"How does that have anything to do with what I asked?" she snapped, her interest clearly waning.

  Her eyes narrowed in irritation, and the temperature in the room seemed to rise in tandem with her mood. "Can you hurry up? I'd like to find out about everything relating to pyramids," she added, impatience dripping from her voice.

  Leonardo's mind raced, trying to piece together a way to distract her, or at least buy himself a few precious moments.Q1 He took a deep breath, his chest tight with anxiety. "You already bathed with your husband, right? Don't you think he'll be mad when—"

  Her hand lashed out, slapping him across the face with a force that stung and burned. The heat from her touch was unbearable, and Leonardo recoiled, a sharp pain shooting through his cheek.

  "My husband won't get mad at me," she interrupted, her voice cold and resolute. She straightened up, staring down at him with an unreadable expression.

  Leonardo froze. There it was again—that flash of violence, that cold, unfeeling detachment.

  That was the second time someone had slapped him like that. The first time was his father, and now, this woman, who was also a mother to Anna and Elara.

  The realization struck him hard, a chilling thought that tightened the knot of fear in his stomach. He looked at her, his eyes wide, dread coursing through him like ice water.

  "Why did you do that?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper, his words shallow and tinged with disbelief.

  She ignored his question, her gaze drifting away from him as if he were nothing more than a nuisance.

  Leonardo gathered himself, his mind racing with possibilities. He knew he had to turn the tables, to say something that would shake her, throw her off balance. "Your husband's friend, he died.

  The one with the armor, mono-lid eyes? Yes, that one. He's dead," Leonardo began, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor to avoid meeting her piercing gaze.

  The truth and lies blurred in his mind, each word carefully chosen to construct a narrative he hoped would save him. "So the sage, he gave compensation…you should know what that means, right? Your husband is dead."

  "What are you saying?" she demanded, her voice wavering for the first time, a crack appearing in her cold exterior.

  "Your husband is dead, ma'am," Leonardo repeated, his tone even, though each word felt like a gamble. He was playing with fire—literally and figuratively—but he knew he had to keep going.

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  He was using every scrap of information he had gathered from past events, exploiting the cracks in her unstable mind. If he could just make her believe, even for a moment, that Henri was gone, it might buy him the time he needed to escape.

  She seemed to give off an aura suggesting she and Henri shared a deep, unbreakable bond, and Leonardo was banking on that to unravel her composure. He continued, pressing his advantage.

  "I'm sorry to say this, but…" Leonardo hesitated, thoughts of Anna and Elara flashing briefly in his mind. I'll clear this up with them later, he thought. Right now, I just need to get out of here.

  "Why did he die?" she asked, her voice edged with a mix of disbelief and growing anxiety. "Isn't it only Kokoro?"

  Leonardo seized on her confusion, layering his lies with half-truths to make them more believable. "It's his son, Ryuji—he killed his father. And Henri, your husband, he…uh, killed Ryuji as well."

  "My husband wouldn't kill a mere boy," she countered, her voice faltering as if she was on the precipice of believing the story he was spinning.

  "Maybe not, but he left the boy critically injured. He used his attachment skill to shift the air around the top of the tower, ma'am," Leonardo continued, feeding her fragments of truth to make the lie more palatable.

  He had seen Henri use that skill; that much was real, a thread of reality to weave into his fabricated tale.

  "Ryuji was a strange boy, but killing his dad?" she murmured, her voice breaking into a soft gasp.

  She covered her face with her hand, the weight of Leonardo's words pressing down on her.

  He could see the disbelief mingling with doubt in her eyes, the story taking root despite her initial resistance.

  "Don't think about Anna and Elara," Leonardo thought desperately, knowing he was treading a thin line. One misstep, one contradiction, and she might snap, turning her wrath back on him.

  "Did he die honorably, in my name, Adalaide?" she asked, her voice cracking as she finally gave voice to her deepest fear.

  "Yes. He—" Leonardo paused, choosing his next words carefully. He met her gaze, her eyes glassy and distant, as if she were teetering on the edge of an emotional chasm, one wrong word, and the fragile lie he had constructed could crumble, leading to a far more gruesome fate than the one already planned for him.

  "Yes, he did. You should've seen him," Leonardo said, his voice firm, as though he were recounting a real event. In that moment, even he started to believe his own lies, his conviction lending an eerie authenticity to the words.

  "Oh, alright," she murmured, her expression distant as she turned away from him.

  She began walking towards the door, her movements slow and deliberate, as if the weight of his story had finally settled in.

  She opened the door cautiously, the hinges creaking, and stepped out into the hallway.

  Her steps echoed softly as she turned towards the stairs on the left, her figure diminishing with each step she took away from him.

  "Pyramids," she muttered under her breath, her voice barely audible as she repeated the word over and over, like a mantra or an anchor to cling to amidst the storm of emotions.

  Her mind seemed to drift, her focus splintering as she moved further away, leaving Leonardo alone in the stifling bathroom.

  Leonardo watched her go, his heart still pounding in his chest. He didn't dare move until the sound of her footsteps faded completely.

  Only then did he allow himself to exhale, a shaky breath escaping his lips as he leaned against the cold tile wall. His entire body trembled, the adrenaline still coursing through his veins.

  He had done it. He had lied to her, manipulated her grief and confusion to save himself, and it had worked.