Chapter 49: Awakening
When consciousness gradually began to return to me, the first thing I felt was heaviness. It was as if a stone slab had been placed on my head. It hurt so much, as if someone were mercilessly squeezing my temples with steel clamps. My thoughts were confused, refusing to form a coherent whole, and my body felt numb and foreign.
With difficulty, I opened my eyes and saw the vague outline of the ceiling in front of me. For a while, I just lay motionless, trying to understand where I was and what had happened. The air in the room was still, slightly cool, with a faint scent of night air and candle wax.
Gradually, my vision cleared, and I realized that I was in my bedroom. The heavy curtains were drawn, with only a thin strip of moonlight shining through, leaving a silvery trail on the floor. Judging by the darkness outside the window, it was already evening, if not late at night.
I cautiously tried to sit up, and at that moment, a sharp pain shot through the back of my head. A quiet, stifled moan escaped me involuntarily.
"Ah..."
My head was spinning, and the world around me was slightly blurred. I blinked, trying to collect my thoughts, and immediately noticed that I was not alone.
In the far corner of the room, Nura was sitting on a chair. The maid was huddled over, her head bowed to her chest, sleeping peacefully, snoring softly. The candle next to her was almost burned out, its flame barely flickering, casting shimmering shadows on the walls.
However, my moan must have been loud enough to wake her up. The girl started, sat up abruptly, and, blinking several times, stared at me.
Her brown eyes widened, her face instantly awakened — the sleepy expression was replaced by stunned relief.
"Mistress!" she exclaimed with indescribable excitement in her voice. "You’ve finally come to!"
I blinked, feeling my memory gradually returning.
"Ah... yes," I replied quietly, feeling my parched throat give off a faint wheeze.
I frowned, as my head still hurt a little. However, apart from that, everything else seemed to be fine.
Meanwhile, the excited Nura immediately jumped up from her chair.
"I’ll call Sir Edison. He said to let him know when you came to."
"Ah... Wait!"
However, before I could call after her, the maid had already disappeared from my room. All I could do was sigh. Even after three years, I still hadn’t managed to turn this uncouth girl into a competent maid.
Instead of asking about my condition or at least offering me a glass of water, this girl didn’t even bother to do that!
But then again, what did I expect when I hired the first person I found on the street?
Oh well. I sighed again, deciding instead to focus on the last memories I had left in my head. I definitely remembered this one well. We were celebrating my birthday, and I was about to take my first bite of my birthday cake. However, after that, all my memories abruptly ended.
Well, it was obvious that I had simply lost consciousness. Although I had no idea how something like that could have happened, the fact remained.
It was truly the "happiest" ending to my birthday...
Nevertheless, I couldn’t understand what had really happened to me then. Had I really been poisoned...? But how the hell could that have happened?
Poisoning was clearly not the kind of situation you expect to find yourself in at any given moment. Especially when it happened on your own birthday. I couldn’t even guess when and how the poison had entered my body.
While my head was occupied with all these difficult thoughts, it wasn’t even a couple of minutes before Edison burst into my room. The butler looked extremely agitated and was breathing heavily, as if he had been running here the whole way.
"Madam! You’re awake!"
"How long have I been unconscious? And... what time is it now?"
I asked him this immediately, as it was extremely important for me to get an answer. In fact, I just hoped that because of this damn poisoning, I hadn’t been in a coma for a couple of weeks or worse.
But fortunately, the butler’s answer gave me hope.
"It’s half past ten in the evening," Edison replied after a pause. "You were unconscious for about seven hours."
The sigh I let out was a sigh of relief.
Well, at least that was some good news after everything that had happened. At least I hadn’t been unconscious for very long.
Meanwhile, of course, I still had a lot of questions.
"Where is everyone else?"
I remembered the guests who had been present at today’s celebration. Well, they must have been frightened by the whole spectacle too.
"Since it was already quite late, everyone had already gone home," said the butler. "Mr. Dickens insisted on staying and waiting for you to wake up, but I insisted that he return home and come back to see you another day."
"Okay..."
I sighed. "And Ruby? Where is she?"
For a moment, my heart skipped a beat when I thought of my niece.
If everyone else was frightened by this incident, how must she have felt? Looking around, I didn’t see the girl next to me. So Ruby wasn’t here?
"The young lady was with you the whole time and didn’t want to leave you," said the butler, "but about half an hour ago she finally fell asleep, and I decided it would be better to take her to her room so she could rest too."
Well, now I understood why I hadn’t seen Rubielle next to me. It was good that the butler had done just that. I didn’t want the girl to be unable to rest because of everything that had happened.
"I understand."
I sighed again, mentally lamenting how everything could have turned out this way in the end.
My birthday party, which had started out so well, unexpectedly ended with such an incident. I really couldn’t find any words, because it was a completely unexpected situation.
"So what exactly happened to me?" I asked gloomily.
"It’s..." Edison swallowed. "Immediately after you lost consciousness, I examined your condition and found that, based on all external signs, you had been poisoned with ’apera’ poison. Fortunately, since I have a set of antidotes for all known poisons, I was able to apply it in time, and the threat to your life has passed. Now everything should be fine with you."
As soon as I heard the butler’s report, I almost opened my mouth in amazement.
A set of antidotes for all known poisons? Is that really something a normal butler should have in his arsenal?
But then again... Considering that this was a family of villains, I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised.
Deciding that I shouldn’t think too much about it anyway, I asked instead:
"Have you already found out where the poison was?"
When I asked this in a cold voice, the butler hesitated involuntarily.
"At the moment, we are still investigating..." he finally said. "Considering that you have come into contact with many things today, it will be difficult to identify the source of the poison right away. But I have already started working on it, and I will inform you of the results as soon as they are available!"
After hearing the butler’s answer, I thought about his words for a while. And then I finally shook my head.
"No, there’s no need for that. It’s better to focus on solving the problems that have arisen from this incident," I said seriously.
"But...!"
Edison seemed surprised when I said that, but I quickly explained my words:
"Don’t worry. I know who to trust with this matter."
Although I didn’t go into any details in my answer, Edison still understood what I meant and just nodded.
"Yes, as you say, ma’am."
I sighed again for the second time that evening.
"Anything else?"
The butler said:
"Although you should be fine after taking the antidote, just in case, I will call a doctor tomorrow morning to check on you."
"All right," I just nodded.
"In that case... Please rest, madam."
Having said all this, Edison was now about to leave my room.
After the door closed behind the butler with a quiet creak, I was left alone in the room.
However, I really doubted that I would be able to get a good night’s sleep. After all, with all these thoughts now occupying my mind, I would hardly be able to close my eyes.
I turned and looked at the window, beyond which stretched the dark night sky with a bright moon. For a while, I just watched this spectacle pensively.
Not long after Edison left, a cold breeze blew into my room. It was because the balcony door had opened slightly, letting in night visitors.
Of course, I already knew who it was.
"My lady," Serpens Strange bowed respectfully before me as soon as he landed softly on the floor of my room.
Another shadow, smaller than his, also bowed before me.
His violet eyes looked at me somewhat mysteriously from under his dark hood.
It was the boy I had accidentally picked up a few years ago. And since then, of course, he had also changed a lot.
The heroine’s love interest, Lionel, was now fifteen years old.