The warm glow coming from the star-shaped lanterns suspended in the air cast their orange light on the deep blue-green of the lake. The thick wall of elms and junipers surrounding the water had a slight crack, allowing a waterfall to feed the lake, then the lake fed the pond flowing around the Bookkeeper's home. The lake was the sky's mirror, reflecting the inky black expanse of the space above and the tiny specks of twinkling stars.
The mirror was suddenly shattered by Linkin falling in.
He thrashed around in the water, letting out gurgled screams for a bit until he realized that the water wasn't even that deep. In fact, the lake was shallow enough that when he stood, the water didn't even pass his chest.
"Oh," he said. "You guys wanna play Marco Polo?"
Nearly everyone abandoned their meals and leapt into the water. In just a matter of seconds, the game turned chaotic with the participants screaming words that were neither "Marco" nor "Polo", splashing each other, and cheating by running off to dry land. Lucas wasn't interested in finishing his dinner—overly-salted deer meat—but he remained at the table at the shore and watched the game devolve into something lawless and amusing. He howled with laughter and clapped each time Stepan blocked off the person who was "it" with a wall of ice, or Will teleported and ended up dangling from a lantern only to fall back into the lake, or Jaron wildly swung his arms around to tag other people.
The only people who weren't in the water other than Lucas were Enoch—still unconscious and left back at the Bookkeeper's house—, and MJ and Claire. The two were seated next to each other by coincidence, but it seems like the two managed to engage themselves in a quiet, giggle-filled conversation. Lucas smiled even though he knew they wouldn't notice.
Should Lucas jump into the water, too? It would surely turn out to be an effective way of spending his time and keeping his mind occupied. Sitting still at the dinner table left his nerves feeling antsy as his mind wished to wander—wander off to wondering how Vaessen would whip these youthful scoundrels into shape, wander off to wondering if Jalen could ever fit in with this bunch. Lucas suddenly felt something in his rope. He got up to search for clean water back at the Bookkeeper's house.
The path back was small, and the roots sticking out of the dirt were evidence that it was hardly ever used. Branches and thorns briefly brushed against Lucas' skin prickled with goosebumps caused by the night's cool blanket. His way was illuminated by the pale blue moon watching over him and the mountain.
Lucas finally reached the house and entered through the back, ducking under the hammock where Enoch lay. Now that he was back in the one-bedroom abode, he wondered why he thought he thought he'd find anything to drink; the place was littered with books and books, scrolls and scrolls. He could have just stayed at the lake and drank from there. But did he really want to walk all the way back there?
"Whatcha up to?"
"AH!"
Lucas leapt into the air and yelped, but when he was back on his feet, he identified the Bookkeeper's small silhouette in the moonlight. "Oh. It's just you."
The Bookkeeper hummed in reply. "Is Marco Polo just not your thing?"
Lucas just shrugged in reply, then he pointed to the papers scattered around the room. "Are all of these yours?"
"Yep!" they beamed. "Which reminds me..." They shuffled over to the shelves and began pulling books off, leaving them to fall to the floor. "No, no... Not this one. Oh, you'd love this one—it's super long, though. Ah, geez, I thought I burned this to a crisp—I hated it, hated it! Oh! This one made me cry so much... I'm telling you, the guy who wrote this is a genius. Is that it? Ah, no. Oh!"
They tossed Lucas five small, light books, and Lucas caught them with ease.
"Read those."
"Uh, sure... When I have the time, I swear I'll—"
"That's not a recommendation." Suddenly, the small, peculiar mountain-dweller disappeared. In their place stood someone serious and commanding. The illusion lasted for only a moment, but it was enough to compel Lucas to flip to the first page. He squinted his eyes to make out the words in the night's faint light, but the Bookkeeper held up a lamp for him.
✦✧✧✧✧✦
The books ended up being a part of the same series, and Lucas had been given the first five volumes. It was a mystery story of sorts, all written from the perspective of the criminal. While the criminal was a mastermind murderer, Lucas couldn't bring himself to hate him. Sure, there was the protagonist's charisma and wit that made him likable, but his motivations were compelling. In the nation the story took place in, the rich and powerful were constantly abusing the weak and the poor. The protagonist and his brothers witnessed these atrocities firsthand and took it upon themselves to bring about social, political, and economic change to the country. They achieved this by becoming an enemy that everyone from all classes could unite against, and they assigned a brilliant and eccentric detective to play the part of the hero who would defeat them.
The protagonist killed for the sake of the "greater good", yet he wasn't quite like other characters who tried using the ends to justify the means. Not once did he believe that what he was doing was right; he simply soiled his hands because he didn't want anyone else to taint their soul. In the end, he attempted to kill himself in order to atone for his sins, but the detective, the protagonist's greatest rival and dearest friend, urged him to live. Lucas would be lying if he said he didn't get teary by the time he reached the finale.
"It's really good, isn't it?" the Bookkeeper said after Lucas gave the books back to them.
"Yeah," he replied. "But what was the point in reading that? I mean, it was a very good read, but shouldn't we be focusing on how we're going to... See, I don't even know what we're supposed to do. Starting a revolution? ...Committing genocide?"
The Bookkeeper waved their hand and shook their head. "No, no! We haven't got enough people to pull off something as flashy as that. Sorry if you were expecting me to be super resourceful. Or creative 'cause if you remember from the books I lent you, they were able to change everything with just three brothers, one detective, and four allies."
Lucas' eyes widened. "You're not saying..."
"Unfortunately, I am." The Bookkeeper shrugged. "Now, do you wanna play the role of the good guy or the bad guy?"
---
A/N
This chapter is so short, and it's literally been over a month. I didn't even proofread this. I kinda just threw a bunch of stuff together so that this could finally be out, and I actually pulled some stuff from what's supposed to be the next chapter. I made slight changes so I'd have less chapters to write to actually finish this thing, and I'm hoping I'll finish up before June (which is gonna be the one-year anniversary of this thing I think ╥﹏╥). Btw the finale of this book is gonna be super abrupt, but that's just because it's supposed to blend into the sequel right away. And I might have mentioned this being a trilogy, but looking at how much effort it takes to actually do this, I'm considering making this a duology and the sequel is gonna jump back and forth in time. Anyways, I'm bad at outros...
Bye.
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𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃
Fantasy✦✧✧✧✧✦ ❝ i've been lost my whole life . this . . . this doesn't make that much of a difference . ❞ ✦✧✧✧✧✦ multiple teenagers were thrown out of their kingdom due to their unusual powers. many try to start new lives, but some wish to go ba...
