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Chapter Three: The Scheme Collapses
Having found a suitor for Iora, Wellmy accelerated her plans, being even more careful than before.
She needed to get her parents to willingly surrender their daughter to the lord of magic. And for that, she first needed to get his attention.
She gathered evidence of her father’s corruption, inside information, and proof of the way he treated Iora, his heir. Then, she wrote a letter explaining what she wanted the lord of magic to do to ensure Iora’s safety. She slipped it into an envelope alongside a piece of paper detailing the place where she had stored the evidence against her father, and handed it to a fellow student: Leo, the son of a destitute baron.
Wellmy knew that he was still seeing Iora in secret. She had a feeling that something was off when she saw them cross paths at school. The moment his eyes met Iora’s, it was almost like the very air around them softened. Wellmy hadn’t seen them together since Arvine had warned Leo not to approach his fiancée again, but she could tell that they were even closer than before.
Fine. Bring it on.
Е̇n̂ u.m̄ а̌ .î ď
The two of them must’ve been meeting behind closed doors. If Leo was doing what he could to protect her sister, Wellmy might just have to reconsider her opinion of him. While she didn’t want him to hover too close to Iora, she knew she could trust him. That didn’t make his loitering around her sister acceptable, though.
She approached him and handed him the letter. He frowned, glanced at the name on the envelope, and widened his eyes.
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“Why are you giving this to me?” he asked.
“I’m sure even a coward like you can manage such a simple errand, yes?” Wellmy replied, adding that Iora had written the letter. She lied through her teeth, a bright smile etched on her face.
Of course, Iora hadn’t written the letter; Wellmy had. She had learned to mimic her sister’s handwriting at school so that no one would suspect that her papers had been written by Iora. No one should have been able to tell the difference at a glance.
Wellmy didn’t say another word. Instead, she stared at Leo sternly.
Wе b n̆ о v е ľ Ē n u m̈ а̄
If you want to help Iora, do as I say. You’re not the one I’ve chosen to entrust her to.
She couldn’t tell if Leo understood her intentions, but he accepted the letter with a bitter smile.
“You really hate me, don’t you?” he said.
“I simply don’t like to see the spineless son of a baron buttering up to my sister.”
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“Oh, really? Must be nice to be so blissfully ignorant.”
“If you have something to say, just say it.”
Е̄n̂ u̇m̄ а̌ . í d̂
Wellmy looked down coldly at Leo from where she stood beside him, and he simply shrugged in his chair.
This was a big gamble for Wellmy.
She had actually written the same letter twice and sent one copy directly to Aides. However, she had no assurance that the lord of magic would actually read an anonymous letter accusing a count of nefarious deeds, let alone investigate her claims. That was why she’d entrusted the second copy to Leo, in the hopes that he would deliver it to Aides. It was evident that he liked Iora and wished to help her, so Wellmy figured they could collaborate just this once.
She expected Leo to ask why she’d given him a letter addressed to the lord of magic, but that wasn’t his response.
“Your wish is my command, Lady Ernest,” he replied sarcastically.
How irritating.
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Some time later, the person to whom Wellmy had entrusted the evidence informed her that the lord of magic had come to retrieve them. It seemed that Leo had carried out his mission.
As she’d hoped, the lord of magic soon wrote a letter to Count Ernest, asking for Iora’s hand in marriage. When Wellmy laid eyes on that letter, a wave of relief washed over her. If Aides exchanged but a few words with Iora, he would realize that she was a wise and perfectly well-mannered young woman. And the moment she shed that tattered exterior, he would see that she was the most beautiful woman alive. Even if he weren’t attracted to her, he at least would treat her with some level of respect. The fact that he’d even gone as far as to hold a party to celebrate their engagement was the best outcome Wellmy could have hoped for.
But this wasn’t the last of her schemes, oh no.
Some time ago, she had sent an anonymous letter to the academy revealing that all of her papers had been written by Iora. There was a chance the school might try to cover it up, but Wellmy didn’t think they would. Her papers had been so well written that they’d caught the attention of the Department of Magical Affairs, who had invited her to work in their pharmaceutical branch. The noble academy would at least look into the matter—probably. To ensure they would, she had mentioned writing to the school in her letter to the lord of magic as well.
Everything came to fruition at the lord of magic’s engagement party.
“Lord Ernest, false tax declarations constitute treason against the kingdom,” Aides announced. “You will also be charged with the attempted murder of your daughter.”
Ê nú m̃ a
Listening to his crimes laid out for all to hear, Wellmy’s father turned as white as a sheet.
“I-I didn’t know anything! It was all Iora! She did it all on her own!” he exclaimed.
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“Really?” The lord of magic raised an eyebrow. “You claim that she bought the cursed magic items that would kill her on her own?”
“Sh-She... She, uh, she bought them to kill me!”
“You’re making a fool of yourself, Lord Ernest. If Iora bought the items, then why did the shopkeepers’ description of the buyer match you and not her?”
The lord of magic’s eyes grew sharper as he listened to Count Ernest’s ridiculous excuses.
Ŵе̄ b̆ nо̊ v е l Ѐ n̂ũm â
“What about the rest? If it is as you say and Iora forged the records herself, then it means that you didn’t perform your due diligence in reviewing them, neglecting your duties as lord of the county. Besides, tracing back to the moment the writing changed in your record books reveals that you had Iora do your work from the time she was ten. Child labor is also a crime. No matter how you try to spin this, it’s over for you, Lord Ernest.”
There wasn’t a single flaw in Aides’s argument.
He turned to a clever-looking elderly noble in the crowd and spoke, “Attorney General Kilrane, may I take this man into custody?”
Kilrane was the head of the Department of Justice. Wellmy assumed that Aides must’ve told him all about her father’s crimes before the party.
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The man nodded, his expression unchanged. The next instant, the two soldiers who had been standing guard on either side of the door approached and restrained Count Ernest.
“Wh-Wha...?!” Wellmy’s mother shrieked. “I-I did not know any of this! I only did my duty as a homemaker!”
W̄е̇ bnоv еl̊ Ě nǔ m̊ а̄
The lord of magic shook his head. “You’ve committed another crime, Lady Ernest.”
Wellmy’s mother gasped.
“Marriage fraud.”
I...didn’t know that, Wellmy thought.
She had never intended for her mother to be punished too harshly. She would likely be charged with child abuse for the way she had treated Iora, and would indubitably suffer from her husband’s fall from grace. No matter how minor the charges against her and Wellmy turned out to be, one thing was certain: They would lose their noble titles. Once her mother returned to being a commoner, she wouldn’t be able to harm Iora again, especially with Iora marrying a marquis, so Wellmy had figured there was no need to punish her any further.
The lord of magic exposing her mother’s wrongdoings had not been a part of Wellmy’s scheme, and she felt the edges of her perfectly planned plot beginning to fray.
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“Lady Ernest, I have invited the man you betrayed to stand before you today.”
At the lord of magic’s words, a man stepped forward from his place near the wall.
For the first time that evening, Wellmy felt actual shock. “Spellmaster Clartes...?”
“Hiya, Wellmy.”
Just like Wellmy, he had platinum hair and crimson eyes, but where her gaze was fierce, his was kind.
Lady Ernest covered her mouth with both hands, looking as if she’d seen a ghost. Clartes glanced at her, a sad smile on his lips.
Еn u̇m̃ a
This man was the person who’d taught Wellmy how to lift curses off items.
“This is Clartes Liroud, a master disenchanter and an old friend of mine. I’m sure many of you recognize him,” the lord of magic said. “He was born into the ducal house of Liroud but cut ties with them for a time. After working in the city for several years, the kingdom granted him first-class disenchanter status, which ultimately allowed him to reconcile with his family.”
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The lord of magic shifted his gaze back to Wellmy’s mother.
“You know him too, Lady Ernest, do you not?”
“I-I’ve never seen that man before!”
The lord of magic ignored her outburst and, for some reason, turned to Wellmy. Fortunately, she’d managed to recover from the shock of Clartes’s appearance.
W̊ е̄ bn̊о̄ v̈ é ĺ Еn̄ u mǎ
But what is he doing here?
Wellmy was aware that he and the lord of magic knew each other. After all, he was the very man she had entrusted with the documents proving her father’s wrongdoings. Some time ago, she had sent him the papers and asked him to give them to the lord of magic without mentioning her name.
She didn’t know of any relationship between her mother and him, but that didn’t matter at the moment; had the lord of magic figured out she was the one who’d given Clartes the documents? Was that why he was looking at her so intently? This was Wellmy’s primary concern.
She feigned ignorance, pretending not to know why the lord of magic was looking at her, all as cold sweat ran down her back in rivulets.
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Did Spellmaster Clartes tell him about my scheme...?
It couldn’t be. At least, that was what Wellmy wanted to believe. Her eyes, which could discern one’s true nature at a glance, had told her Clartes was an honest man who could keep a secret, and she had strictly forbidden him from revealing her involvement. It was impossible that he would have talked.
Ŵ е b nоvѐ l. Е̂ n úm̀ a
Their meeting had happened one fateful day when she had gone to visit his clinic in the city. Back then, he had already been renowned as a highly skilled disenchanter, so Wellmy had intended to have him lift the curses on all the items her father had bought to poison Iora.
Gordley, the butler, was the one who had told Wellmy about the items. He’d taken them out of Iora’s room and nonchalantly brought them to her. She had, of course, accepted them.
With Iora’s abilities, she could have easily dismantled the items herself to render them powerless, but their father would have been bound to notice if she destroyed them. Unfortunately, Wellmy—who had only just entered the noble academy—wasn’t anywhere near as talented as her sister. As such, she had come up with two options: learn disenchanting herself, or pay someone to dispel the curses.
To achieve her goal, she’d headed to Clartes’s clinic.
The moment she laid eyes on him, she’d recognized the similarities in their appearances.
“Those with crimson eyes like you and me hail from families with a high potential for disenchantment,” he had told her.
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Wellmy had already known that. When she was younger, she had once asked her mother about the origin of her eye color.
“One of our ancestors was a noble. It was passed down from them,” her mother had replied.
But Wellmy’s mother was an orphan who had been raised in a children’s home, so that explanation had never really sat right with her. That was when she’d begun to suspect that perhaps she wasn’t truly her father’s daughter—that her mother had conceived her with another noble. After all, while Iora bore some resemblance to her father, Wellmy didn’t look like Count Ernest in the slightest. On the other hand, she looked so much like Clartes that it couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Back then, she hadn’t had time to consider that matter. Suppressing her urge to ask Clartes about her lineage, she had instead begged, “If it is as you say, and I have a talent for disenchantment, please take me as your apprentice.”
Wellmy was allowed to come and go from the Ernest estate as she pleased. However, their parents would have been bound to notice her visiting her sister’s room and taking the magic items with her as she left. Having Clartes lift the curses would have taken at least two weeks, factoring in the time to schedule an appointment, the initial visit to deliver the items, and the return trip to collect them so that she could place them back in Iora’s room. It was highly unlikely that Clartes would have been able to disenchant all items on the spot, and their father, determined to kill Iora, would have ultimately noticed that they were missing.
However, if Gordley and Orea took the items out one at a time, delivered them to Wellmy for disenchanting, then put them back, Count Ernest likely wouldn’t notice anything was amiss. The two of them were Iora’s only allies in the Ernest estate, and they were allowed to come and go from the detached building without suspicion.
Е́ n u̇m̄а
When Wellmy had told Clartes about her father’s murder attempt, he had advised her to warn the authorities, but she couldn’t. If Count Ernest faced justice for his actions before Iora could graduate from the noble academy, Wellmy’s beloved sister would be left with no future to speak of.
Clartes had remained silent for some time after Wellmy’s revelation, seemingly deep in thought, before eventually agreeing to take her as his disciple.
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From that point onward, Wellmy had visited his clinic once a week and learned how to lift curses with desperate determination.
Now that I think back on it, he did ask about my mother the first time we met...
“Are you Isabella’s daughter?” he had asked, and Wellmy had answered in the affirmative.
Could it be that he really is...?
Ẽń um а̄. і̀.d
The lord of magic spoke again, as if to answer Wellmy’s unvoiced question. “I’ve had people analyze the waveform of Wellmy’s and Clartes’s respective magic signatures and have proof that they are related. Here it is,” he said, producing a single piece of paper from between the pages of one of the copies of her father’s account books.
“You’re lying!” she exclaimed.
“I’m not. Several years ago, Clartes fell in love with a commoner woman. He severed ties with his family to be with her, but she deceived him and vanished without a word. That woman is none other than you”—he paused and threw a sharp glare at Wellmy’s mother—“Isabella Ernest.”
“N-Nonsense!” she said, pressing both hands against her temples and shaking her head as if to shake off the other guests’ gazes.
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Yet, she firmly refused to even glance in Clartes’s direction.
“The Liroud ducal family has been a renowned house of healers for generations, and Clartes has shown interest in healing from a young age,” the lord of magic resumed. “Unlike most boys in his situation, he proactively went to give comfort to the sick and to help his family treat their patients. Furthermore, it appears that before severing ties with his family, he paid regular visits to the orphanage where Lady Ernest was raised. There are records of this.”
Ŵ е b̄ n̈о̆v̌ е l̃ Еnûm̀ а̇
Restrained so that he wouldn’t be able to run away, Count Ernest looked at his wife in disbelief. “Isabella, you...”
“The son of a duke and a count. Did you meet Lord Ernest in the city, Lady Ernest? You must’ve used your appearance to seduce him, cheating on Clartes. And when he renounced his heritage and became a commoner to marry you, you vanished and chose to become the kept woman of a count.” A light smile curling his lips, the lord of magic pointed at Wellmy’s mother. “At the time, Lord Ernest had just inherited his title from his deceased brother and forced his widow to marry him. And you chose to be his mistress.”
Wellmy, of course, knew all that.
The lord of magic continued, “Thinking that Wellmy was his biological daughter, he decided to make her his heir and began persecuting Iora—his brother’s daughter.”
Wellmy felt a wave of relief to see the conversation circle back to Iora after an, in her opinion, unnecessary detour.
That was right; Iora wasn’t Count Ernest’s daughter. While, on paper, she was registered as his child, she was actually his niece.
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Wellmy had learned that truth when she read the diary her father’s previous wife used to keep. She had discovered it—a red notebook with nothing written on the cover—hidden away in her old, dust-covered room, a space that Count Ernest had strictly forbidden her mother from using.
Wellmy had seen Gordley occasionally stopping in front of that room and staring at the door, which had piqued her curiosity.
Why were her parents tormenting Iora in the first place, she had wondered. Her mother, she could understand, although she didn’t approve. But Count Ernest was Iora’s father.
The diary Iora’s mother had left behind held that answer.
As she grieved the loss of her first husband, Count Ernest’s brother, she found herself anxious about the future of the child she was pregnant with. But then, her brother-in-law, who was inferior to her late husband in every way, came to her with a proposition.
“If you become my wife and recognize me as the new Count Ernest, I will make your child my successor,” he said.
Ėn um а̄
After anguishing over the decision, Iora’s mother eventually accepted his offer.
Sadly, she never truly managed to recover after giving birth. She spent some time bedridden before eventually passing away, as if following her late husband to the afterworld.
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Even in her last moments, she must have worried about her daughter’s future.
“D-Do you have proof to back up your claims?! Proof that Iora isn’t my daughter?!” Count Ernest bellowed.
“The timeline. Iora was born before Wellmy, albeit in the same year. There is an inconsistency between when Iora’s mother became pregnant and when she married you, Savarin Ernest.”
There might have only been one month between Iora’s and Wellmy’s births, but the fact remained that Iora had been born first. If Savarin was her real father, it would imply that he had had a relationship with his brother’s wife before he had passed away.
Ŵӗ b̀n о̌_v̂ e ĺ Ӗñ ûm̈ a
The timeline would have only made sense if Wellmy had been born first, and the lord of magic had seen right through it.
“Your brother was a brilliant man, while you were considered by all to be a fool of ill repute,” the lord of magic continued. “I cannot imagine the first Countess Ernest engaging in an affair with someone like you. Admit it—Iora is your brother’s daughter, isn’t she?”
This explained why Count Ernest had started persecuting Iora.
Back when his first wife had been alive, there had still been people watching over her child to ensure that she was treated fairly, but they all went away when he married Wellmy’s mother. Once Iora’s protectors had all left, he could finally do as he pleased: dote on Wellmy and tyrannize Iora.
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“Savarin Ernest. While Iora is indeed a child of House Ernest, she’s not your daughter...and neither is Wellmy. She’s Clartes’s child.”
Oh... When the truth Wellmy had been deliberately avoiding for so long was revealed to the world, she only felt a sense of resignation.
Е̊ n û m̆ å . іd
She had always wondered why Clartes had been so kind to her when she’d come to ask him for his help. Why he had trained her in disenchantment until she had become able to dispel almost any curse.
He must have known. Yet, he had chosen to remain silent, likely so that his daughter could live a happy life. Wellmy knew he was a good man, that was why she was so convinced of it.
I’m sorry...
Wellmy felt terrible for Clartes. He must’ve had no idea that his daughter was going to ruin her own life to save her sister.
“We’re almost done here. There is one last thing I must do,” Aides Ormirage said, turning to Wellmy.
My turn has come. I will now be judged for my wrongdoings, Wellmy thought.
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She was happy...but something complex swirled in her chest.
Even though the lord of magic had disclosed that she was actually Clartes’s child, she was still technically Count Ernest’s heir. He might suspect that she was the one who had lifted the curses off the items meant to kill Iora, but Wellmy’s outward behavior toward her sister had always been awful. For years, she had pretended to overlook their parents’ treatment of Iora, even when they’d tried to kill her, and she had even joined in on the abuse. People might choose to be lenient on her and dismiss those claims, as she was a child, but Wellmy had broken other rules. She had passed off her sister’s papers as hers, threatened her into doing her bidding, prevented her from making friends, and—most importantly—lied to the teachers. She was also guilty of spending the money her father had gained through tax fraud on dresses and jewelry. No one would let those crimes slide.
Aides walked up to Wellmy, stopping close enough that, were she to reach out, she could touch him, before suddenly looking behind her, in the direction of Iora, Karla, and Leo.
Wellmy didn’t even have time to open her mouth to ask what he was doing before Aides declared, “Iora Ernest. I hereby call off our engagement.”
Wellmy’s mind went blank.
