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With an expression I could not read, the diary continued to stare back at me. It was a little ridiculous how I couldn’t read her expressions when she had the same face as mine.

[I have no idea what you’re planning, Ashley. There are an insurmountable number of timelines here.]

However, what was clear to me from her gaze was that the diary was feeling impatient.

[It would be impossible to find the past you want here, that is to say, find your own timeline. If you don’t escape here quickly, you might end up trapped here.]

The diary spoke hastily as though she was trying to convince me. And yet I found myself remaining calm.

“Even without you trying to persuade me otherwise, I know it’ll be hard to do.”

[Ashley, you’re being swayed by the nature of this space.]

“Ah, that nature. You mean the one that’s making me feel so empty that I feel like giving up right now?”

I smiled as though I was affirming my current state of emotions frankly.

“I haven’t gone mad yet. Not yet.”

But as I said that, my eyes were clearer than ever.

“Alright, answer me this.”

Obviously, the diary knew the answer.

“Is it impossible for me to change the past?”

And for some reason, she hesitated to respond.

[That’s…]

The moment the diary pressed her lips together. A clear beam of light burst out of the bottom of my feet. Furrowing my brows, I quickly closed my eyes.

‘This is getting annoying.’

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself tumbling onto grass. I wasn’t in the best of moods given that I didn’t manage to hear the diary’s full answer.

“Urgh, I can’t believe I rolled down a hill. This is ridiculous.”

When I fell, I scratched my hands and legs, resulting in the abrasions on my palms and calves. Couldn’t it drop me down here gently?

The reason why the space was so heartless must be because it resembled its owner.

“Ha, where am I now?”

For now, I raised my head to stare ahead. The trees and the white stones I spotted looked to be part of a garden from somewhere.

But instead of looking well-groomed, the flowers were haphazardly placed with some already withering. The trees looked thin. I would have never guessed that this was a garden if I hadn’t noticed the fences.

‘If I hear a crow cawing, I might think I’m in the garden of some haunted house.’

Suddenly, to an electrifying feeling, I widened my eyes.

‘A child?’

I discovered a child to my right.

I widened my eyes when I spotted the child, wondering why they were here.

His black hair, that was like the night sky without any stars or the moon in sight, or like a pitch-black shadow, shook in the wind.

His golden eyes were bigger than I originally knew them to be.

There was no way I wouldn’t recognise him.

“… Castor?”

The expressionless child quickly frowned.

“You know me.”

The crouching child got up before dusting the dirt off of himself.

“Do you know me?”

I couldn’t help but to raise my voice.

“Diary!”

But it was not so I could leave. I had called for her almost instinctively. Like how herbivores react instinctively the moment they meet their natural predators.

To me, Castor had always been the shackles that oppressed me. Even though he was a young child now, he looked threatening. I also had no idea what he was planning.

‘Diary?’

For some reason, however, even after a few seconds passed, my chest remained still.

‘Why? Why isn’t the diary appearing?’

***

Castor Dje Kaltanias. The child who was turning 10 years old this year twirled his quill. The deadline his teacher, Granius, had set for him was two days from now but he was the type of person to finish his work in advance. Eagerly fiddling with his parchment, Castor suddenly raised his head.

He was typically good at focusing on his work but it was a little hard for him today and the reason that was the case was the person was in front of him.

‘She’s staying quiet.’

It was all because of the woman who was staring disapprovingly at the window in front of her.

In the country that had always been blessed with great harvests, they were presented with yet another sunny sky today. To Castor, this day felt especially bright. It might also be because of the woman’s blonde hair that reflected the sunlight.

The woman’s blonde hair that wound down to her waist did not look pure gold like the other blondes he was familiar with. However, it was of a duller colour allowing him to gaze upon her hair more comfortably.

Her hair was the colour of a wheat field which he had once seen before in a painting that had been illuminated beautifully by the sun.

Castor recalled the moment he first met her a few hours ago.

“… Castor?”

In his palace, the Crown Prince was the only one important. The emperor had not cared about anyone else. And even a beautiful palace would turn shabby if not managed well.

“Do you know me?”

The same could be said about the garden. The woman who had collapsed in the abandoned garden was bound to stand out but when he tried to talk to her, she looked terrified. Though she soon looked at him with familiarity as though she recognised him.

Moreover, Castor was surprised to hear his name from the woman’s lips. In the Empire, names signified nobility. That was why his name could not be called so easily by anyone else. He himself had never heard anyone else call him by his name before. Because the only one who could call him by name, the emperor, never did.

“Diary! Diary! Damn it, diary!”

He couldn’t help but to be shocked at the sight of the woman looking taken aback while banging on her chest.

“Excuse me, did you lose your diary?”

But the woman suddenly looked at him as though she wanted to kill him.

At the same time, some guards passed them by.

“Your Highness, is anything the matter? Ah, is this woman a suspicious entity?”

It had been less than a few days since his last assassination attempt, so his palace had been heavily guarded. Agonising, Castor shook his head.

“She’s a guest. You may be dismissed.”

If he left her alone, she would be tortured till she died. She would not be able to rest her eyes comfortably till she revealed where she came from.

The emperor did not love him but he hated it when Castor’s safety was threatened.

Castor brought the woman to his palace. In any case, it would be strange not to take her in when he said she was his guest. Even though Castor did not mention their current predicament in the slightest, the woman followed him as though she could guess well enough on her own.

“What’s your name?”

Upon arriving at the palace, Castor asked what he had been wondering. As the master of the palace, it was natural to ask the intruder for her name, status and purpose of her visit.

“Don’t talk to me.”

But the woman looked at him as though she would kill him if he did and threatened him calmly. Her glare pierced through his body like lightning.

“Don’t even think to come near me.”

In fact, as a young child, he could not pinpoint exactly what was behind her antagonistic gaze but what was clear to him was her anger.

“Well.”

Still, he had to say what he had to say. While ignoring the fact that she dared to intervene when the Crown Prince was talking.

“But you have to talk to me for me to help you out of here.”

Castor lifted his arm nervously. The woman furrowed her fine brows.

“The red string on this arm. I’m sure you can see this too, right?”

Their arms had been tied together by a string. Since she could see the string, she stared at the string tying them together. However, for some reason, the string looked invisible to others.

‘The guards would have pointed it out if they could see it.’

When the guards saw the two of them, they said nothing. So, was it only visible to the ones who were being tied together?

Wanting to give the string a touch, Castor lifted his hand. He noticed that rather than a string, it felt more like a very thin chain.

Castor pulled on the string to see if the woman was going to do anything. Then, suddenly, the woman shook her hand.

The long chain quickly became tense.

At the feeling of his wrist being pulled, Castor frowned. Obviously, the woman had planned on doing something.

“Ha. I got caught.”

However, whatever she tried to do must have fallen through.

‘Is this a curse?’

If that was the case, there must be a way to unravel it. In any case, as long as they were tied by this string, their actions were limited.

“Do you know how to untie this?”

Staring silently as Castor spoke, the woman flashed a mysterious smile in annoyance.

“You’re the one who did this.”

What? Castor questioned her statement with his expression but she did not respond. The woman who pulled the corners of her lips to smile bitterly before sitting by the window.

Which brought them to their current situation.

‘She hasn’t said anything for hours now.’

Since then, Castor tried to talk to her more but eventually gave up and tried to do his work. In the end, he failed to talk to her.

He hated being around strangers so it wasn’t easy for him to have strangers in his room.

Before he realised it, he noticed the woman’s eyes on him. Between the strands of her hair, her eyes were bright purple.

The colour of her eyes were clear enough to look transparent. Castor had never seen such bejewelled pupils before.

However, it was impossible to know what was in her gaze as her eyes were engulfed in blue flames that quickly subsided coolly. He could only read the anger and sorrow in her eyes.

And the last thing he felt from her was a huge sense of danger as if she was a predator.