However, Baron’s speed was nothing compared to how he had checked me earlier.

The circle he stretched out enveloped Irina, who had only taken a few steps away, in an instant.

Thud-!

The dazzling light in the air scattered and disappeared as I watched Irina in a daze.

Could it be that Irina had deflected the magic?

My heart sank, and so did Baron’s.

Irina stared blankly into space, unable to believe what had just happened to her.

Slowly, her color returned, and she sighed and shook her head.

“Your Highness…….”

Barely forcing his unmoving lips together, Baron said, looking at Killian.

“It’s the same phenomenon you’ve seen before: the magic to confirm the curse has been deflected. Perhaps this maid is…….”

“I, Your Majesty, did not do anything evil, I was really just going to clean your bedroom that day, believe me!”

Irina, who had been staggering backward on weak legs, quickly crouched down to face Killian and shouted.

She seemed to know that the reason she had been summoned to the study was because of her unauthorized access to the crown prince’s bedchamber in the past.

“If you ask me, I will tell you without a shred of falsehood, but please do not punish me with magic, Your Highness.”

“I do not wish to punish you. Get up.”

Killian’s articulate voice cut off her appeal, and a dazed Irina raised her head to look at Killian and Baron, then slowly pushed herself to her feet.

“You said you had something to check, did you just voluntarily reject the Earl’s magic?”

“Oh, no, I don’t even know what it is, Your Highness.”

“Magic is not a trivial thing that can be easily shaken off by a mere mortal unless one is protected by a god or possesses holy powers. I have no reason to suspect anything about what just happened.”

“……I’m afraid I really don’t, Your Majesty.”

“I see……. What I am asking is whether you are different from other people.”

Irina, looking down at the floor, froze like a statue.

“I don’t know either.”

At the question Killian added, Irina’s silver hair, which had become matted as she sat down earlier, began to tremble.

Standing with her hands clasped together until her knuckles were white, Irina lifted her face, almost choking with fear.

Her violet eyes were narrowed and tense, and her tightly pressed lips looked pitifully painful.

When the tip of her quivering chin turned into a sob, Irina spoke.

“I, Your Highness, deserve to die. I know I shouldn’t be alive, but I did, I dare to stay here…….”

“If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so long ago. Calm down, I’m just asking a question.”

Calm down?

Even I stared at Killian in disbelief.

I wondered if this was the same Killian who spoke so placidly, his face never changing, and who occasionally cracked a smile.

He was looking at Irina with a completely relaxed, frighteningly cold gaze.

“So reveal yourself. Who you are.”

Irina, looking like she might snap at any moment, exhaled a shaky breath with a pale complexion.

I thought this was enough, but Killian didn’t seem to budge.

She had no intention of letting me out of her sight without saying the word cat in her own words.

The fact that Irina had drained her magic against her will, and the fact that she knew she shouldn’t be alive, meant that she was no ordinary human.

The reason she’s so scared is that she’s not supposed to be detected.

Killian may be insensitive to the feelings of fear and terror that most humans have, but I can only imagine how frightened she is, and my heart is heavy.

This happened because I already asked him to call her.

Unless Irina is a cat. We’ll just have to call Harrid and ask him to erase her memory.

I’m going to collapse on the spot if we keep this up.

I impatiently tapped the back of Killian’s hand.

When he lowered his gaze to mine, I made a gesture of clinging to his pants to climb into his lap.

He pulled away from me and turned his attention to Irina, but I patted his thigh, urging him to continue.

“Sigh.”

With a low sigh at my continued pats, Killian picked me up and placed me on his lap.

“Meow.”

I said as soon as I was on his lap, and Baron looked up at me in surprise.

But it was Irina who reacted faster.

She hadn’t been able to answer Killian’s question before, shaking like a weak animal thrown into a cage of wild beasts.

Irina spotted me, wide-eyed, and immediately began to run toward me, panting.

“Vivian!”

* * *

Killian watched Irina Scott hold Reinette and cry for hours.

Her sob, a mixture of regret, sorrow, and pent-up anger, was a sight he had never seen before.

Is that what a mother looks like when she reunites with her lost child?

Killian gradually closed his mouth and became quiet as he watched Irina repeatedly rubbing Reinette’s cheek and whispering to her that she was sorry and saying she thought she had lost Reinette.

In conclusion, Irina Scott was indeed Reinette’s mother, as Baron had confirmed.

She, too, was a cat like Reinette.

“You spared us…….”

Irina stared down at Reinette, speechless for a moment.

Killian remembered that Irina had called her Vivian.

Her real name was Vivian Scott.

Reinette, who was called by a name he did not recognize, was now sitting next to Irina, not by him.

It was only natural.

Even if they had lost their memories, they were a family that had found each other.

Killian felt strangely unfamiliar with this unquestioned naturalness.

“I can’t believe it. I thought we’d die if we were found.”

Irina blurted out, dumbfounded, and quickly straightened her hair, which had been disheveled from crying earlier.

Killian gazed at Irina’s silver hair and amethyst violet eyes, then slowly dropped his gaze to Reinette.

Reinette was resting her chin on her front paws, looking up at Irina with her big golden and green eyes.

Killian’s red eyes slowly sank as he watched Irina’s hand gently stroke Reinette.

“I lost my mind when I lost Vivian, there isn’t a single person in the Empire who doesn’t know about the Oracle, and I was going to search the entire palace and die if I didn’t find her, but she had amnesia and couldn’t find me.”

“How did you get lost?”

Baron, sitting on the couch, asked in a hushed tone.

“When I was working, I kept her in the garden, because it’s a big place and Vivian likes to spend time there, and when it was time to finish work, we met at our usual place, but suddenly she who was supposed to be there was nowhere to be seen.”

“Is there any chance anyone else besides you could have survived?”

Baron asked again, and Irina immediately shook her head.

“No.”

“Then you and your daughter are the only ones.”

“As you know, since the Oracle came, there has been an order to kill all cats, and I’ve heard that even wizards have been mobilized to find and kill all cats in hiding.”

“I know that. But I’m just wondering how you’ve survived all these years.”

“I don’t know that for sure, I just know that what my mother taught me is that when I go to sleep, I turn into a cat, so I must hide. My mother taught me that, and I’m sure my mother’s mother taught her that too.”

“You mean you went from cat to human.”

“It was so long ago, I don’t know if my ancestors were cats, or if they were humans and were cursed to be this way. I don’t know that, but I do know that we are cursed now.”

As Irina spoke, Killian noticed Reinette’s ears perk up in question.

“Reinette, I mean Vivian’s father.”

“There is no ……father.”

At her answer, Killian and Baron narrowed their eyes as if they didn’t understand.

Irina looked conflicted for a moment, then hesitated, and Reinette was seen resting her head on the back of her hand as if trying to relieve her tension.

Killian, who had been watching the mother and daughter, leaned back deeply on the sofa.

His index finger gently tapped the couch, making the veins on the back of his hand stand out even more.

“I told you we were cursed. One of the curses is that we turn into cats, but another is that when the red moon rises, we have children.”

Click-!

Baron dropped his teacup in surprise.

“I apologize, Your Majesty.”

Baron hastily tried to pick up the broken teacup, but Killian stopped him, gesturing for Irina to continue.

“So we are all women. We’ve been taught that we must carry generation to generation, so we’re born women, and when the red moon rises, our stomachs will naturally become full, and will have to give birth to and raise the child in our womb. That’s called atonement.”

“Atonement……?”

A laugh appeared on Killian’s lips as he asked the question as if it were absurd.

Irina was stunned by his reaction, and quickly paled, wondering if she had said the wrong thing.

Then Killian shut his mouth, regretting the giggle he’d just let out.

He knew it. He shouldn’t have questioned Irina so sharply.

The face of Reinette’s mother, a woman with a surprised expression, was filled with nothing but the fear she had become accustomed to living in silence and the bitter patience she had endured to the point of ignorance.

He lowered his gaze to her, unconsciously aware of Reinette.

Reinette’s eyes were wide and her hair stood on end as if she, too, had been taken aback by the news of my future.

Baron, who caught a glimpse of the stiff Killian, spoke to Irina again.

“The Red Moon only rises once every seventy years. The last it was seen…….”

“Eighteen years ago, year 511 of the Imperial Calendar. Ten months later, the following year, Vivian was born. My age is eighty-nine. I tell you my age like this because…….”

Eighty-nine. At an unbelievable age, Baron’s mouth dropped open.

I couldn’t believe my ears, and Killian was the same way.

He looked at Irina, who looked to be no more than twenty years old, and wondered if Reinette would never grow old either.

If Irina was right, Reinette was born in the year 512, which meant she was now 529 and eighteen years old.

Irina swallowed hard and tightened her grip on the handkerchief in her lap.

“It’s because I only have about a year left to live. Our lifespan is ninety years, and we are destined to die when our children reach adulthood. Normally, I would have spent the year or so I have left with Vivian as a matter of course, but there’s an unforeseen problem.”

An unexpected problem.

Killian tore his gaze away from the fidgeting Reinette to stare at Irina.

“What do you mean?”

Irina sat staring at her daughter, biting her lower lip, before she finally spoke.

“Vivian has turned into the opposite.”