Still very awake from her stint of spell induced unconsciousness, she decided sleep wasn’t going to come.

She slid out of bed, the room eerily quiet. She looked over the fake hills outside her window. The sheep lay still, asleep, the wind rustling the trees above their heads. A full moon shone overhead through veil-like clouds. If she didn’t know better, she would think it was a perfect night.

She looked back to her room. It was lit by a glowing crystal sphere on top of the mirror on the vanity that shined surprisingly bright, casting an eerie white glow over the room that she hadn’t noticed when she was so enamored with her book.

Wide awake with no desire to even try to sleep, she decided her best option was to get to work. The sooner she got the garden squared away, the sooner she’d have even a fraction of a chance to read that book again. She quickly changed into a spare tunic and slacks she found in a dresser, laying the nightgown neatly at the foot of the bed.

Even in the middle of the night, the ceiling of the greenhouse continued to glow like daylight.

She worked until dawn, pulling out the Needleroot with her bare hands, entirely unaffected with Zaramir’s protection spell in place.

Upon completing the slow task of weeding the planter beds, she headed to the beast room for the crystalline worms.

The room wasn’t at all what she had pictured. She expected cages and crates containing dangerous and exotic creatures stacked neatly in perfectly labeled rows, befitting animals for experimentation.

What she found was a vast room, a fake blue sky above head, filled with lush greenery. The air smelled of sweet flowers and dewy grass. Birds soared above head. Deer wandered past, not paying her any mind. At the far end of the room was a mountainscape where she suspected the creature he’d warned her of resided.

Two little rabbits hopped up to her, cocking their head curiously. They had no fear of the intruder. In fact, none of these animals seemed fearful. Of her, of the other animals. This wasn’t the home of lab animals. They were almost like… pets.

A dark thought crossed her mind interrupting the beautiful serenity of this animal utopia; Neve. The Faedemon had no love for these creatures. He’d offered to let her kill them for revenge. These animals lived this way for a calculated reason, not out of love.

She knelt to scratch behind the rabbits’ ears. These animals had no fear, but they should. He’d kill them the second it proved useful to his objective. The rabbits nuzzled to her hand lovingly. It was probably best they didn’t know what was coming.

He’d at least done them one small kindness. They didn’t have to live in constant fear.

She stood up and began her search for the crystalline worms as the rabbits hopped off.

What she knew of these worms, they lived communally in large mounds, surrounded by sparkling minerals that they horded like teeny dragons.

She searched the expansive landscape, meeting varieties of both known and unknown creatures, before finally finding the crystalline mounds she was searching for.

She’d never seen one in person and it was much larger than the illustration in the books she used to study made it out to be. The mound stood taller than herself and had a diameter the size of a rowboat.

The worms slowly scooted all over the mound, coated in the sparkling mineral dust that gave their name. The worms, too, were bigger than she thought. Each was a fat grub a bit bigger around than her forearm and about three quarters of its length.

She scooped one up. It let out a small squeal of surprise, before turning an eyeless face toward her. If possible, it almost would have looked upset at the interruption. It wiggled in her hand, trying to free itself to get back to work.

Carrying enough for all the planter beds in the garden was going to take more than one trip.

She scooped up as many as she could reasonably carry without dropping their squirming bodies, which turned out to be four and started back to the garden. The walk there and back had to be close to a mile each way, the room deceptively and impossibly large for the castle they were in.

By the 4th trip, her legs were burning, exhausted. Her grove hadn’t been large enough for her to gain this kind of stamina from her daily chores.

She scooped up more squeaking worms, her back too beginning to feel the effects of the long trips.

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As she reached the door of the beast room with her bundle of worms, the door swung open in front of her, startling her.

She shrieked as she dropped the armload of worms which let out a chorus of angry squeals as they hit the ground in front of her. They all scampered off as fast as they could but she hardly noticed.

In front of her was Zaramir. The left side of his face was a large burn surrounded by deep purple bruising. His eye was swollen shut. Blood trickled down his jaw, landing on his bare shoulder which was already stained a deep crimson before trailing down his ribs.

He shoved past her looking more annoyed than anything.

After a moment she collected herself enough to speak, “What happened to you?”

He ignored her, keeping a quick pace toward the large lake she had to traverse around to get to the worms on each of her trips.

She jogged to catch up, “Did an experiment go wrong? It must have been bad if you aren’t healing, but I finished clearing the Needleroot from the garden so potions-”

“Leave me alone, Corabelle!” He snapped, the trickling blood dripping and dispersing into the pond as he reached the water’s edge. His voice was fierce and angry. Birds across the pond flew from the trees.

She didn’t think his voice could get so loud.

He knelt down, diving his hand into the sand in the shallow water, pulling up a mollusk with a deep iridescent black shell which he crushed in his fist. He applied the goop and shell fragments gingerly to the side of his face and the bleeding stopped, but he didn’t heal.

He let out a relieved sigh and collapsed onto his rear, unconcerned with the wet sand soaking his pants. His head tipped back, both eyes closed, obviously drained.

It was a long moment before Cora worked up the courage to speak, “Would you like me to get you something to help? Or should I get back to the Crystalline worms?”

“No.” He said shortly, but his voice was soft, spent.

“Alright. I’ll get back to work.” She started back to the worms.

“I meant,” he raised his head painstakingly, looking at her with his one good eye, “Neither. Take a break. I know you were up all night.”

“Oh,” She returned to the shore, sitting down on the dry part of the beach. Her legs were thankful for the moment of rest. She buried her sore feet in the cool sand.

It was a good few minutes before Zaramir spoke again, “If you don’t mind, could you do me one small favor?”

Corabelle shook the sand from her feet, standing, “What do you need?”

“Tell me how bad it looks?” He gave her a joking half smile that his swollen face would allow.

In truth, it was hideous. Horrifically painful looking, This side of his face was completely unrecognizable. It was raw pinkish red blisters and deep pockets of gouged out flesh, There were exposed bits of muscle and, at one spot on his cheek, she thought she could see the bone, “I’m sure you’ll be able to heal it to as good as new.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

She let out a long breath, not sure she should tell him the truth, “It’s…”

“I thought as much.” He stood up, slowly, with a grimace as he turned away from her.

“If I can ask, what went wrong? What experiment did this? It wasn’t the Needleroot was it?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. I made a mistake and learned my lesson.” He replied, still turned away from her. “I won’t be able to heal this one with magic so, if you don’t mind, I would like to skip our magic lessons for a while.”

“Of course.” She took a step closer. “Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do to help?”

“No. I’ll be alright. Thank you. I’ll leave a list of chores you can work on once you’re done with the garden. After your break, please finish with the worms”

“I’ll get started now.”

“No. I insist, have a decent break first.” He headed for the entrance. “I’ll see you in a few days, Miss Cora.”

“Goodbye, sir.”

“Please, don’t call me sir.” Then he disappeared into the trees.

Corabelle took a seat by the lake, watching the tiny silver fish darting just below the surface of the shallow water.

She’d seen magic backfire first hand, but she was barely a novice. In fact, she was so new couldn’t even be called a novice. She wasn’t surprised she’d messed up, shattered her hand.

But Zaramir had fixed her. He was more powerful than even House Masters, all Faedemons were. Whatever magic had backfired for him was more powerful then she could possibly imagine. A shattered hand was little more than a bug bite compared to what could happen with magic at Zaramir’s level.

His Runebinds usually healed him instantly. This was stronger than even his Runebinds. She knew his experiments were powerful and dangerous, but she didn’t ever expect this. She didn’t think anything could nullify a Runebind, at least for more than a moment.

Whatever experiment he’d been doing, whatever magic that was, was powerful, so powerful it could have killed him. If his Runebinds didn’t work, she doubted anything else would. It was a deeply unsettling prospect.

If something happened and he died, how long would it be until she knew? The castle, this maze, it was all his. If he died, would the house crumble and fall from the sky? Would the roses die? Would she be free? Or would everything stay the same? Would the house stay here, and the roses live? Would she still be immortal, stuck forever here in the house or would she wither and die alone?

She pushed herself up off the beach and headed back toward the worms. Such morbid thoughts served no function. She had work to do. She was alive now and things needed done.