The Changed Owner of the Silver Cup
Seraphina Knox remained in the prison with a smile on her face.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about that smile.
“You stared too long.”
The moment we left the Magic Tower, Evelyn spoke.
“Pardon?”
“That witch.”
“There’s a high chance she isn’t a witch.”
“Then Seraphina Knox.”
Evelyn corrected the name. Though she used the proper one, her voice grew even colder.
“You stared too long.”
Instead of answering, I hugged the record board tighter to my chest.
Seraphina’s condemnation note had not yet disappeared. D-DAY 6. However, judging by the movements of the priests in the Magic Tower, her actual disposition would likely come much sooner. The White Crown Sect had raised Seraphina’s detention level right after I saved Evelyn, and reports indicated they were even considering moving her cell.
They were wary of me.
No—they had already factored me into their calculations.
But if I pulled Seraphina out right now, Evelyn’s retrial would collapse. Diving into the second case without finishing the first would mean losing them both.
The thought made my chest feel tight.
“Lucia.”
Evelyn called my name.
This time, it wasn’t sharp.
“Breathe.”
“Pardon?”
Only then did I realize I had been holding my breath. I slowly inhaled.
Evelyn was sitting beside me in the carriage instead of across from me. She had definitely sat facing me on the way there, yet at some point on the return trip, she had moved to my side.
“The seat…”
“It’s shaking.”
“We haven’t even departed yet.”
“It will soon.”
It made no sense.
But she looked perfectly composed.
I gave up on arguing and opened the record board.
What I needed now was the silver cup.
The key evidence in the Crown Prince’s attempted poisoning. In the on-site records, it had shown a silver-gray reaction, yet in the execution records, it had changed to blue-white. Someone had swapped the evidence in between.
The question was who, why, and how.
The moment we returned to the annex, new documents had arrived. It was the result of the Rochard Ducal House’s informants moving. It stung my pride a little that the ducal soldiers were gathering records faster than me, the official Condemnation Recorder, but now was not the time to dwell on that.
The third piece of evidence withdrawal record, which I had only seen as a note during the day, had now arrived in its original ledger form. Approver: Priest Martin. Verifier of receipt: blank. It was exactly as I had read earlier.
“There’s more that’s been confirmed.”
Evelyn held out a thin envelope.
Inside was a small piece of wax.
“This is…”
“Seal residue taken from the warehouse door.”
I brought the wax fragment closer. It was not the White Crown Sect’s standard seal. Along the edge of the white wax, there were tiny golden threads mixed in.
Gold thread used for imperial item seals.
I tilted the wax and examined the layers of the seal. The white wax had hardened first, and over it, a seal mixed with gold thread had been pressed on top. The order was clear.
“They stamped the sect’s seal first, then overlaid the imperial seal on top.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the warehouse was opened under the sect’s name, but the hands that moved the item followed imperial artifact management procedures.”
I set the wax down.
“The order in which seals are stamped is one of the hardest traces to forge. Only people who have the procedure ingrained in their bodies follow this sequence.”
The imperial seal was stamped over the sect’s seal.
This sequence reveals the true handler followed imperial protocol by instinct.
The Crown Prince.
That name rose in my mind.
But I didn’t say it. It wasn’t information Lucia could confirm yet. I wrote on the record board: Imperial seal gold thread confirmed.
Evelyn saw it and gave a small laugh.
“How cautious.”
“Writing down something that isn’t confirmed turns the record into mere rumor.”
“Is that why you survived the execution ground?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Half of it was luck.”
Evelyn looked at me for a moment.
“Half?”
I lowered my gaze back to the record board.
Original knowledge.
Those words were something I still couldn’t say to anyone.
I searched separately for Priest Martin’s duty records. If the approver was dead, I first had to confirm whether he had actually been there. The answer came from the final duty roster. He had not been at the third warehouse the night before the execution. At the exact same time, records showed he had been officiating the night service at the Southern Chapel of the White Crown Sect.
One person cannot be in two places at once.
“The signature was forged.”
I said.
“Martin did not approve it. Someone took out the silver cup using his name.”
“Then the one who swapped the silver cup wasn’t Martin.”
“And Priest Martin either knew about it or was in a position where he could have known.”
“Which is why he died.”
The room fell silent.
On the execution ground, I had seen an axe. Here, I saw an invisible hand. Somehow, it was even more terrifying.
I placed my hand on top of the documents.
The stigma on my left wrist remained quiet. Evelyn’s note had stopped after her execution was postponed. Her destruction had not completely vanished yet.
Suddenly, Seraphina’s purple eyes came to mind.
The voice that had asked me why I possessed such a cold stigma.
“Lucia.”
Evelyn called my name again.
I lifted my head.
She was right in front of me. I hadn’t even noticed her get up. Instead of taking the pen from my hand, she covered it with her own.
“Are you thinking about that woman?”
“Who?”
“Seraphina.”
She had said the name directly.
For some reason, that bothered me.
“Because a person might die.”
“You always say things like that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Then did you save me because I’m a person too?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
There was a safe answer.
Because you too were someone facing an unjust execution.
But Evelyn didn’t look like she wanted a safe answer.
“If you die…”
I spoke carefully.
“Many things will go wrong.”
“Many things.”
“The North, the stigma holders, and…”
“And?”
And me.
I swallowed those words.
Evelyn narrowed her eyes as if she had heard the part I swallowed. But this time, she didn’t press.
“Strange.”
“What is?”
“You list off people who must not die, yet you never once put your own name on that list.”
I stopped the pen.
“A recorder does not write their own name on the list.”
“Then I’ll write it for you.”
She lifted her hand from the back of mine.
At that moment, the darkness outside the window moved one beat out of rhythm.
There was no wind, yet the edge of the curtain fluttered, and one of the garden lanterns went out without a sound. Before I could even realize what that meant, my body froze first.
Glass shattered.
Before I could react, I was pulled by Evelyn. Her arm wrapped around my shoulders, and my body fell beneath the sofa. Almost simultaneously, a black arrow embedded itself in the backrest of the seat I had just been sitting in.
The tip was wet with blue.
Poison.
I tried to inhale but stopped. Evelyn’s hand was pressing down on both my mouth and head at once.
“Don’t move.”
Her voice rang low right above me.
“There might be one more shot.”
We held our breath beneath the sofa. Evelyn’s face was calculating the direction the arrow had come from, the broken window, and the extinguished lantern in sequence. A short, dull sound came from outside once more, but this time I couldn’t see where it had struck. Soon after, the presence in the garden moved away.
The room that had only held paper and wax moments ago was once again filled with the scent of the execution ground.
Whoever it was, they weren’t only trying to kill Evelyn.
They were trying to erase me along with her.
Evelyn immediately cleared the room.
She wasn’t running away. Rather, she moved with frightening precision to handle what remained. At the door, she exchanged brief words with the butler and gave instructions for guard placement, body storage, sealing the poisoned arrow, and collecting the broken glass shards. Her commands were so fast and practiced that I could only watch in silence for a while.
Evelyn knew how to survive.
And she had known for a very long time.
I picked up the wax fragment and record paper from beneath the sofa. Glass shards were scattered across the floor. A poisoned arrow was deeply embedded in the backrest of the seat I had occupied moments ago. The blue liquid at the arrow’s tip was slowly turning the wood black.
If Evelyn hadn’t pulled me down—
I cut the thought off there.
I had to record it.
With trembling hands, I took out a fresh record sheet.
Rochard Annex study attacked. One black arrow confirmed. Struck the backrest of the seat where Lucia Bennett candidate had been sitting.
The tip of the pen paused for a moment.
Target cannot be considered Evelyn Rochard alone.
The moment I wrote that sentence, a chill ran down the back of my neck.
They had tried to kill me.
When I had rushed into the execution ground, I had been prepared. But preparation and the actual sensation of becoming a target were different. I knew the original story. I had moved because of that one piece of knowledge. Yet even though the people of this world didn’t know why I had moved, they had realized far too quickly that I was an obstacle.
The door opened.
Evelyn had returned.
She knelt down in front of me. A noble lady, an execution postponement case, the heir to a ducal house. All those titles felt strangely natural as she lowered herself to my eye level.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m not.”
“The record paper can’t lie.”
She looked at the paper I held in my hand.
The letters were crooked.
I tried to fold the paper, but Evelyn placed her hand on it first.
“Don’t hide it.”
“It’s not because I’m embarrassed…”
“It’s okay to record what scares you.”
It was an unexpected thing to hear.
Evelyn’s red eyes were cold, but her voice was low and firm.
“If you don’t write down what you fear, the next time the same fear comes, you’ll shake just like the first time. Write it. Who aimed at you, where you trembled, and who was by your side.”
I looked at her.
“Is that how you endured?”
Evelyn didn’t answer right away.
After a brief silence, she looked at the backrest where the poisoned arrow was embedded.
“Until I stood on the execution platform.”
It was a short answer.
But it contained a long stretch of time.
I added one more line beneath the record.
Immediately after the attack, Evelyn Rochard protected Lucia Bennett candidate.
Evelyn read that sentence.
The corner of her mouth lifted ever so slightly.
“I like that one.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Yes. Because it’s true, even more so.”
She reached for the pen in my hand but stopped. Instead, she straightened the ink bottle. Looking at the ink on her fingertips, she spoke very quietly.
“From now on, your records are your life.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She looked into my eyes.
“From now on, they are my life as well.”
Those words remained sharper in the room than the broken glass.
As the night deepened, the annex grew quieter.
But quiet did not mean safe. I listened one by one to the sounds of the broken window being temporarily sealed, the footsteps of guards patrolling the hallway, and the low reports exchanged by the people of the ducal house in the distance. Evelyn’s house moved like a living fortress.
And I was in the middle of that fortress.
I opened the record sheet again.
This time, the letters trembled less.
After the assassination attempt, Rochard Annex defense strengthened. Lucia Bennett candidate continues to verify case evidence together with Evelyn Rochard.
After writing it, it felt strange.
When had I begun writing the words “together with Evelyn” so naturally?