Chapter 18
Chapter 18
If she had only taken a second look at the divination tools she’d glanced at before receiving James Dautryche’s message—
If she’d even just cast a quick fortune about her own choices—
Then maybe, just maybe, she would’ve paused to reconsider everything.
“What’s done is done. What’s been committed can’t be undone.”
If you have time to regret it, you might as well pick up the pieces and move forward. But there are times when turning back, or retreating entirely, is the better choice. And everyone, at least once in life, learns this lesson the hard way, at great cost.
For her, that moment started right now.
Just like yesterday, there would be no customers today.
That was no mere assumption—it was a prophecy, pure and absolute.
“Rose Taylor, you idiot. You absolute fool.”
Inside the small office furnished only with a visitor’s couch and a desk, Rose curled up in her chair, muttering to herself despondently.
Was it the cheap soap? Her soft, pinkish-brown hair had lost its shine and hung limp. The once-vibrant violet of her eyes, which used to gleam like sweet candied violets, was now dulled with weariness.
“So this is what I end up with. After everything, this is the result. It’s laughable.”
Her words, meant for no one, vanished into the city noise leaking in from beyond the thin windowpane.
If Mrs. Brown saw me sitting like this, she’d scold me for sure…
She missed Mrs. Brown, her old housemate Catherine, and Caroline too. All of them. It had now been two months since she came to Linden and opened her office under the alias Alice Hampton. And her income during that time? Virtually nothing.
The first and only client had been an elderly lady who wandered in over a week after opening, asking her to help find a lost pet.
That was it.
Even if clients did start coming now, it would be a problem—Rose’s magic was depleting by the hour, and her ability to recover it was painfully slow. A simple spell would be a near-suicidal effort at this point.
On top of that, ever since that night, every decision she made had turned into another regret, dragging her mood down lower and lower until she might as well be digging for groundwater.
Yes. Rose was currently experiencing the absolute worst period of her life.
She tilted her head back to look out the window; the sky seemed to reflect her bleak prospects. Though spring had passed and the brilliant summer sun was on its way, the skies above this industrial city remained a flat, unchanging gray.
Thinking about how today, tomorrow, and probably every day afterward would be smothered in the same choking smog only made the heaviness in her chest sink deeper.
Then finally, she snapped.
“This is driving me crazy!”
She was truly at her wit’s end.
“The business has tanked! I’ve got no money! I can’t go back to Romberton and open shop again! My magic’s shot!”
Starvation or magical collapse—those were the two futures waiting for her. She was, quite literally, standing at the edge of a cliff.
“Ugh… if only it weren’t for that stupid bond mark!”
It wasn’t like she’d spent the past two months loafing around.
She’d worked hard, canvassing the neighborhood, handing out flyers, attending social events, researching how to remove the soulmate imprint. And yet, no results. Not for her business, and certainly not for the mark.
The soulmate bond…
Sharing magic was fine. That part she could live with. But why did it have to slow down her magic recovery so dramatically?
“It’s bad enough that I’m bound to a Logos, who’s got no magical power to speak of—why the hell does it have to slow me down too!”
Her voice echoed into the empty air of the office, her anger pointless and unreturned.
At this rate, she had no choice but to swallow her pride and seek help from the Royal Bureau of Paranormal Investigation.
Knock, knock, knock.
Just as she was about to spiral into a full-blown self-flagellation session—
A knock?
For a moment, she thought she was hearing things.
But no—it was real. The door to her office, unopened for over a month and a half, creaked open.
“Is this the Hampton Paranormal Research Office?”
A crisp accent—one unmistakably Romberton elite.
Just by the voice, she knew.
This one’s got money.
“Yes! This is Hampton’s, specializing in psychic phenomena, paranormal research, and lectures—!”
She leapt to her feet with practiced enthusiasm—
“Please, come—come… in…”
But her energetic welcome fizzled out the moment she saw the visitor’s face.
A tall man, at least a head taller than most, stepped inside. Broad shoulders, long legs that seemed sculpted from marble, a body draped in a perfectly tailored suit made from the finest cloth.
White lambskin gloves covered large, well-kept hands, and a dark ebony walking stick hinted at luxury far beyond her own earnings.
His neatly slicked-back hair was a deep, dark shade of golden brown. A sharp nose, firm lips, and piercing blue eyes glimmered beneath defined brows.
She knew this man.
The very reason she’d fled from Romberton to Linden.
For many reasons.
“Found you at last, Miss Olga Blavatsky.”
It wasn’t even her real name, and yet hearing it aloud made her flinch.
Rose began to edge backward, desperately calculating how to escape this situation.
James R. Dautryche.
Owner of Dautryche Company, which supplied luxury fabrics to the royal family and operated the kingdom’s largest department store. The rising railroad tycoon.
And…
“Oh… sir, you must be mistaken. I am not Olga Blavatsky.”
“Don’t lie. Do you have any idea how much I spent trying to find you?”
“I really have no idea what you’re talking about—”
“You should take responsibility, necromancer Miss Olga Blavatsky. Or shall I say, Miss Alice Hampton?”
The moment the word responsibility came out of his mouth, Rose felt her blood turn to ice.
“Responsibility? For what, exactly?”
It can’t be… it can’t be because of that, right?
No way. A regular person would never be able to tell!
There’s no way—absolutely no way a non-magical person would ever notice!
Please, please, dear gods, let this not be what I think it is…
She silently begged the very gods she had never bothered to believe in.
“For daring to spend a night with James Dautryche and then running off like nothing happened.”
Oh no.
“And for having the audacity to leave this scribble on my body and disappear.”
Oh god. Oh gods.
James pointed to the left side of his chest.
Rose’s violet eyes widened in shock.
“Scribble? You don’t mean—”
James’s cold blue eyes bore down on her.
Pinkish brown hair, violet eyes—she looked a little more worn out than before, but there was no mistake.
“You can see it?”
It took her a long moment, but that was all she could manage to say.
James sat on the visitor’s couch and politely sipped the watery tea she’d prepared.
“Just to clarify again… the mark on your chest, the one you claim can’t be erased…”
“A rose and an eagle.”
His sharp, unflinching answer made Rose groan and bury her face in her hands.
He’s not a Mythos… how can he see a familiar’s mark?
“Does anyone else know?”
“No. Strangely, I’m the only one who seems to see it. But I imagine you can see it too, Miss Blavatsky.”
Her head was about to explode.
“I’ll find a way. I will find a way to erase it.”
“That’s a given.”
“Haah…”
She was doomed.
Really, truly doomed.
Now she had to go to the Royal Bureau of Paranormal Investigation.
This wasn’t just a scandal—it was a catastrophic disaster.
A familiar imprint with Logos, and the bonded partner could actually see the mark? It was a fundamental contradiction of the world’s magical laws, which had remained unshaken for thousands of years.
And the person responsible was none other than Rose Stellania Taylor, a long-vanished Neutral?
The Mythos Times would have an absolute field day, running dramatic tabloid spreads like a serialized romance novel.
“You really managed to find me, huh.”
“And you really managed to run, didn’t you.”
James shot back immediately, not letting her change the subject.
“I didn’t expect it to take me two whole months. I had a hunch your name was fake, but still.”
He looked directly at her with that smooth, handsome voice of his.
“Why did you run away?”
“……”
“Did you hate the idea of marrying me that much?”
“Of course I did!”