Chapter 261

Chapter 261

CASSANDRA

Helene didn’t utter a word on our way to the ladies‘ room but conducted herself very politely. Her pretty face remained smiling, and the expression was so fixed it was as if she had been born smiling. It was unnerving after a while, and I kept waiting for it to falter, but her face never changed.

Once the door to the bathroom was shut tightly behind us, I tried to talk with her and attempted to coax her out of her daze.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked. “I heard that you were ill with some sort of sickness.”

“It was just a cold,” Helene replied nonchalantly. “It was nothing to worry about. I’ve fully recovered now.”

I nodded my head and after a moment of pause, I tried again. “I heard about your maid as well-”

“It was all just a rumor,” she cut me off before I could finish my sentence. “The maid resigned because her mother passed away. I suppose that someone wanted to use such gossip to demean my fiance, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth.”

She turned to face the mirror and smoothed her caramel–colored hair down. My eyebrows creased together as I tried to make sense of it all. Her movements, her expression, her tone, even her words… it all seemed so rehearsed. It was so eerie and strange like she was a puppet or something.

I waited a little while and then decided to probe her further.

“Helene, did something happen?” I asked directly. “You don’t seem like your usual self.”

She turned to face me and her smile grew even more exaggerated, as if she were putting on a show or something. Her berry–painted l*ps were curled into a chilling grin and after a second or two, I had to glance elsewhere.

“Don’t worry about me,” she assured me, and then she turned to face the mirror.

Something definitely wasn’t right. No matter what I asked, Helene answered me without much consideration, as if she had her answers prepared beforehand. Everything about her felt so fake, it was almost as if she were someone else entirely.

I wasn’t sure what was going on. Was she behaving this way because she didn’t want to risk being overheard? Surely this place wasn’t the best place to speak about the plan, but I began to wonder if she decided not to carry out her escape at all. Maybe she thought I was unreliable and didn’t want to follow through.

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As she touched up her makeup, I decided to try again. I took a step closer toward her, we were completely alone, and then

scanned the marble bathroom to make sure..

lowered my voice to a whisper.

“Helene, is the plan still going to happen? Or do you want to cancel it?”

Helene suddenly stiffened and then turned to face me. Confusion painted her expression and she blinked her honey brown eyes at me in confusion.

“What are you talking about?” she asked as she stared at me.

What was I talking about?

It was my turn to frown, and I stared back at her in shock. Why did she seem so unaware of what we had discussed?

I had an impulse to clarify and ask Helene if she’d decided not to escape and find her freedom outside of Vlokwell, but as I stared into her eyes, I realized that her confusion wasn’t feigned. It was real.

Ronald’s fiancee had no idea of what I was speaking of.

Even the most skillful actress couldn’t fake the pure look of innocence in her gaze. was incomparable. I knew in my heart that Helene was truly confused and didn’t know what I was speaking of. She had forgotten about our talks, and even worse, she may have forgotten about her plan to leave the country at all.

It

As dread set in, I tried to make sense of her strange behavior.

Was this all related to the sickness that had left her bedridden for days? No, that couldn’t be possible. She would have had to be on death’s door in order for her mind to be so completely scrubbed like this. No disease could eliminate people’s memories like

this.

As I frowned at her, Helene seemed to snap out of her haze and gave me yet another

smile.

“We should get back to the party,” she remarked. “Ronald is waiting for me, I’m sure. I don’t like to keep him waiting

She behaved as if she had no secret to hide, and the way she spoke of Ronald had me confused. She seemed so deeply in love with him, which struck me as odd because she had fully intended to run away on her wedding day.

What had changed?

While I wanted to keep interrogating her, I knew that Ronald was likely wondering where we were, and I didn’t want to keep him waiting for her sake, I wasn’t sure if he

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Chapter 261

was hurting her and I couldn’t risk her safety.

As we left the room and stepped into the hall, I smiled at Helene.

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“Would you like to visit

like to visit my chamber tomorrow?” I wondered. “I would love to have you over so you can try some tea I brought from the South-”

“I would need to ask Ronald,” she cut me off. Her tone wasn’t aggressive at all. She genuinely sounded like she was content with his attention and didn’t want to spoil it.

Of course,” I replied.

I knew at once that Ronald would likely decline. Yet, when we arrived at the party, Helene asked for his permission to see me, and he agreed without hesitation.

“You could even go shopping with Cassandra out of town if you want,” he said with a smile, but Helene took his hand.

“I don’t want to be too far from you,” she mused dreamily, and then the pair k*ssed sweetly.

Though I smiled, I was chilled to the bone.

Something wasn’t right.

***

I invited Helene to my room in the afternoon, just after Ms. Benn dropped Lila off for her medicine. It was a deliberate arrangement, as I needed Lila to help me.

I half–expected her to decline my request, but to my surprise, Lila put forth no conditions for her cooperation. She sat across the table from Helene, and as we sipped. at the tea Erika prepared for us, Lila’s face grew pale.

Though Helene was kind to us, I noticed Lila was shaking. Her big blue eyes were locked on Helene’s pretty face, and her expression was both confused and horrified. When Helene addressed her directly, Lila would reply politely, but her entire b*dy tensed up. She was clearly scared, but I couldn’t tell why.

I wanted to ask, but I knew I had to bide my time.

Helene stayed for about an hour. She mentioned numerous times that she didn’t want to leave Ronald for too long. In this hour, we talked about our memories of the South, but surprisingly, Helene didn’t mention her family or the trauma she’d endured even once. She kept saying that she found the North to be much better than her homeland because that’s where she’d met her love. It was all so syrupy and sweet, not to mention completely unlike the Helene I knew. She sounded like a lovesick teenager, not a grown

woman.

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“It’s a great honor to marry a royal lord,” she mused as she smiled absently. “I’m quite lucky.”

Even though I wanted to shake her and snap her out of her daze, I knew it would be no use, so I simply played along.

After she left, I turned to face Lila.

“What did you read?” I wondered. “Did you pick up on anything strange?”

The little girl didn’t answer at first. Her gaze was distant and her hands shook as if she’d caught a chill. Finally, she shook her head mechanically.

“I couldn’t see anything,” she said quietly.

I frowned. “Does that mean that Helene is a sorceress? Or that she has abilities like

you?”

Lila shook her head again and then blinked at me. “Unlike you, Miss Cassandra… all I saw in Helene was darkness. Pure darkness. There was nothing in her mind. It was like she was trapped in blackness.”

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