Following the Head Maid back into the castle, Harlotte did not go to the dining hall to wait; instead, he went to the study. Someone trailed behind him, hoping to explore the castle—perhaps overly ambitious.
While Lilith busied herself preparing his late-night meal, Harlotte slipped a palm-sized mirror from his coat pocket. He had kept it for moments like this—when he feared losing his mind—and used it to check the look in his own eyes.
In times like these, confirming one’s sanity was more important than anything. A madman might do incomprehensible things, but to decipher the castle’s rules, he needed every scrap of rationality he could muster.
He studied the mirror’s reflection: eyes blood-red and numbed. Yes—numb. Though he had not seen a corpse, he had witnessed death for the first time.
Some things differed entirely between hearing of them and seeing them with one’s own eyes. If half an hour ago he had clung to hope, now he was utterly numb. Even when those two guards had mentioned people disappearing in the castle, Harlotte had harbored a sliver of hope—understandably human, but now gone.
He forced a bitter smile and shook his head. Sitting in a high-backed leather chair, he rubbed his fingertips over the notes he had taken on that extraordinary path the married schoolmistress had taught him. From tonight’s events, he glimpsed a deeper truth behind the castle—perhaps those inhuman beings poised to devour him were themselves prisoners. All were fish, differing only by the chopping board.
To survive, he might need to escape the castle—and so, beyond learning its rules, he had to grow stronger. Otherwise, even if he escaped, where could he go?
But paths of the supernatural—sacrifice, divine favor, life-force, sorcerers—each except life-force felt too strange. Sorcerers might have seemed promising before the Keth-type Old Gods’ invasion, but in a world twisted by their coming, seeking cosmic truth would surely drive one insane. Sacrifice and divine favor were but begging on one’s knees—only the petitioner differed. Life-force training looked sound, yet demanded years of relentless cultivation and supreme nourishment.
Did he have such time? Not a chance.
Unless he had a system—but if he had one, his start wouldn’t be hellish; it would be heaven-sent. Sisters, maids, stewardesses—all fallen to him like worshipers.
Such dreams were rich, reality was lean. These women craved him in the most carnal sense.
Lilith did not give Harlotte long to ponder. She soon returned with his supper—a meal half-prepared before his untimely appearance had upended her plans.
She had been forced to intercept him, to keep him from the truth.
While eating Lilith’s dish, Harlotte assigned her another task: summon the guest scholar to the study to answer his questions. Without violating castle rules, she remained merely Head Maid—and that was sufficient.
As the true heir, he was bound by fewer rules than anyone else in the castle.
This time, summoning the guest scholar served one goal: to seize these last moments of temporary madness and learn the genuine method to walk the supernatural path.
Under Keth law, in his current state of frenzy, he could safely probe cosmic truths—even face an Outer God—since no one could drive a madman madder.
Lilith raised no objection and departed to fetch the scholar. As Head Maid, she could not refuse a reasonable order from her master. In the castle, status was paramount.
Five minutes later, light footsteps approached—a maid’s flat shoes rather than Margaret’s silk skirts. Carrying a cup of iced mint tea, she whispered at the door, “Lady Margaret sends her apologies. She is unwell and cannot come to dispel your doubts tonight.”
“I understand. Lilith, you may go. I will return to my chamber on my own.”
“As you command, my lord.”
Lilith’s first use of the word “my lord” caught Harlotte’s attention, though he could not decipher its significance.
Staring at the frosty mint tea, he clenched his knuckles until they whitened. After one sip, he pushed the cup aside—the mint’s chill, mingled with old parchment odor, cleared his head further.
He realized the guest scholar was not ill but had guessed his intent and deliberately avoided him, hoping he’d sober from his frenzy before speaking.
Anger flared like wildfire in his chest, yet he clenched his fists and quelled it. Anger alone could not change the scholar’s mind; she held rank in the castle equal to him. He had no means to compel her—only the brief satisfaction of his anger.
The scholar was a guest of high standing, entitled to sit at table—a peer to the future heir. Harlotte rolled the parchment notes and thrust them into a drawer, then turned and strode from the study. If he could not obtain answers this way, he would pursue something more tangible.
He would search his parents’ former chambers.
The castle, a typical medieval mountaintop fortress of nearly eight thousand square meters, featured a three-story main keep surrounded by annexes. Servants and guards lodged on the first floor and in outbuildings.
From his sister’s slip of information, he knew the location of his mother’s room. He could have gone by day, but the castle at night was truest—daylight felt too false.
On the top floor, a circular corridor of blue-black sandstone held twelve chambers. Each black walnut door was plain, save for the core members’ rooms, which bore crests. Peripheral doors stood bare.
Harlotte crept along, as if afraid any sound might stir unseen horrors.
His mother’s door lay directly opposite his own, in the very center of the southern wall. The door was thicker than the others, its handle—adorned with the family crest—more ornate, the shield bearing a pentagram scratched at one corner.
He inhaled deeply and touched the icy handle—when a voice without emotion sounded behind him, “Before her departure, Madam issued a command: none may enter this room but herself.”
His body locked, and his fingers recoiled as if burned. He spun around, heart hammering.
As expected, Stewardess Seraphina stood at the corridor’s end. Her ebony velvet gown trailed soundlessly over sandstone; her silver-gray eyes glowed coldly in dim light, and her white-gloved hands rested before her like shadows seeping from the walls.
“I…” Harlotte began, the words “just looking” lodged in his throat.
He recalled the silent ascent from the second-floor study to this pinnacle; despite his efforts to listen, he had heard not a single footstep. Seraphina had appeared as if conjured—and exactly when he touched the handle. This was no coincidence. Either she had watched him constantly, or the castle’s walls themselves were eyes, seeing every motion.
He gripped the small mirror in his palm—its hard surface bruising his knuckles but restoring calm. “I understand.”
He offered no protest, no questions. Seraphina’s silent arrival was answer enough. An entity capable of moving soundlessly through the castle would not heed his objections.