TWLSV~08

Chapter 8

How long does she plan to keep me sitting here like this?

Elisia let out a quiet sigh.

She had arrived at Hestie’s parlor precisely at the appointed time, only to be left sitting there in silence. Hestie had not spoken a single word since her arrival, and Elisia felt as though her precious time was simply being wasted.

Across from her, Hestie sat calmly working on embroidery without even glancing up. There was no tea, no refreshments prepared on the table—nothing. It was obvious she had summoned Elisia purely to humiliate her and had no intention of hiding it.

She’s sixteen, was it?

Since things had already come to this, Elisia decided she might as well study Hestie properly from head to toe.

Leaning comfortably against the sofa, she crossed one leg over the other. At that, Hestie—who had been entirely absorbed in her embroidery—twitched one eyebrow.

Hestie shared the same blond hair as Vincent, though hers was deeper in color, closer to shining gold. Her curls cascaded below her shoulders in soft waves, and her eyelashes were the same golden shade, making her resemble a delicate porcelain doll.

Her eyes are completely silver.

Unlike Cedric’s silver-gray eyes or Vincent’s slightly darker gray ones, Hestie’s irises were a pure silver. Yet unlike her brothers, she had smaller eyes and a petite nose. Especially with those curtain bangs split stiffly down the middle, paired with her dark brows, her eyes looked even smaller than they really were.

Ah, I really want to fix those bangs. Such a cute face wasted like that.

Elisia’s leg began bouncing unconsciously.

Tap. Tap.

The vibrations shook the floor enough to make Hestie’s hand tremble. Finally, she stopped embroidering altogether and glared at Elisia with narrowed eyes.

“Miss,” Elisia asked lazily, “why exactly did you call me here?”

“Are you planning to keep me sitting here in silence all day?”

Despite her persistent questions, Hestie only curled one corner of her lips upward without answering.

Clearly, she intended to do exactly that.

“Just sit there like a decorative plant,” Hestie finally said. “That’s about all your existence in this mansion is worth anyway.”

It was an impressively insulting first sentence.

Not only was she speaking informally, but it sounded as though she had spent the entire day carefully considering the most hurtful thing she could possibly say to Elisia Seymour.

But Elisia barely listened.

Her entire attention remained fixed on Hestie’s awful split bangs.

“Will you stop shaking your leg already?!”

Unable to bear it any longer, Hestie snapped loudly.

With an irritated motion, she practically threw down her embroidery hoop and needle.

“I can’t take this anymore,” Elisia declared dramatically.

Then she abruptly stood and grabbed the scissors lying on the table.

Hestie’s eyes widened.

“W-What are you doing?!”

“Stay still.”

“W-Wait, what—”

Thinking Elisia had finally snapped and was about to stab her, Hestie jumped up in alarm. But Elisia immediately pushed her back down into the chair by climbing over her.

Their eyes met.

Elisia’s gaze gleamed with terrifying intensity.

“Aaaaah!”

Hestie screamed with all her strength.

“D-Don’t move or you’ll get hurt. Stay still.”

“Y-You lunatic! Is nobody outside?! Somebody help—!”

But despite Hestie’s desperate cries, no one came.

It happened to be the maids’ late lunch hour, and all of them were downstairs in the kitchen.

“Close your eyes, Miss. Don’t open them.”

“Aah—!”

The cold blade touched her forehead, and Hestie squeezed her eyes shut.

Then—

Snip.

Something slid down the bridge of her nose and fluttered into her lap.

Her hair.

Bracing herself for pain that never came, Hestie slowly cracked one eye open.

Through her narrow field of vision, she saw Elisia’s face directly in front of hers, completely focused.

“There. Done. Now where’s a brush…”

Elisia swept away the loose strands sticking to Hestie’s face with her sleeve, then used her fingers instead of a comb to smooth the newly cut bangs into place.

After stepping back to admire her work, she clapped her hands happily.

“So much prettier. Honestly, that was driving me crazy. Why would you split such thick hair down the middle like that? Just having bangs makes you look this adorable.”

She cut… my bangs?

Hurriedly grabbing a mirror, Hestie stared at her reflection with blinking eyes.

The face that had always seemed somewhat severe and awkward now looked brighter, softer, fresher beneath the bangs grazing her brows.

“Pretty. So pretty. My sense for beauty hasn’t failed me yet.”

Elisia muttered to herself proudly, thoroughly impressed by her own skills.

“You like it, don’t you?”

“…Yes.”

Hestie answered in a tiny voice, her cheeks flushing red.

She seemed to genuinely like it.

Seeing that expression, Elisia finally thought Hestie looked her real age.

Even after Elisia left, Hestie continued standing before the mirror, touching her bangs over and over again.

Every servant she had encountered that day had praised her appearance, saying she looked even lovelier with her bangs down.

“Hestie, my dear little sister.”

Startled by the sudden familiar voice, Hestie looked up sharply from the full-length mirror.

“What is it, Vincent?”

“You cut your bangs.”

“…Yeah. What do you think?”

“You’re pretty no matter what you do.”

Vincent answered without a shred of sincerity.

Without asking permission, he strode into the room and dropped onto the sofa.

“I heard you called your sister-in-law over earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

“…Honestly? She looked exactly like someone with amnesia. Like a completely different person.”

“That’s surprising. I expected you to say she was still trash.” Vincent scoffed. “Don’t tell me you actually think she’s changed just because she lost her memory. Get a grip, Hestie. She’s still Elisia Seymour.”

“I know that.”

Hestie answered stiffly.

Of course she knew.

Even without her memories, that woman was still Elisia Seymour—the daughter of the family that might have killed their mother.

Hestie had constantly summoned Elisia just to mock and torment her.

There had even been days when she laid hands on her.

But Cedric—her brother and Elisia’s husband—had always silently overlooked it.

Hestie couldn’t stand watching the brother she loved suffer through a marriage he never wanted. The more obsessively Elisia clung to Cedric, the crueler Hestie became toward her.

The day before Elisia ran away had been the same.

Hestie had thrown away all the breakfast prepared for Elisia. She had gathered every letter addressed to her and burned them.

Then, while passing her in the hallway as usual, she stuck out her foot.

Unfortunately, Elisia had been wearing high heels that day.

She pitched forward violently, smashing her head against the floor. For a long moment she couldn’t get up.

Then, still sprawled on the ground, Elisia glared up at Hestie and spoke in a strange voice.

“Miss. The Duke is going to fall in love with me eventually. So you’d better stop treating me like this. You never know what I might do to you once I start using the Duke against you.”

What kind of eyes had Elisia Seymour worn then?

Eyes that looked capable of doing something truly terrible.

And the very next day, Elisia left the estate and never returned.

To Hestie, it could only seem as though Elisia had run away because of her.

Which was why, when Cedric searched for Elisia in a fury, Hestie could never bring herself to confess what had happened.

“Does she remember that incident?” Vincent asked while idly examining Hestie’s embroidery hoop.

“No.”

The cruel harassment Hestie had inflicted the day before Elisia disappeared was a secret shared only between the two of them.

The reason Hestie had summoned Elisia today was to subtly test whether she remembered any of it.

Though that plan had completely derailed the moment Elisia grabbed the scissors.

“It’s obvious something happened during those four days she disappeared…”

“What if Cedric finds out?” Hestie whispered nervously. “He was terrifying back then.”

Naturally, she recalled how Cedric had been during Elisia’s disappearance.

Hestie had assumed he wouldn’t care whether Elisia ran away or emigrated across the continent.

But contrary to her expectations, Cedric had spent every waking moment restless and unable to sleep.

Then he dispatched every knight in the estate to search every nearby village from top to bottom.

Hestie had never before seen Cedric look so cold, sharp, and frightening.

“As long as I keep my mouth shut, he’ll never know,” Vincent said lightly. “Unless your dear sister-in-law is only pretending to have amnesia.”

“No. It has to be real amnesia. Even the way she speaks is completely different.”

“So then,” Vincent asked, pressing the sharp embroidery needle slowly into the center of the tightly woven cloth, “are you giving up on the plan we talked about?”