Chapter 37
Khalid swiftly scanned the interior and moved deeper inside. When he yanked aside the thick curtain hanging on the wall, a hidden door appeared behind it.
Half-open, the door led to a secret staircase heading upward. It was an uncommon design, but occasionally found in the city’s commercial districts—built so that merchants could live and run their shops in the same narrow building without their private quarters being seen by customers.
Roy’s face turned pale as he stared at Sylvia, who had collapsed unconscious on the floor. There was no possible excuse for the situation.
As Roy struggled to speak, Khalid strode past him with the same fierce momentum as when he’d entered. The look on Khalid’s profile—tense and grim—made Roy’s heart sink with fear.
He couldn’t bring himself to lift his head.
Khalid trusted me enough to leave her in my care…
He had even reassured Khalid himself, urging him to go, insisting that everything would be fine under his watch.
“We need to search immediately.”
At Khalid’s heavy words, Roy straightened up in alarm.
“I’ll find Lady Dalia. Even if I have to tear this entire city apart.”
“No. I’ll go alone.”
“What?”
“There’s someone I have in mind. You take this woman back to the mansion.”
“But what about Lady Dalia!”
“I’ll find her and bring her back. Just go and wait.”
Roy, too agitated to obey, was about to protest when Khalid’s gaze met his. The calm tone of his voice didn’t match the storm in his eyes.
“…Understood.”
Forcing himself to focus, Roy lifted Sylvia onto his shoulders. By the time he straightened up, Khalid was already gone.
Dalia woke to the presence of someone nearby.
After blinking a few times, her blurred vision gradually cleared.
“…Shirei.”
The last face she wanted to see was staring back at her.
A sigh escaped her lips on its own.
Was this reality? A hallucination? Or had she somehow fallen back into that dreadful previous life?
A faint anxiety had always lingered in her heart—that perhaps the new life and the watch given by God, the miracle that let her cross time itself, had only been a fleeting dream.
Her peaceful days at the Ahmad estate—beginning the day she unexpectedly rescued Khalid during her flight through the forest—had seemed almost too tranquil, too perfect. Even the unreal experiences with the dragon and the timepiece had filled her with joy and contentment.
Yet, no matter how much she tried to accept it and live that happiness, the succession of fantastical events had been so extraordinary that she could never fully believe it.
She’d always felt as if her feet weren’t quite touching the ground.
And now, that shadow which had never left her heart had taken form and stood before her.
“How have you been? Quite a long runaway, don’t you think, for a bride-to-be with a case of pre-wedding blues?”
“…”
When she stubbornly refused to reply, Shirei reached out and tilted her chin upward.
His eyes roamed over her face, evaluating her the way he always had in her past life, with that same sickening, appraising gaze. Dalia’s lips trembled.
His snake-like eyes slid down her body, and when he found no visible flaw, a satisfied gleam appeared in them.
“I can tell you’ve been doing well—your complexion looks much better than at the festival.”
“Take your hand off me.”
“Still as ill-mannered as ever, I see. Perhaps worse.”
His hand left her chin only to slap her across the face in the next instant.
“…”
“How troublesome.”
As she turned her head aside and groaned, Shirei rubbed his wrist as though the act had tired him.
“Your father, Baron Borbon, claimed he’d trained you well. That was clearly a lie.”
It felt as though she’d gone back in time—to before her death. After marrying Shirei, Dalia had been struck and grabbed by the hair countless times. He delighted in inflicting pain cleverly, ensuring the blows left no visible marks—because, as he said, the merchandise mustn’t be damaged.
“What’s wrong? Disappointed your future husband doesn’t behave like a noble?”
He sneered, clearly provoked by her contemptuous expression.
“You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “It’s not that you’re not a noble. It’s that you’re this kind of man. That’s what disgusts me.”
In her previous life, after marrying her, Shirei had worked obsessively to polish his manners and assimilate into the aristocracy. But no matter how refined his posture became, his nature—his instinct to control and use people as tools—never changed.
Khalid, by contrast, was clumsy with etiquette and social niceties, but he treated her gently, sincerely, with his heart.
That’s something this man could never fake, no matter how much polish he puts on.
“And what kind of man am I, hmm?” Shirei snapped. “Do you even know what you’re saying?”
“I do. No matter how you wrap yourself in perfume and silk, you’ll always stink of rot, Shirei.”
He raised his hand again in anger, but stopped himself midway, forcing a smile.
“Still, that’s no way to talk to your husband-to-be.”
“You’ll never be my husband.”
“What’s this? You haven’t even seen my good side yet. Ah, right—the idiot from the dress shop said you’d caught some rich foreigner, didn’t he?”
So Hanson told him. Of course. Hanson’s working with him.
“Come now, Dalia. Don’t be so stiff. You’ll regret acting this way later, won’t you?”
“I won’t.”
“Sure you will. You’re only bold now because you’re a noblewoman and I’m just a commoner. But don’t get too full of yourself—that’s friendly advice.”
He softened his tone, trying to coax her.
But Dalia only shook her head.
That honeyed voice—he’d used it before, too. Back then, she’d been foolish enough to listen, to hope that marriage might change him, that if she tried hard enough, he’d come to love her.
What a waste of time that was.
After discovering he’d drugged her and sold her to another man, she’d realized there was no redemption for him.
Even if she lost the power of the watch, she would fight, resist, and survive this time.
“If you think about it,” Shirei said, his tone oddly casual, “it’d be wise to behave. You’re my bride, after all. Sooner or later, you’ll want my favor.”
Even if you drown me in your filth, I’ll never feel what you want me to feel.
The days when she’d once believed that life might somehow get better were long gone.
She refused to become a doll that obeyed his every word simply because no one else would care for or love her.
“Um… Lord Shirei.”
A deep male voice interrupted them—it was one of his subordinates.
At first, Shirei ignored the call, intent on wearing Dalia down. But when the knocking didn’t stop, he rose with irritation.
As he stepped away, Dalia quickly glanced around.
I have to escape.
No matter how much she vented her anger, her situation wouldn’t change. She had to find a way out—now.
“I told you not to disturb me,” Shirei snapped through the small window in the metal door.
“I know, my lord, but… you said any message from him must be delivered immediately…”
Grumbling, Shirei snatched the small folded note from the man’s hand and read it.
“…”
“That damned mutt.”
It was clearly bad news. Cursing, he crumpled the paper and hurled it aside, then kicked over a chair in frustration.
While his subordinate lingered awkwardly in the doorway, the rising noise from outside caught Dalia’s attention—familiar voices of street vendors echoed faintly from beyond the walls.
I know those voices. We’re still in Ahmad.
Determination filled her eyes.
This wasn’t like last time—when she’d been drugged and trapped at the top of a tower. There was a chance to escape.
I have to get out of here. Find the watch—or find Khalid.
Then, in a calmer voice, Shirei said to her,
“Seems my superior has run out of patience.”
“…What?”
“He wants the wedding moved up—right away, if need be.”
He gestured for his subordinate to move her, but when the man’s eyes widened at the sight of Dalia’s disheveled state, Shirei cursed and shoved him back out the door.
“All this trouble…”
Clearly irritated to have to handle her himself, he drew a dagger and cut through her restraints, then tossed her his outer coat.
“Put it on.”
“…”
“Or do you want people saying you were violated before your wedding? That wouldn’t be pleasant, would it?”
“You bring me here half-naked and now you care about that?” she shot back in disbelief.
He smiled thinly. “Oh, don’t worry. I covered your face with a bag. No one could tell you’re a noble lady.”
“…”
“Brilliant, isn’t it? A noble young lady, stripped and bagged—who’d ever guess her identity?”
He laughed, thoroughly pleased with his cruelty.
“What’s with that look? You should thank me. I’m protecting your reputation.”
As she glared at him, an idea flickered in Dalia’s mind.
She wasn’t sure it would work, but Shirei’s obsession with climbing the social ladder—his festering inferiority toward the nobles—was something she could use.
He despised aristocrats, yet desperately wanted to be one of them. That contradiction defined him. He took perverse delight in degrading her, a noblewoman, yet also sought to raise his own status through her.
I’ll use that against him.
“In that case, this too,” she said coolly.
As if touching something filthy, she pinched the edge of his coat with her fingertips.
He scowled at her disdain.
“Then what, would you rather I put the bag back on?”
“If I’m to be married off like some commodity,” she said, lifting her chin proudly, “at least let me keep up appearances. I don’t want ugly rumors spreading.”
Her steady, defiant gaze met his—and for the first time, Shirei hesitated.
