Three candles flickered quietly on the desk. In the study of Blackthorn Manor—a narrow, dark room enclosed by stone walls built one hundred eighty years ago—three documents lay in a row. A letter from her mother. An envelope from an unknown sender. And a letter from Adrian Vestyr. Blackthorn Evangeline sank deep into her chair and picked up her mother's letter. (Blood that survived the Smoke Chaos) No matter how many times she reread that single phrase, she couldn't measure its meaning with precision. The possibility that her birthplace coordinates differed from where she'd always believed. The distance to the Ashwing Society—a secret organization lurking at the heart of the empire, supposedly formed by remnants of the First Prince's faction after their defeat in the succession war eighty-seven years ago. All of it seemed connected by a single thin thread, yet not connected at all. She rearranged the three documents toward the word "intersection" that Adrian's letter indicated at its end. Not to connect the intersections, but to verify whether they existed at all. That was all Evangeline could do now. The night was deep. The noble district of the imperial capital, Orthensia, grew nearly devoid of human presence after midnight. Save for the faint sound of the Zelnica River flowing in the distance, the manor lay in complete silence. That's when she noticed. The guard dog's breathing had stopped. Evangeline's hand froze above the letter. (The silence before infiltration by a trained hand) Her memories from the previous life rendered immediate judgment. A guard dog falling silent without barking meant not fear, but poison or suppression—either way, the work of human hands. She drew a dagger from the drawer. A small one for self-defense, its blade less than twenty centimeters. The silver bracelet on her left wrist—the Blackthorn family's sigil device—caught the candlelight faintly. She extinguished one candle and stepped into the corridor. Sylvie's bedroom lay three turns down the hallway from the study. All twelve servants slept in the separate wing. No one should be in the main hall at this hour. Yet two shadows were there. Evangeline stopped. She reflexively tightened her grip on the dagger's hilt. Black clothing. Cloth covering their faces. From their build, she judged them both male. And—a faint glimmer on their garment fastenings. Decorative buttons. Metal work. She knew that design. The ashwing pattern carved into the murals of the Glass Palace's corridors. The mark of the Ashwing Society. (This development didn't exist in my previous life) This infiltration had no place in her memories. Which meant this timeline had already diverged. Her own actions had set them in motion—that fact was carved into her awareness before fear could take hold. Evangeline's hand moved to the bracelet on her left wrist. She concentrated her consciousness there. The sigil art "Thornbind"—said to be a power dwelling in Blackthorn bloodline that restrains a target's movement—stood ready for activation. She'd used it several times in her previous life, but its manifestation remained unstable in this one. One of the intruders moved. Evangeline released the Thornbind. It was different. The power didn't travel toward the target's body. It ran across the stone floor. Black thorns spread in a net along the joints of the corridor's paving stones. Like vines. Like roots. Threading through gaps—they coiled around the intruders' feet and pinned them down. The manifestation was fundamentally different from her previous life. In that life, Thornbind had directly restrained the target's limbs. Now the floor moved. The earth moved. As if the thorn roots lived beneath the stone itself. The intruders stopped moving. Their feet wouldn't budge. That lasted several seconds—then exhaustion came. A heaviness as if lead had been poured through her entire body. Thornbind's cost was massive stamina depletion; excessive use brought unconsciousness. Evangeline pressed her left hand against the corridor wall. Her knees trembled faintly. "Sister?" The bedroom door opened. Sylvie's voice. Her pale silver short bob floated in the darkness. Her clear aquamarine eyes took in the corridor's situation and went rigid in an instant. "Get back." The words came out. Barely. One of the intruders was trying to break free from the restraint. The floor's thorns creaked. No time. Evangeline turned her consciousness toward a second Thornbind—in that instant, white haze streaked across the edge of her vision. (A precursor to unconsciousness) A warning of overuse. One more cast and her consciousness would vanish. She might not win. That thought surfaced with clear definition for the first time. Had she ever directly faced the possibility of "losing" in either life? She'd always treated it as a variable within calculations. But now it existed as emotion, as fear, beneath her skin. Sylvie was watching her expression. Evangeline knew—something was showing on her face now. What lay beneath the mask of composure. The front door was struck hard from outside. "Blackthorn Evangeline!" A low, certain voice. Adrian Vestyr. Evangeline paused in her judgment for just a moment—then shouted. "Come in!" The door opened. Footsteps. Light flooded the corridor. Adrian took in the scene. The two in black, the thorn net on the floor, Evangeline with her hand against the wall, Sylvie frozen in the doorway. He seemed to grasp everything in a single second, and his words were utterly without waste. He moved. Fast. His 185-centimeter frame crossed the corridor. He engaged one intruder in combat. His dark brown short hair fell into disarray, and the sigil device piercing his right ear caught the light. The other was just breaking free from the Thornbind restraint when Adrian's elbow strike slammed him against the wall. Evangeline maintained her focus on holding the Thornbind. She couldn't let even one escape. The sensation of her power draining continued. Her knees nearly buckled— An arm caught her. Adrian's hand. By the time she realized it, both intruders were already bound, and he was supporting her arm. An impulse to pull away formed—but her strength was already gone. Her arm wouldn't move. That fact shook Evangeline more than anything else. (I'm being supported) By someone else. By me. Adrian held her without speaking. Over several seconds, Evangeline regained enough strength in her legs to stand without the wall's support. Adrian slowly released his hand. Evangeline's eyes fell to the dagger lying on the floor. She noticed Adrian's gaze following the same object. "Quite small for a self-defense weapon." His voice was quiet. Not reproachful, not sarcastic—simply stating fact. Yet within that "simply stating fact" lay something else. "I didn't expect you to come." The answer came immediately. A beat of silence passed. Adrian's eyes relaxed slightly—just barely. Not a complete smile. But the stern duke's face became slightly more human, that kind of change. Sylvie watched the two of them from the corridor's end. ＊ After binding the intruders and settling Sylvie in another room, Evangeline and Adrian remained in the study. Two candles flickered at both ends of the desk, forgotten. The three documents lay where Evangeline had arranged them, still on the surface. Adrian picked up the decorative button from the intruder's fastening with his fingertips and placed it on the desk's edge. The ashwing pattern caught the candlelight, its outline floating in the glow. "The Ashwing Society." "I know." A brief confirmation. Between them, explanation of what that name meant was unnecessary. A secret organization lurking at the empire's heart. Officially nonexistent. Remnants of the First Prince's faction, defeated in the Smoke Chaos, organized into an unofficial political network. All members held positions in the empire's upper echelons. The organization possibly involved in Blackthorn family's treason conspiracy. That organization had sent people here tonight. Evangeline lowered herself into the chair. Exhaustion seeped through her entire body. The Thornbind's depletion would linger until tomorrow. Her thoughts still moved. But her body was heavy. Within that heaviness, her mouth moved. "My Thornbind's manifestation has changed." She realized only after speaking why she'd said this now. Adrian pulled out a chair and sat, looking at her. He didn't ask a question. He simply listened. That silence drew out words. "In my previous memories, Thornbind directly restrained the target's limbs. Tonight's manifestation was different. The floor moved. The earth moved. The same power by name, but fundamentally altered." After finishing, she realized she'd said too much. In the aftermath of exhaustion and fear, her calculations had crumbled. She'd revealed to Adrian Vestyr for the first time that she possessed "memories from a previous life"—and before she'd intended to. (Too late a realization) Adrian fell silent, his gaze dropping to the documents on the desk. He picked up her mother's letter and asked with only his eyes if he might read it. Evangeline nodded slightly. Silence continued. One candle's wick crackled. Outside, the sky began to pale almost imperceptibly. Night was breaking. Somewhere along the way—the kind of change that happened before you noticed—Evangeline and Adrian had come to sit beside each other at the desk. Not facing each other, but turned the same direction. As if looking down together at the three documents. Adrian spoke. "In the Aolling region, there are old records in the ducal manor." The Aolling region—about one hundred fifty kilometers north of the capital, at the southern foot of the Karst Mountains, where the Vestyr family held their lands. "Fragmentary descriptions concerning the First Prince's concubine, lost in the Smoke Chaos. The source is unclear, but it appears to be private notes left by a clerk from that time." Evangeline's fingertips touched the edge of her mother's letter. "That this is not mere coincidence." "It remains within the realm of intuition. Yet, even considering it carefully—that's what I believe." Direct and without waste. Adrian Vestyr's words were always like that. Formal, yet warm. Within the preamble "even considering it carefully" lay sincerity and the resolve to speak despite it. The two of them faced the same direction, looking into the same darkness. That sensation was born for the first time that night. Evangeline kept her eyes on the documents and asked her question. "Why did you come here tonight?" "I can offer three rational reasons." "Tell me." "My independent intelligence network detected suspicious personnel movements around this manor tonight. Providing information to the Blackthorn family's head could serve the empire's stability. Additionally, it was an opportunity to directly observe the Ashwing Society's movements." Three reasons, certainly given. Each was legitimate. Evangeline listened and waited for what came next. After a brief pause, Adrian said: "However, tonight—I was moving before calculating whether it was rational." His words were quiet. Within the formality, something raw mixed in for just an instant. Something trembled in Evangeline's chest. It had no name. She lacked the vocabulary to identify what it was. Yet it was there. The memory of body heat from when her arm was caught returned, alive within this distance of sitting side by side. She tried to process it as emotion rather than physical fact—couldn't. It remained, beyond her control. Evangeline returned her gaze to the documents on the desk. She didn't return an answer. She had no words to give. ＊ When the light of dawn began to pour through the study's window, Adrian stood. "I'll take them. The intruders' disposal should be left to the Iron Fence Guard Corps—the semi-military organization maintaining order in the capital. I'll contact