Tales of the Onyx Labyrinth

Mischief and Misdirection

'You should leave, Brandon. Forget that you saw me today.'

He nodded, giving her a last bittersweet smile before walking away.

Her body shivered from pain. She closed her eyes, keeping the tears inside. The smells and sounds disappeared and she opened her eyes. The entire scene was gone. It had been an illusion. If she had really walked through a gap in the veil, she would have had to return through it to her own time. She wouldn't have magically reappeared in the cavern she had been searching before seeing Brandon.

Furious, she looked around for whoever had caused this horrible drama to unfold. But no-one with magic strong enough was anywhere near. Keeping her destructive emotions and fantasies to herself, she returned to the task at hand: finding the thieves and the stolen fabrics.

She could feel the rabbit watching her, but ignored it. She knew better than to engage the faery-hybrid creatures that roamed the Labyrinth.

Yet that was exactly who she was seeking. Five baboons – obviously faery-hybrids living in the Labyrinth – had somehow broken into the Onyx Labyrinth and had stolen all the wedding dress fabrics.

The princess was beside herself. A few of the dressmakers had collapsed and hadn't been revived by the time Daphne and the other Guardians had gone hunting for the thieves.

'I would faint too if I'd failed to protect something as valuable,' Henri said as he joined Daphne and Ruhan at the intersection of corridors. She hated that she'd broadcasted this thought.

'Have you found anything, or did you faint in horror?' Ruhan asked, obviously as irritated with the young Guardian as Daphne was.

'A rabbit. It was sleeping on a large rock. Nothing else.'

'I saw a rabbit too...' the older Guardian said, staring at the corridor he'd come from.

'Warren?' Daphne asked, looking at the innocuous corridors. 'I did find lots of clover.'

'Could be.'

'Who's Warren?' Henri asked.

'Obviously language isn't your strong point. Despite evidence that you can't seem to keep your mouth shut,' Daphne said and walked away before giving into the urge to strangle him.

She hadn't forgotten that he was the one to leak sensitive information. Though the only consequence thus far was princess Calliope moving to the Onyx Labyrinth, she was still worried that someone might figure out the truth of her feelings for Duke Brandon. She swallowed. She had tried so hard the last couple of weeks not to think about him. She'd even convinced herself that her feelings weren't real. That it all was part of the Dragon's Curse. But why then, after weeks of being curse-free, did her heart ache like part of it was missing?

Movement caught her eye.

'Dark fur,' she said to the other two through the mind-link. She ran full out after what she hoped was a baboon.

Daphne found it. But it wasn't a baboon. It was a raccoon.

'I know it rhymes, but that's no baboon,' Henri said.

Ruhan slapped him over the head.

'Baboon?' the raccoon asked.

'Your size, fur colour, and recently seen in the area,' Daphne said.

'Haven't seen anything but rats,' the raccoon answered and ran off.

Daphne kicked a rock and left.

Searching for stolen wedding dress fabrics wasn't exactly Guardian work.

'Henri, follow the raccoon,' Ruhan commanded.