Chapter 17
Kanna slowly withdrew her hand. The back of it stung where Kallen had struck it.
“Kallen, let me examine Lucy.”
At her words, Kallen slowly rose to his feet. As he turned around, the rage on his face became unmistakable.
This was all Kanna’s fault.
No…
It’s my fault.
He should never have trusted Kanna in the first place.
When she suddenly claimed she knew medicine, he should have laughed it off.
Why had he believed her?
Or at the very least, he should have stopped her when she began sticking those needle-like things into Lucy’s body.
It had been some bizarre technique he’d never seen or even heard of before.
He should have stopped her before she called it a treatment.
This is all my fault.
A crushing sense of guilt churned his stomach.
Lucy Addis.
His seven-year-old little sister had no one but him.
Their father and eldest brother were completely indifferent to her.
His younger sister Isabel and their mother Chloe hated her.
Simply because she was the daughter of a maid, the little girl had been isolated like an outcast.
Whenever Kallen looked at her, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
When was it…?
I feel like I’ve seen something like this before.
Something very similar had happened long ago…
And then, at last, he remembered.
Kanna Addis.
The abuse that had once taken place in this household.
The abuse he himself had taken part in.
The stain left behind by the foolish ignorance of his childhood.
But Kallen had grown up now.
He wasn’t that little boy anymore.
He understood that his actions had been born of prejudice and stupidity.
He knew they had been wrong.
The lingering discomfort…
The guilt…
That was why he had been so kind to Lucy.
He wanted to do now what he had failed to do back then.
He couldn’t undo what he’d done to Kanna.
So he wanted to be kind to someone else instead.
Like trying to erase a wrong answer by forcefully writing the correct one over it.
And now…
That child was suffering.
The little sister he was supposed to protect.
So he had desperately grasped at the last straw available to him.
And that choice had only driven Lucy further toward disaster.
I never should have trusted Kanna…
“This is all your fault. Lucy has never been this sick before. But because of you—”
Kanna listened as long as she could before finally letting out a sigh.
Then her eyes sharpened.
“Is now really the time for you to stand here whining?”
Kallen fell silent.
“If you want to cry, scream, curse me, or hate me, then go ahead.”
She cut him off sharply.
“But not now!”
She raised her arm and pointed directly at Lucy.
“Your little sister is lying there sick! Can’t you get out of my way?”
It sounded less like a rebuke and more like a commander barking an order.
Kallen was so stunned that he couldn’t utter another word.
It felt as though someone had struck him across the back of the head.
His mind, clouded by guilt and grief, suddenly cleared.
Ignoring him completely, Kanna pushed past him and approached Lucy.
Just as everyone had said…
Her condition was terrible.
Why did she suddenly become like this?
It wasn’t quite life-threatening…
…but it certainly looked that way.
A dangerously high fever.
Convulsions.
And now even weakened breathing.
This has nothing to do with facial paralysis.
Nor was it likely that she had suddenly contracted some entirely new disease.
Illnesses didn’t normally appear out of nowhere.
They progressed gradually, like clothes slowly becoming soaked by rain.
Symptoms appeared one by one.
Yet only a few hours ago, Lucy’s breathing, pulse, and temperature had all been perfectly normal.
When someone healthy suddenly deteriorated like this…
There’s only one possibility.
Kanna turned toward Lucy’s maid, who stood nearby in tears.
“What did Lucy eat today?”
“P-Pardon?”
“Everything she ate today. Tell me all of it.”
Before the maid could answer, Isabel hurried over and grabbed Kanna’s arm.
“Sister! Stop this already! Isn’t what you’ve done to Lucy enough?”
Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“I know you wanted to come back to this family. But using Lucy like this is wrong! You don’t even know medicine, yet you recklessly pretended you did, and now this has happened!”
“That’s right.”
Even Chloe stepped forward.
“Kanna, I’ll speak to the Duke myself and ask him to let you stay here without any conditions. So please, stop now. Don’t you feel sorry for poor Lucy?”
The maid immediately fell silent.
But Kanna hadn’t been listening to either of them in the first place.
“Why aren’t you answering?”
She stared directly at the maid.
“I asked what Lucy ate today.”
“W-Well…”
The maid glanced nervously between Chloe and Isabel.
In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
If she answered, she’d be going against the wishes of both Chloe and Isabel.
“Lucy was perfectly fine until this morning. There’s only one reason her condition could worsen this dramatically within a few hours.”
Kanna’s voice became firm.
“She ate something she shouldn’t have.”
The maid’s eyes widened.
Something clearly flashed across her mind.
Kanna caught that hesitation immediately.
“I gave Lucy a meal plan.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Did she eat anything besides what I prescribed?”
“Stop it!”
A shrill scream echoed through the room.
It was so sudden and loud that even Kanna turned around in surprise.
“I told you to stop, Sister!”
Kanna clearly saw Isabel’s fingertips trembling violently.
Her lips had gone pale and were quivering as well.
She looked like someone utterly terrified.
Because she was.
Fear had completely consumed Isabel.
Because…
She had poisoned Lucy.
But…
I never thought it would become this serious!
She’d been told it would only cause stomach pain.
That it wouldn’t make her seriously ill.
Just a few days of stomach cramps, diarrhea, fever, and indigestion.
That was all.
Believing those words, she’d mixed it into the tea Lucy loved to drink.
I-I never meant for this to happen!
Not long after drinking the tea, Lucy had started vomiting.
She threw up everything she’d eaten.
And then…
She began bleeding.
A seven-year-old little girl…
Bleeding.
Soon afterward, Lucy began gasping desperately for air as though she were suffocating.
Her eyes rolled back.
She collapsed unconscious.
And she hadn’t awakened since.
All of it had happened within only a few hours.
Right after drinking the poisoned tea.
It’s not my fault.
I never meant for things to go this far.
The terrifying thought that Lucy might actually die overwhelmed her.
This is all Kanna’s fault.
If she had never come back to this house, I would never have had any reason to do this… and Lucy would never have gotten hurt.
Her overwhelming fear drove her into a corner.
Everything was Kanna’s fault…
But regardless…
No one could ever find out.
No one could know she’d poisoned Lucy’s tea.
“For Lucy’s sake, I can’t leave you alone any longer!”
Isabel strode to the door and flung it open.
She shouted at the knights standing guard outside.
“Take Sister Kanna away at once and lock her in her room!”
The knights hesitated.
Seeing this, Chloe immediately added,
“Do as Isabel says. Kanna seems rather agitated right now. It would be best if she rested in her room.”
“Yes, Madam.”
Once the lady of the house had given her order, the knights no longer had any reason to hesitate.
Kanna stared at them in utter disbelief.
The knights actually entered the room and seized both of her arms.
“Let go! This isn’t the time for this!”
As she struggled, the knights looked visibly uncomfortable.
A noble was still a noble.
They couldn’t simply handle her roughly.
Unable to bear their hesitation, Isabel slapped her own chest in frustration.
“Lift her up! Drag her out by force!”
Chloe immediately nodded in agreement.
“…!”
Kanna was so shocked she couldn’t even scream.
The largest knight had grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her into the air.
Before she knew it, she was slung over his shoulder.
Like a sack of grain.
Her face instantly flushed bright red.
This is practically treating me like livestock!
Just as she was about to protest—
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
Kallen’s voice rang out first.
In only a few long strides, he reached the knight and gripped his shoulder with crushing force.
“Stop.”
His tone was so threatening that even Kanna found herself staring in surprise.
She had never seen Kallen’s face so twisted with emotion.
He was someone whose expression rarely changed.
But now…
His entire face burned with fury.
“Take your hands off her.”
