After I Died, My Husband Went Mad - Chapter 136
As Dehart made his way towards the valley, he clutched the blue bird in his arms, trying to calm his racing heart.
Don’t harbor false hope.
He had repeated this to himself countless times, yet each time, the foolish hope crept back in. He held onto the faint hope that she might be worried about him.
“Am I really this weak?”
Dehart furrowed his brows and ran a hand through his hair. He had barely reached the entrance of the valley, but the wind was howling fiercely from all directions. When he looked up, he saw dozens of wind tunnels carved into the steep cliffs.
“Tch.”
He stopped, still trying to fix his tangled hair, and lowered his head. The bird, which had been resting in his hand, opened its eyes and looked up at him.
“…”
In that brief moment, an exchange of meaning passed between them. Dehart couldn’t help but feel as though the bird understood him. But the next moment, a small beak dug into his tangled hair, and he immediately retracted that thought.
“Ugh, wait a minute…!”
Beep!
Dehart instinctively felt something was wrong. The bird, filled with an inexplicable fury, pecked at his hair and tugged at it with its claws, causing a commotion. It wasn’t until Eli intervened that the situation was finally settled.
“…Wasn’t it sent to worry about me?”
Dehart looked down at the blue bird with a troubled expression. The bird, held by Eli’s hand, continued to chirp in a disgruntled manner, looking clearly annoyed. Dehart’s golden eyes were filled with frustration.
* * *
Claude revealed all of his secrets. To explain that he was an illusionist, there were truths he could no longer keep hidden.
“I’m sorry. But I knew how much you despised Hillend Hall, and the people of Inverness, so I couldn’t bring myself to tell you sooner.”
With all the information flooding out, Sebelia found it hard to keep up.
“Wait, wait a minute.”
Overwhelmed by the excessive details, her mind was starting to overload. She placed her hand on her heated forehead and leaned back against the chair.
“Please, give me a moment to process all of this.”
Claude looked at her with a pained expression, but Sebelia couldn’t find the words to respond. What she had just heard was too shocking.
Dehart’s youngest uncle?
She had expected only a story about illusion magic. After all, when she had summoned the blue bird to him, he had, almost eagerly, made the red butterfly.
He should have known, knowing that the blue bird was an illusionary creation from the start.
If he had been an ordinary person, he would have asked where the bird came from or when it was tamed.
But Claude, instead of questioning her, immediately summoned the red butterfly. This meant he knew that the blue bird was a creation of illusion magic and, in turn, had already figured out that she was an illusionist.
I only wanted to know why you were hiding that fact.
But, as if mocking that thought, Claude revealed an even deeper secret.
The youngest uncle, erased from the family tree, accused of murdering the late duke.
Sebelia buried her face in the cushion and let out a soft groan.
Unlike Wheddon, who had decorated one of the mansion’s walls with a large tapestry of the family tree, Inverness didn’t deal with such grotesque decorations. Instead, there was a family tree book bound in the hide of a young lamb, and Sebelia remembered seeing it only once after their wedding.
But I only saw the cover from a distance.
She had always assumed that Lash was Dehart’s only uncle. Claude had long been erased from Hillend Hall, and no one spoke of him, which made this possible.
So, this revelation came as a real shock.
I never would have guessed such a secret.
But it wasn’t something completely impossible to understand. He wasn’t hiding his identity for good reasons, after all. He had been accused of killing his brother and had been living in hiding.
“This… this isn’t the secret I was hoping to hear.”
Sebelia sighed deeply. Controlling her emotions with reason was beyond her ability. She groaned as she hugged the cushion tightly. Claude began to speak carefully.
“I’m sorry. And don’t worry. I won’t be calling Miss Bella ‘my niece-in-law,’ uh, well, I won’t, at least.”
“That’s a given.”
Sebelia muttered from under the cushion. His poorly timed joke seemed to have lessened her shock, and as she lowered the cushion, she spoke absently.
“Then the disguise back then wasn’t magic, but an illusion.”
“Ah, yes. That’s right.”
“I didn’t know something like that could be done with an illusion.”
Sebelia straightened herself up and changed the subject. She had heard enough about Claude’s horrific past and Dehart’s unfortunate ties to it. But there was nothing more she could do about it now.
She wasn’t a part of the Inverness family anymore. If she pried any deeper, it would just be unnecessary interference.
“Could you teach me about illusion magic?”
Sebelia looked directly at Claude, her hands tightly clenched in her lap, but her eyes were unwavering.
“Right now, I can’t afford to pay for lessons. But if you want, I can write you a promissory note.”
I knew it would be like this.
Claude raised an eyebrow and let out a deep sigh.
