We were having dessert when the high priest suddenly said, "That girl you saw just now was the sweetheart of a fire priest. You stole her sweetheart?" He looked at me with disappointment in his eyes. As if he was disappointed in my taste of a lover. 

"I am not such a cheap person! I won't lead on people with fiances!" 

"That's better." He nodded his head in satisfaction. "I can't bear my underlings being so distasteful." 

But you sold potions that made people look sick out of boredom.  

"The goddess of love and her servants might like these kind of tasteless things more." 

"Well then Rachelle must be blessed by the goddess of love from birth." 

The high priest chuckled. "I pity the fool who thinks blessings from the goddess of love is a gift." He took a sip of his wine and then said, "So it's Rachelle who stole the sweetheart from that girl then." 

"Rachelle is in the process of stealing her sweetheart," I amended. 

His smile right now was indicating how he was truly the high priest of darkness. "I am sure you know what to do, my dear Odette." A leather bound spell book appeared on his hand. He pushed it to me. With an elegant smile, he was gone. 

Why after two lives, this devil of a spell book was back to my hands again? 

The high priest of darkness was like a capricious tyrant. He bossed people around, he got bored easily, he wanted people to entertain him. Of course it's not by singing or dancing, he was a priest of darkness after all. For someone that powerful,  he loved to prank others.

It's not really that surprising, as the follower of god of darkness, according to historical books the high priest had to be bounded by rules, the high priest of darkness was not allowed to use his power of darkness without a justifiable reason approved by the committee of priests of other gods. To avoid the high priest or priestess doing damage to the continent. He was like a powerful demigod being prisoned in his own temple. 

So he liked pranking people with next to harmless tricks to pass time, although of course he would not do it himself. Instead he would order people to do it like a twisted priest of darkness he was, just like me now.

Now at this moment, I was starting to suspect that the high priest simply followed those rules because he wished to. If he didn't, he could very well break those rules. Just like how he could sneak out of his supposed prison all these time.

During my second life when I had knelt before his temple and begged for his help, I had been the one being bossed around. That's also why I knew how to make potions that made people look sick and drafting evil contracts. All these were from this spellbook that was now in my hand. Again. Let's go back to my room in the inn and studied this. 

To be honest, I did not want that girl to resort to killing people just because her sweetheart left her. But she was clearly not the type like Lady Florence who could let go when she understood her fiance's heart had really left her. I wonder if there's a way of helping that girl in winning back her lover's heart. That's quite a challenge, there was not a single eligible young guy who had seen Rachelle without falling in love with her. And her fire priest lover had already met Rachelle. If he hadn't, I could just tell that girl to go pick up her wounded lover in the forest. Then that fire priest would not have met Rachelle. Only judging by the fact that even though Lord Hank and Rachelle missed each other in the party, they still bumped into each other on the street. They would probably meet each other sooner or later. 

I sighed as I turned over another page of the spell book. On this page it's about a perfume who would make anyone smelling it fell in love with you. Sometimes I wonder if Rachelle had such perfume on her. Or else why would every single eligible handsome males on the street she bumped into fell in love with her? I wonder if the high priest would also fall in love with her if he was to meet her. 

Wait, he knew I had a stepsister. So that meant he had already met her? Was asking me to spy on her part of his plan to get to know Rachelle? Was I just a ploy for him to get closer to Rachelle? What was I thinking? Why did my heart feel a tiny prick? Without noticing, my fingers had crumbled the corner of a page of the spell book. I tried to smooth the corner with furrowed brows. 

Why was I suddenly annoyed? I had this sudden urge to throw a temper. To throw this spell book across the room. Like I was back to the time when I was still the ill-tempered lady. 

"Meow. Meow. Meow!" Isobel licked on my hand. 

"Hmm, Isobel, go and play on your... What..."

"We have just separated for two hours and someone has already angered you?" the man sitting in the dark asked in exasperation. His crow was standing on his shoulder. 

"Why are you here?" My mouth gaped open. 

"Will you believe me if I said I was worried you might have nightmares?"

"Nope. I am more on the side you're here to see how far I have came up with an evil plan."

He walked over to where I was sitting and leaned over my shoulder to look at the opened spell book on my desk. "Perfume that makes people fall in love. That's your plan?" 

"I have not yet decided." 

"Oh really, don't mind me, keep going." He leaned by the window with the moonlight shining on him. "But what had the perfume did to offend you so that you wished to throw the book across the room?" 

The expression on his face now was so familiar with the one he gave me on the last night in my second life. Together with the dream I had the night before, it briefly disoriented me. Without thinking, I blurted out, "Have you fallen in love with my beautiful stepsister?" 

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Author's note

Thank you for reading! See you next time!