∴ ∵ ∴
“WELL, that’s that, and this is this.”
Rose unglued her icy gaze from the two men enjoying an intimate dance. She picked up one of the glasses left on the table. Who had left that there? Rose held the half-empty glass up to the chandeliers. Tiny air bubbles floated to the top and popped.
After secretly taking a small bottle from her robe, Rose hid and poured the contents into the glass.
Yašm and Harij happened to return as she finished. They seemed to have wrapped up their dance with just one song. No one dared to speak to either of them. Everyone pretended not to have seen, unwilling to poke that hibernating bear.
“Your bride is crazy.” Yašm criticized Harij after fulfilling his end of the deal. This time, Harij didn’t stand up for Rose.
“You worked up a good sweat out there. Here you go.”
“Thanks.” Yašm accepted the glass with an expression that said, “You can say that again!” He downed the liquid with a single swig. “…!”
Did he sense something amiss? He immediately peeled the glass from his lips—but the contents were already gone.
Yašm’s hands shook as he placed the glass on the table.
“Rose, what did you—” Harij shot a look at Rose when he noticed the shift in the prince’s behavior, but Rose was looking straight at Yašm.
Yašm was glaring spitefully at her.
“What have you—”
The corners of Rose’s lips curled up. She rarely smiled in front of others.
She softly brought her lips near Yašm’s ear as he ground his teeth. Then she answered him in a hushed whisper no one else could hear. “…Did you enjoy your taste of the Witch’s Love Potion?”
The anger immediately drained from his face. He held up his hand to stop the royal guards from rushing over. He had turned a pitiful shade of blue.
Rose gently pressed the used bottle into his hand.
“Don’t worry. Rumors say it isn’t very effective.”
Rose had one of the Witch’s Love Potions Lulu had made on hand. She had searched out the one Lulu had dropped in the hunter’s pit and found it buried under a pile of leaves.
Recognizing the bottle in his hand, Yašm glared at Rose, speechless. His eyes were bloodshot, and his breathing heavy. His heart must’ve been pounding like crazy. He was surely dying to run around in search of the person whose saliva had been mixed into that champagne.
Rose dropped her voice a whole decibel and whispered, “I haven’t forgotten the punch to the gut you made me take at the lake.”
Rose had been holding it against him ever since that day. Even if he uttered words of apology, tried to reform his view of witches, and invited her to a buffet to pretend to be friends, it didn’t change the fury seething inside her.
Her stomach still ached under the corset. The bruise from Geones’s fist hadn’t healed yet. The knight hadn’t held back his strength even though he’d hit a woman who was all skin and bones.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Even if humans and witches lived in different worlds, this was the law of nature. She didn’t take away his memory or make him fall ill—all she did was make him fall head over heels in love with someone.
The witch sneered as she walked away from the pale-faced prince.
“I can’t wait to see who you fall in love with. You have my sincerest prayers that she turns out to be a cute young lady.”