Before she realized what she was doing, Suki pulled her arm back and screamed as her mind registered the shards of glass now jutting out of her hand like the thorns of a Coffin Bramble. She had thrown a punch at her reflection and broke the glass. She looked for something to wrap her hand in. She refused to sully her cloak, so she resorted to tearing up the corner of her bedsheet. With luck as bad as hers, Suki was not sure how such a young maid saved any of her hair or her face. Without the nameless maid’s efforts, Suki would have gained more than a scar. She would have gained a tombstone alongside her mother’s. That was if her father cared enough to dig a grave for her.

After the potion blew up in her face, wasting ingredients that were illegal and scarce, Suki was prohibited from learning basic charms, spells, hexes, and curses. The scars on her tiny, pale arms took longer to heal, the harder she pushed herself. While she failed every task Raphael set for her, Suki was one step closer to her personal vendetta every lesson. Some mornings, her desire to kill that smug angel and his Silver Tongue companion was the only reason she got out of bed for another beating, lecture or both. The scar on her face burned randomly, making Suki turn and run, which was not a behaviour Elliot, Phillip and Raphael were used to from their favourite plaything.

The Halfling was surprised when she managed to knock Raphael to the ground and even chopped off his hand. It was a minor inconvenience to the angel. The maid with a brown ponytail and green eyes brought his missing limb back by singing a complex healing charm. The maid looked vaguely familiar to Suki. Like the photographs of the child’s mother. The maid was Suki’s age if Suki had to guess. The maid was not the thing from the cauldron, was she?

Clumps of Suki’s hair fell out after the explosion. The Halfling hacked her hair short with her Magi in the form of a dagger. Suki’s father threw empty bottles at her when he saw what Suki did to her hair. Elliot’s Silver Tongue wife had long pink hair, so his daughter would wear it long too.

Suki’s etiquette lessons lessened until Phillip no longer visited. Either the eight-year-old had made her point or whatever her father and his friends did required more attention than her. Suki stole food from the kitchen whenever she felt like it. Using a stool that she found in the kitchen to empty the pantry and take the food to her room. Suki spared with the mannequin in her bedroom until she was confident that she could cut her father and his friends into pieces like the mannequin. She grinned as she inspected the pieces of the mannequin. Pieces too small for even that maid to fix. Her father would not notice if one of those creepy mannequins was missing. There was at least one in every room. It was normal for every household to have a figurine to resemble one god or goddess and grant them protection, but this was excessive.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

NO ONE IS GOING TO HURT ME AGAIN! I’ll kill them all! After I kill Sheehan.

There was one problem with Suki’s plan. Did they take that thing from the cauldron with them? Only one thing in the Other World was born from cauldrons. IT was never good.

***

Another beautiful day.

An eight-year-old maid threw the curtains open, twirling over to her maid’s cart of cleaning supplies with a smile. Genevieve was an ordinary looking child with her brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail, her green eyes and wearing a pink dress with no sleeves. Sleeves would only get in her way as she cleaned the castle. Her only remarkable trait was her long, slender ears and her long tail that identified her as a Halfling. The child had no voice from the night before. A night spent singing to keep the Will-O-Wisps at bay. She dusted her surroundings with a feather duster, climbing up on furniture when she could not reach high enough on her own.

The eight-year-old stripped the bed and folded the dirty linens into the cart. Her long flesh coloured tail, tipped with a bush of hair the same colour as her hair, was still tucked into the bow around her waist. She refreshed the flowers in the vase on the windowsill with the flick of her Magi. She rearranged the flowers. When she was satisfied, the brunette skipped back to the kitchen, pushing her maid’s cart along. The eight-year-old picked up her wooden stool and carried it over to the stove. Someone or something had dragged the stool over to the pantry and scratched the tiles. The green-eyed child swept up the trail of crumbs and washed her hands.

After surveying the rest of the room, the brunette child climbed up onto her stool and sampled the broth she had left simmering. She diced up and sprinkled in extra herbs and vegetables. Stirring the mixture before returning the lid to cover the broth. Fetching more wood for the fire. The broth boiled while she prepared for more guests to arrive. The Halfling whistled and hummed as she worked. She watched the hallways and gardens from various windows in the castle, like her mother did when she was alive. She had no time to dwell on the past. Only on productivity.

“Genevieve.”

The brunette nearly fell off her stool, but she collected herself.

“Yes, sir?”

She looked at the Silver Tongue in his dapper attire and sighed internally. Phillip Tranter was exactly like the type of Silver Tongue that humans imagined with his fair complexion, golden hair, and his blue eyes. “Suki hurt herself again. Tend to her.” The wizened manipulator continued to speak, softer than Raphael’s barking. “Yes, sir. Where, sir?”

“She was in the garden when I saw her last. Follow the trail of blood.”

Genevieve folded her hands in her lap and waited for Phillip to leave the room before she broke into a sprint down the hallway, in the opposite direction of the Silver Tongue. Genevieve HAD to find Suki before the trio did and explain everything that she overheard yesterday to her sister.