Baron Gaspard was in a foul mood as he hurried toward the cemetery where the funeral was being held.
*Damn useless bastards! They couldn't even steal a key from an unguarded mansion!*
He should never have trusted such worthless men.
If those scoundrels had done their job properly, he would have sold the artifact by now and be lounging in a seaside villa in the southern provinces, drinking wine and counting his gold.
Instead, he was being hounded — by creditors demanding payment, by bankers sniffing around his debts, and worst of all, by the capital guard, who had taken an *uncomfortable* interest in the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law.
Shortly after fleeing the temple that night, Gaspard had crept back — hoping to confirm that Juliet was dead. If she wasn't, he had intended to finish the job himself. There was no conceivable way she could have survived.
But when he arrived, the temple was empty.
No mercenaries. No bodies. Only dried blood staining the ancient stones — and silence.
It was four agonizing days before he learned the truth.
Juliet had returned home *alive*, accompanied by the bodies of her parents. The official story claimed she had lost her memory from the shock.
*Impossible.*
He hadn't expected her to survive. It was exactly like three years ago, when she had fallen from that horse — the one he had so carefully sabotaged. Then, too, she had defied all odds and lived.
The girl had the devil's own luck.
And although the rumors insisted she remembered nothing, Gaspard had spent every moment since then trembling with fear. He was terrified that the instant Juliet opened her mouth, she would point directly at him.
His fears had proven well-founded. The very next day, he was summoned to the capital guard headquarters for questioning.
But that wasn't the worst of it. Almost immediately, whispers began spreading through the capital — rumors that Baron Gaspard had orchestrated the deaths of the Count and Countess of Montagu.
*I should have killed her myself.*
He should never have let those incompetent fools handle it. Now his niece had become the source of all his problems.
The only saving grace was his foresight in preparing an alibi. Immediately after hiring the mercenaries, he had bribed several people to swear they had been with him that night. During his interrogation, he had denied everything with righteous indignation, insisting he had been elsewhere entirely — and he had witnesses to prove it.
The other stroke of luck was that the mercenaries themselves had vanished. Disappeared completely, as though they had never existed.
Without them, the only evidence against him was Juliet's testimony — the word of one traumatized girl against his carefully constructed defense.
The capital guard had released him. One person's account, they said, was insufficient grounds for a trial.
But if even *one* of those mercenaries resurfaced and named Gaspard as the man who had hired them...
The thought made his stomach lurch.
*Where the hell did those bastards go? And how did my niece escape?*
It remained a maddening mystery. The men he had hired were not known for their mercy. They had built their reputation on taking the filthiest jobs — murder, torture, disappearances — without hesitation or remorse.
Could such men have suddenly developed a conscience? Shown compassion? Let a beautiful young woman simply *walk away*?
Impossible.
"You're late, Uncle."
Gaspard froze mid-step.
"You — you..."
In the center of the darkened cemetery, Juliet stood alone.
She wore a black mourning dress that pooled around her feet like spilled ink. Though he had been told she survived, seeing her with his own eyes was more jarring than he had anticipated.
*Perhaps it's just this place,* he told himself. The cemetery. The gravestones. The oppressive silence.
Even in her grief, Juliet was stunning — pale as marble, her beauty sharpened rather than diminished by sorrow.
"The funeral ended hours ago," she said. Her voice was calm. Pleasant, even. "All the other guests have left."
*Dong. Dong. Dong.*
The temple bells tolled in the distance — a slow, mournful rhythm for the souls of the departed.
*The Montagu funeral. Today. A week after their deaths.*
Gaspard's throat constricted. He could barely form words.
Juliet regarded his stricken expression, and something flickered across her face — amusement, perhaps, or contempt. Then she laughed.
It was not a warm sound.
"Why do you look so surprised, Uncle? As though you've seen a ghost."
"N-no! I wasn't — I just—"
"Is it really so terrible that I'm alive?"
"What? Of course not! How could you even—"
Baron Gaspard's eyes darted around the cemetery.
Though it was still daylight, the world had grown dark. Massive clouds had gathered overhead — black and roiling, spreading across the sky like ink bleeding through water. He saw no lightning, heard no thunder, but the air felt *charged*, heavy with something he couldn't name.
As Juliet had said, they were alone. The other mourners had departed. The only other souls in sight were a pair of elderly grave-keepers dozing beneath a distant tree.
*Good.*
Gaspard straightened his spine. If they were alone, he could handle this.
"Do you *really* believe I had anything to do with your parents' deaths?" His voice rose, gaining confidence with each word. "Why the hell did you put on this ridiculous show?! Do you have *any idea* what I've been through because of your accusations?!"
The more he shouted, the more certain he felt.
So what if she had survived? Juliet was still the same naive child she had always been — the stupid, docile girl who hadn't even suspected the nail hidden beneath the saddle of the horse he'd given her for her fifteenth birthday.
Even if his original plan had failed, he could still salvage the situation. With his brother and sister-in-law dead, he could petition to become Juliet's legal guardian. Once he controlled her, he would control the Montagu fortune.
She was just an eighteen-year-old girl. If he intimidated her enough — shouted loud enough, projected enough righteous anger — he could bend her to his will. He had done it before. He could do it again.
His confidence fully restored, Gaspard thrust an accusing finger toward her.
"Where is your evidence?! If you slander an honest man without proof, you're nothing but a lying little—"
"Oh," Juliet interrupted softly. "*Evidence.*"
She laughed again — a cold, crystalline sound that raised the hair on the back of his neck.
"You misunderstand, dear Uncle."
Gaspard's confidence wavered.
"Did you really think," she continued, her voice dropping to something almost gentle, "that I lured you to this place to *collect evidence*?"
"What the hell are you—"
"I didn't invite you here." Juliet tilted her head, studying him the way a cat studies a cornered mouse. "You came because you had to. If you'd skipped your own brother's funeral, the capital guard would have found that *very* suspicious, wouldn't they?"
Gaspard's mouth opened. Closed. He took an involuntary step backward.
Something was wrong. Something was *very* wrong.
The girl in the black dress smiled — a predator's smile, sharp and hungry.
"I promise you, Uncle," she said, "you will never appear in court."
"Well — good," Gaspard stammered, still retreating. "That's — that's what I—"
He stopped.
*Why was her dress moving?*
There was no wind. The air was utterly still. And yet the hem of her gown rippled and swayed, as though stirred by an invisible current.
And those lights — those strange, flickering lights dancing at the edges of his vision—
Baron Gaspard looked up.
It wasn't clouds that had darkened the sky.
Above him — around him — *everywhere* — a vast swarm of butterflies hung in the air. Thousands upon thousands of them, their wings shimmering with an otherworldly blue-white light that pulsed like a heartbeat.
They surrounded him completely.
"Because there will be no trial," Juliet said.
Her voice was calm. Almost kind.
The butterflies descended.
"AAAAAAGH! NO — NO, PLEASE—"
But in Baron Gaspard's terror-stricken eyes, they were no longer butterflies.
They were something else entirely — vast and dark and *hungry*, with gaping mouths lined with endless teeth. The same nightmare creatures that had haunted his sleep for as long as he could remember, finally made flesh.
Finally come to collect what he owed.
His screams lasted only seconds.
---
From the moment the swarm engulfed Baron Gaspard until it dispersed, leaving nothing behind, Juliet did not look away.
***Crash!***
A sound behind her — something falling. She turned sharply.
An old man with a wooden cane had collapsed to the ground. One of the grave-keepers. He stared at her with bulging eyes, his weathered face white with terror.
Juliet raised one finger to her lips.
*Shh.*
The old man clamped both hands over his mouth and nodded frantically, his entire body trembling.
Juliet turned away.
When it was over, she walked slowly toward the cemetery gates. Her footsteps made no sound on the soft earth.
She had accomplished what might be called revenge.
But she felt nothing.
No satisfaction. No relief. No sense of justice served. Only a hollow, echoing emptiness where some emotion should have been.
*In the end, it happened the same way.*
She had tried so hard. Believed that this time — *this time* — she could change things. Save them. Protect them.
But her parents had died again.
*I couldn't change it.*
Now all she had left was herself. Nothing to protect but her own survival.
Juliet stopped at the cemetery entrance.
A black carriage waited on the road beyond — plain and unmarked, bearing no crest or insignia. As she approached, a servant materialized and opened the door, as though he had been expecting her all along.
She climbed inside without hesitation.
The man seated within did not seem surprised to see her. His red eyes tracked her movements as she settled onto the seat across from him, her expression perfectly composed.
"Are you returning to the North?" Juliet asked without preamble.
"Yes." Lennox's gaze held hers. "Are the conditions still unchanged?"
Juliet considered the question.
*No matter how hard I try, I cannot stop the flow of fate.*
Just like before, the only path forward led through him.
But this time would be different. She would stay only as long as necessary — only until she had learned to control her power and secured her independence. She would leave before Dahlia arrived.
Before history repeated itself completely.
*I'm tired,* she thought distantly. *I want to rest. To live peacefully, without trouble, without heartbreak, without—*
*Although perhaps that's nothing compared to what I endured in my previous life.*
But she was certain of one thing.
Unlike before — when she had lost herself completely to her obsession with the man sitting across from her — this time, she would not surrender her heart.
This time, she would *survive.*
"The conditions remain unchanged," she said.
---
Six days earlier, the terms Juliet had proposed were simple.
*"Your Grace will find such a woman very convenient to have at his side. Won't you?"*
By "convenient," she meant exactly that — a lover who would make no demands. Who would not interfere in his affairs or question his choices. Who would not crave his love, his affection, or his power, but would provide him with the support of her abilities whenever he required it.
A tool. A resource. Nothing more.
In exchange, Juliet had named only two conditions.
First: Baron Gaspard would be delivered to her.
Second: She would remain at Lennox's side for a minimum of three years.
*"Usually,"* Lennox had observed, *"such arrangements are not called deals."*
Juliet had not wavered. Unless both conditions were met, there would be no agreement. She had given him time to consider.
---
"So." Juliet's voice was steady. "Have you made your decision?"
"Yes." Lennox leaned back against the carriage seat, his posture deceptively relaxed. "Draw up a contract. Put the conditions in writing."
"A contract?"
"Yes. With one additional clause." Her eyes met his without flinching. "Either party may terminate the arrangement at any time they choose."
Lennox's red eyes narrowed.
Juliet noticed. She did not look away.
"Will that condition prevent us from reaching an agreement?"
"No."
*Juliet Montagu was a strange woman.*
The thought surfaced in Lennox's mind unbidden. She was unlike anyone he had encountered before — certainly unlike the women who typically vied for his attention.
In the dim light of the carriage, wearing her black mourning dress still dusted with cemetery earth, she radiated a kind of dark, unconventional beauty. She looked more natural here — surrounded by death and shadow — than she ever would in a glittering ballroom.
*Strange,* he thought again. *And interesting.*
"May I ask," Lennox said suddenly, his gaze sharpening, "why you require such a contract?"
Juliet's skin seemed almost translucent in the low light — pale as moonlight against the dark waves of her hair. Except for her lips, red as winter berries, she looked as though she might dissolve into mist at any moment.
And yet she was *stunning*. Like a poisonous flower. Beautiful — and deadly.
"Because I..."
She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was flat, her eyes empty of warmth.
"Because I fell in love with you at first sight."
There was not a single trace of genuine feeling in her gaze.
*That,* Lennox thought with something approaching amusement, *may be the most insincere confession I've ever received.*
But it didn't matter.
He liked the answer.
"Elliot."
"Yes, Your Grace."
The response came instantly — the servant had been waiting just outside, as anticipated.
"Bring me pen and paper."
Lennox did not take his eyes from Juliet.
"And inform the household staff to prepare the bedroom in the east wing."
---
The carriage lurched into motion, its wheels crunching against the gravel road as it turned north.
Inside, two people sat in silence — bound now by ink and paper, by calculation and necessity.
Neither of them smiled.
But somewhere in the darkness between them, something had begun.