Dancing on Strings

Inviting Fear

They had reached the staircase landing and he carefully set her back on her feet, smiling at her before offering his arm as they made their way back down the steps.

"Thank you for tonight. It was just what I needed," Mai said as they reached the hall.

"Ah but it's still not quite clear, is it?" Reve said.

Mai looked at him as he pondered at something.

"Something else is troubling you and I do not believe it is related to the attack on your carriage. But what, that is the question?"

Mai pursed her lips for a moment, then pulled her arm from his and folded them.

"My sister," she explained.

"Adalicia?"

"No, my youngest sister, Genevieve. She... troubles me at the moment."

"How so?"

Mai cast about for a moment, trying to think how to describe it. "She... you have to understand, she's only fifteen. She's still a child. She has her self-centered nature but it's not a flaw for her because she loves to please and she is generous and kind and giving and thinks after others – even if her excitement gets the better of her at times."

"I see no problem," Reve said.

"Exactly and yet... it's only been a couple of days, perhaps it merely a phase but... very suddenly I've noticed a change in her. One of her ladies-in-waiting has gone missing and she wished to speak to an entertainer about whether he'd seen her, or so she told me. So we went, we spoke to him, then at the end, she begged him for something and admitted to me that... that thing was all she'd been interested in. Her missing friend was merely a by-product. That is not normal for my sister. Mere days ago, she would have been there trying to organise the search herself... today she didn't care even while the castle was buzzing with the searches for her and another woman."

Reve folded his own arms, brow furrowed.

"That is curious," he muttered. "If you mind my asking, what was it she was after that's more important than her friend?"

Mai snorted and looked away. "An apple."

He looked bamboozled. "A... an apple?"

"A golden apple," Mai said.

"... Oh."

Mai looked at him because of his tone, a sudden knowing in his voice. He was looking at the floor, thinking.

"Oh?" she copied.

"Tell me... who was that entertainer?"

"Who? He's called The Black Rabbit, the ringmaster to a group called The Midnight Troop."

"Ah," Reve said, smiling slightly as he looked up, "The little lord."

Mai looked up at him, brow raised, not just because he sounded like he knew The Black Rabbit, but also because she had heard him referred to as that before – during the second show when the woman at the feast had seen him. She had called him 'little lord.'

"Little Lord?" she copied.

"A mockery, of sorts," Reve replied. "For those of us who do not care for him."

Mai raised an eyebrow. "Why not?" she asked.

"He doesn't scare you?"

Mai thought about it for a moment. "No," she finally concluded.

"Then you have yet to spend much time with nightmares."

Mai frowned at him and he just smiled before holding up his empty palm. Unsure whether to take his hand or not, Mai paused and in that time, Reve placed his other hand on top and drew it upwards.