24.
The first hypnosis session left a profound impression on Dr. Sigmund.
It wasn’t just the subject matter; it was the chilling precision of the emotions she described. They were far too detailed, too visceral, to be dismissed as mere flights of fancy. Even if they were rooted in delusion, a memory capable of anchoring such intense grief would surely leave a psychic crater if ripped away.
Furthermore, the person she sought to excise from her mind was the man she had been betrothed to since childhood and had lived with as a wife for the past five years.
“If you erase all memories of your husband, a massive void will be created in your life, Madam. There has never been a case where an attempt like this was made; I cannot predict what kind of side effects might manifest. Are you certain you wish to take such a risk?”
Dr. Sigmund hoped she would change her mind. His wallet still held the blank check, and he was ready to return it, to walk away, if she only said the word.
But the moment he met the woman’s resolute eyes, he realized she had already braced herself for the impact.
“Dr. Sigmund, please do not worry. I understand the process, the projected results, and the inherent risks.”
“I know your mind is made up, but…”
“No, that is not what I meant.”
Freya looked at the doctor. Finding him had been the greatest stroke of luck in this entire wretched affair.
“Would you believe me if I told you that I have already had memories erased before?”
“What are you implying?”
“For me, the spring of my twenty-second year was a time of unending agony.”
She recalled the days when she had to endure the constant finger-pointing, the biting criticism, and the mockery of the elite. Eventually, she had retreated into the sanctuary of her bedroom, spending her hours in silent, suffocating tears. It wasn’t merely a sense of injustice that crippled her; it was the terror of facing her husband’s cold, unyielding gaze.
As the weeks bled into months, her insomnia and hysteria spiraled. On the rare occasions Max stopped by the house, she would cling to him, weeping until she was hollowed out, drained of all substance.
Perhaps she had known, even then, with an instinctual dread. The day he would finally discard her was fast approaching. Those two weeks before the rumors of divorce began to circulate—that period when she had hovered on the brink of madness, like a prisoner waiting for the scaffold.
“Those first two weeks of May—I have no memory of that time.”
She had voluntarily erased the days where she had done nothing but obsess over Max Russell. It had been an experiment: a trial to see if she could truly secure her desires through hypnosis, and to gauge how much the resulting void would shatter her.
“Fortunately… they say I am quite susceptible to it.”
“…Who told you that, Madam?”
Though he felt the answer lurking, heavy and cold, Dr. Sigmund had to ask. Freya answered only by staring at him in silence.
✦ ✦ ✦
On the first of June, the main headline of *Le XIXe Siècle* blared: “Announcement of the Luthes-Saint-Germain-En-Laye Railway Project.”
“Now it’s really starting.”
Auguste stared at the ink-stained paper, his eyes brimming with a nervous, electric ambition.
“If this railway project succeeds, you will be the first person in Grandcen to lay a passenger line. And that’s just the beginning. If we scale this, we’ll allow people to travel from the northern tip of Grandcen to the south on tracks laid by our own company!”
It was a dream, but one within their grasp.
Auguste, puffed up with excitement, suddenly frowned, the image of a woman who felt like a fish bone lodged in his throat crossing his mind. He turned to Max.
“Come to think of it, what exactly is Madam Russell planning?”
At the mention of her, Max recalled their conversation from last Saturday. He narrowed his brow, echoing Auguste’s disdain.
*“So, Max, just trust me this once.”*
When Freya had said that, her expression had been fragile, as if she were on the verge of shattering into tears. He had thought he’d seen enough of his wife’s weeping. Once, he had felt pity; now, he only looked down with a detached, chilling indifference at the woman who would sob and cling to him like a lunatic.
Yet, in that moment, she had looked different. His hand had moved of its own accord to touch her face, perhaps to wipe away the tears, but his fingertips had come away dry. He hadn’t been able to press her further.
It was because of that one sentence.
*“Just as you did for me a long time ago, this time I will be the one to lead you out.”*
*Lead me out.* Max involuntarily clenched his hand, retracing the ghost of the small, soft touch he had felt inside the carriage.
“She said she would move for my sake.”
“You don’t think she meant ‘to keep you by her side’? Are you certain she isn’t working with the Duke?”
The interaction at the Jockey Club had been bizarre, but Max shook his head.
“She said she intends to meet with Delaporte once more. For now, I told her to do as she wished.”
“I’m not saying this out of bias, but my father is a man who is exceptionally relentless. Even if Freya Blanc is playing a new part, convincing him is an impossibility.”
“Regardless, as Freya said, there is no harm in being rejected.”
Auguste stared at him with a strange expression before speaking.
“By the way, it seems your wife has done well in this regard.”
“What do you mean?”
“The rumors are spreading—that Madam Russell went to see her father for her husband’s sake, and when the talk soured, she desperately clung to the head of the Luthes Bank, only to be humiliated.”
Max had accompanied her to the Jockey Club to confirm the nature of her relationship with the Duke, but there had been a tactical intention as well.
“If the Duke was behind that amendment, this rumor is enough to sow chaos among his cohorts.”
On the surface, the assemblyman who proposed the amendment was a Republican. In the shadows, canal operators were pulling the strings. But the hand moving them to strike at Max’s company was undoubtedly the master of the Blanc Castle.
“Your wife’s reputation has hit rock bottom, but in this case, it’s a gain for us.”
The half-distorted gossip of Freya Blanc visiting the Duke with her husband, followed by her desperate, public plea to the head of the Luthes Bank, was circulating through every salon in the city.
It was exactly as they had hoped.
Now, the Royalists, the Republican assemblymen, and the investors would be on high alert, watching the Duke’s only daughter to see if her erratic behavior influenced his decisions. Their scrutiny would force them to hesitate, effectively slowing the assault on the business.
“…That’s good.”
Though he had allowed her the freedom of movement to satisfy her own whims, he had also been calculating the indirect benefits. She had performed better than expected. Erle Tristan would find the path to persuading the assemblymen significantly smoother now.
It was a victory. But Max’s expression remained rigid, a mask of grim tension that refused to break.
Auguste watched him closely. “…Max. I’m asking because I have a bad feeling—you haven’t developed any lingering feelings for your wife, have you?”
*Lingering feelings.* As the very words he had been trying to suppress hung in the air, Max gave a bitter, sharp smile.
“Haven’t we come too far to hold onto something so trivial?”
The prince who had once dreamed of rescuing the princess from her cage had morphed into a man who bartered her for marriage contracts. And the princess, who had waited for her savior, had become a woman who chased ghosts, spying on her husband and hunting for signs of infidelity.
Even if his heart had trembled for a second at the sight of her tears, nothing would change.
To him, Freya Blanc was a photograph whose colors had long since faded into sepia. There had been a time he wanted to protect her, a time he wanted to be the man who stood by her side—but those versions of themselves were dead. Now, they were merely two people entangled in a relationship that needed to terminate for the sake of their mutual survival.
“If that’s the case, then it’s a relief.”
Auguste nodded, though he still looked dubious, and changed the subject. “So, your wife isn’t coming to work this week?”
As Max returned to his documents with an indifferent shrug, Auguste clicked his tongue.
“Tsk. She barely managed two hours a day as it was, and now she’s skipping an entire week? What does she think a business is? Why is a woman raised like a hothouse flower suddenly obsessed with industry?”
“Perhaps she realizes that if she inherits the title and is left alone, she needs to know how to survive. Politics might be beyond her, but business is a necessity.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?” Auguste scoffed. “Freya Blanc, alone? No way. She’ll just transition from being Madam Russell to being someone else’s wife. Perhaps… Madam Blanc?”