Under the dim yellow light of the hospital room, Livia stood silently at the edge of the bed, staring at the pale, gaunt, and evasive-eyed Marcellus.
Her heart surged with conflicting emotions. She had come here with the fire of interrogation and the fury of betrayal, but now, face to face with this familiar yet broken man, all that roaring emotion froze like fire meeting a glacier—falling into heavy, unmoving silence.
She took a slow breath. Her gaze was sharp, like frost.
"Then where is it now—the Grail fragment?"
Marcellus let out a bitter smile and shook his head, a look of deep entanglement crossing his face as if he were staring into an abyss he could never reach again.
"After that night… I suddenly became clear-headed. It was like the weight pressing on my chest had been lifted all at once. But just a few days later, the fragment… disappeared."
He paused.
"I don't know where it went. Maybe I lost it. Maybe it 'left' me on its own. I couldn't find it again, no matter what I did. I know you want answers—but I… I couldn't bring myself to speak of it. It was too shameful. Too hard. I was afraid that if I said it out loud… I would truly lose you forever."
The air stiffened.
Livia's voice came next, slow but resolute:
"Then why did you keep looking for the fragments afterward?"
A flicker of hesitation passed through Marcellus's eyes.
He seemed to be wrestling with the last remnants of secrecy inside him. At last, he lowered his lashes and answered softly:
"Because of your father—Edgar."
"He found me. Told me the Grail could grant one true wish."
"I didn't believe him at first. But then he showed me recordings from the last expansion project—how the city transformed. The methods they used, the speed of construction… It was exactly as my father described in his journals. None of it should have been possible—not without the Grail."
His voice trembled, weighed down by guilt.
"I wavered. I just… I just wanted to go back. Back to the night before everything broke. Back to when you didn't hate me—when you were still by my side. Then you lost your memory, and for a while, I actually thought… maybe this was my wish come true."
"Part of me wanted to believe that if you forgot, we could start over. That maybe I shouldn't bring it up again. Shouldn't search for the fragments. But… I could feel it. The power hadn't really let you go. It was still influencing you. That's when I thought—maybe if I found the fragment again, I could fix it. Fix you. Fix everything I destroyed."
Livia listened quietly, never interrupting.
Only after he finished did she speak—calm, but cutting:
"So you never thought—not once—to tell me the truth? Not even when you believed there was still time to make things right?"
Marcellus closed his eyes. Pain twisted across his face. His voice, when it came, was hoarse and low:
"I thought about it… too many times. But that doesn't mean I could do it. Sometimes I clung to the hope that you'd figure it out yourself. That you'd move on, forget. Sometimes… maybe the Grail really was influencing me. I don't know anymore."
"But whatever the reason—I missed the moment. The moment when I should have told you."
He opened his eyes again. They were filled with remorse and exhaustion.
"It's too late now… isn't it?"
Livia didn't answer.
But her eyes—clearer than ever before—spoke louder than words.
In that moment, she truly saw him.
This man she had once loved deeply.
This man who had hurt her, hidden the truth from her, feared her, longed for her, and now—stood utterly exposed before her.
All the lies of the past, the secrets of the fragment, the buried fears and cowardice—were peeled back, layer by layer, in this small hospital room.
And now, at last, she stood on the edge of a choice.