Yelena quickly took the bracelet into her hand. Her body heat transmitted to the mana gem, and then she heard the voice she had been dying to hear.

-Wife.

“Kaywhin!”

Yelena’s overjoyed voice echoed in the library.

-What were you doing?

“I was just… doing this and that in the library.”

-I see. Is everything all right?

“Yes. I’m doing well.”

Yelena contemplated for a second and then opened her mouth.

“By the way, you’ve been appearing in my dreams lately.”

Yelena had dreamt about her husband last night. It had been a sweet dream.

Yelena had been so disappointed when she had woken up that she forced herself to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t continue the same dream.

“What about you, Darling? Have I been appearing in your dreams lately?”

-…

“…Is that a no?”

-Since the beginning.

“Hm?”

-You’ve been in my dreams since the first day we parted.

Yelena blinked as she stared at the shining mana gem.

“…I see.”

Yelena couldn’t keep the words from coming out of her mouth.

“So, what did we do?”

-I’m sorry?

“I’m curious about what we did in your dreams.”

For reference, Yelena and her husband had kissed passionately in her dream last night. They had been in a field filled with flowers. She had dreamt of kissing her husband, who lay on the ground, not even noticing that nectar was staining his back, surrounded by the flowers in full bloom, under the right amount of sunlight.

‘Ah, that was perfect. We should do it next spring.’

As Yelena made plans to make her dream into reality, her husband’s voice flowed out of her bracelet.

-…It wasn’t anything extraordinary. Just…

“Just kissing?”

-…

“Or perhaps, more than that? Wait, then that is extraordinary.”

-Yelena.

Kaywhin said Yelena’s name in an embarrassed voice, instead of denying it. It sounded like he was admitting that Yelena was right.

Yelena laughed. Her chest felt ticklish.

“I miss you,” she said in a whisper, but the words had certainly been delivered.

The voice in her bracelet answered right away.

-I miss you too.

“How much so?” Yelena asked, tucking her chin in the hand that wasn’t wearing the bracelet.

Sidrion had truly given her a decent gift. The bracelet worked so well that whenever she conversed with her husband like this, Yelena felt like he was right next to her even though she couldn’t see him.

“How much do you miss me?”

-Well…

Yelena heard a faint voice that wasn’t her husband’s through the bracelet. She could tell that the voice was calling for him.

“It seems like someone is looking for you.”

-I will call you again shortly.

“Okay. Don’t worry about me. Take your time with whatever you need to do. Call me when you’re done.”

-I love you, Yelena.

For a moment, Yelena was speechless.

“…I love you too,” was Yelena’s soft reply and their final exchange before the mana gem’s light went off.

Yelena gazed longingly at the bracelet for quite some time. Then, she reached for her own work that she had been pushing off.

‘I should reply to my letters.’

Yesterday and today, for a mere two days, a bunch of letters had arrived at the ducal castle, as if the senders had planned for them to arrive all at once. Most of them were formalities, people sending their regards.

There was a letter from home, a letter from Aendydn, one from Rosaline…

‘And there’s a letter from Will.’

Will, the bard.

It had been a while since Yelena had last recalled the name of the person who had prophetic dreams and knew of the future like Yelena did.

Per Yelena’s suggestion that they become penpals, Yelena occasionally received letters, just as she was about to forget Will. Will hadn’t written about much in this letter. Like the other letters, she briefly wrote about how she was doing and then asked Yelena how she was doing.

After replying to each letter, Yelena looked at the last letter that she hadn’t opened yet.

[From: Mielle Linden]

“Hmm…”

A letter from her cousin Mielle.

‘Why did she write me a letter?’

Mielle wasn’t the type to write letters about every little thing that was happening in her life.

Feeling that something was unusual, Yelena ended up pushing the letter to the side until it became the last one left. Yelena contemplated until she ended up peeling the seal off the letter.

Then, her jaw dropped with a gasp.

“…Huh?”

***

A pitch-black night in which not even the moon shone.

The estate, empty after all the servants had fled, was dreary and silent as if it was haunted by a ghost.

Ovell spoke quickly with a nervous expression.

“Like you promised, you will come back immediately after retrieving your item.”

Ovell’s hands were slightly trembling, for good reason. Before entering the estate, he and Rebecca had almost been caught.