I can't sense anything…
No lies.
No betrayal.
Just… confusion.
Lucien thought to himself, steadying the storm in his chest as he exhaled slowly. One hand ran through his thick, slightly disheveled hair, fingers dragging at his scalp as if trying to massage out the frustration. He leaned both palms onto the desk at the room's center, the wood cool beneath his touch, anchoring him. His breath came ragged, then leveled, a soldier's practiced composure returning like armor fastened after a lapse.
"Seems I misjudged how deep things go…" he murmured aloud, not quite to her, not quite to himself.
He chuckled—dry, thin, more self-mocking than amused—as he turned his gaze back toward Josephine. She was still pressed against the far wall, dagger now lowered to her side, grip loosened. Her brows were knitted, lips parted in confusion. No fury. No cunning. Just genuine disorientation.
"I must apologize for my outburst," Lucien said with exaggerated calm.
"Haha…"
The hollow laugh slipped from him before he could stop it, brittle and strange in the silence that followed the earlier violence.
"You may use my funds to repair any broken belongings," he continued, brushing dust from his tunic as he straightened it, smoothing down the wrinkles as though dignity could be ironed back into place. "I will even allow you to use extra—to get yourself something nice."
The words hung with artificial ease, meant to close the chapter cleanly, as if the broken chair and shattered shelf weren't bleeding memory and distrust into the room.
He turned slightly, posture reset, preparing to walk off with the air of a man who had merely spoken too harshly at court—nothing more.
But before his foot could shift, a hand caught him.
Josephine.
She was already behind him—fast, breath shallow and quick, her chest rising and falling as if she'd sprinted through the memory of the argument. Her fingers gripped the back of his tunic, knuckles white, halting him with more urgency than strength.
"You can't just leave," she said, voice strained. "And think I'll forget it by offering some monetary compensation."
Her voice cracked—not in volume, but in veneer. Her tone held tight concern, sharpened by something else… something softer. Her eyes betrayed the icy front she'd worn moments before. There was something else shimmering there now—worry. Lucien caught it. And it unsettled him more than the dagger ever had.
What?
Why is she looking at me like that…?
"Tell me, Lucien," she said, her voice a strange balm—both commanding and coaxing, rich with therapeutic cadence, a whisper wrapped in velvet steel. "What's going through your mind…"
Josephine's gift wasn't just in diplomacy. It was in seeing through walls. Her beauty, her wit, her presence—they were legendary. But her real weapon had always been that mind, sharpened like a scalpel. Dangerous. Unrelenting. Yet here it was… focused not on manipulation, but something that resembled care.
"It's nothing," Lucien replied, too quickly, too neatly. "Just a slight lapse in judgment."
The answer fell out cold and practiced, like a soldier brushing aside a gut wound as a scratch. As if throwing a chair with lethal force was no more than a child stepping on a flower in bloom.
Josephine's expression didn't change. If anything, her grip on his tunic only tightened.
"You expect me to believe that," she said, slow and deliberate, "after hurling a chair strong enough to kill a man?"
Her tone wasn't angry—but it cut. Measured. Calm. Like she was peeling back layers with every syllable.
"Something's up with you… you're acting differently."
There was no accusation in her words—just a quiet certainty. She saw it. Had seen it from the moment he entered.
Lucien stiffened, but didn't turn.
"Why does that matter to you?" he asked, his voice hard, the edges dulled only by fatigue. "As far as I know, you only care for me for the power I bring."
He let the words sit heavy in the air, still refusing to meet her eyes. His gaze stayed locked on the exit—on escape.
Behind him, Josephine laughed.
It wasn't cruel. It was furious. Short, scornful, incredulous—like something inside her had finally cracked.
"Brilliant on the battlefield. But blind where it counts."