Chapter – 25
You’re Not at Fault?
“It was you, after all.”
Elizabeth laughed, baring her white teeth.
“I did what?”
“Why act like you don’t know? You’re the one who poisoned my black tea, Josephine.”
“Do you have proof?”
Elizabeth, who had been lying collapsed on the floor, clapped her hands together with a thud and stood up.
“It’s obvious. You used Haber to poison my teapot and conspired with Siegfried to pretend there was no poison. And you deliberately wore jewelry that reacts to that poison.”
Elizabeth’s crimson pupils suddenly came close to Josephine’s nose.
“To clearly show Henrieus how your jewelry dissolves in the poison. Isn’t that right?”
But Josephine, for some reason, began to giggle softly. Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel displeased.
“What on earth are you talking about? So you’re saying I staged it? The one who pressured me to drink that tea wasn’t Henrieus or Siegfried—it was you.”
“If I had known there was poison in it, would I have done that? How stupid would it be to kill you right in front of Henrieus? What would I gain from that?”
The whites of Elizabeth’s eyes grew increasingly stiff.
“All I’d get is Henrieus mourning you, dead by my hand. I could absolutely never do that.”
“Hearing you say that, it seems the one who really poisoned Henrieus’s teacup was you.”
Elizabeth was speechless at the conclusion Josephine calmly spat out.
“Wh-what nonsense are you talking about?”
“Aren’t you curious why Haber isn’t by my side?”
Josephine took a step forward.
“Aren’t you? Are you really curious enough to ask?”
“Where your head maid is, what does that have to do with me?”
Josephine stopped laughing. She had briefly dropped the mask of the innocent lamb earlier, but it seems you still can’t completely let go of the act of being best friends?
“Do you truly want me to answer where Haber was every time she wasn’t by my side?”
Josephine lowered her voice to a whisper.
“If you hear that answer from my lips, you will truly regret it.”
_Dang._ A loud alarm bell rang in Elizabeth’s head.
Her face finally showed realization of what Josephine had figured out.
“So it’s better if you don’t test how much I know. Unless you want to be confined to the palace and then dragged down to the dungeons.”
“Crazy bitch.”
Finally, Elizabeth threw off the sheep’s mask and revealed her true colors.
A monster of greed, filled with jealousy and inferiority complex—that was Elizabeth’s true form.
“So Siegfried told you everything? And then you pretended to be scared, sniveling and crying in Henrieus’s arms?”
Elizabeth chuckled with a low laugh.
“And then you pretended to save Siegfried, trying to handle it on your end? To hide from Henrieus that you and Siegfried were in cahoots.”
“Well, do you have proof of that?”
Josephine remained unshaken. Elizabeth’s conjecture was quite plausible, but none of it was true.
She and Siegfried weren’t in a beautiful enough relationship to be called ‘in cahoots.’
The curse of revenge he had forced upon her—she could still feel it alive and moving inside her, eyes wide open.
Staring at Elizabeth alongside her.
“Your conscience would know better, Jo. Just imagine how heartbroken Henrieus would be if he found out all this?”
Elizabeth answered, pretending to wipe away a tear.
“Henrieus wouldn’t have dreamed in his wildest dreams that you were this hypocritical, shameless, and wicked.”
Yet the malice writhing in her crimson pupils remained vivid.
“Do you think Henrieus will look at you as affectionately as he did once he knows your true self? A plain, worthless girl like you?”
Josephine was not swayed at all.
Because she now understood: the more she reacted like this, the more anxious Elizabeth became.
Elizabeth had always liked seeing Josephine’s face wounded and her self-esteem chipped away by such words.
Now, Josephine could guess how much that had gnawed away at her own flesh all this time.
“Then go and tell him.”
Josephine said without changing her expression.
“What?”
“Go and tell Henrieus. Tell him I conspired with Siegfried and poisoned your black tea.”
Elizabeth couldn’t believe her ears. It was the moment Josephine admitted her guilt with her own mouth, but she couldn’t move an inch from the spot.
“I don’t know if Henrieus would believe you, but if that’s what you want, you should do it.”
“You double-crossing bitch!”
Unable to bear it, Elizabeth cursed and raised her hand high.
But before she could, Josephine grabbed her wrist, rendering her immobile.
“But, do you think Henrieus would value you, his mistress, over me, his empress?”
“Aah!”
Elizabeth let out a sharp scream. The wrist she had grabbed was her right one, which had been burned, and the pain flared up like fire again.
“It hasn’t even been a week since I almost died from poison. If you try to frame me now, on the very day I prepared a tea party for you, you won’t even break even.”
Josephine said, shaking off the wrist grotesquely cracked from the burn.
“Remember this. The poison came from the black tea you tried to give Henrieus. As long as that fact exists, you can never clear yourself of suspicion.”
Elizabeth staggered, panting from the pain.
“Wh-what’s with this sudden attitude? You’ve never been like this before. What do you want from me now?”
“Apologize.”
Josephine glared and said.
“For everything you’ve done to me since the Academy until now. For secretly sharing affection with my husband. For trying to frame me at the tea party. For insulting me with the groundless rumors linking me with Siegfried—for all of it.”
Then Elizabeth frowned as if hearing something absurd and retorted.
“Apologize? To you?”
“Yes. Beg for forgiveness right here. For all the wrongs you’ve done to me.”
Josephine said without blinking.
“And leave Henrieus. Promise to return to the Hauzen Barony and live quietly. If you do, I’ll cover up all your crimes.”
For a moment, Elizabeth just stared at her blankly.
Then the sneer plastered on her mouth cracked apart, and she burst into hysterical laughter.
“Why would I?”
Elizabeth’s eyes gleamed wildly.
“Do you have proof that I did those things? I have no reason to beg for your forgiveness, Jo. Aren’t you under some kind of misconception?”
With those words, Josephine felt a slight dizziness.
“You don’t?”
Deep down, she didn’t want to believe that. Unconsciously trying to steady her trembling fingertips, she asked again.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. I haven’t done a single thing wrong to you.”
Elizabeth answered with a face more innocent than ever.
“Even if I had, it’s all in the past. Childhood friends can hurt and misunderstand each other sometimes. Are you going to do something to me over just that?”
Elizabeth scoffed loudly.
“Shouldn’t you be thanking me instead? I was the one who made you new friends at the Academy, and I was the one who brought you and Henrieus together.”
Literally, Elizabeth firmly believed she had done nothing wrong.
Taking in the adopted daughter of a Duke with no lineage as a friend was already a big sacrifice. How could that be her fault?
It all happened because that girl was lacking.
“Who do you think you owe your position to, you ungrateful bitch? Do you think a wretch like you could have become Empress without me?”
The trembling in her fingertips, which had been shaking uncontrollably, stopped.
Siegfried was right.
They don’t reflect. Those who were once villains remain villains until the day they die.
So the day they atone will never come. Josephine answered feeling unburdened.
“Alright, that’s your answer then.”
This was the last chance for forgiveness she could offer Elizabeth.
There had been lingering affection, thinking they were once friends. She had hoped, at the very end, she would change.
“Then from now on, you won’t be able to stop me no matter what I do. Even if it’s something that strangles your neck.”
But because that last hope was also shattered to pieces, Josephine could finally solidify her resolve.
As long as she lived, Henrieus and Elizabeth would never be able to close their eyes in peace.
She would pay them back double, a hundredfold the suffering she endured, and make sure they couldn’t even close their eyes in death. Without fail.
