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He folded his arms across his chest, there was no way the hellhound would ever—
The hellhound leaned into her fingers, growling. “Shadowfall.”
“Alright, Shadowfall.” Perine smiled softly. “If I ever need assistance, you’ll be who I call.”
Shadowfall gave a nod of approval before she vaulted off into the distance growling menacingly until she winked out of sight.
Oleander decided to ignore that little exchange and kept his face haughty as he sauntered past her. “Maybe if you hadn’t stolen my book, I’d tell you.”
Perine jogged after him. “You were being terribly unreasonable that day, you know. You deserved to have your book stolen.”
“I was on the last chapter!” he shouted in exasperation, despite a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Yes, well,” she laughed warmly. “That is the main reason I stole it.”
“Then you gave it to Namble? Just for her to flaunt under my nose?”
“I hope you learnt your lesson,” she said loftily.
“I don’t know,” he said, raising his eyebrows conspiratorially. “I think you’ll have to find a new way to punish me.”
She gave his shoulder a playful shove, her face that dark pink colour again. “You don’t want me to get creative with my punishments, Brightmore.”
He turned to her, smirking. “Maybe I do, Wilder.”
She only huffed in response. They walked side by side in cheerful conversation, the warm sunshine casting a glow on their path. Her hair was braided around her head in a crown, and he couldn’t resist complimenting her on looking slightly less feral than usual. She shoved him again, mock outrage turning to laughter once more.
On a whim, he picked a lelei flower—its soft onyx petals just as fragrant as ever. When Oleander held it out to her, she rolled her eyes, struggling to suppress a smile that fought for its life until it spread widely across her face. She wrapped her fingers around the stem, accepting the small token from him.
Her soft brown skin turned a deep red. She cleared her throat again, turning away slightly. “I—let’s try to focus, shall we?”
Oleander’s chest exploded in an array of emotions—most of them positive. One slightly melancholic feeling reminded him that as much as he enjoyed embarrassing her, there was quickly coming a time when he’d no longer be allowed to do so.
He shoved that emotion down deep in the recesses of his mind, determined to not think about it while with her.
“Wait,” Perine said, biting her thumbnail like she always did when she was trying to figure something out. “Have you ever heard of this story about the Goddess?”
He skimmed the story, it was one almost identical to what Hemlock and Wisteria would tell him while they lounged on the roof of their sprawling manor when the moon hung fat and bright in the dark sky.
That story told of a Goddess who was charmed and intrigued by anyone claiming to be able to make her even more powerful.
So when her envoy, the Devil, said he could craft her jewellery the likes of which Hell had never seen, she’d been captivated. He claimed to have needed one single earring to use for reference—she was said to have been titanic in stature, he had to be sure it would be proportional—so she gave him the earring freely and greedily.
In exchange, he asked only that she open a portal in the Rune Circle so that demonkind could reach the mortal realm, not physically, but metaphysically, enough to make treacherous bargains for mortal souls. The same mortal souls they now use to create new demonkind today.
He did not keep his side of the bargain. Instead, he used the earring—one of her most beloved possessions—to bind her power. For many years he tried to use her power for his own. Eventually he gave up and hid it away behind powerful wards to keep out all except demonkind.
Wisteria always ended the evening trying to scare Oleander with more tales of a beast made of ice and shadows brought to the Rune Circle to guard the earring. She would drop her voice low and stare intently at him. This was why they must never enter Thistle Cottage after nightfall—for that was the only time when the earring could be reached and thus when the beast waited hungry and ready for anyone who might attempt to steal what it vowed to protect.
He’d been silent for a while, the story had caused vicious smoke to flare inside him. He was gritting his teeth, trying to push the shadows back when Perine said, “I—I just find it interesting. Maybe it’s not all that helpful.”
Oleander was about to agree when instead the shadow tugged at him insistently. He clenched his fists tightly as he fought to keep the obsidian walls in his mind in place, it had become increasingly more difficult to do so over the last few days.
“Are you alright?” She was staring at his eyes worriedly. “Maybe we should just risk it and go to the Arcane Vaults now.” She handed him a notebook. “I highly doubt there’s some monster guarding a bunch of dusty artefacts. It feels impossible considering the Vaults are a massive underground hall, and to house a monster one would need even more space for it to live… and anyway, what would it even eat down there by itself?”
He snatched the notebook from her hand and tossed it carelessly back onto the table. He didn’t know what was making him so touchy, but the hurt in her eyes at his mishandling of her notebook made him wince. It was only that he was feeling extremely drained. They’d been debating for hours in this draughty, sparsely decorated study room inside the Library of Fantastical Beings. And as it was, they’d come to a standstill.
He blew out a long, laboured breath to try and calm himself. “No, we need to be certain. I can’t believe I’m the one arguing for caution here.”
