• • Raydorn: The War in the Black
• August 24, 2024

Raydorn: The War in the Black (Chapter 64)

“The shadows are fickle and fleeting, but the sun’s judging rays always remain.”

Sylvester Starshield, 438 A.C.A.

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The Wind had carried Jack across a sea. The width of the Secan Sea was just enough that you could not see the Rayne coast of Gronina from northern coast Seca. Not even at the mouth where the Icy Pearl Isles sit could someone on either of the two continents be seen from each other.

Considering that, Jack’s rowboat trip across the sea should sound intimidating. Many a time Jack worried that he had went off course, only to require his compass, a map, and the stars above to make sure he was heading in the right direction. 

His Iligsia allowed him to sail faster than any frigate and scare away any mermaid pods that might have taken an interest in him. Near the border of Susanna and Raydorn, Jack had seen both shark mermaids and sea shell mermaids to look out for.

He had never seen a sea shell mermaid, but he was told that their upper halves were… quite buxom among the females and males.

Get your head out of the gutter, Jack, he told himself as he thought of a glistening man with a fish tail for legs. He was in the home stretch, the Golden Plateau just on the horizon, and the Soday Mountains to the west in full view.

It was deep into the night as he flowed in towards his ancestral home. It was supposed to be his home but if it was anything like the last trip, he was not going to be entirely welcome. He would have to sneak around and hide like a common smuggler or a thief. 

Being an outlaw came with a feeling of being wanted that only made one feel congested and claustrophobic.

As men with torches lined the docs, Jack had to slip out of his boat as quietly as possible, and with the weakest gust he could muster, send it back out into the sea. 

Better it washed ashore days from now than in the morning.

Jack had to swim with his leathers on beneath the water’s edge, surfacing for only short single breaths to avoid being spotted. Without Lucy to help, it was a slow swim to the shore and beneath the docks. 

This time he followed the docks and the shore towards the edge, not having the ears to find potential spotters like Malum, nor the quiet tentacles of Lucy. He would have to go outside of his home town, and walk in like a stranger than its long lost prince. 

As he walked on the beach and turned towards the town just below the Golden Plateau, he looked at it from an angle he never had before. He was so used to looking down on it from above. Rarely did he ever have the chance to look straight ahead the same way the commonfolk did everyday. 

While he may have been here only a few months ago, the months had felt like a year. Anf do iy had been a long time since that trip had been written into history.

Now, home was a stranger’s place, and he was breaking.

With an ironic smirk, Jack muttered to his loathsome self, “Who knew I would be home so soon?”

*****

Which is worse? To be hated and not know why, or to hate someone and have them not understand why?

Would being several hundred feet above the ground in the early morning, after a day of travel make either experience worse? More than likely.

Flying through the cold night sky didn’t help either.

That thought did not occur to Lucilla as she, for the umpteenth time, tried to make small talk with one of the most talkative people she knew. Then again, she likely only thought that because she never truly paid attention.

“So,” Lucy mumbled through a whistle, getting no reaction from the griffin’s pilot. 

Sure, they were hundreds of feet above the ground, but they were not flying at mach speeds. The wind was not hitting them especially hard, and there was not a cloud in sight. It was smooth sailing through the air, coasting on the back of a chimera, and yet, Astrid didn’t even seem to register a word.

What the fuck did I do now that she’s so upset with me? And to ignore me? I wouldn’t even mind if she started yelling at me at this point. It would be better than the boredom of doing nothing. Boats may be slower, but they’re way more enjoyable than this. 

“You know, I don’t think I ever heard the story,” Lucy said as she leaned over, close enough to Astrid that there’s no way she couldn’t hear. To say she was violating Astrid’s regulated personal space would be an understatement, but it was only her lips speaking to the other woman’s ears. Surely that’s not something Astrid would take umbridge with?

“How did you get your axe?” Lucy asked her. 

Astrid was the perfect example of short and curt. “I stole it.” 

Lucy tilted her head, finding such an answer surprising, as she waited for an explanation that never came.

“How?” 

“Took it without asking.” 

“From who?” 

“I don’t remember.”

“Really?” 

“No.”

Lucy half-expected a wry smile, for the cult of personality to reveal that she’s joking even as she mocked the pirate, but the smile never came. Lucy’s been mocked before, by Astrid in fact, but there was always this smirk to tell the pirate to never take it personally, to just dish it back.

With everyone else gone, the mask was as well. 

“Hey,” Lucy muttered in a low voice, trying to sound innocent and understanding, a way she has never spoken to Astrid before, “I’m just trying to make conversation with you, are-”

“Clearly,” Astrid cut her off. 

Okay, what the fuck?

Lucy finally stopped trying to talk around and asked Astrid, “Do you have a problem with me?” 

Lucy was taken aback by Astrid’s visible roll of her eyes. “Would you even know?” 

“I mean, I guess not?”

What does that mean? Am I supposed to be a mindreader?

Sometimes people have expectations of us that we have no idea about. Often, it’ll feel unfair and ridiculous. How could you meet expectations you didn’t know were placed upon you? Other times, their expectations were brought about because of your own behavior, and other’s are rarely as quick to forget as you.

Then, there are even more other times, more ‘other’ than most special times, where someone will spell out, only to still be misunderstood.

“Yeah,” Astrid huffed, never taking her eyes off the empty sky ahead, “I suppose someone who only thinks about themselves wouldn’t notice someone who doesn’t like them.” 

“I’m getting the feeling-” 

“They would never know if someone knew their secrets, they would never know when they weren’t trusted. Someone who only thinks about themselves wouldn’t know much at all. Sadly… possibly… even the past would be blind to them.” 

That all being said, denial was and always will be a strong and cruel drug, and Lucy was known for drowning in it. 

Even this deep into the trenches of accusations and facts, Lucy still asked questions she knew the answer to. “What are you going on about?” 

“By the gods,” Astrid muttered under her breath, “just be quiet until we get there?” 

“Do you… do you not like me, Astrid?” 

Astrid finally looked away from the open sky, to stare Lucy right in the eye. Lucy had never wanted to throw herself off more than in that moment. Never before, had she felt so small, useless, and stupid than underneath Astrid’s infuriated gaze of utter confusion, complete with an arch of her brow, a small and uneven opening of her mouth, and a flutter of her eyes.

Astrid twisted her head around, and looked away, unable to deal with Lucy’s denial-based defense mechanisms. “Honestly, I don’t like most of you. I like Andy, she’s not always nice but she’s honest, and she’s not mean because she’s a mean person, but because she’s been hurt. 

“And Quintus, he’s so pure, he just wants to help everyone be better. He humors me and doesn’t tell me I’m crazy. He’ll even listen to my visions and prayers despite how much they don’t make sense to him. 

“Jack’s alright, I don’t like that I dislike him. He’s innocent, in a kind of pathetic way. 

“But then there’s Malum, the untrustworthy, traitorous jerk. The only one worse than him… is you.” 

“Yeah, you don’t like me,” Lucy summarized, ignoring what warnings her mind was trying to tell her. Wrapping herself in her arms and a false search for safety was preferable than thinking about that fact that woman next her to seemed to hate her. “Let’s just be quiet until we find the bank of the river.” 

“Yes,” Astrid agreed, “let’s.” 

There was still an hour left in the flight to the Soday Mountains, and Lucy was left to suffer it in silence.

She tried to think about why Astrid suddenly hated her, but then she started to feel this sinking feeling in her stomach. It was a hot stone that began to burn in her gut, and she could feel the voice that burns creeping into her mind again.

Why… why is it like this?

‘Because she sees you for what you are.

‘Your misdeeds.’

Krera’s words, real or not, cut deep. Lucy may not have been bleeding out, but she wished she was. She wish her body wasn’t so ridgid and stuck that she could let go and plummet, but that’s not how the brain works. The human brain works to keep itself and the body alive. Nothing more.

She, like all mortals, was doomed to suffer. 

If only there weren’t reasons to believe that she deserved it.

Lucy hadn’t noticed when they arrived, nor did she notice the lack of wind in her hair when they landed. 

The Soday Mountains were the border between Raydorn and Susanna, and reached north past the Ragnar into Susanna’s northern border, a country neither of the women knew about.

At the southern end where they were, that ended in the Secan Sea, there was no beach. The rocks stopped at a steep cliffside that lasted for a mile, with rocks lining the surface of the water. They had fallen, and over time, eroded into sharp spikes that would impale any creature that fell on them. Today, they would serve as the perfect perches for the winged beast known as Little Stinky.

Like an iceberg, the rocks were bigger under the water, and appeared to lie atop each other. In truth, the water was deep, and Lucy would have to venture its dark depths alone. Her only solace is that this area was lacking in dangerous predators such as shark or sea shell mermaids. She would have to settle for regular sharks if anything.

“Time to do your thing,” Astrid said, nodding her head for Lucy to get on with her job, and leap the few feet into the water. 

Lucy looked down, and basked in how blue it was and — as her heart slowed — how dark it was too. Strange, to be so deep a blue while also darker than a man’s soul.

As Lucy hesitated, lost in the abyss, Astrid finally turned to look at her, and showed not an ounce of pity. 

Astrid raised her hand behind Lucy’s back, and shoved her off her mount. 

Lucy let out a scream of pure terror as she faceplanted into the water. Astrid merely turned back around to scratch the neck of her beast.

To others, Astrid’s treatment of Lucy may seem strange. Has she ever been so cold to the pirate before? The better question would be have they ever been alone before? Has Astrid ever been bereft of an audience who would report back her disdain to the others?

Has Lucy ever been kind to Astrid in the way that would necessitate anything similar from Astrid?

Even better, if Astrid knew even half of what Lucy had done before joining the Black Legion, would it even be immoral to be apathetic towards her in public? One’s own culpability in approving of a monster’s atrocious actions can only be denied so long, especially as you stand next to said monster. 

The water swallowed Lucy up whole. Where the world heard a splash, she heard the sound of something swallowing. Even in her partial transformation, she could breath underwater, but her eyes were only partially suited to the water. 

While she had been able to experience one peaceful night against Quintus’s side before all of Hedone broke lose, that was not enough to rebuild her mind. Many sleepless nights left her eyes blurry where she could see clearly.

The dark abyss of the sea begins to creep in around the edges of her vision, and darkness begins to look more like the blackness of smoke than the lack of light in the sea.

She could feel the hot breath of her judging god against the gills under her neck, and over her skin. Anywhere on her body where she breathed, the hold of the Goddess of Fire seemed to be.

It should seem impossible for mortals to escape God, and Lucy believed no different. Her only thought as the darkness seemed to surround her, was to make herself a better meal.

Lucy sank into herself, completing her transformation in a Beastman of Krone. She grew her tentacles from her head in place of hair, and let more tentacles grow from her back and one under each arm. Even her head grew bulbous and alien, smooth like a baby’s bottom and grey in color. She appeared unlike a human or an octopus, and thus became something monstrous, yet in between.

With her transformation, the burning sensation stopped, and her eyes opened, and there was nothing.

Well, nothing out of the ordinary. The water wasn’t even that dark just below the surface. In fact, it was incredibly mundane now that she had given herself over to the Kronish curse on her soul. 

All she saw were the rocks stacked upon rocks, algae covering them, and schools of small fish swimming between them. It was all so… normal.

I’m losing my mind, she told herself, but was neither sad nor terrified about it. There wasn’t even a hint of humor. It was acceptance, as cold, pure, and true as can be.

With her mind now intact, embroiled and encased in the apathy of a wyvern, she began to do her job. 

It wasn’t difficult to feel out for the currents and find them. What made her job difficult was accepting them. 

This can’t be right.

Lucy was looking for a current that was blowing away from the mountain. This was how she would find the cavern that’s emptying into the ocean from the river that runs through the Soday Mountains. There should be currents just below sea level trying push everything out into the sea, but there isn’t. 

There’s currents flowing upward towards the surface, and then the excess pools out into the sea. It feels as unnatural as it does impossible.

Lucy began to swim down for nothing if not to prove nature’s oddity wrong of its own existence.

Nature’s oddity proceeded to spit in her face.

She swam so far down that she began to worry that the depths would be too much for Astrid, let alone how long she would have to hold her breath. When she was three stories deep, pushing the limit of how deep a human could go before the pressure did serious damage, that she found her target.

There was an opening in the rock, where water was funneling out, and it was huge. After years of flowing through a hole in the mountain that could only have been made by a god, the water had eroded much of of the rock away. 

While Lucy would be long dead before it could happen, the water would eventually erode a hole so long and wide that the mountains that touched the Secan Sea, would collapse. 

The water current was strong, but with the many tentacles at Lucy’s disposal, she was more than able to fighting against it. Her underwater vision gave her the added bonus of seeing the dark depths of the ocean through other lights that made it seem quite bright. That being said, the tunnel that could fit a frigate in terms of height and width, and went dark ahead of her. She could not see the end. 

Sure that she had found her target, Lucy began her quick swim towards the surface. 

She ended up getting her head above water a little ways away from where Astrid and Little Stinky were waiting. She slowly made her way to them when she heard whispering. 

Lucy slowly floated around a stone, and leaned her head out as she shifted back to her human form. For a moment, she considered that Astrid had betrayed her, and was talking to the enemy, but then she saw it.

Astrid was alone and running her mouth, having a full-blown conversation, and Lucy could only hear one half of it.

“I’m well aware of that,” Astrid said, but Lucy was baffled, trying to figure out what she was talking about. “I- I- I know, stop interrupting me.”

Who the fuck is she talking to?

“Just because I need her to save Andy does not mean I have to be nice- I swear.”

I always thought she was talking to herself, but how can you interrupt yourself?

“What is your problem today? Don’t think for a second that I won’t stick my foot up your butt- yeah, you can say that voices in my head don’t actually have butts, but I’ve heard you moving furniture in there so I know you’re lying.”

In one sentence, the unnerving factor of listening to Astrid talk to herself died down. Even through all that perceived madness, Astrid appeared to be exactly the person Lucy thought she was.

“Astrid,” Lucy called out, as she revealed herself from behind the rock.

“How long were you waiting there?” the ax woman asked with an arch of her brow.

“Does it matter?” the pirate shot back.

“Hmph, no, did you find it?”

“Yeah…” Lucy mumbled, unsure of how to break the news without it somehow becoming her fault, “there’s just a slight problem with how… deep the river is.”

Astrid shook her head and chewed her lip like she were a normal person, hearing minorly upsetting news. “Oh great, because I really felt like drowning today.”

*****

Jack was not looking forward to entering the underground tunnel but it was necessary nonetheless.

He had taken the same route with Lucy and Malum months prior, and based on how there appeared to be no trail leading to the bushes, nor any trap for those who may enter, he surmised that Diana kept the path unobstructed.

Better to have an escape plan for herself.

But as Jack moved aside the bushes, a voice from above made him jump back.

“Prince Jackson, please don’t use that motly cave.”

Jack used the Wind on instinct and shot back a dozen feet onto his back and into the dirt. He was perfectly positioned to look up and spot a familiar face with an umbrella made to block out the moonlight.

“Faust?” Jack called out, and received a familiar old man ‘huff,’ in response.

“Indubitably,” the gray-mustached and balding man answered.

“I don’t think you’re using that word right.”

“Impossible, young prince.”

Jack sighed… for so many reasons.

Faust Koma, majordomo of House Starshield, not only their ancestral home but all of their homes. He had served their family since before any of the Starshield children were born, and had the gray hairs of a 60-year-old man on a 20-year-old lip to prove it.

At first, he was the butler to their mother, and then the Starshield children. It would be easy to say that he was more of a father to Jack than his own. Most noble children could say such things of their maids and butlers.

But the father of House Starshield made sure that he was a looming presence in his children’s lives, so truly… Faust was more of a friend.

The butler slowly made his way down as Jack went to rub his temple, and got dirt in his eye. Then he found himself struggling to stand up and get the dirt out.

He hadn’t fixed the issue before Faust placed a handkerchief in his hand. 

“Thank you, Faust.”

“Anytime, young prince.”

Jack grimaced at the title. “I am no prince.”

“All the children of House Starshield are princes and princesses. Those were the rules you and your sister made.”

“When we were five…”

“And now you regret it, seems like a problem of your own making.”

Jack groaned as he finished cleaning out his eye, and handed Faust back his handkerchief.

“So, uh,” Jack mumbled, “how did you…?”

“You were spotted and reported to the house, young prince.”

“Uh, ugh…”

“Yes, you’re still not quite the man of espionage you read about in your books.”

It had been over half a decade since Jack had left home, the last he had seen of his family’s old butler, and still… he knew how to bust his chops.

Amazing what changes and what stays the same.

After that thought, Jack couldn’t help but wonder one thing. “If I had been spotted, why wasn’t I arrested?” he asked, but as soon as he asked the question, he thought he knew the answer. “Diana still holding out hope that I’ll return home?”

Faust assured him that the answer to his question didn’t matter. “Even if she had not, the door will always be unlocked for a prince of Starshield.” 

Despite the warm weight on his heart, Jack couldn’t help but feel a bit of shame. The rest of the country called him a criminal and a traitor, but the people of the Golden Plateau weren’t willing to bat an eye at him. What a privilege to have and to have earned upon birth.

To say I feel unworthy is an understatement, he thought to himself, never once considering that the lack of care from those around him, might be more attuned with apathy than sympathy. 

It never crossed his mind that the people who won’t hunt him down, do so because they didn’t care. They must care in his mind, or else why would he enjoy such privilege? 

He thought himself a fool for all the wrong reasons, and potentially proved himself right.

With his head held in shame, Jack reminded Fautst, “You know I’m not a prince.” 

Faust was quick to snip at him, “It is custom, don’t question it, Prince Jack,” before snapping his fingers and beckoning Jack on. “Let’s go home through the front door this time.”

The trek from the lower cave to the front gate was short, but thats what happens when you walk a beaten path over an underground entrance.

Then again, the menagerie of colorful crystals and hints of gold might have been preferable to Jack than a trip down memory lane.

Most ancestral homes didn’t have playgrounds for the children in the frontyard, but alike the others great houses of Raydorn, House Starshield had actually built a home. Despite all of their wealth and excess, they did not build a castle to rival the king’s, House Skyhold did that. They did not fund a fort to intimidate and compensate, House Thorn did that. 

House Lockley made a mansion to copy their richer counterpart.

House Starshield could have had anything and they wanted an oasis from it all. Their money was in everyone’s pockets; their influence loomed over everyone’s shoulders; their shadow was larger than any giant’s.

So they put the world’s first swingset and jungle gym in their frontyard for the world to see. Everyone walked up to their pearly doors, from the mayor of the town, to noble lords, and to the king himself, and had to walk past a child’s playpen, knowing it was the sort of thing they could not have it.

A regular reminder that they could want for nothing, but also that ‘could’ was just a word.

Looking at the place Jack and his siblings spent so much time, it was hard to think of it as a place for them. He remembered climbing the monkey bars with Andy and her twin, as his elder brother, Ivanrest, thought to throw pebbles at them to make them let go and fall. 

He remembered the good show they put on, pretending be kids having fun for their mother and father as the elder siblings tortured the youngest and the children of their sworn vassals.

He couldn’t help but think about how he struggled to hang onto the bars as Ivanrest beamed him with rocks. It was a miracle he never lost a tooth, not like Andy who lost two baby teeth that way.

As the eldest son of Starshield bullied the youngest, the daughters were not so different. While Ivanrest threw rocks, Diana pulled hair. 

Jack’s younger sister, the youngest of the four Starshield children, Isla, would be forced to sit and let Diana braid her hair. From the outside, it seemed perfectly normal, a big sisterly thing to do. 

Jack remembers how Diana would pull, and pull, and prick their little sister if she would move and mess up the braid. Diana would get so annoyed that Isla wasn’t the perfect mannequin for her to practice a skill she would never need. It was a regular occurrence, one that Jack still believed led to the bald spot Isla would struggle to cover up in her teenage years and beyond.

“What are you thinking about, young prince?” Faust asked him as Jack had stopped in his tracks.

Jack grumbled, only to turn to Faust, and find an ear waiting to hear what he had to say. “Just childhood fun,” the fun itself being under question. “Children playing always looks fun if one doesn’t look too hard. You might miss the fact that not everyone is having fun.”

Faust sighed. It was no secret what kind of people the children of Starshield were raised to be. They were either vipers, or broodmares, and Jack was under the impression that he and his younger sister were to be broodmares. 

“To think, Diana wants me back here,” Jack scoffed, the idea of it sounding beyond insulting. 

“After all she has done to keep Ivan in exile from this home, why wouldn’t she?” 

“Why would I want to be safe with her with how she treated Isla?” Jack reasoned. Just because his elder sister seemed to faun over him, why look past how she treated their younger sister?

“Isla? Diana adored Isla?” 

“Diana treated Isla like a doll, dressing her how she wanted, pulling her how she wanted, and punishing her for looking anything different.”

“You’re thinking of their braiding sessions,” Faust figured, reading Jack like a book. “Ivanrest took enjoyment in your pain, anyone could see that, but Diana took none in Isla’s.”

“Oh please.”

Thump.

Faust flicked Jack in the side of his head, and made sure his stern look gave Jack flashbacks.

“Don’t speak on things you know little about.”

“Then why don’t you educate me before I thump you back.”

“Are you truly that daft?” Faust said, with a shake of his head. “How disappointing.”

Without elaborating, Faust turned to walk away from him up the path to the front door. Jack raced after him.

“What?” Jack called after him. “You can’t judge me for not knowing something you should have taught me, and then not teach me still.”

“There are things you should figure out on your own,” Faust told him.

“I don’t have time for that.”

Faust rested his hand on the door to the Starshield home, and looked down at the ground with this haunted look in his eye. He couldn’t raise his eyes to Jack as he muttered, “Do you remember so little before Isla was born?”

Faust lifted his gaze, and Jack could see how the memory on his mind was draining of his liveliness. “Your mother was not kind to her first daughter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t remember mother being harder on Diana than she was anyone else.”

“I supposed it’s too much to have expected you to notice, you were only a child.”

“Expect me to notice what?!” Jack yelled at his butler. “Stop trying to talk around it, you’re not saving face for either of my parents, you know that none of mother’s and father’s children mourned them.”

“I’ll put it this way, you think a lot about how Diana braided Isla’s hair. Well, with it braided, your mother wouldn’t have to do it herself like she did with Diana. Diana did many things to Isla so your mother wouldn’t do it her way, and spared Isla blood that Diana shed.”

Jack was taken aback. Faust could see the doubt on his face, and shook his head. He entered the home, leaving the door open for Jack as he stood in disbelief.

What had mother done to Diana? Beat her? Pull her hair?

Big whup, sounds better than the belt father used every time Ivan wagged his tongue in my direction. 

It’s like no one’s ever heard of two wrongs not making a right.

Jack shook his head and stomped into his home, but the lack of light and the dark allur of the mansion stopped him cold.

It was hard to tell if this place was better or worse with the light of the day or empty dark of night. Only candles lit the dark and sharp corners of the room. The moonlight may have kept the yard brightly lit, but moonlight could not pierce its way into this building. The plain white glowing crystals that lit the halls and the rooms, did little to grant the home light.

The only thing that tood out more than how dark the place was, was how empty. It was like Faust was caring for a tomb.

“Is no one here?” Jack called out, assuming Faust could hear him.

Faust proved that he had as he walked back in with glowing crystals for them to use. “The staff doesn’t stay so late when Lady Diana is away,” Faust informed him, “and with Ivanrest exiled to the battlefield, and Isla at her husband’s estate,” Andy’s old home being that Isla married Andy’s twin, “there’s no one to keep the place ready for.

“You were not in the plans, which begs the question, Prince Jack, why are you here?”

Despite his elder sister repeatedly protecting him and attempting to welcome him back in her own way, Jack still trusted her with nothing. He could barely have a conversation with her, and Faust was not only the family butler, but her butler.

Despite that, Jack waas honest with him. “I need to access father’s studies, and learn about his work with the warlock. The warlock has… taken someone—multiple people I care about.”

Faust raised an eyebrow. “That knight you collude with?” 

If there was one fault with Faust, it was he walked a thin line between his feelings for Jack and his feelings about who Jack is.

Jack pushed Faust to the edge in response. “Him and Andy.”

Faust gasped. “Little Lady Andelyn? I heard she had followed you to the Legion-”

Jack scoffed at several of Faust’s assertions. “Andy doesn’t follow anyone nowadays, and never me… and she certainly isn’t little anymore. She can bench most manly men over her head.”

Faust’s free hand went over his chest. “My lord, to think this is the same little girl who ran around here in frilly little dresses.”

If the amount of time she spent on the playset was any indication, she did not like those dresses.

But this was not the time for such things.

“I need to know if father had any information or tools that could lead me to the warlock or where she may be. People’s lives depend on it, Andy’s among them.”

Knowing that the ‘Lady Andelyn’ was in danger, Faust nodded his bald head and led Jack up the stairs. “Good thing I kept the key to your father’s study. I try to dust and keep it clean without moving much.”

“Don’t you mean Diana’s study?” Jack asked as he followed him over the last stair and down the halls. They headed towards the opposite end of where he and Diana chatted last time he was here.

Faust shot a rather patronizing look over his shoulder towards Jack.

“Diana wouldn’t work over your father’s bones, considering she hated them,” Faust reminded him. 

“Still, you’d think she’d comb his studies when she ousted Ivan,” Jack thought out loud. 

For Diana’s love of information, father’s office feels like a treasure trove she couldn’t afford to pass over, Jack thought, as if trauma weren’t enough to drive someone away from things that would help them.

Faust shared similar feelings to the young lord. “Your father had some unruly secrets that he and I both feared would ruin the great House Starshield. I must admit, it worried me when Diana deemed not to know them, but she’s found her own secrets to keep us afloat. Maybe it’s time for you to read them instead, young prince.” 

Jack nodded, but inside, the prospect of learning his father’s secrets drew more revulsion than anything. If father has any information or even a tool or item from the warlock, that means he had dealings with her. What if he’s the reason Amidala knows anything about Andy at all? Why the witch is targeting her…?

When they came upon the door to his father’s study, Faust went to unlock the door, but the tremble and hesitance in Jack’s voice stopped him as he turned the knob.

“Faust, did he… would you know if… did father have dealings with warlock? Amidala?”

The witch who stole my love and my oldest friend.

 Faust thought for a moment, before shaking his head. “Not her, no, not to my knowledge…” He stroked his bare chin as if there was something else on the tip of his tongue. 

In the seconds the butler spent thinking, Jack wondered why Faust’s denial did not help to put him at ease. Faust would know if his father held deals and alliances with Amidala, and yet, Jack’s gut didn’t believe in Faust. It wasn’t that he felt Faust was lying, more so that Faust couldn’t be trusted to be right.

The sad truth that Jack had yet to realize, was that most men couldn’t be trusted to be right. Himself included.

“Hmm, if I remember right, it was her predecessor your father had dealings with, not her.” 

Jack’s anxiety did not ease, but he forcibly relaxed his shoulders to appear so. “Thank you, that’ll give me somewhere to start.” 

Faust nodded, as he opened the door to the study. “Yes, I suppose you’ll need it.” 

Jack didn’t quite understand how carefully Faust had chosen his words until he revealed his father’s study. Even with the minimal light from the one crystal between the two of them… Jack could tell he had his work cut out for him.

The place was an utter pigsty, with books, records, and papers galore askew shelves, desks, and tables. 

And Jack had to get through it all, preferably before morning. He couldn’t help but slump at the sight. “Aw, fuck…”