*Magical art.*
Count Kasper's mouth fell open, wide and trembling.
Of course — it had been *her* doing. The whispered rumors that the Duke's mistress dabbled in dark magic were, in fact, true.
"Do you understand me?" Juliet's voice was barely a breath. "If so, nod."
The Count nodded frantically, his head bobbing like a marionette with severed strings. His eyes were glassy, unfocused — the eyes of a man who had looked into something vast and incomprehensible and been found wanting.
Juliet smiled — a small, satisfied curve of her lips — and rose. Without another word, she turned and walked away.
"Count! What happened? Are you alright?"
"This is — this is *absurd* —"
It was only after Juliet had left the corridor that people dared crowd around the fallen man. Count Kasper remained on the floor, trembling as though he had witnessed something so terrible his body had forgotten how to stand.
The commotion swelled behind her — alarmed voices, shuffling feet, the rustle of silk as onlookers pressed closer. Juliet did not look back.
She walked at an unhurried pace, and the crowd parted before her like water around the prow of a ship. No one stepped into her path. No one met her eyes.
*Sometimes,* she thought idly, *even a crazy bitch is capable of crazy things.*
---
A flicker of blue drifted into view at the edge of her vision.
The butterfly floated behind her like a loyal attendant, its wings catching the light in lazy, iridescent pulses. As Juliet slowed her steps, it glided forward and alighted on the back of her outstretched hand.
Its wings — almost entirely blue, delicate as stained glass — fluttered twice before settling. Then a faint, bluish glow began to emanate from its small body, warm against Juliet's skin.
Count Kasper's terror, it seemed, had made for a *satisfying* meal.
This spirit was Juliet's power — a butterfly-shaped entity summoned and sustained by her mana.
It appeared small. Lovely. Harmless. A pretty ornament drifting through the air, easily dismissed, easily ignored.
Its true nature was something else entirely.
The creature was a demon — an ancient, ravenous thing whose real body existed in another dimension altogether. When Juliet had once asked why it chose such a form, the answer had been characteristically unsettling: *A butterfly is beautiful enough to deceive the human eye, and fragile enough that no one thinks to be afraid. By the time they realize what I am, their minds are already mine.*
The butterfly granted Juliet the ability to induce nightmares of staggering intensity. Upon contact, the demon would conjure the most horrifying monster or scene the victim's mind could imagine — dredging terrors from the deepest wells of the subconscious — and then *devour* the emotions that followed. Fear, anguish, despair. It fed on them all.
*So the secret is out,* Juliet mused, watching the butterfly pulse with stolen light. *At least partially.*
Count Kasper had been half right.
Juliet's butterflies could indeed perform what people called her "secret magic tricks." But the spirit fed most eagerly on *negative* emotions — anger, hatred, and above all, fear. It was not seduction. It was not enchantment. It was something far less romantic and far more dangerous.
She studied the butterfly, noting that it seemed fractionally larger than before, its glow a shade more vivid. The more emotions it consumed, the more it would grow — and the wider the range of illusions and fantasies it could weave.
But *complete* mental domination — ordering someone to walk to a rooftop in their sleep and step off the edge, as she had threatened the Count — remained beyond her reach.
There was also another limitation. A critical one.
*It doesn't work on Sword Masters.*
So, contrary to what the gossips believed, there was no possible way she could have bewitched Lennox Carlisle. Not with this gift. Not with any gift.
*If it had been possible,* she thought, and something quiet and tired stirred behind her ribs, *everything would have turned out differently.*
For ten years, Lennox Carlisle had been known as the youngest Sword Master in recorded history. His mind was a fortress no butterfly could breach.
Juliet opened her palm. The demon shimmered, its butterfly shape dissolving into a swirl of blue-white light that sank into her skin and vanished — absorbed back into the well of mana from which it had come.
Her hand looked ordinary again. Pale, slender, unremarkable.
She closed her fingers and descended the temple steps.
---
"Miss."
A tall knight stood waiting beside the Duke's carriage, his posture straight, his expression carefully neutral. He was not the man who had escorted her that morning.
Juliet paused at the top of the stairs and tilted her head.
"Where did Sir Kane go? And why are *you* here, Sir Jude?"
"My mentor was called away on urgent business. I've been sent to escort you in his place."
The young man's name was Jude Heyon — one of the Duke's personal knights, and the youngest member of the entire retinue. Despite his age, there was an ease about him, a natural warmth that most of the Duke's grim-faced soldiers lacked entirely.
Jude was good-natured by birth and friendly by habit. He was one of the few people in the Duke's household who treated Juliet not as a mistress to be handled with caution, but as something closer to an older sister.
He glanced past her toward the temple entrance, where clusters of people were still murmuring and craning their necks. Then he lowered his voice.
"What happened in there?"
"Don't worry. Nothing of note."
"Then why is everyone staring at you?"
"Hm…"
Juliet adopted the serene, faintly bewildered expression of someone who could not *possibly* imagine what all the fuss was about. Jude studied her for a long moment, then nodded slowly — the nod of a man who understood exactly what had happened and had decided not to press.
Jude Heyon, like Juliet, came from an aristocratic family. He knew how the capital's society operated — its petty games, its elaborate cruelties, its childish whims.
"Miss."
Instead of opening the carriage door, Jude dropped to one knee before her.
He held out a small velvet box in both hands, presenting it with the solemnity of a knight offering a sword to his liege. The gesture was deliberate — *conspicuously* deliberate — performed in full view of the temple steps, where dozens of eyes were already watching.
"The Duke of Carlisle sends this for you."
Juliet looked down at him, then at the box, then at the crowd pretending not to stare.
"…Did you have to do this *here?*" she murmured. "You could have given it to me inside the carriage."
But she already knew the answer. He had chosen this spot with care — not only in front of the temple, where attention was guaranteed, but directly beside the carriage, whose doors bore the elegant, unmistakable crest of the Carlisle duchy carved in gold.
Jude caught her eye and winked.
As a nobleman himself, he understood the art of spectacle. He knew precisely what message this scene would send — and to whom.
"These are the *Tears of the Sun*," he announced, his voice pitched to carry, "a gift the Duke has specially prepared for you."
He opened the box.
Light erupted from within.
A necklace lay against the dark velvet — and *necklace* seemed too modest a word. The centerpiece was a diamond the size of a quail's egg, deep amber-gold, the color of a sun sinking into the horizon. Surrounding it, a constellation of smaller stones — transparent, flawlessly cut, blazing with white fire — cascaded outward like rays of light frozen in precious metal.
It truly deserved its name. *Tears of the Sun.* As though the heavens themselves had wept gold and crystal.
"Oh my *God* —"
"Just *look* at that radiance —!"
Before Juliet could react, gasps and murmurs rippled through the crowd. People pressed closer, fans lowering, necks craning, all pretense of disinterest abandoned.
*Good,* Juliet thought, her expression betraying nothing. *Now every person who witnessed this little performance will spread the story with admirable diligence.*
By evening — by the time the New Year's banquet began — the entire capital would know.
They would know how the Duke's mistress, visiting the city for the first time in over a year, had behaved with brazen confidence before the highest-ranking nobles. And they would know what lavish, *obscenely* expensive gift the Duke of Carlisle had bestowed upon his spoiled lover.
The message was clear: *She is mine. Touch her at your peril.*
Juliet looked at the blazing necklace with an unreadable expression. Then she turned her head away.
"Let's go."
"Yes, miss."
Jude closed the box with exaggerated slowness — ensuring every last onlooker had ample time to memorize what they'd seen — before finally opening the carriage door.
He took one final, lingering look at the buzzing crowd, allowed himself a satisfied smile, and climbed in after her.
---
As the carriage rounded the corner of the temple and the noise of the crowd faded behind them, the coachman turned to ask for their destination.
"Where shall I take you?" Jude asked from the opposite bench, his tone suggesting he already knew the answer. "Back to the mansion?"
"No."
"I — I'm sorry?"
"I'm going to Montague County. Drop me off along the way."
Jude blinked at her, his easy confidence momentarily replaced by genuine confusion. After a beat of silence, the coachman adjusted course, turning the carriage toward the outskirts of the capital.
"I intend to rest at home," Juliet continued calmly, "and go directly to the banquet hall from there. Please inform His Highness."
The Montague earldom had stood largely empty since the death of the Earl and Countess. When their only daughter departed for the north, the grand house had fallen quiet — maintained by a handful of the old Count's loyal servants who remained behind to keep the dust at bay and the gardens alive.
Juliet visited them whenever she came to the capital. It was not unusual.
But even so, Jude's brow furrowed.
"You're not coming back with me?"
"No." Juliet placed the velvet box on the seat beside her and slid it toward him. "And take this back as well."
"…I'm sorry?"
The question hung in the air. Jude stared at the box, then at Juliet, then at the box again. He opened his mouth, closed it, and finally spoke with the careful gravity of a man who suspected he was about to hear something he didn't want to.
"But *why?* Don't you like it?"
"No — it's beautiful."
"Then why? It's incredibly valuable. The Duke chose it himself. It's a special birthday gift, Miss Juliet —"
Juliet only smiled.
*A special gift.*
She gazed at the box resting between them. The necklace was certainly no mana stone — the concentrated crystals she truly needed — but even so, a faint pulse of mana hummed within that magnificent diamond. Faint, yes. But present.
Her fingers drifted to the velvet lid, tracing its edge. A whisper of cold traveled up through her fingertips.
The craftsmanship was undeniable. The diamonds were extraordinary. She didn't know the exact price, but Jude had said it was exorbitant, and she believed him.
But Juliet did not think about what it cost.
She thought about *how* it had been chosen. One of the Duke's secretaries had likely selected it. Or, more probably, Lennox had simply signed a blank check without glancing at the contents — just as he did every year on her birthday. A task delegated. An obligation discharged. A woman placated.
Juliet understood precisely what this extravagant gift, delivered by his knight in a public spectacle, was meant to communicate.
***Forget what you said this morning. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change.***
It was such a *Lennox Carlisle* response.
No conversation. No acknowledgment. No attempt to understand *why*. Just a diamond necklace worth a fortune and the silent expectation that she would put it on, smile, and behave.
*And in truth — nothing has changed.*
Juliet's eyes, half-veiled beneath dark lashes, held no emotion. She was too exhausted to feel disappointment anymore. Disappointment required hope, and hope was a currency she had spent down to the last coin years ago.
If there was one lesson the past seven years had taught her — one single, brutal, **stupid** lesson — it was this:
Lennox Carlisle would never change. No matter what she did. No matter what she said. No matter how long she waited.
The day when that man swallowed his pride and asked for her love would ***never*** come.
Seven years. She had wasted *seven years* learning something she should have understood in seven days.
*Click.*
Juliet's fingers pressed the box shut. The sound was small and final — the sound of a lock turning, of a door closing, of a woman who had made her decision and would not unmake it.
She held the box out to Jude with a slight, steady smile.
"This is not my birthday present."