HBHM (hiatus)

twenty-four

but then she remembered what she was trying to get away from, she remembered the thing that tore her apart.

| amulet

At first Leroy was hesitant to follow the strange girl into her strange house among the trees, but something nagged at his instincts, beckoning, so sure they had to stop, that he couldn’t really argue.

He sat with the others in long silence at a wooden table in the girl’s house. Stone walls kept the warmth from the lit fireplace in, and there weren’t much furniture aside from a few cupboards. A staircase that led to the upper floor was fixated in the corner. The girl had her back to them as she busied herself preparing tea on the counter.

This girl looked extremely young—possibly between fourteen and sixteen—but her eyes had this endless depth, like a marble with the surface of an ocean, impossibly timeless. The way they seemed to peer at everything and nothing at the same time made him feel wary.

Leroy exchanged a look with Casimir across him. The prince shrugged, his eyes asking a silent question. Beside him Aselia had her elbows against the table, fingers caressing her temples. And Evarose, on Leroy’s left, was just gazing down, wringing her hands. She had this pained look on her face, the same way she usually did whenever she didn’t like something.

He leaned in to her and whispered, “You’re awfully quiet.”

She visibly flinched. “I was just remembering something.”

“Is it Vladimir?”

“When is anything not related to him?”

“I thought we’ve already been through this.”

Evarose finally looked up, meeting his eyes. “What?”

“You’re keeping to yourself again.”

Leroy wished he could take it back when she just looked away and sighed.

Finally the girl placed a tray on the table and gave each of them a ceramic cup. Evarose quickly took hers and drank, but the others just looked at each other with anxious reluctance.

The girl rolled her eyes. “It’s just tea. I didn’t poison anything. Oh, Casimir, I added a drop of honey in yours. I hear it’s your favorite.”

Casimir blinked. “How did you—”

“I have my ways,” she replied with a mysterious smile.

Leroy took a sip from his own cup. The tea tasted bitter and sweet, like burnt sugar, and he could almost feel his muscles loosening, his head clearing—and decided not to drink anymore. He set his cup aside and asked, “Why did you bring us here?”

The girl shrugged. “Is it a crime to invite people into my home?”

“Well, you haven’t given us any reason to trust you.”

“And even if I did, would you?”

Something unsettling and wary rumbled in Leroy’s blood, though he didn’t quite know what. It felt like the girl . . . knew him, somehow—knew every scar, every crease, every itch of skin and drop of blood beneath it. Like how a physician knew the human anatomy.

“I think the game has gone on long enough,” he said firmly. “This has been very . . . intriguing, but we’re on a tight schedule and we really have to—”

“Oh,” the girl interrupted, waving a hand carelessly, “you can wait for a few more days. The revelry won’t be until then.”

He blinked several times, not quite sure how to respond. “Revelry?”