CHAPTER 119: LOOKING FOR HER

Emma, who had been dozing against the wall, startled at the violent crack of the door. She leapt to her feet, blinking, a hopeful smile brightening her face. At last, the princess had opened her door.

But...

It wasn’t Lorraine.

It was Leroy.

His golden mask caught the lamplight, half-broken from wear, streaked with dust and grime. Behind it, his eyes blazed red-rimmed and feverish, the whites marbled as if he hadn’t slept in days. His clothes were soiled, his breath ragged, his hand trembling as it clutched a parchment crumpled in his arms. Ink smeared across his fingers like dried blood.

"You."

The single word hissed from behind the mask, his voice jagged. He raised a shaking hand and pointed at Sylvia.

Sylvia recoiled, her spine pressed to the wall. The mask turned toward her like the face of judgment itself, unreadable, merciless. His voice was wild, possessed, and for the first time in her years of serving him, she couldn’t read the prince at all.

But something didn’t make sense.

He was out. He had gone out. She had seen him leave the mansion.

So how—how could he be stepping out of the princess’s chambers now, like a ghost emerging from her shadow?

Her heart thrashed. The only answer clawed up her throat like bile.

The tunnels.

The prince knew. He knew about the tunnels. But how much?

"Where is she?" His voice cracked under the mask, both a demand and a plea.

Sylvia flicked her gaze toward the room. Empty. Dark. "She’s not in there?"

"She’s gone. She’s left. She’s disappeared—" The words spilled in broken fragments. Then, with sudden violence, he lunged forward, seizing Sylvia by the collar. The cold steel of his mask loomed inches from her face, its polished surface reflecting her own wide-eyed panic back at her. "The tunnels. You know them. Don’t lie. Show me!"

Sylvia gasped, the air tearing in her throat. He was gripping her like an enemy. And she had seen what he did to Zara just that day. His mask, that once symbol of composure, now only amplified the horror—an unreadable, golden visage paired with trembling hands.

What will he do to me?

Leroy yanked Sylvia toward the darkness of the chamber when a low, steady voice cut through the storm.

"Let her go, Leroy."

Sylvia’s head snapped to see Aldric striding down the corridor, his steps quick but his face eerily composed, as though this unraveling was no surprise to him at all.

Leroy froze. Slowly, he looked at his hand clutching Sylvia’s collar. The mask tilted downward, as though he could not bear even his own reflection in her terrified eyes. He released her abruptly, jerking his hand back and wiping it against his chest, as though the very act of touching her had branded him with shame.

-----

Sylvia stood in Lorraine’s chambers, now lit with trembling candles. Aldric was beside her, grave and silent. Emma lingered at a distance, wringing her hands.

Leroy said nothing. He only stared at the parchment in his hand, as if staring longer might force the words to rearrange themselves, undo the truth they carried.

When the sun had gone down and the door to Lorraine’s room had stayed closed, he had searched the tunnels. Of course, she had filled the mansion with safeguards—clever latches, hidden doors, passageways fit for a siege.

In her bath chamber, the latch led into the stone veins beneath the estate. In his room, it was behind the fireplace. Their rooms were side by side; in theory, the tunnels should have met simply.

They didn’t.

It had taken him ten long minutes of winding corridors to reach her chamber from below. He had smiled then, even in his impatience, admiring her wit. Trust Lorraine to design a house that could outlast betrayal or fire.

But her secret latch was open. And her room was empty.

He had returned to his own chamber smiling still, almost relieved. She was only playing with him again, wasn’t she? She knew he had been disappointed in her. She would soothe him in the only way she knew how—by donning the mask of Divina, by waiting for him in the tower.

He went there, certain she would be there.

But she had not been there. Not Lorraine. Not Lazira.

That was when the panic began to thrum in his chest.

He scoured the streets like a madman, raking through the red-light district where she slipped away to, but she was not there. He had hunted the tunnels, following them for miles, but they twisted endlessly, offering no end, no sign of her.

At last, hollow, breathless, he had returned to her room. And there, waiting for him, lay the letter.

A single line in her hand:

{Maybe I am a curse. I shall disappear from your life.}

That was all.

His wife, who had guarded his life on battlefields, who had pulled him from death itself a thousand times, believed she was a curse. The same woman who had kissed him that morning, smiling as though she had been born only to light his path, had written that she would vanish.

He clutched the parchment so tightly it crumpled, the mask on his face catching the light as he bent his head over it. Behind the gilded facade, his breath broke ragged, uneven.

"This..." His voice was a rasp, muffled by the mask. "This cannot be."

His shoulders shook. "She would never... she would never..."

But the letter cut like a blade across his denial, and still his eyes devoured it, as if reading her words one more time would make them dissolve into something else, something bearable.

There was no way she would have left him.

No way.

And he would never...could never... accept it.

"I didn’t think she’d take Zara’s words to heart," Sylvia whispered, her lashes wet with sudden tears.

Leroy’s head lifted sharply, the mask turning toward her like a blade catching firelight.

"Zara?" His voice was low, taut.

Sylvia faltered, then recounted the scene from earlier that day. Leroy’s fingers curled into fists around the ruined parchment, his knuckles whitening beneath the mask’s golden shadow. A hollow roar filled his chest. Was that it? Did she believe he had asked for the antidote because he wanted to save Zara? Did she think that he would choose Zara over her?

That wound burned through him, sharper than steel. His breath cracked inside the mask, hot and uneven. But it was not about his hurt. It was about her.

"I am bringing her back."

He surged to his feet, the chair skidding back with a violent scrape. His voice was raw with fury, but beneath it—aching, ragged—was the anguish of a man breaking apart. "Do you hear me?" His gaze swept Sylvia, Aldric, Emma... yet he was not speaking to them. He was speaking to Lorraine, to the empty space where she should have stood.

"I am bringing her back."

The mask gleamed cold in the candlelight.

In the morning however, they received a terrifying news.