Chapter 29
The swept-back hair kept falling forward. How did people maintain such hair? It was enough to inspire respect for women. Just as thoughts turned to how long hair was typically managed and whether it should be tied back, a servant’s voice was heard from outside. Before they could finish announcing Lady Connolly’s arrival, the door opened. She began speaking in an irritated tone.
“Cat! Why did you change rooms? I went to the previous reception room and no one was there…”
But her words trailed off.
At first, she didn’t recognize who stood before her. Despite the familiar red hair and rare red eyes, she couldn’t connect them to the Woodpecker Duke she knew. No, she did think of the Woodpecker Duke—not the current youth, but the previous Duke.
He reminded her of the younger version of that Duke who had blonde hair and red eyes, older than the current one. The boy who had once been slightly above her eye level now looked down at her, having grown remarkably tall.
“Welcome, Aunt.”
“Cat?”
“Yes.”
Lady Connolly’s gaze wavered. At first glance, she had thought she was seeing the previous Duke, but this wasn’t his face. Nor was it the Duchess’s face.
“Won’t you be uncomfortable standing like that? Please, sit.”
Yuls gestured to the seat across from him. Lady Connolly glanced at the table set with teacups, pot, and refreshments, then looked back at Yuls. She smiled as she looked at Yuls Woodpecker, whose face was identical to that eerily ever-smiling woman’s. Though her lips trembled visibly, neither she nor Yuls mentioned it.
The lady sat. The maids who had followed her stood quietly behind. Though no words were exchanged, the awkward atmosphere suggested rumors would spread quickly.
“How…”
“Ah.”
Yuls replied casually.
“An assassin came. They had poison.”
Speaking thus, Yuls lifted his teacup and raised the corner of his mouth toward Lady Connolly.
“I was stabbed with that poison. Perhaps it contained something that could neutralize the curse?”
Would Lady Connolly have done such a thing? It couldn’t be guaranteed. Though they were in the same boat for now, betrayal was always possible. The lady’s hand trembled as she lifted her teacup. There were too many variables to judge from her current behavior. Yuls continued.
“They say poison cures poison, don’t they? Personally, I think curses might work similarly since they’re like poison. Though you probably find that strange too, Aunt?”
“An… assassin came, you say?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“A few days ago.”
“And who sent the assassin…?”
“We don’t know their identity. Their tongue was cut out.”
But they would soon find out. Bert was highly capable, and his sources brought in quite good information. Since assassination guilds that cut out their assassins’ tongues were rare, Yuls thought it wouldn’t take long.
“By the way, why did you want to have dinner together today? I had cancelled due to scheduling conflicts, yet you still insisted on meeting. It seems you have something important to discuss.”
“It was important, but compared to your curse being lifted…”
As she spoke, Lady Connolly set down her teacup. The rattling sound repeated due to her trembling hands. What was she so afraid of? Yuls smirked at her completely different reaction compared to when dealing with his younger form and said, “It’s not completely lifted.”
“Look at this face. I don’t look twenty-six, do I?”
At Yuls’s words, the lady looked at his face before averting her gaze. The Duke’s beautiful face reminded her of that beautiful woman. And of what she had done.
“The curse isn’t over yet. However, it seems it can be broken.”
She gave no response. Seeing her face that clearly wanted to escape this situation, Yuls deliberately continued speaking.
“Isn’t it better? At least in this form, I’ll be more trustworthy than a child’s appearance. They won’t reject me simply for being young.”
Yuls said self-deprecatingly.
“Young—when I’m twenty-six.”
Though trapped in a thirteen-year-old body, he had always grown according to his actual age. At least mentally.
“So, what was your purpose in visiting?”
“…Another time.”
The lady said. With a face that could no longer endure, she stood up and looked down at Yuls. Just days ago, the child before her hadn’t been like this. He hadn’t been a man with such eyes. With red eyes exactly like the witch’s, Lady Connolly abruptly turned and said.
“Let’s set up another appointment through the servants later.”
“Very well, Aunt.”
At Yuls’s words, she glanced at him once before turning away again.
“Not ‘Aunt.'”
She said in a suppressed voice.
“Call me Lady Connolly, Your Grace.”
When he was young—no, when he appeared young—she had insisted he use the term “Aunt,” but now she didn’t want to hear it? Yuls found this situation amusing. While Lady Connolly wouldn’t look his way, her maids were desperate not to stare at him.
Yuls smiled at them.
Lady Connolly left the reception room. The servants opened the doors as if welcoming her departure. The restlessness was evident in the retreating figures of the maids. Gossip about superiors spread easily among servants.
“Bert, want to bet?”
“On how long it will take for rumors to spread?”
“Oh, we’re thinking the same thing. Then I suppose we can’t make a bet?”
“…”
“Well, that’s not what’s important anyway.”
Yuls said. Whatever Lady Connolly’s reaction, it wasn’t important. Yuls still didn’t understand why his curse had been partially lifted.
“You remember my mother’s curse clearly, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“A kiss from one who loves.”
It seemed absurd. That a curse could be broken by such a thing. While it was quite fairy-tale-like and the kind of thing some people would enjoy, to Yuls it was an utterly horrible curse.
He would have rather been told to slay a dragon—he could have managed that somehow. But a kiss from one who loves? It must be among the most terrible of witch’s curses. Love? Did such a thing even exist in this world?
“Adi kissed my hand.”
It did exist. At least, Adi Grimaldi loved their twin.
“…Pardon?”
“While calling out to their sister.”
Yuls had witnessed the noble emotion called love. Something he had thought completely nonexistent. Though it wasn’t love between man and woman. It was love between siblings.
“Saying they would protect her, begging her not to leave until they could help her escape that place, kissing my hand again and again.”
The tears that had rolled down were still vivid in his mind. How much must they have cried for their dead sister? Yuls had never cried like that. Not when his father died, not when his siblings died.
“I don’t understand what ‘a kiss from one who loves’ means.”
And not when the witch died.
“Is it someone who loves me, or someone who loves another?”
“…She would have meant the former.”
“But in Adrian’s case, it was the latter.”
It couldn’t be resolved by a kiss from someone who loved another. The witch wouldn’t have cast such a loose curse.
“I too think the condition for breaking the curse is a kiss between myself and someone who loves me. But Adrian doesn’t love me.”
“…That’s true.”
“Then how do you explain this growth?”
That was the contradiction. Neither Adrian nor Julius loved each other. Rather, they distrusted and were wary of each other. Those two? No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense. Bert spoke, “…Perhaps.”
“If fate is predetermined—”
“According to that fate, Adrian Grimaldi and I are destined to fall in love, but we met and kissed before falling in love, thus offsetting the curse?”
“…”
Bert fell silent, and Yuls laughed.
A loophole had appeared in this damned curse. Just as causality doesn’t always flow as desired, just as meetings have no predetermined order, no one knew how her curse would unfold. Not even the witch who cast it.
“Then does that mean I must fall in love with Adrian?”
Yuls said. It wasn’t a question seeking an answer.
“Perhaps my mad mother’s curse wasn’t about preventing growth, but about destining me to fall in love with a man.”
“Twins…”
Bert began. Surely the witch wouldn’t have cast such a curse on the Duke.
“They share a fate, don’t they?”
Adrian Grimaldi was born a twin.
“Perhaps Your Grace’s destined one…”
Since their souls were once one before being divided, perhaps…
“Was the deceased Adrina Grimaldi?”
That was horrible in its own way. A dead woman? Though she would have been pretty if she had the same face as Adrian, by now her skin would be beyond blue, more like leaf mold. Perhaps she had returned to earth, leaving only bones.
“I don’t know.”
Yuls said.
“But how could I receive a kiss from a woman who has already died?”
If Adrina Grimaldi was meant to be Yuls’s love, this curse would never be broken.
“If Adi Grimaldi shares their twin sister’s fate…”
But part of the curse had broken.
“That means I need him, in the end.”
Lilina
Completely unrelated to the novel but thank you translator for uploading daily updates.. you guys are unironically helping me fix my sleep sched
I’ve been getting up at 7 am the past few days ever to wait for chaps…