"𝐂𝐢𝐫𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬"

𝟏𝟗. "𝐑𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞"

"Come in!" I yelled. Jerome growled with irritation and tied his robe.

I chuckled and pecked his lips. His grin returned at once. Then he swiftly sat behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled my back to his chest.

Theo stepped inside the room, and Jerome's grip on me tightened. Galavan wasn't at all surprised that Jerome was with me rather than in his own room.

"Theo-" Galavan stopped him by putting up his hand.

"It's ok, Jerome. I'm here for you both. I need you to come with me to the parlour. Everyone else is already there." He told us.

"What for?" I muttered with slight worry.

"It's a surprise." He declared and quickly left. Jerome and I sent each other confused glances.

"Ok." I breathed out and jumped off the bed.

He stood up too, quickly wrapped his arm around my waist, and we headed to the parlour. My eyebrows shot up when we stepped inside the room. There were a few old wooden chests there filled with various kinds of weapons. I looked up at Jerome and noticed his eyes were glinting with excitement.

He glanced down at me as if to check if it was ok for him to go play. I giggled, nodded and patted his chest. He beamed, pecked my cheek and skipped over to the first chest. I smiled at him fondly. His enthusiasm was thoroughly adorable, howbeit of what thrilled him. I looked at Dobkins, and when I saw he was playing with a gun, my eyes widened.

I quickly ran up to him and yanked the weapon from him. He pouted heavily. I chuckled, grabbed a medieval helm and gave it to him instead. He put it on and started laughing to himself. I took an apathetic look at the trunk. There was nothing uniquely interesting in there. Well, except for maybe two things. I gingerly reached into the box, trying my best to not slice my hand open and grabbed the two short daggers.

They both had wooden handles. One was brown, and the other one was reddish. I grinned widely, stood up and made sure Jerome wasn't looking at me. He wasn't. He was too busy fishing about through one of the trunks. I chuckled softly, shook my head with disbelief at how happy he was and walked up to Theo. He looked at me questioningly.

"Hey, Theo, could I take these knives?" I asked him politely.

"Certainly." He nodded. I grinned and thought for a second.

"And could you maybe have them engraved for me?" I smiled awkwardly and scratched my head. He nodded again.

"O-oh, well, thank you." I smiled with gratitude.

"I'd just like a capital G on both of them, ok?" I carefully handed him the daggers. He smiled at me and quickly left with them.

I wasn't sure whether I should engrave mine with a J and Jerome's with a G or the other way around. So I settled on our nicknames. I turned around, leaned on the wall and started staring at Jerome.

"Oooh, shiny." He crooned, picked up a katana and slid it out of its sheath. Greenwood chuckled, immediately grabbed it and started swinging it around like an idiot.

"Give that back." The ginger ordered and reached out his hand to the cannibal.

"I saw it first." Greenwood retorted. I rolled my eyes at his ridiculous stupidity.

"No, you didn't. I said, give it back." Jerome commanded and dropped the sheath back in the trunk.

"Make me, you little brat." The cannibal rasped and put the blade to Jerome's neck.

My eyes widened, and I quickly started pacing towards them. But then I noticed that Arnold had a gun again.

"Bugger." I muttered to myself and quickly squatted next to Dobkins.