Having decided not to use a frontal approach but to try a more inventive tactic, I came up with the idea of lying in wait for Kayla during her night walk. This way, I would finally have a chance to speak with her in private — without walls, locked doors, servants, or other barriers.
Fortunately, thanks to Asha, I had managed to find out in advance on which days the Grand Duchess usually went for a walk accompanied by her faithful butler. It turned out that this ritual had a fairly strict schedule — and, to my great luck, today was supposed to be that very evening.
So I prepared in advance.
And I was fully determined to wait for her.
My plan was very simple: to "accidentally" encounter Kayla during her nighttime stroll. As if I, suddenly and completely unexpectedly, had also felt like getting some fresh air in the middle of the night.
If the meeting happened outdoors — on neutral territory — she would not be able to simply turn around and close the door in my face. We would not be locked in a room, and she would not be able to get rid of me so easily. That meant... she would have to listen to me at least a little.
At least, I was very hopeful.
So, confident that the plan was truly flawless and that everything would work out today, I put on the warmest cloak I had as night approached and went out into the courtyard first to take my "position" and wait for my beloved character.
Only, as often happens with "perfect plans"...
In reality, everything went completely wrong.
I spent almost two hours outside. Two long, dragging hours during which I constantly rubbed my chilled hands and stared tensely into the darkness.
I waited for Kayla... but she never appeared.
I wandered around the mansion, constantly glancing at the main entrance and the back door, just in case. But apart from the occasional servant busy with their late-night tasks, there was not a soul in the courtyard.
No Kayla. No butler. Not the slightest trace of the promised night walk.
Gradually, the cold began to seep into me more and more.
Although I had put on the warmest cloak I could find, the evening air turned out to be far more merciless than I had anticipated. A little longer, and I risked not so much waiting for Kayla as catching a cold.
After all, being a saint did not mean I was invulnerable.
No, I could still get sick!
So at some point, I finally grew tired of freezing and wandering aimlessly through the empty, dark garden. I gave up. Sighing quietly and wrapping my cloak tighter around me, I headed back into the house.
As expected, the estate at this hour had sunk into silence and darkness. All its inhabitants had long since gone to their rooms and were asleep. All except for one abnormal individual like me, who had decided to set up a nighttime "watch" in the garden.
Entering the house, I stopped in the warm hall and felt the sensitivity slowly return to my fingers. They prickled unpleasantly from the returning warmth. I took off my cloak, shivered slightly, and sighed quietly.
But I still was not going to give up.
Perhaps Kayla would simply come out later. Her walks were not tied to a strict time — more likely, I had invented a convenient "schedule" for myself. Maybe she had been delayed in her room by some business... or was simply waiting for the movement of the servants in the house to finally die down completely.
In any case, one failure did not mean anything.
The night had only just begun. I still had time.
I went into the living room and positioned myself so that I could see the stairs clearly. From here, I could immediately notice if someone started to come down.
All that remained was to wait.
For a while, I listened intently to the silence, catching every rustle and barely perceptible sound. My gaze did not leave the stairs — as if blinking might make me miss that very moment when a familiar silhouette would appear in the semidarkness.
But fatigue eventually took its toll.
My eyelids grew heavier and heavier, as if an invisible weight were pulling them down. I tried to fight off sleep, but at some point, it became pointless. My thoughts began to tangle, fragments of images mixed together, and before I knew it, I had drifted into a restless slumber.
I woke up abruptly.
Finally, footsteps sounded on the stairs.
I instantly opened my eyes and automatically looked at the clock in the living room. The hands showed three in the morning.
Three o’clock...
God. Did Kayla really go for her walks at such a time?
With my heart pounding, I stared at the stairs. But instead of the expected figure of the Grand Duchess, only Butler Gerald appeared in the semidarkness.
He slowly descended, lighting his way with the dim flame of a candle, from which trembling shadows stretched across the walls. Only when he noticed me in the dark living room did he pause for a moment — genuine surprise flickered across his face.
"Who is there?" he muttered warily, squinting into the darkness.
He raised the candle a little higher, and when the light finally fell on my face, the old man exhaled heavily — whether with relief or irritation.
"Ah... it is you," he said dryly. "Miss Rider. What are you doing here at this hour?"
"G-good evening, Mr. Gerald..."
He grunted softly.
"Unfortunately, I cannot say the same to you," he muttered and, without waiting for an answer, walked past me toward the kitchen.
Without thinking, I rose from the sofa and hurried after him.
"Excuse me..."
"What now?" He did not even turn around. "And why are you not asleep at such a late hour? Young people should be resting, not wandering around the house at three in the morning."
In the kitchen, he immediately went to the cupboards. He took out a glass, then carefully removed a cloth-wrapped bundle of herbs from a drawer.
Without a word, he put a kettle on the fire. While the water boiled, he calmly and habitually began mixing dry leaves and roots, moving so confidently that he seemed to have done it hundreds of times before.
Throughout this, the butler looked so focused that I did not even dare to distract him. He moved calmly and confidently, as if the entire world around him simply did not exist. But at some point, I finally gathered my courage and cautiously asked:
"I heard that Her Grace was planning to go for a walk tonight... and I thought that perhaps I could accompany her."
The old man slowly raised his gaze to me over his glasses and immediately grunted — briefly, with a clear hint of disdain.
"Accompany her on a walk, you say?" He shook his head. "It seems you are forgetting your place more and more... What made you think that Her Grace would agree to be accompanied by someone like you?"
I chose to let his usual barb go in one ear and out the other — as the saying goes, let the dog bark, the caravan moves on. Something else was worrying me now.
"In any case, I will not know until I ask, right? So, is the walk taking place today?"
The butler looked at me long and heavily, so that I felt uneasy for a moment. Then he said curtly and abruptly:
"There will be no walk today."
"What?" Everything inside me sank. "Why?.."
The old man turned away and continued stirring the herbs in the glass, not even deigning to look at me.
"Her Grace is unwell. She is lying in bed and cannot get up. The walk is canceled," he said dryly, but something like hidden tension flickered in his voice.
I froze.
And at that moment, anxiety spread through me like a cold wave.
"Unwell?!" burst out of me. My heart dropped painfully.
"Naturally," the butler answered calmly, but now irritation was clearly audible in his tone. "You yourself know her condition perfectly well. What did you expect? Four days already without treatment. Did you really think that would have no effect?"
"..."
I bit my lip, feeling everything inside me clench with guilt.
Yes. Of course. I knew. Kayla’s body, slowly being eaten away by corruption, could not remain in good shape if the purification was not performed for several days in a row. I understood that. I had simply... allowed myself the naive hope that nothing terrible would happen.
But it had.
And now only one question remained: how much had it worsened?
My heart beat so loudly it drowned out all other thoughts.
"How... how bad is it?!" I blurted out, gripping the edge of the table with my fingers.
"Try to guess for yourself," the butler cut off coldly and turned away in irritation, clearly indicating that he had no intention of continuing the conversation.
By this time, he had finished mixing the herbs and was now waiting for the kettle to boil so he could pour the hot water over the dry mixture. Steam was already escaping from the spout with a soft hiss, filling the kitchen with moist, thick warmth.
The tension inside me grew stronger and stronger, and in this oppressive silence, I involuntarily looked again at what he was doing. At the unfamiliar herbal mixture in the glass.
"...What is that?" I asked, nodding toward him.
"Can you not see for yourself?" he muttered, not stopping his stirring. "Obviously, it is a medicinal decoction."
I was taken aback for a moment, and indignation immediately flared up inside me.
"But why? It is completely useless against Her Grace’s condition! You know that corruption is not treated with herbs!"
"I know that perfectly well," the old man replied sharply. "But what, in your opinion, am I supposed to do? Just sit and watch? It is something. Better than plain water. At least there is a chance she might be able to sleep a little..."
I pressed my lips together, feeling helpless irritation rise within me.
To me, these attempts seemed almost desperate and therefore all the more pointless. Especially because right here, in this same house, was a person who could truly help.
Me!
"Mr. Gerald, you yourself understand that only I can help Her Grace. Only my power can truly ease her condition."
"...I understand," he did not argue.
"Then take me to her! Allow me to perform the treatment!"
The old man slowly raised his gaze to me. His shoulders tensed, and after a short pause, he sighed heavily.
"...I cannot do that," he said quietly.
"And why not?!" I nearly lost my composure. "You yourself just said she is worse! You yourself admit that I am needed! So what is the problem?!"
I could no longer tolerate this. Everything that was happening seemed absurd. I had been hired here as a healer to treat Kayla. That was my job. And yet, I was being prevented from doing it.
The butler was silent for a moment. I could see him searching for words before finally answering:
"I do not know exactly what happened between you," he said at last, "but for some reason, Her Grace no longer wishes to see you."
"..."
The words stuck in my throat.
"She said," he continued a little more quietly, "that if you appear at her door, she will order you to be forcibly removed. And me along with you — if I let you through."
My heart painfully skipped a beat.
"...And, to be honest," he added after a pause, "I am even curious... what did you say to her that she was almost ready to dismiss you on the spot?"