Servitude

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jacob only had the memory of me travelling from the baby's room to the exit, so we had to find that first. Jacob assumed it would be near the room we had left earlier, but instead of returning to it, we went up some winding stairs, which brought us to a small landing. It was slightly familiar to me, but I didn't know the way.

Jacob stood in the centre, then shut his eyes and pointed at the opposite side of the hallway that we were standing in. I took that as confirmation, and I walked that way, where I was brought to some more stairs.

I walked down them and through another hallway until we reached a small black door. Jacob pushed it open, and we walked out.

I was a bit surprised to find nobody stood by it. It must have been a bit of a weak spot.

When I turned around to look back at the door, it was gone.

No door in sight, just the wall of the castle.

Jacob hadn't turned like me. He had just kept walking into the woods. I jogged up behind him and we walked in silence.

I knew he just wanted to get home, so I thought maybe he wanted to just walk in silence. I didn't know how long it would take us, but if he wanted to be quiet the whole time, I could do that. I have always been very good at that.

We had been walking for a couple of hours when the sky started to turn dark, and we made camp in a dense area well hidden from the beaten path. There was only room for one tent, so we used mine as it was easier to put up and pack away compared to Jacob's, which was very fancy with a complicated build setup.

We decided not to make any kind of fire; instead, we just nibbled on the few things Jacob had managed to gather back at the castle or on the walk. We had some berries and a small roll of bread each. It wasn't much, but it would tie us over for now.

Once we finished eating, we brought our stuff into the tent and got ready to sleep. It was relatively spacious when it was just me, but it was a bit of a squeeze with two people and two full backpacks.

Now that I had the time, I changed into something less form-fitting in case we needed to make a quick escape. Jacob had done the same, but he didn't have a sleeping bag like mine; instead, he had a duvet which he wrapped tightly around himself. The nights I had stayed outside told me that he might get a bit cold tonight. I turned to him.

"Are you sure you will be warm enough with just that duvet?" He looked down at it and then down to my sleeping bag.

"My tent is very well insulated and has an automatic blow-up bed, so on my way here, I was quite comfortable."

I smiled. He was definitely going to get cold. I looked down at my bag and tried to think of how to keep us both warm since we both needed to get a good rest.

I pulled my zip all the way to the bottom of the bag and spread it out. It was very big, probably the same size as a double when zipped out. I told him to wait outside the tent while I arranged everything. He passed me the duvet and went out the flap. I left it open while I quickly laid his duvet on the floor. Luckily it was pretty fluffy, so it gave us a good base so we didn't touch the cold floor, and it would keep us warmer. I then told him to come back in, and he zipped up the front.

He laid down, and I threw the sleeping bag over us. "If you get too cold, just let me know, and we can try snuggling up, but it should be good like this." I made my makeshift pillow with some clothes, and Jacob copied me doing the same thing with his own.

"Daisy?"

"Yes."

"Thank you." He said it very sleepily, so I grabbed his hand and gave it a small squeeze, which he returned.