Rose shook the bottle and fanned the scent up to her nose. She stared at it, stunned.
“This…is…”
She recognized it. Rose knew the smell of this potion well.
“Did you figure something out?”
Harij looked expectantly at her. But what flooded Rose’s heart was deep sorrow.
“…Each witch’s secret potion involves different steps and ingredients depending on the witch making it. Since every witch gradually adjusts the concoction passed down in their family to meet the place and time they live in…”
“So? Are you claiming that this potion wasn’t made by you, but by another witch?”
Rose frowned at Yašm’s question.
When Rose first heard about the Witch’s Love Potion incident from Tien, she didn’t believe for a minute that it was indeed one of the witches’ secret potions. But if what she smelled was true, then—
“This potion smells extremely similar to one I made.”
“Then that proves you’re the culprit!”
Rose firmly shook her head at Yašm, who had jumped to conclusions before she finished.
“The opposite, actually. I can’t reproduce a potion that smells exactly the same as a previous one—that is, unless I intentionally endeavor to replicate it.”
Like how no two plants or animals are exactly the same, every potion had slight variations despite following the same recipe.
Witches understood every difference, manipulated it, extracted the truth, and transformed it into magic.
“And I…” Rose stared closely at the potion inside the bottle. “I remember exactly who I sold a potion to with this same scent.”
Rose didn’t want to believe it. She looked at Harij, but even though he had been listening closely, he didn’t seem to understand why.
But once he realized she wasn’t seeking his aid with that look, he pondered it until his eyes went wide.
“…You can’t mean!” An astonished cry slipped past his lips.
“What? What does—” Sensing the sudden change in Harij, Yašm tried to ask about it but was interrupted by a noise at his back.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
All four people in the room jumped. The sudden knocking came from the only door in the room.
No one should have any business coming to the top floor of this tower.
“Who goes there?” Yašm asked, not hiding the leeriness from his voice.
“Oh my, is that you, Brother? It’s me.”
Her voice was as beautiful as a bell cricket singing on an autumn night. Shock instantly colored Yašm’s face.
“Lulu?!”
That was the name of Marjan’s fourth princess.
Harij pried the bottle from Rose’s hand. He moved in a flurry, paying no attention to how confused she was.
He seemed to have come to some sort of agreement with Yašm through eye contact when Rose wasn’t looking, since Yašm said nothing as Harij took action. If anything, he seemed to be buying Harij time as he spoke to Lulu through the locked door.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came when Mother told me she had opened up the witch’s tower for the first time in a long while. I didn’t think I would get another chance to see it if I didn’t check it out now.”
Her serene voice didn’t harbor an ounce of hesitation about doing whatever she pleased.
The knights guarding the tower below probably couldn’t do anything to stop the princess. Rose suddenly felt her body being tugged backward while she was intently listening to Lulu and Yašm’s conversation.
Before she knew it, Harij had moved from his crouched position beside her chair to wrapping his arm around her waist. She glanced up at him, a silent question in her eyes. Harij took one look at her and nodded.
“Cover your mouth. Don’t make a sound.”
My mouth? Rose did as he instructed and covered her mouth with both hands.
And that was when she experienced a floating sensation like nothing before.
This can’t be happening. No, it’s impossible. Only the Great Witches of yore were capable of flying through the skies. And yet, her robe flapped widely around her legs as it filled with whooshing air.
Yes, in other words, Rose was indeed plummeting from the sky. Heading upside down, toward the ground—she had been thrown out the tower window.
“~~~~~!!!”
Fear stole her voice. A deep-blue sky spread in front of her as she fell with her back toward the ground.
Ahh, my life’s over.
Feeling as if she were having an out-of-body experience, Rose had resigned herself to her bittersweet end when she was yanked by something that stopped her free-fall. She dangled there after being pulled into something hard enough it hurt.
“You endured that well.”
Trembling with her limbs still at gravity’s disposal, Rose looked sideways. She hadn’t noticed at first because all she saw was the sky, but it appeared she hadn’t been falling alone. Now that she thought about it, Harij had been hugging her the whole way down.
He must have jumped out of the window with her in his arms. A rope had been tied securely around his waist in case he needed to make a quick escape from the tower. She didn’t dare look up, but he seemed to have tied the other end of the rope to the legs of her chair.
The yank she felt came from Harij slowing their fall by tightening his grip on the rope. She didn’t want to think about what his palms looked like right about now.
Harij placed one foot on the tower wall and held the rope in one hand with practiced ease as he looked up at the tower.
Rose prayed Harij would help her out of her suspended position soon. The rope was considerably long, but they were still dangling in the air.
But Rose’s prayers went unanswered. Harij’s expression turned grim.
“…This is bad. It’s gonna snap.”
Before Harij’s ominous words reached Rose’s ears, he kicked off the tower, flipping himself over in the process. At the same time, he let go of the rope while shielding Rose’s head.
Rose’s view switched from the sky to Harij’s broad chest. Faster than she could think Oh, crap, the rope tied to the chair snapped, and she was sent plummeting once more.
Rose stretched out her hands to pillow Harij’s head.
“Wha—” His panic-stricken voice reached her ears. The next second, they crashed into the ground together.