Isildar stared at Hazel for a long moment before sighing. His voice was gentler than usual this time, tinged with something resembling pity.
"In truth… I think Grace was pitiful. Disasters possess traits remarkably similar to ours as humans. They are always trying to reclaim the traits they have lost. But reproduction…" He smiled bitterly and shook his head. "That is ultimately impossible. She is a dead soul… trapped inside a miserable body."
He suddenly reached out and took Hazel's cold hand. His voice dropped until it was almost a warm whisper that seemed to pierce her mind.
"Grace… what are you going to do?"
Everyone froze.
Kayden, who had been examining the manuscripts, stopped moving and stared at the two of them in astonishment. He took a step forward, his voice sharp. "What did you say?"
Even Henry put down what he was holding and approached, his brows drawn tightly together. "Did you say… Grace?"
Isildar smiled, then looked directly into Hazel's eyes. His gaze gleamed with cold certainty. "Grace is a Disaster. The moment something goes wrong with the body she inhabits… she searches for another victim. Perhaps she has already found one… someone who runs through the forest every day."
He sighed, then tilted his head slightly as he stared at her. "But the real question is… what happened to you?"
Hazel suddenly trembled. Her eyes widened as though she had heard something impossible. She stumbled a step backward, her hands shaking, before screaming in a broken voice.
"What do you mean?! I'm Hazel! Grace died a long time ago!"
Kayden stood there in shock, his eyes narrowing slowly as his hands instinctively rose to his neck.
"She's like him… Ethan…" He bit his lip in confusion. "She doesn't even realize there's a Disaster inside her."
As for Isildar, Hazel's scream did not affect him. If anything, his expression became even more composed. He calmly reached to his side and drew his gun, placing it on the table beside him.
Then he spoke in a sharp, emotionless tone. "What did you do, Hazel? Confess… and if you lie, I'll know very quickly. And you will be punished."
The entire room was stretched taut like a bowstring. Every breath could be heard. Every movement carried the weight of tension.
Hazel stared at them with tear-filled, bewildered eyes, while the twins stood like heavy shadows behind Isildar, waiting for the next word.
"You didn't kill the Disaster properly… That is why Grace is still alive." Isildar spoke with a soft, cold calmness, as though he were trapping her without ever needing to raise his voice. "Tell me, Hazel. Do you want to be saved, or would you rather die?"
Hazel looked desperately toward her father. Her lips trembled, but no words came out.
Her father shook his head with a sorrowful determination.
"I'll protect you, my daughter."
Her heavy breaths fluttered as she finally confessed in a broken voice. "I… I was the one who drew the ritual. I learned it from Grace herself. I asked her how it was performed, and she didn't hesitate… She gave me all the steps without hesitation. She was very good to me."
She paused for a moment, glancing toward the ceiling from the corner of her right eye.
"I never meant to take things this far… I never meant for it to end like this."
But Kayden suddenly interrupted her. "What you're about to say after those words… is a lie. Your eyes reveal it. You're not very good at lying."
Isildar gave a slight nod, then calmly turned his head toward Henry.
"Henry… watch her. Fiona taught you enough."
Henry closed his eyes heavily. When he opened them, a faint light shimmered before his vision, and a thin spiritual thread stretched between him and Hazel.
His voice came as a whisper. "The thread will snap whenever you lie."
Hazel felt as though the ropes around her neck had tightened. There was nowhere left to escape.
The words finally spilled from her mouth in broken fragments, as though she had surrendered.
"I planned everything… It wasn't a coincidence. A doctor at the hospital she used to visit helped me. He was the one who gave me the high doses of sedatives I needed to get them into her body without her noticing. She didn't notice anything because only the two of us knew… She was at her weakest stage, and we knew her spiritual level as well. So we used doses stronger than her spiritual level. It's difficult to notice something like that when the drug is made for someone at a higher level… and she never noticed."
Her fingers trembled as she continued, her voice growing sharper.
"We gave her stronger doses than ever before. Eventually, her body could no longer resist anything. That night… the police said she had taken her medication before hanging herself, but the truth…"
She paused, exhaling shakily.
Then she smiled a cold smile that looked less like an admission and more like a victory.
"The truth is that she was nothing more than my plaything. I gained her complete trust. I made her believe I was a good person, just so I could get close to her house… and see Hudson. But he never even looked at me. He didn't give me a single moment. He was obsessed with her! Only her!"
Hazel's voice rose sharply at the end of the sentence before settling again.
"So I put sleeping pills, sedatives, and poison into the cake. She was dying in front of me, slowly, and she couldn't even lift a hand to resist."
Hazel smiled coldly, though it seemed more like a mask than a genuine emotion.
"I told her I would take her to the doctor… that I would tell Hudson. But she believed me, the poor thing… She never suspected a thing. Instead, I took her to the forest, prepared the ritual there, and then hung her with a rope. She didn't resist… The drugs had already consumed her spirit before weakening her body."
Her voice gradually lowered until it became almost a whisper, as though she took pleasure in reliving the memory. "Everything seemed… perfect."
Isildar raised his sharp eyes toward her and asked,
"Tell me… how did Grace fail to notice that you betrayed her? And how did she not realize that you had drugged Hudson's body?"
At the mention of his name, Hazel's hand suddenly trembled. She raised it to her head as though trying to stop a severe headache from exploding inside her skull.
She began muttering in a tense voice.
"That day… I went out and searched for Grace. I asked her where Hudson was, but she didn't know. And when I found him… he was collapsing before my eyes. He was suffering from severe hallucinations, smashing everything within reach… He didn't even recognize us. He was completely broken."
She paused, biting down hard on her lower lip before adding in a hoarse voice that nearly choked in her throat,
"The drug… I got it from a doctor at the hospital she always visited… her trusted doctor. His name was Roman."
"I did all of that… just for Hudson." Hazel spoke in broken fragments, as though each word was tearing her apart. "The truth is, they were both good people… but I hated the whole scene. That book… the book I took from Hudson. I knew it was cursed, and yet I took it."
She smiled as she picked it up, as though she were smiling at her own ruin. "I deliberately cursed myself so I could find a way into his house again and again. I wandered through every corner of it… and yet, he completely ignored my existence."
Her gaze went still. She clenched her fist around her dress until her knuckles turned white, then whispered,
"If he hadn't ignored me… Grace might still be alive. Maybe she would be sitting quietly, getting ready for bed, instead of being a corpse swinging from a rope."
Her voice trembled. "Everything happened because of her too… That smile she never gave anyone else. Around others, she seemed empty, dead… but beside him? She blossomed. She looked even more human than I did."
Suddenly, she pointed a trembling hand toward Kayden, her eyes burning with hatred.
"And you… I hated you from the very first moment I saw you. Do you know why?"
Kayden slowly shook his head, deliberately avoiding her gaze. "How could I know?"
A twisted smile appeared on her face.
"You're just like him, you bastard. You draw people toward you, then exploit them. I know your type very well. Your eyes look so much like his!"
Isildar raised an eyebrow in surprise, expecting this to finally be the clue that would distinguish the twins.
But Kayden quickly turned his face away, almost hiding behind Henry.
Kayden had no desire to end the only game he had left in this world—the game that meant far more to him than merely a disguise or a deception.
Henry understood immediately, as though the two of them shared a silent language that no one else could hear.
He gave Hazel a faint smile, then stepped forward with steady confidence and positioned himself directly in front of Kayden, shielding him from Hazel's intrusive gaze.
"You're the one who placed a curse inside your own body, and yet you're talking about my brother's eyes?"
He paused for a moment, calmly observing her unraveling state. "I have a simple solution… Gouge out your own eyes, so you never have to see anything again." He stopped again, his gaze unwavering. "You're… obsessed."
At that moment, a loud laugh burst from Hazel's throat, harsh and grating, like the sound of metal breaking apart.
She screamed between her laughter, "You'll never understand! Hudson… was the light of this city. A free man, an adventurer, someone whose spirit could never be restrained. We were friends—more than friends…"
Her laughter faded into something bitter. "But then he found something more beautiful… something far better than me!"
"I don't blame him," Kayden muttered sarcastically.
Isildar stared at Hazel for a long moment. "Do you regret it?"
After saying those words, Isildar did not expect much.
Hazel did not answer. Instead, she seemed submerged in an inner sea, searching for an answer that had not yet become clear.
'Did she truly feel remorse… or was she merely wondering whether she was supposed to feel it?'
That hesitation stirred something uneasy inside Kayden. He watched her closely, searching her face for an answer.
' Doesn't regret reveal itself? Doesn't it show clearly on a person's face and through their actions? Then why is she hesitating? Is she thinking about lying again? Or are her emotions really this hollow?'
The questions raced through Kayden's mind, colliding with what little patience he had left.
'She doesn't feel remorse. She is completely convinced that what she did was right.'
Finally, Hazel muttered in a broken voice, barely audible.
"I… don't know."
She raised her eyes toward her father, who had leaned his body against the wall. He was lightly tapping the back of his head against it in repeated motions.
There was no sound from the impact, yet he seemed to be searching for a rhythm of his own—a rhythm belonging to a silence that made no sound at all.
Hazel's eyes widened when she saw him.
She felt as though she were facing something distant and incomprehensible, something that could never be reached, not even approached.
Her father looked at her for a moment before deliberately avoiding eye contact.
"Why?"
Hazel's voice came out weak, yet it was filled with an old, childlike fear.
Isildar rubbed his face with one hand and let out a long sigh. He seemed to be growing exhausted and bored at the same time.
At that moment, Hazel's voice came again, trembling somewhere between confusion and hope. "Is… Grace here?"
Isildar slowly lowered his hand from his eyes and stared at her for a moment before calmly shaking his head. "You… haven't gotten rid of her yet."
"Really?" Hazel asked again.
Her voice was hesitant, like someone searching desperately for a fragment of certainty.
But Isildar remained silent, his sunken eyes fixed on somewhere far beyond what she could see.
'If Grace isn't here… then where is she?'
Kayden wondered internally, his features gradually tightening with concentration.
Beside him, Henry stepped away for a moment before returning to stand beside his brother, an expression of irritation already forming on his face.
"She isn't dead," Kayden muttered, his voice barely audible.
Henry immediately turned toward him, his eyes widening as though he had suddenly realized something.
"She's alive… She's at the police station. There's a morgue there!"