Mira made her choice. Even with the risk of the Carne Family spotting her, she would return to the elven capital, like a lone swallow flying back into stormlight.

Her first purpose was simple as flint: hand the two pieces of evidence to Adelaide. They mattered too much; the safety gained by transferring them outweighed any danger from slipping in like a shadow.

And beyond that, Mira now... needed to see with her own eyes, like moonlight on water, whether her sister still needed her by her side.

If her sister didn’t, she’d pass the evidence over and leave, like a leaf riding the current.

But if her sister was only holding herself together for Mira’s sake, then she would, no matter what...

No matter what... what?

Her thoughts snagged there each time, a kite tangled on a bare branch. She didn’t know the right move if that was true.

It didn’t matter. When the boat reaches the bridge, the way straightens; the river of worry would find its bend. The line she’d learned from the Elves finally felt true, like mist lifting at dawn, enough to hush the endless churn in her head and set her feet moving again.

She told herself that, packed light with the calm of rain, slipped the dried bouquet she’d bought back then into a small bag, said a quick goodbye to Pengpeng at first light, belted on her sword, and left alone with the little bag and a winter-bright resolve.

With only that bag, she carried no rations. She had little more than emergency coin and clothes, so she ate wind and slept under dew, sometimes stopping to hunt, a fox among reeds.

Like her almost weightless luggage, she moved without burden. No artifact flying steed, no cushioned palanquin; yet her pace, a hawk cutting through air, ran faster than a flying carriage by more than double.

So, in less time than she’d expected, she reached the elven capital again, heart knocking like a drum behind silk.

The sight hit her like a gale.

She’d only been gone a few months, yet the capital looked as if a tornado had raked it clean. The lantern-bright streets had no lanterns now; instead, color stormed the walls—posters and broadsides like autumn leaves, layered everywhere.

They shouted about everything: denying the Carne Family’s violent blockade, blasting the Illuin Family’s weak foreign policy—every topic you could imagine about the Flower Dancer and clan feuds, plastered up the street walls, down the beam-columns, like ivy over stone.

The air among passersby had changed. Many shops opened for half an hour and shut like clams. Only the teahouses ran all day—yes, even the quiet ones were packed, their tables full of red-faced patrons pointing and barking, sparks flying like flint.

The human fantasy of an Elf’s graceful poise vanished like smoke. With the Trial of Truth looming, Elves were all powder and flame, closing early and storming into these teahouse “pits” to roar for their family.

With a madness like that, no wonder the paper had called this the most talked-about Flower Dancer election in a thousand years, a thunderhead rolling over hills.

No one could stay clear of the whirlpool; the Fana Family was no exception.

Mira crouched on a rooftop, wind in her hair like river grass, watching a wall reserved for the Fana Family—posters for and against them everywhere. The name of their famous human dark horse appeared again and again, like a bell rung in a storm.

Plenty were wild slander, conspiracy smoke, and cheap smears. Mira felt her blood surge, heat rising like summer noon.

She barely resisted the urge to rip the whole mess down. She started to turn away when a hand-brushed ink poster’s title flicked like a fish in her peripheral vision.

“Can’t bear to look! The Fana Family’s savior is a kept woman! To climb up to Miss Lian Ke, she stoops to shameless acts!”

Mira’s neck stayed fixed at that angle, a sparrow freeze-framed mid-flight. After a few heartbeats of war within, she looked back and read the whole thing, eyes narrowed like slits of jade.

She searched for the obvious logical holes she’d seen on other smear-posters, the dead twigs she could snap clean. If she found them, she could tell herself this polished piece was just another peddler of rot.

But unlike most attacks on Adelaide, this poster’s content matched its elegant brushwork, cool as ink on rice paper.

No matter how she read it, Mira found nothing she wanted to find. No logic weak enough to break with bare hands.

Worse, for every charge, a photo sat beside it, showing Adelaide and Miss Lian Ke in close touch, hands and eyes like threads—evidence hard as stone.

And the author, bold like a rooster at dawn, finished with: “Don’t believe me? If you wish to witness the ‘dark horse’ and her debauched private life firsthand, come to the public ball at Lian Ke Manor tonight at six. Trust me—you won’t be disappointed!”

Mira stared at that line. Her grip tightened; the rooftop rail groaned and twisted, a tree under ice.

What garbage. She shouldn’t waste another breath here.

Even if she couldn’t spot a clear flaw, the author had definitely, definitely ladled on oil and salt. Twisting facts is easy—disgusting as spoiled milk.

And even if, stepping back, her sister had more… intimate contact with Miss Lian Ke, it had to be for the sake of weaving a solid network here, threads for wind and rain.

Yes, like when she dealt with Queen Dreamlan. Nothing to be surprised about—just court weather.

Mira released the bent railing and turned to leave, feet meant to be arrows.

But they didn’t move. For some reason, her legs stood like roots.

After a long breath, she looked back at that poster, eyes locked on the photo where Adelaide set her hand over the other’s, close as two petals touching.

She pressed her lips, a blade sheathed in silence.

In the end, the public ball at Lian Ke Manor received one unregistered guest, quiet as a moth under moon.

A hooded, conspicuous blonde shadow slipped through the night, tapped a branch like a bird’s toe, dropped to the roof, and hid beneath the shadow of the giant decorative hydrangeas along the eaves—only a pair of green eyes showing, sweeping the crowd for the face she needed like a hunter on a ridge.

Mira knew full well this was foolish—no, colossally foolish, thunder on dry grass.

The Carne Family’s stance had blazed bright at that “victory banquet.” She still didn’t know the reason, but if they found her trail, they’d hunt her with nets and fire.

That would drag Adelaide into trouble, and the two evidences in her arms could fall into Carne hands. The rational move was to hide in a dead-end alley, vanish like fog, and wait for the ball to end before meeting Adelaide.

She knew all that, and still she came to this place of boiling voices.

If there was a worst place to hide, it was here: wall-to-wall bodies, recording slates everywhere like eyes, reporters bristling with those slates, eager to spark a scandal about the foreign dark horse—exactly where she should not be.

At this point, she couldn’t lie to herself. Yes, she came to confirm the poster’s claim, a thorn drawing blood.

She knew that after she passed Adelaide the potion and the recording stone, she’d leave. For a long time, she’d likely learn about Adelaide only through papers and letters, words like smoke through reeds.

The thought that she hadn’t even seen the new woman beside her sister made a nameless anxiety twist her gut, sour fire licking her throat.

So she came to the place inked on the poster, feet led by a need like tide to shore.

And the risk yielded exactly what she’d wanted, a door opening in thunder.

Amid cheers, shrieks, and the blinking flash-spells from the recording slates, the white-haired figure Mira awaited appeared at Lian Ke Manor’s gate, moon against marble.

At the first sight of her, Mira almost couldn’t breathe; her chest held back air like a stopped bell.

She had changed so much, like a familiar garden after a storm.

In Mira’s memory, her sister spent more time on makeup than she did, yet she didn’t go heavy. It was barely-there, like dawn light. She lingered longer at the mirror to make it look more natural, like dew on lotus.

That method was high art in its own way. Mira had tried it; each time she painted herself into a cat-faced clown, lines wrong as crooked branches. She couldn’t reach that invisible touch and finally gave up.

Because of that, the detail sat deep in her mind, a pebble in a stream. One glance now and she knew something was off.

The makeup… was heavy?

Adelaide was still beautiful, graceful and warm as tea steam. The ring of elven fangirls around her screamed like birds in spring. But her makeup was too thick. It added a mature, sultry note, yet it wasn’t the sister Mira remembered, the one like a breeze through rice.

Such heavy paint looked like… cover, the way snow hides scars in earth.

Mira’s heart fluttered, a sparrow startled. A worrying possibility rose like mist.

At that moment, a richly dressed Elf ran out of Lian Ke Manor, skirts lifted like waves, face bright with joy—then rushed up and hugged Adelaide, who was fielding the elven fangirls’ squeals.

“My dear, you finally came!”

At that sentence, Mira’s heart skipped a beat and fell, a stone dropping into deep water.