𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈 𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄// 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐨 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐲 𝐀𝐔

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟔𝟐// 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐬

Nico felt like he was going to shatter. 

He had grown so used to shoving bad memories to the back of his head, to refusing to look at them so he wouldn’t become overwhelmed. But now the memories were clawing their way to the surface, refusing to be ignored. He was starting to have bizarre episodes, where the terror grabbed him by the throat and twisted a knife in his chest. He avoided going out when he could, terrified he would have one in public. 

Dear gods, he needed to keep himself together. His friends needed him. The gods-forsaken Kingdom needed him. As long as he could keep the episodes behind closed doors, he would be fine. 

He would be fine. 

☀️☀️☀️ 

Nico looked up from the book with a sigh. “Find anything yet?” 

“Nope.” Hazel glanced up at him, then back down at the document on the table. “No documentation of any experiments taking place. Not in the files of the royalty, or in the files of the healers. 

“They must be hidden somewhere, then.” He glanced around Hazel’s foyer, as though the secret was hidden right before him. “Have the prisoners said anything about where the documents could be?” 

“Nothing yet.” Hazel steepled her fingers together. “I think they’ve given us all the information they can.” 

A darker topic surfaced in his mind. He dared to speak it aloud. “What are we going to do with the prisoners, when we’re done interrogating them?” 

Hazel was silent for a moment, her amber eyes dark. “They will be charged with treason.” She unfolded her hands to tap her fingers on the table. “They will be executed, when the court finds them guilty.” Her expression went cold. “It won’t be a spectacle. I’m not my father. We will take them out to the desert and give them a potion, then leave them there like they asked. It’ll be painless.” 

Nico tilted his head. “Forgive me for this, but…you want it to be painless?” 

“I’m not my father,” she repeated, her voice shaking slightly. “I am not cruel. We will not sink to the level of the Black Hand, who would’ve prolonged our deaths. We are better than them.” 

Nico nodded. “I understand, I think.” He exhaled through his nose. “We should get back on track. Where do we look next?” 

An incredulous look flashed across Hazel’s features. She leaped out of her chair, knocking it to the ground, before sprinting into her room. Startled, Nico stumbled to his feet and followed her. She found her pacing her bedroom, glaring at the floor and stomping her foot here and there. 

“Um…care to explain?” 

“My father was cruel. He was also secretive. I wouldn’t put it past him to have some kind of secret compartment in this gods-forsaken place.” She looked up at him, something like desperation in her face. “Can you help me?” 

After several minutes of fruitless searching, they brought in Sorcerer Torrington. It took him twenty minutes to cast a spell and find the compartment in the far right of the room, next to Hazel’s wardrobe. He drew a series of symbols on the floor for another twenty minutes, before cracking it. The floor rumbled slightly, and a section of the marble shifted, revealing a small space full of files. 

“Thank you, Sorcerer!” Hazel snatched up the folders, nearly dropping them in her haste. She shoved one folder into Nico’s hand, then into Alabaster’s. “Come on.” She rushed back to her foyer without another word. 

It took excruciating hours for them to go through the documents. Most of it was medical jargon that made Nico’s head hurt. There were a few things that stood out, like diagrams of the crawlers, though these must have been earlier stages of the experiments, since these were smaller than the ones Nico had fought in–no, he was not bringing up that memory right now. Keep it locked up.