Chapter 160: Something Uplifting
Tick... tick... tick...
Whirr... click... tchik...
And the machine erupted into a furious metallic ringing.
The lazy bone made an effort to strike the clock with all he had, as if intentionally trying to finish it off. The calm and gentle tone that followed, however, was enough to shrug the drowsiness off him. He had no intention of letting her wait, unlike what he’d done with the mechanical clicks.
"It’s morning already, young master."
Hazel said, already helping Leomaris to his feet.
"This has become a habit recently. You don’t usually sleep this deeply. Did something happen, young master?"
Studying himself, Leomaris shrugged off the last traces of drowsiness beneath his eyes and patted Hazel on the head with a sharp smile.
"Don’t worry, little doll, I’m perfectly fine."
The confusion in Hazel’s eyes was plain as day. Leomaris wasn’t the kind to hand out nicknames, which only gave her further reason to believe something was wrong with the young master. However, she bottled it up. She swallowed it down and decided to leave it at that, exiting the room the same way she’d come.
Leomaris was starting to realise the changes in his body as well. This had nothing to do with strength, his curses, or anything related to his rotten behaviour. Oh well, it could be argued it was a curse, or worse, the workings of his rotten brain.
These past few weeks, his time with Lucius had impacted him more than he’d care to admit. It wasn’t much, if anything, it lacked the depth to write home about, and yet their subtle interactions had really gotten the best of him.
Having Lucius around gave him some comfort, even if it boiled down to nothing more than the bastard having to wake him each morning. Still, it was enough to keep the nightmares at bay, and he slept soundly, expecting to wake at the first rooster’s cry.
It was inevitable. One of them had to be eliminated eventually; otherwise, Leomaris would have existed in constant apprehension of Lucius becoming a threat, and Lucius wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything less than his head.
Despite it all, the words lingered. "I will come for you." Even in death, Lucius had managed to scrape this down his sore and foul throat, potentially something he’d done subconsciously, something his mind hadn’t seen, but his conviction had. This had him wondering: could Lucius truly come back?
—
As the reddish sun rose over the horizon, Leomaris and Charlotte made their way toward Beans and Blooms, down Carter Plaza, the very place where they’d first crossed paths over five months ago.
This was where the two of them had spent so much time together, and yet the place never failed to remind Leomaris how drastically things might have changed had he not stolen Charlotte’s moment of growth to cultivate their friendship.
It all felt like a lie, of course it did. He’d sacrifice Charlotte to save his own life in a heartbeat, and ironically, he’d already demonstrated as much once before — using her as an impromptu shield against an explosion. Ah, memories.
"I’m starting to believe I won’t need Leomaris’s help after all. I can say more than five words now, and I think it’ll only get better as I grow stronger. Isn’t that great?
"But in the end, it doesn’t matter. When I think about it, I want to be able to speak freely again. Leomaris and I will find a way to make that happen."
Charlotte’s soulless eyes drifted from the table and landed on a biscuit. She gave it a light dip into her chocolate drink and sucked on it.
Leomaris, however, was lost in a reverie. He held a Seed Tea in hand, unknowingly giving it a slight shake as the steam curled through the air.
He wanted to know the rules behind Charlotte’s ability since, after all, he knew enough to grasp them perfectly once he understood the rules. A bit shady, well, but anything could happen down the line. She could very well become an enemy.
But then, he didn’t want to repeat the same dilemma he’d faced with Lucius’s death. He didn’t want to discover how much Charlotte meant to him only after some unforeseen catastrophe.
"Oh, right. I brought something for Leomaris."
Charlotte reached into her military overcoat and pulled out a black bracelet with countless black crystals studded across it. From the look of it, Leomaris knew immediately what it was: an artifact.
"This is a dimensional storage artifact. I know Leomaris worries a lot about carrying clothes and weapons, so I thought this would help. It isn’t infinite, but it was the only one I could afford."
Noting the expressionless look across Leomaris’s face, Charlotte quickly added.
"I have already paid the required price. The crystals serve as the actual storage, and activating it consumes less than 1% of my stamina. The bracelet itself is an artifact, and I have already paid its cost as well."
"I must visualize placing something inside it... and when I want it back, I only need to visualize the item."
Leomaris was quite familiar with this, but he wouldn’t have minded if he’d had to pay the price himself. He was always the one paying for his artifacts, after all.
For a skint, threadbare noble, a son of a Duke no less, who feeds lavishly on his sister’s fortune, receiving such an expensive gift had him speechless.
He soon wore a smile all the same. Though it was forced, it came from a good place.
"I was aiming for ’mysterious and dangerous,’ not ’financial liability,’ but I’ll take it."
He grabbed the bracelet and put it on.
"Well, I appreciate her confidence in my ability not to lose it."
Charlotte giggled.
"Don’t worry. It can’t be lost, and I’m the only one who can remove it."
There was no hiding Leomaris’s bewilderment, and strangely, he had no intention to.
’Is this some kind of love-binding ritual?’
With a hasty sigh, Leomaris let slip a few words to obscure his tangled thoughts. He kept things neutral before gradually drifting into something uplifting.
"How about this? I’ll show you a magic trick as repayment for your kindness."
Charlotte was hesitant, after all, Leomaris always entertained her this way, but a few more words from him were enough to change her mind. He said:
"Don’t sweat it. Take it as my way of showing appreciation. And again, I know you want to see it."
With a soft smile, she motioned positively.
Almost hesitantly, Leomaris wrapped his hand in his innate ability, Conceal, and pulled a handkerchief from his overcoat. A few deft moves later, the handkerchief had birthed a handful of tarot cards and, at last, about a dozen pence.
Charlotte looked amused and equally dumbfounded. Her soulless dark eyes sparkled, taking on an even better shade of dark.
"I want to see more. I really want to understand how Leomaris does these tricks."
The corner of Leomaris’s lip curled. He couldn’t tell if Charlotte was genuinely interested or simply playing the fool. He’d done these tricks a dozen times already, and the only thing that kept it interesting was his ability.
No sooner had Leomaris shown Charlotte a quick and elusive trick, mostly hiding the movement of his hands and producing nothing but pence, since that was all he had, than something caught their attention from the café’s entrance.
Tall and confident, with a smile that hardly wavered, dark hair, and a military overcoat draped over his shoulders. Cassius, Leomaris’s sister’s biggest rival.
Cassius waved at him as if they were companions, and not even Charlotte’s threatening glare could shake the smile from his face, nor rattle him.
Within reach, everything shifted.
As though he wanted to kill, something starkly contradictory to his smile, Cassius’s presence turned immediately threatening, an intense bloodlust forcing Leomaris into a desperate reaction.
His body moved on impulse; for someone who’d faced enough damage in recent days, he recognised it the instant he felt it. He moved to where Cassius’s bloodlust converged, shielding Charlotte without even knowing.
And yet, Cassius’s words spoke entirely differently from the killing intent of moments ago.
"I have a proposal... I want to help your sister."
