Chapter 1074
Are You Eivass’s Mother Too?
As Isabelle walked back with Eivass and Yulia, her heart couldn’t help but race.
“D-Do I really have to meet the parents now!”
Isabelle’s composure and calm vanished instantly under Eivass’s sudden ambush.
For a moment, Isabelle felt like she was no longer the Queen of Avalon, but a little girl just out of school, barely an adult.
“Eivass, Eivass…”
Isabelle lowered her voice, asking with a mix of anxiety and curiosity, “Your mother… isn’t she…?”
Few people understood the misfortune that befell Eivass’s parents better than Isabelle.
After all, when she first met Eivass, she and Eivass had played the roles of his parents during an Ascension Ritual.
From the synopsis and mission requirements she received then, she had already guessed the fate of the original Annie Alexander—ambushed and assassinated by the Hooked Demon Jack.
At that time, Isabelle’s mandatory mission was to protect little Eivass’s survival, but it did not include “staying alive.” She also had a strange mission: to go to the Hanging Square.
She was still a novice then, not as familiar with Ascension Rituals as she was now. If it were the current Isabelle, she could have roughly guessed what kind of plot she might face, what kind of solution to choose, and the fate of the character she was playing in the original history, just by glancing at those missions.
This actually meant that in the original timeline, it was Eivass’s parents who went to the Hanging Square and placed little Eivass there. There were too many people there, which would have diluted the weak curse and made it impossible for the Hooked Demon Jack to track him. If things escalated, it would also attract the Supervisors immediately. Moreover, with enough people, they wouldn’t have to worry about little Eivass starving to death in some corner. Then, they went to lure away the Hooked Demon Jack, saving Eivass with their own lives.
Another possibility was that they placed little Eivass in the church where they were originally. Then they went to the Hanging Square to lure away the enemy… but the result was the same. In that Ascension Ritual, “death” itself was one way to complete the mission.
It was precisely because Eivass’s parents both died in that assassination attempt that he entered the orphanage funded by the Moriarty Family, met Yulia, and was subsequently raised by James Moriarty.
So now… where did his mother come from?
Could it be that Eivass found his mother, who had already become a Disc, in the Dream Realm and brought her back?
Isabelle was nervous, and Yulia was equally nervous. After all, she had always considered herself Eivass’s sister, his closest relative… and now another closer relative had appeared?
As the two girls, filled with apprehension, followed Eivass into the reception hall of the Silver and Tin Hall, they were surprised to find quite a few people there.
Besides Sherlock, who was the initial purpose of Eivass’s trip, Yulia’s brother Edward had also returned with them. There were also two men and one woman by the table whom Yulia had never seen before… a silver-haired, blue-eyed old man with a dignified demeanor, a beautiful noblewoman in her thirties with evident good upbringing, and a handsome man with deep facial features.
Although the ages didn’t match, Isabelle recognized the woman dressed as a noblewoman at a glance—it was Eivass’s mother, whom she had played in her dreams!
Her mind was instantly thrown into utter chaos: How was Eivass’s mother still alive? Why was she in Iris? Who was the man beside her? Why hadn’t she come to find Eivass all this time?
The other party had also clearly heard the footsteps and looked up at Isabelle.
Isabelle noticed that in her eyes, there was astonishment, joy, and satisfaction, along with a trace of strange panic and timidity. The two met each other’s gaze for a moment, but neither spoke first, maintaining a peculiar silence.
“Hello…”
After about two seconds of silence, Isabelle greeted softly.
A strange sentence popped into her mind inexplicably:
“Are you Eivass’s mother too?”
Isabelle was startled and quickly shook her head, swallowing the words that had almost slipped out.
Eivass, however, introduced her: “This is Annie de Vendome, the third daughter of Duke Vendome.
“This is Isabelle. Isabelle Du Lac, my lover.”
…The third daughter of Duke Vendome? Not “my mother”?
Isabelle was stunned.
Although Yulia didn’t know many of the details, she had sensed something from the expressions of the people around them. Therefore, she very wisely said nothing, but stood obediently behind Eivass.
At this moment, Eivass suddenly smirked and added, “You can also call her Lulu.”
No, no, no, no, no, this is not okay, not okay, not okay…
Isabelle immediately became visibly flustered.
“Don’t tell your mother that I was your mother! I don’t want that!”
This was the second most embarrassing thing Isabelle could think of.
The most embarrassing thing was probably being exposed to her own father for calling Eivass “Dad”…
She was shaking her head frantically in her mind, but she didn’t show it, just putting on a slightly awkward, reserved smile.
The old man, who had been drinking tea and reading a book, now looked up with interest: “From *Lulu’s Magic Flute*? That’s good.”
Eivass smiled and whispered to Isabelle, “The fey named Lulu who wrote *Lulu’s Magic Flute* was a fey friend of an ancestor of the Vendome family. The first Vendome to perform this play in human society, in public, was one of them.”
This was why the Vendome family possessed the profession of “Pied Piper.”
However, Isabelle understood part of the situation by then.
“Eivass’s mother is a noble from the Vendome family?”
The Duke of Iris’s Vendome?
Even Isabelle, who didn’t have much political acumen, knew the transcendent status of that military Duke in Iris.
…But if that were the case, why did she change her name to Annie Alexander and marry Eivass’s father in Avalon? He was a genuine commoner, just a newly appointed priest, and didn’t even have money to buy property in Glass Island, so he had to live in the countryside.
A love story between a Duke’s daughter and a poor young man?
Could she have survived because Duke Vendome intervened?
But if that were the case…
Isabelle looked at Eivass hesitantly.
She had always carefully noticed that Eivass had never called the woman named “Annie” his mother in front of her. Therefore, Isabelle didn’t know how to address her either.
She worried that Eivass didn’t recognize this mother. If she changed her address prematurely, it would be equivalent to coercing Eivass’s stance.
“It’s like this…”
Annie seemed to have prepared herself mentally on the way.
In front of her son, with whom she only had a blood connection, and his fiancée, whom he was to marry the next day, she finally told her story and shared her life.
It was meant to be a reminder—or a warning—to them.
“When I was in university… I went to study abroad in Avalon. To study art.”
Annie said softly, “I didn’t stay in Iris because I was carrying out a political mission at the time…”
—This was actually quite normal.
No one present reacted much to this.
After all, Iris was the land of beauty and love, and art had been a vigorously developed national skill in Iris for hundreds of years. The status of art was far higher than that of Star Antimony’s alchemy. For Annie, as a child of Duke Vendome, to study abroad in Avalon… the value of that was roughly equivalent to a literary family going to Europe or America to study Chinese language and literature, or an American coming to China to study business English.
Except for the exams being easier to pass, this study was basically a waste of time.
“It was during the cold war between Iris and Avalon,” the old Duke interjected. “Her Majesty Sophia spoke to me about something.
“She had a child she liked very much who was interested in art and hoped to find a truly reliable art family to cultivate feelings and establish an engagement. This could also be considered a marriage alliance between Avalon and Iris… And a marriage alliance with the Avalon royal family could ease the increasingly tense international situation, thus allowing the two countries to return to a calmer stance, so I agreed.
“The people of Avalon didn’t want to welcome war, and neither did the people of Iris. I taught Annie the Avalon language and provided her with psychological counseling. I told her how to interact with those stone-faced knights in the Royal Palace… But shortly after she went to Avalon, she told me something.
“—That the prince who had originally been engaged to her had secretly married his own tutor. And this was widely known in Avalon. I was furious at the time, thinking it was an insult from the people of Avalon. So, I had Annie return and prepared for war.
“At that time, I ordered Eagle Eye to send an assassin to poison an heir to the Avalon throne as retaliation.
“But Annie rebelled… She refused to come back.
“After that, the famous war—the Ten-Day War—broke out. In that war…”
The old Duke sighed as he said, “The army that was repelled by Madam Meg was led by me. We crushed the Avalon navy at an extremely fast speed. It was the most elite army of Iris, but it was repelled by Madam Meg alone. Everyone lost their combat power, but no one died.”
Hearing this, Isabelle’s eyes widened slightly.
She had already realized… who Annie’s husband should have been, according to another possibility in history.
At the same time, she realized another thing…
—Because the old Duke had one more thing he didn’t say.
That was what happened after the Ten-Day War—
“When the parliamentarians of Iris clearly realized that they could not defeat Avalon, which had Meg… under the secret instigation of the Child of the Moon, who was skilled in curses, they launched another plan.
“The original purpose of this plan was to reduce the number of Eagle Eye’s top assassins, forcing them to enter Avalon to die repeatedly through power. However, they unexpectedly discovered that the people of Avalon were particularly poor at defending against curses… So the plan changed, targeting the royal family of Avalon. Later, the Star Antimony people also realized this and added fuel to the fire.
“The name of this plan was the ‘Eclipse Crown Plan.’
“—Which is what the Avalon people call the ‘Royal Curse.’”
(End of Chapter)
