The carriage ride back from the Scales Hall left four words etched in Blackthorn Evangeline's mind, and they remained there still. ——Compensation. Who. When. Where. No answers yet. Days had passed since that parting in the corridor with Adrian Vestyr. How to pursue the transport records of the Thorn Crown necklace next, how to identify the independent merchants operating outside the Scales Company——such details were progressing steadily. The mental map was gaining precision bit by bit. Yet somewhere, the sensation of sand mixed in refused to fade. Seated in the study of Blackthorn Manor, Evangeline closed her notebook. The candle flame swayed quietly. Winter dusk spread beyond the window, and the stone pavement of the noble district reflected the orange afterglow in thin layers. A knock sounded at the door. "Miss," an elderly servant's voice called. One of the twelve servants remaining in Blackthorn Manor, a man who had served this house for years. "A carriage from the convent has arrived at the gate." Evangeline placed her notebook in a drawer and stood. ＊ The winter air bit sharply at her cheeks as she stepped into the garden. To those who remembered its former glory, Blackthorn Manor's garden might have seemed lonely. The fountain had stopped, and the wood of the pavilion had darkened. As the number of servants dwindled, places beyond their reach decayed bit by bit——that was the current state of the Blackthorn house. Yet the black roses still stretched their branches, even in winter's grip. A small shadow descended from the carriage at the entrance. Pale silver short-bob hair floated white in the twilight's glow. Clear aquamarine eyes swept across the entire manor once——the weakened outer walls, the withering trees, the shrunken garden——taking it all in. And when those eyes found the black roses, they shone. "The roses are still here," Blackthorn Sylvie said. It was her first words. Not the manor's decline, not the garden's desolation, not three years of absence——but pure joy at the roses' survival. Sylvie ran toward the black roses, bringing her face close to the winter-shrunken branches. The dimples that appeared when she smiled were etched clearly into her profile. Evangeline stopped three paces away. Three years. It had been three years since Sylvie was sent to the convent. The memories of her past life remained. Sylvie in coarse linen clothes, standing among beggars in the lower city, after her title was stripped and she was demoted to commoner. After the treason verdict was handed down, Evangeline herself had stood on the execution platform, and Sylvie had been left alone on those stone streets. The body temperature of the girl touching the roses before her, and that lingering image, created a strange double exposure. Sylvie turned around. "Sister!" she cried. She ran toward her. With the lightness of sixteen years, without hesitation. She spread her arms and threw herself into Evangeline's chest. Evangeline caught the impact. Sylvie's body was lighter than expected, warmer than expected. The clean soap scent of the convent dissolved into the cold winter air. Evangeline wrapped her arms around her. She realized too late that she was holding too tightly. (——Stop.) She told herself. Not calculation, but something with deeper roots. As long as that phantom from the past life existed, this warmth terrified her. The fear of loss. The memory of what she couldn't protect mixed into the arms that now tried to protect. The response came late. "……So you've returned," Evangeline said. It took a beat just to say that much. Sylvie didn't seem to mind. She released the embrace and smiled brightly, her dimples deep. "Have you lost weight, Sister?" Sylvie asked. "I haven't changed," Evangeline replied. "That's a lie. Your cheeks are so——" Sylvie reached out without hesitation, cupping Evangeline's cheeks in both hands. ——She was startled. She couldn't remember the last time someone had touched her this way. Not in strategy rooms, not in court audiences, not in the Scales Hall's reception room——no one dared touch Blackthorn Evangeline's cheeks so unguarded. Sylvie wasn't thinking at all. She was simply worried, simply trying to confirm. That innocence left a strange sensation, like catching on the seams of armor. ＊ The dinner table had place settings for two for the first time in a long while. The meal the servants prepared was simple, but Sylvie ate with vigor and continued her stories from the convent. The strictness of the Mother Superior, the girl in her dormitory who fell asleep during morning prayers, getting covered in dirt while helping with farm work——words spilled out endlessly, and Evangeline nodded along while bringing wine to her lips. Three years of daily life accumulated on the table. "So," Sylvie said, setting down her fork, "a strange rumor was spreading at the convent." "A rumor," Evangeline said. "About you, Sister. That you're having secret meetings with Duke Vestyr and——" Evangeline set down her wine glass. Or rather, tried to, then stopped. "……The term 'secret meetings'——who spread that phrasing," Evangeline asked. Her tone hadn't changed. Or so she thought. Sylvie shrugged. "It's a convent rumor, so there's probably embellishment," she said, tilting her head slightly while smiling. "……Sister, your face is a bit red." "It's the wine," Evangeline said. "This wine isn't that strong, is it," Sylvie said. "Be quiet and eat," Evangeline said. Sylvie laughed softly and picked up her fork again. Evangeline let her gaze fall to the wood grain of the table. ——Secret meetings. That word caught. The time spent walking side by side in the Scales Hall corridor was too dry to be called a secret meeting. It should have been dry. Yet Adrian's word "compensation" and that single moment looking out the window in the corridor remained in her memory with undiminished clarity. How much did the contour of his voice in memory overlap with the voice of reality before her now. How much were they unrelated. Not knowing that——remaining unknowing——was the one thing most outside her calculations these past days. ＊ After dinner, as Sylvie began unpacking, a small box emerged. A small wooden box. The lid had a rose carved in openwork. "The Mother Superior entrusted it to me," Sylvie's voice grew quieter. "Mother left it at the convent the year before she passed away. She said to give it to me when I turned sixteen." Evangeline didn't move. Sylvie opened the lid. Inside were three things. A silver ring, dried flowers——small white flowers now faded to pale brown——and two letters. "One has my name written on it," Sylvie said in a thin voice. "The other has……no address." Evangeline looked at the letters. The wax seal on the unaddressed letter——she adjusted the angle of the candlelight to confirm. The impression pressed into it was a simple rose branch. Not in the style of a family crest, but like something an individual would use privately——a small, delicate stamp. That style made her memory stir. Weeks ago, at night——a letter arrived at her study desk. From an unknown sender. Fragmentary information suggesting the disappearance of the Thorn Crown necklace, recorded in that single letter. The wax seal bore the same design. A simple rose branch, a personal stamp rather than a family crest. The letter she had kept without identifying its source, and the letter sealing her mother's legacy now in hand——were sealed by the same hand. (——The same, then.) No certainty. But her eyes couldn't look away. Sylvie had already opened her own letter and begun reading. As her eyes traced the characters, light began to shimmer in those aquamarine eyes. Her lips pressed together, trying to hold back, unable to. Her fingertips trembled. Evangeline took the unaddressed letter. "May I confirm the contents," she asked, but Sylvie was already lost in her letter's words, only nodding slightly. She broke the wax seal. She unfolded the paper inside. The handwriting was fine, meticulous. She recognized it immediately as her mother's. In the memories of her childhood, when her mother taught her to read and write, she had always written like this. The content was brief. Fragmentary. As if deliberately omitting information, anticipating that someone might read it. ——The year Evangeline was born. That her mother had given birth not in the capital, but in Lowen Street, in a frontier settlement positioned outside Thorn Field——the Blackthorn family's domain. Far from both the capital and Thorn Field, in a small land wedged between waystation and waystation. No reason was given for choosing that place. And a single fragmentary line suggesting that the father's name recorded on the birth certificate might differ from the father Evangeline knew. Below that, only one sentence remained. "Blood that survived after the Soot Smoke Rebellion." ——The moment she touched those words, something froze deep in her body. The Soot Smoke Rebellion——it had erupted more than thirty years ago, a violent clash over imperial succession. A coalition of nobles supporting the First Prince had raised arms toward the capital, resulting in fierce battles near the royal city, but was suppressed by the Second Prince faction. The rebellion's name came from the soot that rose when the southern district of the capital burned in the war's flames. The First Prince and his direct line were executed or disappeared, and the remnants went underground, forming the Ash Wing Society——a secret organization of survivors from the First Prince faction defeated in the Soot Smoke Rebellion. Officially said to be destroyed, rumors persisted that the organization's shadow still took root in the dark underbelly of imperial power. Precisely, nothing froze. Rather, several points that had been placed on a map suddenly began to form a shape around this single sentence. The distance between the Ash Wing Society and this phrase rapidly contracted. Blood that survived the Soot Smoke Rebellion. If that blood flowed through Evangeline herself. If the man she believed to be her father was not her father. A completely different question took root in the mind that had been filled with maps of revenge and power. "What am I"——that question which even her past life's memories had no answer for. Sylvie was crying. Silently, quietly crying. ＊ Deep in the night. After confirming Sylvie had fallen asleep while crying, Evangeline returned to the study. She spread the letter on the desk. Trying to cross-reference it with her past life's memories. But her thoughts wouldn't cohere——the map wouldn't function. Multiple points were trying to connect, but the uncertain coordinate of "herself" had entered the center, distorting the entire precision. The Ash Wing Society. Remnants of the Soot Smoke Rebellion. Imperial succession. The disappearance of the Thorn Crown necklace. Guilty verdict in imperial court. That execution in the past life. All of it had been a map viewed from the coordinate of Blackthorn Evangeline, the current head of the Blackthorn house. But what if that coordinate itself had been in a different place from the beginning? (I don't know.) A rare sensation. There is always much she doesn't know. But the question "what am I" was, including her past life, something she faced for the first time tonight. She went to the corridor because she couldn't breathe. The winter stone corridor was cold. The silver bracelet on her left wrist——the Blackthorn family's crest instrument——touched her skin with a chill. Through the window facing the garden, the black rose's branches floated in moonlight. A figure came from the corridor's depths. Sylvie in her nightclothes. Her silver hair was sleep-tousled, falling softly over her white nightgown. Her aquamarine eyes glowed faintly in the corridor's darkness. Whether she couldn't sleep or had woken from sleep was unclear. "……Sister," Sylvie said softly.