The sun peaked its head nervously over the buildings. Rays of light flooded through the window, enveloping Lucas, and awakening him. He opened his eyes, blinked a couple of times and felt a wave of tiredness tug at his eyelids. He kept his cheek planted on the wooden floor and closed his eyes again, but the sunlight refused to let him sleep. The aches in his side were worsening and his neck was stiff after being on the floor for so long. He sighed and decided to peel himself off the floorboards.

He stretched himself out and noticed Leta was still sleeping soundly. He stared in jealousy at the bed, and how comfortably she was resting on it.

Lucas slipped on his shoes and slowly opened the door, before gently closing it behind him. He walked downstairs and to his surprise there was a group of six people, all huddled around a table with the tavern keeper leaning against the wall behind them, arms crossed. They had hushed voices and it seemed to be a meeting of sorts. He noticed that Tiaru was there, as well as Pierre, who nodded at him as he walked by. He nodded back and stepped outside, letting the cool air brush his face.

The smell of freshly baked bread had flooded the streets and a few shopkeepers were out and about, setting up for the busy day ahead. This part of the town wasn’t built like a monotonous labyrinth, there was a unique personality that filled each shop, where multi-coloured decorations were intricately carved into the stone bricks. He followed the scent of the bakery and peeked through the window to see a large man kneading dough and firing it in a stone oven. The flames were an entrancing navy blue, undoubtedly the baker’s magic. He stood there in awe, his mouth watering after hardly having eaten anything.

The baker looked up and noticed Lucas, who was staring intently at the batches he was making. Lucas realised his shameful appearance and turned his head away, but the baker called out to him, inviting him into the shop. The baker picked up something behind him and gave him a loaf of misshaped, stone-baked bread. Lucas’ eyes lit up and he thanked him, asking if he needed any help.

The man laughed and shook his head. He gave Lucas a vague, ‘Maybe another day’, which Lucas took as a cue to leave. He strolled across the street as the pale morning sun rose, the warm bread loaf tangy and crunchy.

He went back to the tavern once he had finished eating, walking back upstairs to go check on Leta. The first door on the left was open, the room empty with no traces of Mika. He opened the door to his right and saw that Leta had sat up and was rubbing her eyes. “You’re still here?” She asked.

“Yep.”

“Then get out already.”

“No thanks.”

Leta stood up. Her long hair was tangled and messy, which she paid no attention to. She pushed Lucas out of the way and peeked her head out the door. “Where are we?”

“The Grey Angel.”

She started moving downstairs and he groaned. The dryness of their conversations could rival the Sahara desert. He still did not know how to talk to Leta, especially not after his talk with Mika. Nonetheless, he followed her down.

The tavern keeper was no longer in sight, but the others now seemed to be enjoying themselves, with food laid out on the table.

“Leta!” It was Pierre’s thundering voice that called out to her. “And Lucas! Morning!”

Everyone around the table stopped speaking and looked up at them. “Come join us!” Pierre said, grabbing two extra seats and putting them next to him. The two sat down and Lucas looked to his side, where Tiaru was sitting. She gave him a small wave and he smiled slightly before looking down at the table. There were bowls of vegetable soup, sliced fruits, steaks with dark sauce drizzled on top, boiled potatoes and sliced bread laid out.

“Look, Lucas isn’t my companion. It’s hard to explain but if I just-” Leta began.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. Mika told us everything,” Pierre interrupted her.

Leta tensed up upon the mention of Mika. “What did she tell you?”

“You should trust your sister more, you know?” The voice came from a woman across the table who Lucas didn’t recognise. “She’s done a lot for you.”

Leta looked down and Pierre shot a glance at the woman, causing her to mutter, “Just giving the honest truth.”

“Seriously, don’t worry about it, Leta. You’ll have our support from now on, so just do what you need to do,” Pierre said. “Plus, we know about how you went around the houses yesterday and helped our people out.”

Leta relaxed a little and stared at the people around the table. “Really?”

Tiaru chuckled and replied, “Really. We all owe you an apology, and this is how we’re going to make it up to you.”

“Alright then. No takebacks.” Leta smirked.

A man two seats from Tiaru laughed and said, “Just like your sister,” prompting everyone else to chuckle. They dug into their food, Lucas, not particularly hungry, opted to take some slices of fruit. It was a jolly atmosphere with some people occasionally asking him questions. He gave generic responses and remained relatively quiet.

He fiddled with the ring on his finger. His life was in his hands and he couldn’t forget that. It was now a looming weight that was everpresent and for better or worse, his mind wouldn’t allow him to let that fact fade away. This atmosphere was hospitable, but at any second it could turn hostile. This town, this world, was hiding deep atrocities that forced people to act in such desperation. He looked back up at the laughing townspeople. Was it hope that he heard in their words, or was it just a facade?

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

After a while Leta stood up and thanked them for the meal. Lucas stood up as well and briskly followed her outside, relishing the fresh air and the quietness. “What now?” He asked.

“I’m really stuck with you now, huh? Well, I have a job to do,” she said as she began to walk away.

~~~

What Lucas envisioned when Leta said she had a job to do was not this. He expected to be dragged around everywhere, forced to work as a delivery man or some other physically demanding job. What he did not expect was to have 3 children clinging onto him like he was a climbing frame, with one of them screaming and laughing straight into his ears.

“So… this is the job you do?” He asked Leta, who was kneeling in the grass, doing magic tricks for the children who were lying down beside her. She nodded and twirled her finger around, releasing a bright stream of pink that caused the children to gasp. “Do it again, do it again!” they giggled enthusiastically. So she did, this time creating small fireworks and the children gasped again.

Who was this person? Lucas didn’t see a single trace of Leta’s signature coldness. He sighed and attempted to peel the children off him, to no avail.

“Hey, hey, mister are you Leta’s boyfriend?” A little boy had approached him.

“Nope. Not even close,” Lucas replied flatly, still trying to get the children off him.

The boy grinned, almost wickedly and ran off back to Leta. Lucas rolled his eyes and sat down. He felt more exhausted than he was yesterday, than he’d ever been, even after that time he pulled two all-nighters in a row. How did Leta deal with his?

It was mid-afternoon and they were in a grassy meadow, with large patches of white daisies. He looked to his right and he noticed a tree with a house next to it. He squinted at it for a little while. He could’ve sworn he had seen that place before. His eyes wandered to a small boy. Dark mahogany hair. He remembered this.

And then something clicked in his brain. Of course he recognised that tree and house. He knew this boy, it was Korro. That was the first person he had encountered when he was tied to the very tree he was staring at.

So maybe this was how Leta had found him, then? The children which were on him had lost interest in him and were now seated around Leta, listening to the story she was telling. Korro however, was still hovering nervously around Lucas.

Well, he might as well not act like a stick in the mud around children. He waved at Korro and gave him a friendly smile, which caused the little boy to totter over. He sat down next to Lucas and looked up at him with large caramel-brown eyes.

Not much of a talker, huh? They were like two peas in a pod then. But Lucas didn’t want to keep silent forever, so he decided to start a conversation.

“Korro, right?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically at the mention of his name. Lucas smiled. He’d always found children to be troublesome, annoying, and loud, and although that was still true, maybe some of them weren’t so bad after all.

“Do you want to play a game?”

Korro shook his head.

“Do you want to hear a story, then?” to which Korro nodded. Thank goodness, because Lucas was seriously running out of options. He didn’t have any fancy party tricks up his sleeve and he still couldn’t use magic. But what story would he tell? He racked his brain, and he thought of the classic fairytales of his own world. Did they have the same fairytales here? He doubted it.

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks…”

Lucas couldn’t remember all the details, just that there were three bears, three porridges, three beds and three chairs. As he was telling the story, it made him wonder why people were so obsessed with threes. Three little pigs, three tries to guess Rumpelstiltskin’s name. Nevertheless, he told it, maybe dramatising a few parts here and there, with Korro being thoroughly enraptured by his story. He lost track of time, and soon enough his ridiculous tale of Goldilocks, who had now somehow become the grand wielder of the earth element, master of all bears, was finally coming to an end.

“...And then Goldilocks, atop her golden throne, ruling the forest with her three bears, said as she gazed upon her loyal subjects, ‘Now this is just right.’ The end.” He looked around to find that the other children who had surrounded him and listened to the story, were now sound asleep in the warm afternoon sun.

“Didn’t think you had it in you,” Leta smirked at him. Ah, the stone-cold Leta was back. He was beginning to feel anxious since that personality of hers had disappeared for so long. The children’s parents had arrived, handing Leta money and scooping up their napping children. He watched as they each left, one by one.

He ignored her snide remark. “You do this often?”

She sealed her coin bag with a string of pink light and tossed it into her carry bag. “Day job.”

“Is that a thing all candidates do?”

“Nope.”

Lucas sighed. Their conversations were still in full drought. He thought for a little while then asked her another question.

“Can you teach me how to do those magic tricks? You know, for the children.” It felt like a flimsy excuse, but surely it was believable.

“Hm. I’ll think about it,” she replied.

So that wasn’t a flat-out denial. That was good enough for him, though. For the first time that he’d come here, things weren’t looking like a disaster. Leta had packed up and was now heading off again. She was here, there, everywhere. If being rigid was one-half of her personality, walking was the other half.

But then again, Lucas supposed that following Leta was now also at least one-half of his personality.

“Where are we going?”

Leta wheeled around, a wild look on her face. She grinned like a madwoman. “To the casino, of course!”

Lucas couldn’t stop his jaw from dropping. She was skipping away. This was Leta, right? Not some eldritch being that specialised in stealing people’s skin?

People’s personalities don’t usually just switch drastically like this over a few days, so maybe she was just always like this. If that was the case, then she was also just naturally awkward. The thought made him snicker.

But if she really had been trying to get rid of him, then maybe her colder, more detached self was a method of repelling him.

And to be fair, it almost worked.

No point thinking about that though. He had a casino to go to, after all.