Chapter 20 Of Cheese and Chaos
Daphne
Of Cheese and Chaos
Sunlight spilled across my bedroom floor when I woke up.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes, surprised I’d slept this long.
Judging by the gnaw in my stomach, it had to be early afternoon.
I swung my legs out of bed and stood quickly, half-expecting to hear Liang’s familiar footsteps at the door.
But no tray arrived. No warm breakfast. With a sigh, I decided to find the manor’s kitchen myself.
The maze beyond the door was helpful today, and my nose helped a lot.
After a couple of turns and flights of stairs, I pushed open an old oak door.
Golden light spilled through the narrow windows, pooling across the stone floor. The mouth-watering scent of roasting garlic, sweet onions, and fresh herbs hung in the air. Copper pots, scrubbed to perfection, hung above the hearth, and flour dusted the stone counters.
I stepped in barefoot; the flagstones cool beneath my toes, and paused at the threshold. It smelled like memory and comfort and something that reminded me of happier days, of Mother’s laughter and Saturday tea with cookies.
Liang stood at the butcher’s block in the center of the room, a bundle of spring carrots in one hand and an enormous, terrifying sword in the other.
The blade looked like something meant for battlefield decapitations, not mincing vegetables.
Still, he moved with precise, elegant ease—chopping the carrots and humming.
“Speaking of the devil!” a squeaky voice announced, and I spotted Nibble perched on the spice rack, holding a baby carrot. Liang put his blade away and glared at me, his single eye wide in surprise.
I looked at the bat, then at the sword, and back again. “Is that a cleaver or a threat?”
“Both,” Liang said calmly. “Depends on the guest.”
“I come in peace!” I jokingly declared, raising my hands. “And I’m looking for food.”
“Makes two of us,” Nibble murmured and chewed loudly on a piece of carrot.
“What about a beef sandwich, Miss Daphne?” Liang wiped his hands on a cloth and walked to a cupboard.
“With some cheese? Sit down by the fire while I’m preparing it.
” He pointed to a wooden chair next to the crackling fireplace.
I sat down, letting the warmth soak through the cotton dress.
I stole glimpses of the strange symbols tattooed on his corded neck and forearms.
“He writes all stories of his life on his skin, so he does not forget,” Nibble clarified from his rack, noticing my glare. “The one on his neck, covering that nasty scar, is how Emrys found him.”
“I thought you avoided telling others’ stories?” I snapped at the bat, who grinned in response. Liang handed me a plate with a thick slice of rye bread, piled with marinated meat and cheese.
“The bat? He’s putting his nose everywhere.” The man shrugged and walked back to the kitchen island. “As for how I met Lord Emrys, I don’t think it’s a secret.”
“Can I have a bite?” Nibble landed on my armrest, eyeing my sandwich with the intensity of a starving squirrel. Though I had to admit, the twitching pink nose had the power to melt a heart of stone.
“You’re proving my point, Shadow!” Liang threw his hands in the air.
“But he’s right. Some stories are too important to be forgotten, so I’d rather see them every time I look at myself.
Those are the stories that made us who we are.
” Lost in thought, I handed a piece of bread to Nibble.
“Can I have some cheese, too?” the bat begged.
I sighed and handed him a slice. Nobody could resist those puppy eyes.
What would be the story that I’d like to carve into my skin?
I pondered. How some vengeful entity, driven by an ancient curse, took my parents’ lives and settled into my mind?
How my brother tormented me for years, trying to break me and sell me into some miserable marriage that would fill his pockets?
Or how I ended up in that living hell—St. Dismas, and then found my way here, which was actually not the worst place I’d ever been?
It got silent. The rhythmic chopping of vegetables stopped. Liang was watching me, his dark brows drawn together.
“Very often, our stories have a sad beginning, Miss Daphne. I can tell that’s your case, too. But that child sold in slavery thirty years ago in Singapore got his chance by meeting Emrys, and he turned it around.” I stared at him, forgetting to chew.
“The Eclipse Order was about to sacrifice him when Emrys arrived, breaking down the ceiling and gutting them all!” Nibble screeched reverently, and Liang shot him a warning glance.
“The Eclipse Order?” I mumbled with my mouth full.
Liang walked to the stove and dropped the chopped vegetables into a large pot.
“The Renegade’s men. That’s what they call themselves.
And their dogs—the Hollowborn. It’s more and more of them lately since Emrys is locked here,” he said, his muscled back turned.
Too stunned to eat, I was trying to digest what he said and Nibble took the opportunity to steal a huge chunk of my sandwich.
“Magic’s been ravaging the world unchecked ever since Master Emrys cannot perform his duties,” the bat said, chewing thoughtfully.
“Magic?” I squeaked. Since that fateful night at the opera, I was swept into a world that I couldn’t quite understand.
“Real magic exists?” I asked and almost slapped myself for my ignorance.
Of course, it did. What other explanation was out there for flying immortal men, demons without souls, and water-bound entities craving revenge?
Liang turned, swinging a large ladle with the same dexterity he was handling the sword with before.
“Magic, Miss Daphne, has always been here. Since the dawn of time. Since our ancestors were sitting around their fires deep in the caves, listening to the slow heartbeat of the Earth. Times got busier, our attention shifted to other, more urgent things, and we learned to ignore it. But it’s still out there.
And it’s growing wild. Unchecked, as the only one able to tame it, is kept between these walls.
He hadn’t performed the rituals for decades. For that, the world would bleed.”
My fingers curled around the edge of my plate, suddenly aware of how fragile everything was—this room, this borrowed calm, this moment of pretending I wasn’t caught in something far bigger than myself.
Magic. Real magic. Wild and ancient and starving beneath the world’s skin. And Emrys—the prisoner, the monster, the man who watched me like he’d known me once—was the only one who could stop it from tearing everything apart.
And I had that creature inside me. The thing that killed my parents. The voice that whispered in the dark. Could I really be part of saving anything?
I came here to escape, to steal my freedom from under the nose of a broken system. But what if the only way out was through fire?
The kitchen had grown silent as if even the flames in the fireplace were listening. And for one moment, I felt that deep, slow thrum piercing the bones of this old manor, going all the way down to those radiant, burning veins, which transported pure power under the surface of the world.
I took a sharp breath. “The ley lines—”
“Carry raw magic and cross at specific locations, where this power erupts at certain times. It’s called a Surge. You’re quite poorly educated for a spy for the Renegade!” The bat exclaimed, perched near the stove to inspect Liang’s cooking closer.
“That’s because she’s not,” he murmured, his warm brown eye focusing on me. “She’s a lost soul who wandered into a mess bigger than anything she’d ever seen.”
“And Emrys…” I swallowed hard, the revelations nearly stealing my ability to speak. “Is the only one who knows of the places where magic runs wild? Those Surges?”
Liang nodded and returned to his cooking. “Yes. And the Eclipse Order is after this knowledge. If they got to a Surge, what then? An army of Hollowborn? Cities overrun? How long before the world started to look like St. Dismas?” He slurped loudly, tasting his soup.
I leaned back in the chair, my fingers curling around the worn wooden armrests. It hadn’t been a mere chance that led me to Duskmere Manor—of that, I was certain. Perhaps greater powers were at work. And maybe releasing Emrys wouldn’t just grant me my freedom—but right a much older wrong.
But how much of this story came from Emrys himself? Could I trust any of it?
“Liang, do you have some of that orange jam around here?” Nibble asked, but I didn’t hear the answer. Closing the door quietly, I ran to my room.
I’d thought breaking the wards was just a clever trick—a way to release the lion and vanish while the chaos unfolded. But now, it felt like standing at the edge of a storm. One that could swallow more than me.
Emrys hadn’t just been imprisoned. He’d been kept from something. Something the world needed.
And the moment I broke the wards, every demon in the dark would come running to destroy him.
Was I willing to risk it?
I swallowed, the answer solidifying inside me like stone.
Yes.
It was time to prepare. I was taking down these cursed wards, one way or the other.