The hospital room was silent, everyone lost in their own thoughts.
Marcellus, sitting quietly in the corner, seemed almost detached from the room itself.
His fingertips were ice-cold, his palms slick with sweat. The veins at his wrist pulsed faintly, and an uncontrollable chill climbed up his spine, as if something long-buried had been uncovered—surging from the depths of his soul and shaking him to his core. His entire body trembled, ever so slightly.
Adrian and Elise glanced over, thinking his reaction came from grief—finally learning the truth behind his parents' death, overwhelmed by sorrow and despair.
But only Marcellus knew:
What swirled in his mind was not just sadness.
It was something far more destructive—an unbearable, earth-shattering truth.
The revelations in the diary hit like a hammer striking still water, shattering and reshaping over a decade of memories.
From Celesta's death…
To Edgar's descent into madness…
To the scattered shards of the Grail, the rebuilding of the city, the riddles left by his parents—
It had all been there.
All of it, carefully seeded in advance.
None of it accidental.
And most devastating of all, he finally understood the one thing he had never been able to let go of—
The rupture between him and Livia.
That near-catastrophic misunderstanding.
That night—her fury, his coldness.
Her tears, his silence.
That rift he never had the courage to face again—
It wasn't his fault.
There was a reason.
And now, at last, he knew what it was.
But… so what?
He lowered his head. His lips parted slightly, but no words came.
His throat was parched, and his heart pounded like it wanted to burst out of his chest.
—"If I say it now… will she forgive me?"
—"Will she believe me?"
—"Will they think I'm just making excuses—trying to whitewash the past?"
He didn't know.
Because that rift had stood between them for too long, like a chasm too deep to cross.
He had tried, once, to leap across it—only to fall short every time.
She had tried to build a bridge. But he had been too slow, too oblivious.
And now, even if he could easily say: "Back then, it wasn't really me—it was the Grail's influence."
Would it matter?
The damage had been done.
The pain she had carried alone, the tears he had ignored, the walls of distance and coldness they had both helped build—there were too many cracks in their trust now.
Even with an explanation, even with the truth—he knew: some things cannot be erased with just an "I'm sorry."
If only…
If only he had read that diary sooner.
If only he had understood why his parents grew distant, why Celesta vanished, why Edgar lost his mind.
If only he had known that Livia's anguish back then had been real, that he had misunderstood her, pushed her into darkness—
If only.
But life offers no if onlys.
Marcellus slowly closed his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched—but no one saw it.
His hand dropped at his side, slowly curling into a fist beneath the hospital gown, knuckles turning pale.
In that moment, he hated himself—for his blindness, for his cowardice, for the cruel joke fate had played on them all.
Yet he said nothing.
He simply stood there, still and silent like a statue carved of stone.
And the others… still thought he was just grieving his parents' death.
No one knew—
That what he truly wanted to cry for was her.
The time he had lost.
The trust that never should have been broken.