Hain followed the peculiar girl into a torch-lit hallway on the other side of the massive castle. He didn’t even question where they were headed at this point and kept quiet.

Elise was someone he’d consider a hard-headed person, who did things her way no matter what. Even if he put up a fight, she’d probably be able to overpower him with her sharp tongue and have her way.

Back in Aderbaal, he used to hang out in the Forgotten Forest and do nothing but daydream his life away.

There was nothing better to do than read a book now and then. Until, of course, Barken the Teeny and the others came over to provoke him.

He enjoyed the stillness and hush of the Forgotten Forest the most. Honestly, he wasn’t even remotely interested in the company of others.

Had he encountered Elise in Mazheven, he’d probably slip away and make sure she wouldn’t find him again.

But there was no book or stillness he could enjoy in this place. Perhaps that was why he let her drag him along to wherever.

Anything was better than boredom, after all. The more he spent his time doing something – anything, really – the less rumbled his stomach.

That, however, wasn’t the whole truth. Firstly, he did not dislike Elise’s company. This was a first for him. She was a weird character, all right, but there was something about her that made him feel safe.

She didn’t even mention or say anything about what happened back in room 624. Surely, she must be aware that he was hiding something from her.

But she feigned ignorance and did not pester him with questions he knew not the answers to. Perhaps that was why he felt like he could trust her.

Little did he know she would bring such disaster upon him the first day in Lárhus and cause him just as much ache later. At least Jhaan was safe – for the moment.

They stopped beside a third staircase with pillars on both sides. Behind the pillars, shrouded behind a while veil, were two doors, one big and the other small.

Nothing was carved on the doors, so he couldn’t tell what they were staring at.

Elise went in through the large door without saying anything. Did she expect him to follow her? Just like that? Where were they, even?

Sighing, he followed her in and was about to call out to her, when she leapt in front of him out of nowhere and placed her finger on his lips.

Blinking, Hain remained still as the girl retreated with a wide smile and advanced.

Huh? A restroom? But why did it look so—he met Elise’s gaze.

“It’s abandoned.”

Abandoned? How come? Moreover, why were they at this abandoned restroom? He couldn’t wrap his head around what was running through that head of hers.

Was all girls like this, or was Elise just an exception? He’d probably never find out.

The restroom was unkempt and as vacant and eerie as the restrooms in the fairytales Hain read when he was still wet behind the ears.

This place looked like a lair of monsters, ghouls, and ghosts. Every nook and cranny was covered in a thick layer of dirt – or perhaps stool.

Stains of urine and what looked like old blood were splattered all over the walls. Wait, did something strange happen in here? That would explain the blood…

The whole place sent chills down his spine.

He knitted his brows as he carefully chose where to put his foot on the tiled floor infested with critter and grime.

Elise rolled her eyes as he tried to avoid a big pool of dried stool and tapped his shoulder with the strength of a man – or perhaps a deity now that he thought about it.

“Don’t be such a chicken! There’s no such thing as a ghost! Trust me!”

“I’m not afraid of ghosts,” he muttered. “I just don’t like what I see.”

“Where’d you live your whole life? In a castle or something?”

Hain cracked a lopsided smile. “Not exactly. Don’t you find this place, I dunno, dirty?”

She shrugged and fetched a piece of candy from her pocket. Before he could ask where she got that from, she shoved it into his mouth and gestured for him to chew on it.

Strawberry. It tasted like an odd mixture of gum and Turkish Delight.

“Where did you get this?”

“I told you, I’m a special friend.”

Hain smirked. “Really? This is why you’re a special friend?”

The smile on her face faded away. “Don’t eat it then!” As she tried to make him spit out the candy, he waved her away.

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“All right, all right! I take back my words!”

Before the girl could say anything else, he directed her attention to the wall-length mirrors in front of them.

The glasses were just as dirty as the rest of the restroom, but something about them felt slightly off.

He couldn’t quite place what it was, but it felt as if the mirrors had these invisible eyes that observed their every move.

“Hey, Elise. These mirrors, this place, I have a bad feeling about them.”

“The mirrors? What about them?”

“I’m not sure. There’s just something—”

“Ah, that must be it!”

Hain frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I think I know why you don’t like this place…”

“What do you mean?”

Her black eyes sparkled and her voice became airy like a whisper as she leaned in. Each word that escaped from her lips chilled him to the bone.

Hain gulped hard as the girl kept going on in a monologue like she did not care whether he listened or not.

“There’s actually another reason I’m a special friend. You see, I know more than most other apprentices. Like what happened… here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Something bad happened here, Hain. Something that is still unsolved…”

He forced a smile, thinking she was pulling his legs to make a fool out of him. Deep inside, however, he knew that she was dead serious.

Without warning, Elise pointed at the last cubicle to the left of them through the blurry mirrors.

“There, they found blood on the walls. Loads of it. It was as if someone’s head had been severed and the blood drained like a slaughtered livestock.”

“Blood?” He averted her gaze as his mind replayed a scene of carnage. Why did he have to have such a lively imagination? Then he looked up, startled by what the other was saying.

“I overheard my dad and aunt talk the day they closed off this place. He said the missing apprentices were probably murdered in here.”

“H- hold on a second! Missing apprentices?”

Elise carried on without waiting for him to digest the gravity of her words.

“You must already know that my dad, the headmaster, is a deity and so am I. He was taught the Teachings of the Past and Present in Isaldor and studied to become a druid.

“He, along with a few others, thus possesses both innate powers but also sorcery passed down from every master to his apprentice.

“His abilities are above that of any druid. But someone, or something, managed to break through the spells and charms he cast to protect Lárhus.

“Mind you, something like this had never happened before. It shouldn’t have happened. But it did.” She paused. “Even the blood, it was so strange…”

“Blood? Why?”

She met his curious gaze. “Normally, when we bleed, we leave traces of ourselves on every surface. That can be traced.

“But not the ones found in that cubicle. That’s how the missing apprentices stayed missing to this day.”

Hain’s face turned pale and his hands trembled without control. How come the blood couldn’t be traced?

It didn’t make sense. His eyes wandered to the last cubicle without meaning to through the mirror. Just what happened here?

His heart skipped a beat. Footsteps.

They both looked in the direction of the large door and exchanged perplexed gazes. Wasn’t this place supposed to be abandoned?

As if they were one single entity, they both rushed into one of the cubicles and closed the door.

The footsteps grew louder and louder until they came to a sudden stop.

Someone was here, beyond the cubicle and in the restroom with them. Hain met Elise’s gaze right then and they both held their breaths.

Their hearts throbbed so loud that they were about to rip out of their chests and blow off into a mash of bloody mess any second.

The sound of running water through rusty pipes cut through the silence and drowned the sounds of their shallow breathing. Whoever was inside the restroom let the water run unhindered for several minutes.

“Two more to go…”

Elise met his eyes as whoever was on the other side of the cubicle finally revealed his guttural voice. She shook her head. None of them knew whose voice this was.

The running water stopped.

But whoever was inside the restroom did not leave the restroom. It was as if he was waiting for something to happen.

Too curious for his own good, Hain got down on his fours despite Elise’s silent pleas. Could it be the stranger he saw earlier? The one who gave him the necklace.

Determined to find out, he peered out of the crack between the cubicle door and the tiled floor. Huh?

A pair of boots was all he could see at first. Then he strained his neck to catch a glimpse of what had caught the stranger’s attention.

That’s when he noticed that the man in the boots looked at their cubicle through the mirrors and quickly retreated. Did he notice them hiding?

Nothing happened, though.

As he swore under his breath, the stranger on the other side pranced out of the abandoned restroom as suddenly as he appeared out of nowhere.

His footsteps were firm and light as a feather.

He peered out of the gap once more and heaved a sigh of relief.

“He’s gone.”

Elise breathed out. Her stiff shoulders relaxed and she sank onto the toilet lid. Her voice trembled as she asked herself rather than him.

“What on earth was this all about?”

“You tell me! You said this place was abandoned!”

“It is,” Elise assured him. “Hardly anyone even remembers this place exists! So how…?”

“More like why…”

“Why do you say that? Did you see something?”

Hain didn’t know how to begin. He couldn’t tell her about the stranger he saw in room 624, and certainly not the fact that the stranger in here with them had most likely seen them.

But he had to start somewhere, right?

“Do you think a bad person would’ve let us off the hook knowing we were here?”

“Wait, are you saying he saw us?”

“I- I’m not sure! It looked like that but—”

“Then my dad needs to know!”

She stormed out without even once glancing over her shoulder. Hain was about to follow her when he heard something tick from somewhere behind him. A clock?

He peeked over his shoulder. Weird. Why was the clock working?

It read six o’clock. They missed dinner.

He ran through the restroom again and found himself looking at the stained sink where he saw the man stand.

Approaching it, he did not know why it caught his attention. It wasn’t like he was going to find something amidst the dirt and grime, was he?

Or, that was what went through his mind, until his eyes wandered from the sink to the mirror.

Frowning, he leaned forwards and wiped the blurry glass with his sleeve to make sure he did not imagine things.

He was right.

Whoever was in here a few moments ago had seen him when he peered from the gap. But why pretend otherwise? And what was this talk about ‘two more to go’?

Doubling over, he rested his shaking hands on the sink. His stomach twisted and turned with nausea. What were these images?

Blood.

Blood gushed out of his headless body and splashed on the walls. A groan escaped his lips as the images played on repeat and disturbed his mind.

Was this what he was supposed to end up like?

The images stopped.

Hain lifted his head from the tiled floor, his mouth dripping with saliva, and he stared at his distorted reflection in the mirror.

What was wrong with him? Ever since he ran into the druid in the Forgotten Forest, strange things happened to him. He kept seeing these terrible things he had no recollection of, but they all felt so real.

Beads of cold sweat ran down the sides of his head as he backed away from the sink.

Even as he stared at his reflection, the only thing he could think of was the identity of the man in the boots.

Was it really the same person as the one he saw in room 624? Or was it someone else entirely? Moreover, why did he let them go and feign ignorance?