Chapter 2: An Empty Kitchen, A Filled Childhood Home

The gate of my family home was smaller than I remembered.

Compared to the Glanz Ducal estate’s gate, wide enough for three carriages, the Felsen Viscount house’s gate could barely allow one carriage through.

Vines clung to the surface of the stone walls, and the corners of the gateposts were slightly chipped.

—Was it always this small?

No.

It was simply that my eyes had become accustomed to ducal standards.

This house had always been like this.

The kind of house that leaves vines to grow because they call it “charming.”

“Serena.”

My father stood inside the gate.

Erwin von Felsen.

His white hair had increased.

His back seemed slightly more bent.

—Seven years had taken time not only from me, but from him as well.

He looked me up and down, taking in my figure holding a bag, and for just a moment, his expression twisted.

Then, he returned to his usual gentle face.

“You’ve come back.”

That was all.

He did not ask why.

He did not ask what had happened.

“…I have returned, Father.”

My voice almost trembled.

I held it back.

I had smiled perfectly when leaving the ducal estate, and yet to falter at my own home’s gate—

“Come to the kitchen.

I can still make your favorite soup.”

My father turned on his heel and started walking without hesitation.

I followed him.

When I entered the kitchen, a pot was already on the fire.

Turnip and onion soup.

The one he always made whenever I caught a cold as a child.

After my mother passed away, this was the only thing he could cook.

(…He was waiting for me.

With the pot already on the fire.)

I did not ask since when.

Unpacking ended quickly.

Of course it did.

I only had one bag.

Rune book management tools, a pen, and an inkstone box.

Thinking that this was all I had from seven years of married life made me want to laugh—and yet not.

My old room had been cleaned beautifully.

The bedsheets were new.

On the bookshelf by the window, the books I had read before marrying were still lined up.

The colors of their spines had slightly faded.

Seven years of sun exposure.

I pulled one out.

An adventure story.

A book that seventeen-year-old me had been engrossed in.

When I flipped through it, the bookmark was still there.

The page I had stopped at on the morning I got married.

It was not that I wasn’t curious about what came next.

But right now, the words would not enter my head.

I returned the book.

—Now then.

I sat down, with nothing to do.

At the ducal estate, I never had time like this.

In the morning, I checked the ledgers.

At noon, meetings with merchants.

In the afternoon, preparations for social engagements.

At night, planning the next day’s menu and the servants’ shifts.

The only “enjoyable time” in my day was the hour before bed when I helped Leon with his studies.

Leon.

I wonder if he is doing well.

Did he eat breakfast properly?

—No.

There is no point thinking about it anymore.

That child has his own mother.

Right now, there is nothing.

I did not know that having nothing could feel so unsettling.

In the end, I laid out my rune book tools on the desk.

Even though there were no ledgers to use.

I adjusted the angle of the pen and fine-tuned the position of the inkstone box.

I knew it was foolish, yet my hands would not stop.

(Have I become someone who can do nothing without ledgers?)

In seven years, how much time had I spent for myself?

—I cannot remember.

Outside the window, birds were chirping.

It was a familiar sound.

As a child, I used to wake up to this.

At the ducal estate, mornings began with the footsteps of servants.

Here, they began with birdsong.

That alone made me a little happy.

At the same time, the kitchen of the Glanz Ducal estate had fallen silent.

To be precise, it had not fallen silent—it had stopped.

“What is this morning’s menu?”

The head chef stood at the kitchen entrance, looking around at the servants.

No one answered.

There was no instruction sheet from the lady of the house this morning.

There had been none yesterday either.

“Shall we ask His Grace—”

“His Grace only said, ‘Do as usual.’”

As usual.

Everyone in the kitchen was painfully reminded of who had been the one assembling that “usual” every morning.

Before noon, Lillie Merz appeared in the kitchen.

“I will help.

Surely we can manage something as simple as a menu?”

A faint smile.

The servants exchanged glances.

The head chef silently handed her the inventory list.

Lillie took it and looked through it—

Then stopped moving.

She did not understand the meaning of the numbers listed there.

In the evening, the voice of the former duchess, Margarete, echoed from deeper within the mansion.

“You can’t even decide a simple menu?

What are the people of this house doing?”

No one said anything in return.

Three days later.

While drinking tea brewed by my father, I opened a letter.

There was no sender’s name.

But I recognized the handwriting.

The maid who had served the longest at the ducal estate—the one I had passed in the hallway.

“Madam.

I write this letter knowing it is presumptuous.

The household has stopped.

The menus, the procurement, the servants’ schedules—everything.

Lady Lillie attempted to take command, but she does not know how to read the inventory list—”

The letter returned to polite phrasing after that, going on at length about the current state of the household.

At the end, a single line:

“Please return.”

I folded the letter.

(…Of course.)

I smiled slightly.

I do not think it was a malicious smile.

Probably.

She cannot read the inventory list.

Of course not.

That format was something I designed myself.

The way item codes were assigned.

The priority of suppliers depending on the season.

Quality rankings by place of origin.

It was a system I built from my own mind and put into the books.

I never made it so it could be understood without a handover.

—Because there was no need to.

Because I never intended to pass it on.

No.

That is not quite right.

There was no one to pass it on to.

If I disappeared, this would happen.

I knew that.

I knew, and I still left.

So there is no surprise now.

But—

That one line, “Please return,” lingered like a small thorn.

(Do you think I can return?

Do you think I want to return?

—No.

There is no longer a place for me there.)

I placed the letter in a drawer.

I would not write a reply.

“Serena.”

My father peeked into the study.

He held an envelope in his hand.

“Now that I think about it, this arrived yesterday.

A letter from Count Weiss.”

“…Count Weiss?”

The count from the marriage proposal I had rejected eight years ago.

My father waved the envelope lightly and smiled meaningfully.

“Well, go on and read it.

I do not think it is a bad offer.”

The tea had cooled slightly.

Outside the window, the birds chirped again.

I had not expected this morning to be one where I received two letters.