Jia barely managed to lie her way through that night.
"I was talking in my sleep."
Dohyun stood on the other side of the door and said nothing for a long moment. Jia held her breath and slid the bronze mirror behind her back, keeping it covered. The mirror had stopped glowing.
"For sleep-talking, it was remarkably coherent."
"I've always been a very articulate sleep-talker…."
The moment the words left her mouth, she couldn't believe herself. What kind of way was that for a court lady to speak to a prince? But strangely, Dohyun didn't press her on it.
"Tomorrow, at the hour of the Hare. Come to my study."
"Why?"
"I need to make sense of your dreams."
He left it at that, and his footsteps faded away. Only then did Jia sink to the floor.
The prince's study. In the original novel, it was where Dohyun plotted his strategies alone, where he hid the people loyal to him—and where the forged documents used to frame him for treason were eventually discovered. Walking into that room meant walking into the very heart of the story.
The next morning, Jia stood before the study door looking like she hadn't slept a wink, because she hadn't.
Dohyun was already seated inside. His wound was loosely bandaged, and a military map was spread open in front of him. He held out a brush and paper to her.
"Write down everything you saw in your dreams."
Jia hesitated.
"I don't know my letters very well."
Digging through Sowol's memories, she found she could read a little—but reading and writing with a brush were entirely different things. The moment she picked one up, she'd give herself away.
Dohyun studied her for a moment, then set the brush aside.
"Then speak. I will write."
And so began the strange spectacle of a prince taking dictation from a court lady.
Jia chose her words carefully. The poisoned tea. Baek Gyeom's death. The treason documents. The night of the crimson moon. The scene of Dohyun standing at the execution grounds. But she couldn't bring herself to name the mastermind. Too many threads tangled together in the original story, and naming the wrong person could get an innocent one killed.
Dohyun listened with unnerving calm.
"So I become a traitor in the end."
"Your Highness is not a traitor. You're framed for it."
"In the palace, a false charge outlives the truth."
He said it quietly and folded the paper. In that moment, Jia felt the full weight of how little he trusted this place. He was a prince, and yet he was the loneliest person within these walls.
Just then, Baek Gyeom entered from outside.
"Your Highness. There is unusual movement from the Queen Dowager's quarters. The attendant who delivered the poisoned tea last night is dead."
Jia's expression went rigid.
"Dead?"
Baek Gyeom glanced at her briefly.
"Found in a well. It will likely be ruled a suicide."
Silenced.
The original story had shifted—but the palace was moving faster than ever.
Dohyun rose slowly to his feet.
"I need to see the body."
Jia spoke before she could stop herself.
"You shouldn't go."
Both men turned to look at her at the same time.
Jia swallowed. A specific scene from the novel surfaced in her mind. Dohyun goes to examine the dead attendant's body—and hidden there, he finds a small vial of poison. It's been planted to look like evidence that he ordered the killing. That discovery is what starts the rumor: the prince who hid poison.
"There might be a trap waiting there."
Dohyun asked simply, "From your dreams?"
"Yes."
"Then I have to go."
"I just said you shouldn't!"
Jia's voice came out almost as a shout. Baek Gyeom's eyes went wide. Even Dohyun paused.
A court lady had just raised her voice at a prince. This time, losing her head wouldn't even be surprising.
But Dohyun didn't get angry. If anything, the faintest trace of a smile crossed his face.
"If I know a trap is there and simply avoid it, I'll never learn who set it."
"How many lives do you think you have, Your Highness?"
"One."
"Then you should be careful with it!"
The words were out before she could catch them. Jia clapped a hand over her mouth. Baek Gyeom stared at her like she'd grown a second head. Dohyun went quiet.
Then, in a low voice, he said:
"You are a strange one."
"I'm sorry."
"You are the first person in this palace to tell me to value my own life."
Something in Jia's chest ached in a way she couldn't quite name.
Dohyun went to see the body after all. But he agreed to let Baek Gyeom search the storage room first, just as Jia had urged. Sure enough, tucked behind the room where the body lay, they found a small vial of poison.
Baek Gyeom retrieved it, jaw tight.
"Evidence meant to implicate Your Highness."
Dohyun looked at the vial and smiled coldly.
"Sloppy work this time."
But Jia couldn't smile. The events were accelerating beyond the original timeline. Someone was trying to kill Dohyun faster than the story had planned. And that someone had noticed there was a new variable in play.
That afternoon, Jia was drawing water from the well in the back courtyard of Wolyeong Palace when she found something strange. A folded slip of paper, wedged deliberately beneath a stone where she couldn't miss it.
There was a single line written on it.
— *The girl who tries to change the ending dies first.*
The water bucket slipped from her hands.
A man's voice came from behind her.
"You've seen the note, I take it."
Jia turned around slowly.
A young man stood there in a blue official's robe. A composed face. A gentle smile. But the moment Jia saw him, her body went cold.
The second male lead of the original novel. Dohyun's closest companion.
And the man who, at the final trial, delivers the testimony that seals Dohyun's fate.
Seonwoo Ryu.
He stepped toward her and spoke quietly.
"You're called Sowol, aren't you."
His smile was warm. His eyes were not.
"Staying too close to His Highness will get you hurt."
Jia gripped the note tightly.
"Is that a threat?"
"A word of advice."
Seonwoo crouched down and set the fallen bucket upright.
"In this palace, those who try to save a prince tend to die before the prince does."
The wind picked up. The edge of the paper cut into her palm.
Jia understood.
Dohyun's side was not safe.
But the moment she stepped away from him, he would die—exactly as the story had written.