kalon to fall in love with Lillia, he’d kissed me, and he’d done so in a way that had practically seared himself into my soul.
One thing was now for sure: I really could no longer trust the story I knew.
This was not the world I thought it was.
And that was all on me.
The butterfly effect was very real.
The question now was what I was supposed to do with it.
It wasn’t as though this was some monumental shock—I’d already been questioning my existence here and how it’d changed things, and I’d been doing so practically since I opened my eyes back in my room at Vermillion House.
I’d also theorised that perhaps the major events would happen but the circumstances around them would be vastly different, and Lillia’s unexpected appearance five months early backed that theory up.
I knew one thing. I wanted to return to Stein so I could comb through my notebook and try to figure out all these variables.
I was still scared of the potential of my impending death, but was that even guaranteed anymore?
Unless Kalon suddenly had an epiphany overnight, miraculously fell for Lillia, and decided I was no longer his ‘exception,’ as he’d put it, there really was little reason for Alicia Vermillion to cross paths with Lillia de Armand.
From my side, Kalon’s actions all pointed to the fact that he had feelings for me. If that was the case, then there was no room for either of them to pursue a relationship with one another, meaning I had no reason to hate her.
I certainly didn’t want to be friends with her, either.
She could go on to marry Torin and become Crown Princess if she so pleased. If I had no reason to hate her, I had no reason to attempt to kill her, and that meant I had no reason to ever stand trial for attempted murder.
Meaning I could… live.
With Kalon. In Stein.
If it was the case that both Kalon and I were growing real feelings for one another, my plan was simple. We would go back to Stein, get married, and live in a happy little obsessive bubble where we fight monsters, pursue policies to help the people of Stein, and generally mind our own business.
I just… felt weird.
Something about Lillia had made me immensely uncomfortable. I hadn’t necessarily realised it last night because of the shock of her early appearance, but the more I thought about it, something had just seemed a little bit off.
No wonder Kalon had called her what he had. She’d certainly appeared doe-eyed, but the bitterness in her smile when it turned towards me had given away her sweet, kind act.
I was generally quite good at reading people. In my past life, I hadn’t had any other choice. As a lawyer, it was important that I was able to read people’s intentions, and I was pretty spot on when it came to deciphering whether someone liked me or not.
I didn’t think I was being paranoid when I said Lillia didn’t like me.
In fact, I’d even go so far as to say she hated me.
Granted, I hadn’t made the best first impression on her, but still. It’d seemed like a rather intense dislike—far too much for a first meeting.
I had no doubt I would see her again today. In the book, Lillia gave Kalon a ribbon at her first hunt, so there was a chance that she would seek him out at some point.
Would he accept it, though?
This wasn’t the book’s storyline. Kalon and I kissed for the first time yesterday, and it hadn’t exactly been just one quick peck, either.
He hadn’t hidden his feelings at all when we’d been on the terrace, and if we’d been anywhere else at that time, I was confident that we might not have stopped at a kiss.
He’d even liked it when my inner possessiveness crept out. Perhaps a bit too much, in hindsight, but he’d still liked it. That certainly wasn’t a marker of a man who disliked me.
Surely, he wouldn’t reject my handkerchief today.
I knew one thing, though.
If he took that blasted ribbon from her, I was going to strangle him -and her with it.