14. The Records Room #2
First the academy, then this.
Who am I supposed to trust? To believe?
The Overlord? My father? One of the Seven Sisters of Scelus? Now I’m not even sure they are from Scelus, they certainly don’t choose to live there now.
Silver looks up. “Careful, Little Nephilim. You’re almost looking at me like you don’t think I’m a monster.”
I am?
“I’m very aware who and what you are, Overlord," I say, reminding myself what demons like him did to me on that front lawn.
How my screams had echoed off the citadel towers.
How I’d lost my favorite thing about me, and how they’d taken the only thing that made me feel like I almost belonged with the Helvane’s in the wake of my mother’s death.
“Good. So as your Overlord, you’ll listen when I suggest you get on with what you came here to do and go get an early night.”
I feign a yawn.
Him being here has scuppered my plans and now I want to get back to the journal.
I don’t even know what I’m going to write in it, not now, with so many doubts over so many people.
My father himself being one of them.
For now, I need to know it works, if my father has replied, and what he has to say.
“I think I’m too tired to study now,” I rest a hand on the handle behind me and push down. “I guess I’ll see you at the first game?”
“You will.”
I open the door with a creak, just wide enough to slip out and step into the corridor.
“Oh, and one last thing,” Silver calls. “Make sure you fill up well at breakfast. It won’t help much, but you don’t want to enter that game hungry.”
I frown. “Okay.”
“If you trust nothing else, trust me on this. I was the first to complete it, after all.”
He was?
I remain standing there dumbfounded, outside the door for several long seconds.
So, he competed in the games? The very first ones.
How long ago was that? He looks maybe mid-thirties, but that doesn’t mean much. He could be ancient for all I know.
I feel like nothing is certain anymore.
By the angels, I have so many more questions I now want to ask him. Not even as a spy, but as a cadet who really doesn’t want to die tomorrow.
When I start moving again, I swing by the mess hall to fill a canteen with water. Diana might need it when she gets back, whatever time that may be.
The staff are already setting up for breakfast, with plates and glasses and cutlery set out.
Did Silver really give me advice to help me survive The Feast of Endless Need?
It’s all I can think about the entire walk back. It certainly sounded like he had.
Shame I can’t trust him as far as I can throw him. And based on how big he is, I couldn’t throw him an inch.
When I get back to Ferrum’s dorm, the door is already open. Not wide open but certainly not how I left it.
I step inside and find most of the bunks empty, all except Diana’s.
It’s the bunk above mine, the middle one, and with the canteen ready, I cross the few feet in front of the fire and check on her.
Tears dampen her pillow, and my chest fills with rage.
What did that evil witch do to her?
“Diana?” I whisper.
Nothing.
“Diana? Are you okay?”
She peels open her eyes, just a crack, but enough to see me. Then she startles, like she’s afraid of me all of a sudden.
What has Lilliana poisoned her with for her to fear me?
“It’s okay, it’s me, I brought you some water.”
She pushes it back. “No, I don’t deserve it. I’m so sorry Seraphina, I’m so sorry. I messed up.”
“Calm down. I’m sure it’s fine. People must do crazy and embarrassing things after drinking too many cocktails in The Rec all the time. Whatever you did, it will be yesterday’s news soon enough.”
She shakes her head, her glistening eyes leaking tears and full of guilt.
I frown.
“It’s not that. Well, it is. I didn’t take your advice, I drank two of her cocktails, and then… then I was all dizzy and so, Lilliana brought me back here.”
I’m surprised the demoness would be so responsible or care enough to escort her back, but still, it’s not world ending stuff that she’s so upset about.
“Here, drink this water, the cocktails will be out of your system by morning. You’ll be back to normal by the time we enter the game,” I reassure her.
“That’s not why I’m sorry,” she sniffles, but the sniffle turns into a sob.
“What could you possibly have to be sorry about?” I ask, racking my brain. “I told you to go for it, to join the others in The Rec. I should be sorry for not insisting that you stay. Lilliana is not someone you want to get close to, I knew that, and yet I told you to go.”
“I fell, Seraphina. I fell onto your bed. And… and this little leather book fell on the floor. I think you must have been keeping it under your pillow. But… Lilliana… she saw it drop and I couldn’t get my body to move fast enough to get to it first…
she took it. I told her not to, I said it was yours and that stealing is a sin, but she took it anyway.
I don’t know what she did with it. I’m so sorry. I’m sure it was important…”
Diana keeps talking and apologizing and crying, but all I can hear is my pulse in my ears and the pound of my heart.
Lilliana has my journal.
Again.
Only now, there’s every chance she will open it and find a message from my father looking back at her.