Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

87 - Chapter LXXXVII: A Cacophony of Circumstances

Two hours later...

She felt like she was going mad. Not to say that she was doing so without purpose, thought Reinette. Simply that the departure of both Lucian and Rena, followed by an hour without news, was causing her to feel like climbing the walls. Which in the scope of a domestic household meant continuing her evening in quietude.

That being a sad hour of puttering before she began to question why she was wrapping a fourth layer of newspaper around a bronze paperweight that had already been packed. All while ignoring the mantlepiece. A harbinger of doom, as her mentor would have called it. Realising that eventually she'd have to look at the pendant. Perhaps even fondle it.

As though she could see herself in the glass, all her years of emotion trapped beneath a frozen surface.

Or...

She quickly put the pendant down.

...cleave to the ideals of her mentor, she decided fiercely, reaching for a fifth layer of newspaper instead. Because it was just...another...pendant. And even if the thing she thought was happening was indeed happening, then it was better to survive it...and get as far away from the house as she could. Far from him...and the things that were not hers to have. Things that would eventually kill her because they had no place in his world...

...or hers.

The same voice telling her that she ought to spend the next hour in a mind-numbing penance, metaphorically whipping herself, while meditating on her old journals. The few scratchings from when she first arrived in his household. Things she'd not forgotten...but had put aside. The question of her name. Her search for Áris...and how she came to be in Budapest forty-six years ago.

As though the fear of her past, the person she had once been, had rooted itself in her conscience. Causing her to shy away from truth or questions, lest they shake her to her core. And yet how fickle her choices had become.

How fruitless.

Even now, focusing time and energy...not on saying her farewells to Sabine and Allegra, but on tracking a creature whose...drug-induced choices were...entirely...none of her concern, she thought, looking at the clock. And normally...normally...she would have waited for Rena to return...

...but there were extenuating circumstances, she decided, shutting the door behind her and venturing down the hallway. Rena her only meal-ticket and the cook having failed to send a tray that evening for whatever reason. Curiosity, but primarily hunger causing her to walk, hands folded, eyes down, veil in place, down the stairs, aware that there were eyes on her back, but determined now to reach the necessary target.

The buffet.

Thankfully deserted, as most lycans seemed to have headed to the other end of the house for parlour games. Her foray to the last table revealing an unexpectedly vast array of options.

Steamed.

Spiced.

Iced.

She was furtively opening the different containers, peering inside. Fresh hare. An aged boar. A marrow-based compote. Still searching for the one thing for which she had a hankering, but could not find. No hawk's blood...

...and no alcohol.

Odd.

Perhaps they were saving it for the next evening, she thought. Picking up a porcelain bowl, opting to partake of her dinner as a soup, and serving herself from the closest option. Not drunk this time and therefore able to conduct the entire business without spilling. The lighter taste of quail's blood something that would hopefully get her back to her quarters without incident.