Before I could even process what was happening, my eyes darted out the carriage window.
What if someone saw the two of us riding together in the same carriage?
Fortunately, there were so many lavish carriages nearby that ours didn't seem to stand out.
Meanwhile, Cade was watching me as if he were studying me.
His gaze felt so persistent that enduring the silence became difficult.
"You're not giving me a ride for no reason. What do you want?"
"You said you weren't close to any royals, yet you showed up at the birthday banquet."
"That's—!"
Even I thought it sounded suspicious. My lips parted, then closed again.
Suddenly, a sense of injustice welled up inside me.
"And what about you? Did you get an invitation because you're close to Her Highness the Third Princess? Besides, who attends a princess's birthday banquet looking like—"
I had been about to point out the government uniform hidden beneath my coat when I remembered the way Cade had looked at the banquet.
My words trailed off.
As my gaze naturally swept over his neat appearance, he merely shrugged shamelessly.
"Forget it. Never mind."
"I brought you into my carriage so we'd talk. Why stop now? Go on."
"Go on with what?"
"Anything."
At his answer, my lips twitched.
There were plenty of things I wanted to ask.
Why did you hide the fact that you're a mage?
How could you leave so coldly?
Were your feelings for me ever real?
But I had my pride.
Those were questions I absolutely refused to ask the man who had dumped me and vanished.
The more I thought about it, the more annoyed I became.
So I asked instead,
"How much did you sell the ring for?"
"..."
Cade shifted his gaze away and adjusted his posture.
"...Let's not talk about ancient history."
"Hmph."
So it did bother him.
Even now, the memory of that breakup felt petty and infuriating.
After glaring at him, I pulled back the curtain covering the window.
Since we were near the docks, the night sea stretched endlessly beneath the dark sky.
Melgoth was a coastal region, and the Magic Tower stood closest to the sea.
Far in the distance, I could vaguely make out a massive wave rising.
It looked as though a crystal whale had surfaced before diving back beneath the water.
"..."
The sight of the sea only made my chest feel tighter.
I clenched my fist.
Then, without anyone touching it, the curtain suddenly swept shut and covered the window.
Cade had used magic.
"The road runs right alongside the sea. The wind's cold here."
"The north wind of Melgoth really is harsh."
The reply escaped me automatically.
Then a strange feeling settled over me.
Did he remember that I don't like the sea?
Yet he had called the ring he'd given me "ancient history."
Ever since we'd met again, Cade had done nothing but confuse me.
He acted cold, then came all the way to my inn to return my badge.
He doubted I was really a civil servant until the very end, yet he'd caught me when I nearly fell at the banquet.
Why is he so inconsistent? Does he feel guilty or something?
I sat there turning the thought over in my head amid the awkward silence.
Then—
Clatter!
The carriage jolted violently and came to an abrupt stop.
"Ah—!"
My body lifted off the seat and pitched forward.
Straight into Cade's arms.
The sensation was familiar and unfamiliar all at once.
The scent of clean fabric was familiar.
The traces of winter lingering on him were familiar.
But the smell of the sea and the faint scent of blood were not.
And the mana I could now sense from him—something I had never noticed before gaining my empathic ability—felt utterly foreign.
All those sensations wrapped around me at once.
"..."
"..."
Silence filled the carriage.
I knew I should pull away.
Or say something.
Anything.
But my mind had gone completely blank.
Then the coachman's embarrassed voice sounded from outside.
"My apologies! A magical beast suddenly jumped out!"
"...!"
The words snapped me back to reality.
Through the layers of his robe, I could clearly feel the firmness of his body.
Startled out of my wits, I shoved against his chest and hurriedly pulled away.
"Wait. It's dangerous to get up like that."
"I-I'm fine!"
Cade wrapped an arm around my head before it could collide with the ceiling and carefully guided me back into the seat across from him.
I obediently followed the motion of his hand, but my cheeks still burned and my heart pounded from the sudden incident.
As I fanned my heated face with my hand, I realized something.
The pounding wasn't just my heartbeat.
"...!"
I hurriedly stuck my head out the window.
The magical beasts were fleeing somewhere.
"Cade. The beasts are terrified."
I pointed toward the direction they had come from.
A stretch of sea a short distance away from the docks.
On the dark water, a black silhouette glided like a ghost.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to identify it.
Before I could get a better look, Cade pulled me back inside.
"I still haven't seen what it—"
I was about to argue when I caught sight of his expression.
It was unusually serious.
The protest died in my throat.
Quietly, he shut the window and spoke to the coachman.
"Take the shortcut. Go behind the inn and wait there for a few minutes. Then make a wide detour away from the Magic Tower. If anyone asks, tell them no one was in this carriage except a government official."
"Understood."
The coachman accepted the instructions without question.
I, however, couldn't make sense of any of it.
"Why are we running? We should at least confirm whether that's a monster."
Cade suddenly grabbed my hand.
"That thing is worse than a monster."
The next instant, my vision twisted and the ground vanished beneath my feet.
A dizzying sensation.
One I'd experienced very recently.
Wait... don't tell me—
Before I could finish the thought, Cade whisked me out of the carriage in an instant.
The feeling was just as terrifying the second time.
Like missing a step on a staircase.
"Stop resisting and just sit down."
Following the hand guiding me downward, I lowered my unsteady body and finally opened the eyes I'd been squeezing shut.
My vision spun.
Everything was blurred and unfocused.
Then darkness suddenly covered my sight.
A warm hand settled gently over my eyes.
It was Cade's.
"Keep them closed. Don't force yourself to look."
"If you're going to teleport, you could've warned me first."
"I've never actually warned anyone before using it."
His answer made me grumble, but I decided to trust the expert.
"How are you completely fine? Aren't you dizzy?"
"Have you ever seen a coachman get motion sickness from his own carriage?"
"...Fair point."
As we exchanged the pointless conversation, a powerful sense of déjà vu suddenly washed over me.
A quiet hill beneath the late-night breeze.
Cade standing beside me, covering my eyes with his large hand because he wanted to show me something.
The sound of the wind, like a flute.
Then the petals drifting into view when he finally removed his hand.
Flowers that rarely bloomed in cold regions had scattered through the air, glittering like fairy wings beneath the moonlight.
And in that beautiful scene, there had been only me and Cade.
"Wow! Cade, it's beautiful! I've never seen anything like this before."
"You like it?"
"How did you do this? Was it magic?"
"What magic?"
His smiling face as he casually brushed off the question bloomed within my memories like a flower.
...Now I finally understood.
"Vivian? Why are you smiling?"
I pulled his hand away and opened my eyes.
Those blue eyes came into focus before me.
I stared at them.
"Those sparkling flower petals. That was magic, wasn't it?"
"..."
Cade met my gaze for a long moment before standing and rubbing the back of his neck.
I could never understand what went on inside his head.
But that reaction, at least, I recognized.
"So it was."
"You keep bringing up things that happened long ago."
"Because we're a relationship that happened long ago."
He took a few steps toward the window, then stopped.
I thought he might be looking back at me, but with the moonlight and streetlamps behind him, I couldn't see his face.
During the time we'd dated, Cade had probably used magic countless times.
And yet I'd never noticed once.
Even in those moments when I'd felt closest to him, there had always been a shadow between us—a secret he kept hidden.
It wasn't that the real Cade was completely different from the Cade I'd known.
Rather—
I never truly knew anything about him.
For some reason, it felt as though our eyes were locked despite the darkness.
I looked away.
Only then did I properly notice my surroundings.
Come to think of it... this is...
The place Cade had teleported us to was my room at the inn.
If we were coming here anyway, we could've just stayed in the carriage.
Or better yet, he could've come to my room from the start instead of summoning me to a carriage.
Did he do this because I complained about him breaking into my room?
No.
Since when had he ever paid that much attention to my opinions?
Unable to make sense of him yet again, I finally asked the question that had been bothering me.
"What exactly did you see near the docks that made you run away?"
I looked at him suspiciously.
"Especially when you're the Master of the Magic Tower."