When the carriage passed through the rear gate of the palace, the phantom of Lilia's small hand still lingered in Elena's chest. At the farewell, Lilia had clutched six notebooks and waved her small hand from the stone pavement. Elena couldn't avert her gaze until that hand disappeared from the carriage window. (I've entrusted it to you, then.) Those two words had been circling in her chest since last night. Whether in her past life or this one, Elena had rarely entrusted anything to anyone. Work was faster if she did it herself. If someone made a mistake, there was no taking it back. That way of thinking had seeped into her very bones. But last night, she had left behind the pudding recipe. In the ledger's countermeasures column, there were only three lines today. "Royal kitchen · Supervisor: Karl Hermann · Count Dort present · full effort · end of story" End of story. That was all. The carriage came to a stop. Morning light streaming through the palace's service entrance cast