MPO

CHAPTER XVlll

She got out of bed and groped her way to a small room.

Finding the violin case hidden there, she sat down and opened the lid. Then, she gently touched the violin with her fingertips.

“Mom…”

This violin was an expensive purchase by her mother when she was young, hoping not just for piano lessons but also for violin training.

The piano her mother had bought had disappeared without a trace, but she managed to protect the violin. She had kept it securely hidden, never handing it over even when her siblings threw tantrums for it.

It was a violin she had protected thus. Every time she played, she remembered her mother and found solace in the small thing she had managed to preserve.

But even though she protected the violin, she became unable to play it. If even a little sound of playing was heard in the mansion, her stepmother would come up subtly asking for the violin.

Not wanting to provoke any noticeable action since she could not predict what the stepmother might do if given the violin, Leila closed the violin case and groped her way along the wall. Reaching the balcony, she grabbed the glass door and became lost in thought.

Despite being blind, her room was located in the deepest, highest part of the mansion. What if she took just one wrong step on this balcony and fell? Could she die from a broken neck?

She had always just thought about it, but today, it seemed she could do it.

Feeling powerless, Leila thought maybe she would just die today.

“No… I haven’t yet arranged a place for Anna to stay.”

Anna was the only attachment she had left in this world. She was ready to end her life at any time, but she did not want to die without giving anything back to Anna, who had sacrificed so much for her.

So she turned away from the balcony door and went to her desk. She groped with her hands and opened the bottom drawer, pulling out something hidden in the deepest part.

She couldn’t check the documents right away, but she knew very well what they contained, as she had seen them since she was young.

It was the estate left to her by her mother before she passed away.

“It was an estate she received long ago from my maternal grandfather.”

She would have to retrieve it in person because it was entrusted to her by her mother. She had been putting it off because she wasn’t free to go out, but it seemed that she would have to resolve this matter soon by any means necessary.

Leila, worried about Anna, sat at the desk. She took out a book from the bookshelf and touched it with her fingertips. It was a book of pressed flowers that Anna had made for her.

The faint scent of dried flowers wafted up. When she was mentally distressed, taking out this book of pressed flowers and touching it with her fingertips made her feel somewhat alive.

Following the incoming sunlight, seen only vaguely with her eyes, she savored the pressed flowers when she was suddenly interrupted by the distant sound of horse hooves.

It seemed her father had returned, and as she debated whether to go meet him, she stopped touching the pressed flowers upon hearing more sounds of horse hooves. It seemed like a guest had arrived.

With a sigh of regret, Anna knocked on the door again.

“Miss, please eat something…”

Since she had been banned from going out, she couldn’t leave her room at all. Conversely, no one could enter her room. She was completely isolated, so unless she wanted, even food couldn’t be provided.

“Please, Miss…”

Leila hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. She really had no appetite. But if she stayed like this any longer, she felt as though Anna might collapse before she did, so she reluctantly tried to open the door.

Just then, Anna spoke urgently.

“…Huh? Miss. It seems like we have a guest?”

Although the event took place on the first floor, the commotion was loud enough that Anna heard it clearly. There was talk that Duke Bavenberg had visited…