[Crown Prince Edwin, the one Adaline most suspected of her death.]
[Although outwardly she played the role of a villain, in fact "Adaline Bertrand" was quite a significant figure, so much so that she could pose a threat to the candidate for sainthood. She lived under guard, in carefully guarded mansions.]
[To poison or eliminate such a person without leaving traces, a much higher force was needed. And so her suspicions from the very beginning boiled down to two names: Shane or Edwin.]
[And, with a character like Edwin’s, the choice was obvious.]
[The smiling angel with the face from the painting: hair as light as molten gold, clear round eyes and shining blue irises as if carved from topaz. Looks like a heavenly creature.]
[And, inside there is a cold-blooded manipulator and a soulless controller.]
[I thought only a prince could be like this... but it turned out that my childhood friend is even worse.]
Until this moment, it was as if she had been blind.
“I wasn’t even surprised.” - he said, shaking his head in disappointment. "It's a shame."
“I’m actually in complete shock.” - she responded dryly.
Edwin, as always, smiled without a hint of sincerity. He walked over easily and gracefully and sat down opposite her.
“When I got the text at dawn, I thought that either Shane had gone completely crazy and was hallucinating, or I was dreaming.”
“Too bad it’s not one of these.” - she muttered.
“But you are really alive. It’s like a waking dream...a strange feeling.”
“And you still don’t know how to listen to people.”
[He spoke as if he were conducting a monologue, but, in a strange way, this was precisely what brought her a strange feeling of peace. Especially compared to Shane, who has changed beyond recognition over the years.]
“How did you pull this off?” - Edwin asked, narrowing his eyes. “How did you trick Shane right under his nose?”
Shane took the responsibility for it:
"Lucian Cole helped."
“Lucian Cole? The same psycho?”
"Yes. The same one."
“And this madman knows how to cooperate?”
Adaline stared at Shane's profile with suspicion.
[Lusian, it turns out, is at one with him. They agreed. She just had to find out how much it was sold for.]
“The heir of the Marquis is not the kind of person you just make acquaintance with. You never said you knew him."
“It turns out that acquaintance is not necessary.” - her voice sounded poisonous.
Shane grinned.
“You just have to pay.”
"..."
[If Lucian really "collaborated", this was enough for Edwin to guess everything without going into details.] He immediately got to the point:
“Adaline, have you committed a crime?”
"I? Well, I’m actually a law-abiding person, if that’s the case.”
“If it was something serious, I wouldn’t have to change my identity and run away.”
"..."
“Although, even if it was serious...”
He glanced at her, almost imperceptibly, but unambiguously. The meaning of his words was clear without explanation: if you had told Shane, he would have sorted everything out.
Previously, she considered such remarks as stupid jokes. And she even despised him for this, because she thinks that everyone is like him. But now...now she understood.
[Like reaches for like. Always.]
“Did you kill someone?”
“I didn’t kill anyone!”
“Or maybe it was someone from the highest nobility? Or a priest? Or, God forbid, a Royal from a neighboring country?”
“I said I didn’t kill anyone!”
“Then for what?”
"..."
[Because this world hates me.]
[These words, the real reason, seemed too childish, almost ridiculous. And, most importantly, she could not pronounce them.]
[In novels about rebirth and relocation, the main characters often behave the same way - they are stubbornly silent about the truth, and this only makes the plot irritating.]
[Are they afraid that it will hurt others to find out that they are just characters in a fantasy world?]
[No one has ever died from pain.]
[Even if they take you for a crazy person, so what? They will send you to a monastery. Or into exile. But it was useless to beg for it, no one believed.]
She herself, reading such scenes, was indignant: Well, tell me already!
[But when you yourself are in this story...everything is different.]
[Every time I try to tell someone dies. Cruel. Painful.]
[Every time she even thought about saying this, nightmares awaited her - with her death, with the death of her interlocutor.]
[She didn’t try to tell Shane and Genevieve. But as soon as she opened her mouth in front of Lloyd... she saw his death again and again.]
Edwin looked at her silently for several seconds, then asked:
“So why did you come to me? Since you started everything, why are you reporting?”
“We are planning to have a wedding as soon as possible.”
“W-what?”
“Just letting you know. The engagement was approved long ago by His Majesty.”
"...Well, it's true..."
Эдвин бросил взгляд на Адалин.
She looked like she was ready to punch him right now. Her eyes cursed him in every imaginable way, but she did not utter a word.
[She is being blackmailed.]
He understood it immediately.
[The hostages are most likely Genevieve...or Adaline's family.]