The Duke's Daughter's Protection Is Excessive
I had planned to return to the records room of the White Crown Sect.
To be precise, I had to return. I needed to verify the silver cup’s storage route, cross-reference the on-site emergency logs with the sect warehouse intake records, and—if possible—pinpoint the exact moment the evidence had been swapped.
Yet the carriage was not heading for the sect. It was carrying us toward the Rochard Villa on the outskirts of the imperial capital.
“The direction is wrong,” I said.
Evelyn sat across from me, calmly sipping her tea. Less than an hour had passed since we left the execution ground, but she had already changed out of her torn dress into a sleek black traveling outfit. I had no idea who had prepared it.
Frankly, I preferred not to know.
“It is,” she replied.
“I need to go to the records room.”
“I’ve had all the necessary records delivered to the villa.”
“Pardon?”
Evelyn set her delicate teacup down.
“Copies of the silver cup intake records, copies of the on-site emergency logs, the warehouse access roster, and the night duty schedule for the day before the execution. Everything you might need, I requested.”
I asked only one thing.
“When?”
“Before we boarded the carriage.”
“In that short span of time?”
“The people of the Rochard Ducal Family are not incompetent.”
She was right.
And that truth was all the more terrifying.
In the original novel, Evelyn had not become the first villainess by chance. Even while standing on the execution platform she could still command the ducal house’s resources. The moment she survived, she seized control of the situation.
The problem was that I now appeared to fall within the scope of that control.
“Lady Rochard.”
“Evelyn.”
“Officially—”
“Officially, you are my surveillance supervisor and I am your surveillance subject.”
She smiled.
“Therefore, shouldn’t we remain together?”
The logic was sound.
So perfectly sound that it left no room for argument.
The villa lay on a quiet street on the capital’s outskirts. Smaller than the main estate, it still resembled a palace compared to the Saintess Candidate quarters. As the black iron gates opened and the carriage rolled inside, servants lined up with flawless precision and bowed.
“Welcome home, my lady.”
The greeting was far too serene for someone whose execution had only been postponed.
The instant I stepped down from the carriage I tried to steady my breathing, but before my feet could touch the stone pavement Evelyn offered her hand.
“Careful.”
“I’m fine.”
“It would be troublesome if the surveillance supervisor tripped.”
Several servants’ eyes flickered almost imperceptibly at her words.
In the end I took her hand and descended.
The contact was brief. Yet when I moved to withdraw, Evelyn released me a single beat late. Just one beat—short enough to appear courteous to onlookers, yet unmistakably deliberate to the person on the receiving end.
A box of documents already waited in the villa’s reception room.
I practically lunged for it and tore it open.
“This is…”
“I told you I had the necessary records sent over.”
Evelyn settled onto the sofa and watched me.
I leafed through the pages—on-site records, evidence transfer logs, warehouse intake confirmations. Between them lay a single thin slip of paper.
Night before execution—temporary removal of third evidence item, silver cup.
Authorized by: White Crown Sect Priest Martin.
Intake confirmed by: [blank]
I could not tear my eyes from that empty space.
“You found it,” Evelyn said. “That’s when the silver cup was switched.”
“It’s not only the timing.”
I held the note closer to the lamp.
“Look at the removal number. After the third evidence item comes the fifth. The fourth is entirely missing. They inserted one piece of evidence during the night and simply skipped the number. A legitimate removal would not be recorded this way.”
Evelyn examined the note again.
This time she was the one who reacted a beat late.
“…I missed that.”
It was a tone I had never heard from her. She was admitting that even the eyes and ears of the Rochard Ducal Family had overlooked it.
“The ducal family buys people. I read records.”
I pressed my fingernail against the intake confirmer field.
“And there’s one more thing.”
What had appeared blank bore a faint indentation. The ink had been scraped away, but the pressure remained pressed into the paper’s fibers. I angled the lamp. Two faint strokes rose into view.
“They wrote a name and erased it. This is not a priest’s signature style. The final stroke does not trail downward; it bends sideways. It resembles the abbreviated verification mark used by imperial palace property managers.”
Evelyn’s eyes sank slowly.
“My people truly missed that.”
I set the note down.
“The authorizer is listed as Priest Martin. Whether he actually wrote it will require comparing the original handwriting.”
“He’s dead.”
I looked up.
Evelyn’s expression remained unchanged.
“Priest Martin was found dead at dawn this morning. They called it suicide.”
“How did you—”
“Even before I stepped onto the execution platform, I still had eyes and ears.”
She slowly traced the red marks on her wrist.
“I simply ran out of time when my neck was scheduled for the blade.”
I stared at the documents.
The first witness was dead. The evidence had been swapped. Hadrian had postponed the execution, yet he would never willingly allow the truth to surface.
The situation had grown more dangerous than in the original story.
Because I had intervened.
“You must not die.”
The words left my mouth before thought could catch them.
Evelyn looked at me.
“What?”
I closed my lips too late.
It had been too direct.
“I only meant… until the retrial concludes—”
“No.”
Evelyn rose from her seat.
Her steps were slow.
As she drew nearer I instinctively clutched the document box, as though the papers could shield me.
“What you just said.”
Evelyn stopped directly before me.
“Why must I not die?”
“Because an unjust execution must be prevented.”
“If it were anyone else facing injustice, would you throw yourself in the same way?”
No immediate answer came.
Probably not.
Perhaps.
But Evelyn did not seem to want that answer.
She placed a finger beneath my chin. There was no force behind it—only the lightest contact, enough that I could have pulled away. Which was precisely why I could not move.
“Lucia.”
It was the first time she had used only my name.
My breath stalled.
“Very well. You don’t have to tell me everything.”
Her finger lifted a fraction. My head tilted upward.
Her crimson eyes were very close.
“Instead, see it through to the end.”
“To the end…?”
“Proving my innocence.”
The corners of her mouth curved slowly upward.
“And taking responsibility for keeping me alive.”
The stigma on the inside of my left wrist suddenly turned ice-cold.
I looked down by reflex.
Seraphina Knox
Witchification judgment followed by execution by fire.
D-DAY 6
The second villainess.
I stopped breathing.
Only then did I notice the thin list tucked beside the document box—a copy of the Knox Magic Tower underground prisoner roster. Next to Seraphina Knox’s name, small text noted that the preliminary judgment ceremony would occur in three days and the disposition review in six days.
The destruction foretold by the stigma and the schedule in the records aligned perfectly.
Evelyn had not missed where my gaze had gone.
“What is it?”
“Nothing…”
“Is someone else going to die?”
The question was too precise.
I lifted my head.
Evelyn was not smiling.
I could not speak.
Even without an answer, her face showed she had already understood.
“I see.”
Evelyn’s voice was low.
“The moment you save me, your eyes turn toward the next execution ground.”
Her tone was strange—too soon to call jealousy, too personal to call political caution. It seemed she was more wary of the fact that I already appeared to know the outcome than of Seraphina’s name itself.
I spoke quickly.
“People will die. And this time there is even less time.”
“Yet I did not die, did I?”
“That’s not what I meant…”
Evelyn withdrew her hand from my chin.
She did not step back completely.
“Go.”
“Pardon?”
“Go and confirm it. Your expression is already saying as much.”
It was an unexpectedly generous permission.
But her next words were entirely expected.
“I’m coming with you.”
I tried to protest.
Yet Evelyn’s gaze had already dropped to my left wrist.
“The surveillance subject ought to know where her supervisor is going.”
The words followed procedure.
Her eyes said something else entirely.
They dared me to try running.
Looking into those eyes, I realized the truth.
I had saved the first villainess.
And she had begun following me far sooner than I anticipated.
Preparations for departure moved faster than I expected.
At a single gesture from Evelyn the entire villa stirred quietly. The servants asked no questions—where we were going, why, or whether a person whose execution had been postponed should be venturing out. They prepared cloaks, gloves, spare recording tablets, and carriage routes as though they already knew every answer.
Watching them, I realized once more.
Evelyn was not alone.
In the original story it had seemed the Rochard Ducal Family fell silent the moment she mounted the execution platform. But that was only because the sentence had come too swiftly. Had she been granted one more day—even a few more hours—she would have moved far more with the power of her house.
What I had changed was not merely her life.
I had given her time.
“Don’t stare so blankly,” Evelyn said.
“Pardon?”
“Have you fallen for my people because they’re so capable?”
“That sort of phrasing…”
“No?”
“I was impressed.”
“Then it’s half true.”
I gave up on replying.
The villa’s butler handed me a small leather bag.
“Recording tools for Saintess Candidate Lucia-nim. Two bottles of ink, waterproof recording paper, simple sealing wax, and an inner pocket for the Saintess Candidate token.”
“Thank you. But this is far too much…”
“It is the young lady’s instruction.”
The butler spoke with perfect naturalness.
Evelyn added from beside him.
“I would be anxious if my surveillance supervisor traveled empty-handed.”
“It is strange for the surveillance subject to prepare equipment for her supervisor.”
“But efficient.”
She was right again.
The fact that she kept being right made it all the more difficult.
I accepted the bag. The weight settled perfectly in my palm. The realization that someone had observed my habits and prepared accordingly felt foreign. In my previous world I had always watched characters meet their endings from outside the screen. Now someone was preparing my pen and paper.
That small change felt strangely, painfully real.
Before boarding the carriage I glanced back at the reception room—the document box, the records of the silver cup’s manipulation, Priest Martin’s death report, the erased signature in the intake field. Everything remained in place. Evelyn followed my gaze and spoke to the butler.
“Store the originals in the safe. Make three copies. One remains at the villa, one goes to the northern contact network, and one to a location Saintess Candidate Lucia does not know.”
“A place I don’t know?”
“So that even if you are captured, you cannot speak of it.”
It was an all-too-realistic precaution.
I froze for a moment.
Evelyn did not retreat even after seeing my expression.
“Since you halted the execution, you will become a target. You may already be one.”
“I know.”
“No. Your face says you still don’t fully understand.”
She adjusted and tied the strings of my cloak herself.
The gesture brought her far too close.
“Those who protect records are erased before the records themselves. Both the sect and the imperial family know this best.”
The cloak strings settled neatly beneath my throat.
“So if you insist on walking into danger, I will keep reminding you exactly how dangerous it is.”
“Protective surveillance?”
“Both protection and surveillance.”
She smiled.
“Both are my specialties.”
I could no longer argue.
Inside the carriage a brief silence fell. I took out fresh recording paper and organized what I remembered about Seraphina Knox. Since I could not use my original-story knowledge directly, I had to rephrase it safely.
Knox Magic Tower researcher. Suspicion of forbidden sorcery. Preliminary judgment ceremony in three days. Disposition review in six days. Original judgment records must be confirmed.
The pen stopped.
Burned at the stake in the original story.
The moment I tried to write it, my left wrist turned to ice.
The pen nearly slipped from my fingers.
Evelyn caught my hand at once.
“Lucia.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were not fine just now.”
Her fingers touched my wrist.
I yanked my sleeve down, but it was too late. She had already felt the freezing skin.
Evelyn’s expression changed.
“What is this?”
“Stigma backlash.”
“A Saintess Candidate’s stigma becomes this cold?”
“Sometimes…”
“Lies.”
I closed my mouth.
Evelyn asked no further questions. Instead she took the pen from my hand and erased the line on the record sheet—the strokes that had nearly formed the words original story.
“If you cannot speak it, do not write it either.”
“But the records—”
“If you collapse while writing, the records will be cut short as well.”
She did not return the pen.
“Rest until we reach the magic tower.”
“There is no time.”
“Which is why you should rest.”
It was an order.
I reluctantly turned to the window.
The carriage was heading west. In the distance the peak of the Knox Magic Tower rose into view. Beneath that white spire lay a dark, deep underground.
Seraphina Knox did not know me yet.
But I remembered her smiling face and her final lines.
The witch who laughed even as she burned.
This time, I would not let that smile end atop the pyre.