A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 195: We, Love-

"...whoops, sorry," I lifted my feet out of his face, having teleported a bit too close to the wall where he pulled books from. "You shouldn't move so suddenly like that, I could've phased through your head."

"...to what do I owe the pleasure of another late night visit, Young Miss?"

"I'm rescheduling my talk with them."

"From Janie to when, might I ask?"

"Now."

Martin stared at me for just a moment. Like, for once, he had reached the point of ceasing to try and understand me.

But the moment passed where I couldn't see anything of his expression but a blank slate, rising up, pulling out his notebook, and beginning to write something down. "I will return soon," he said, leaving the truly copious stack of books he'd compiled on the ground before leaving the office. My gaze followed him until my head couldn't turn anymore.

So I waited in place for a few moments, staring towards the wall. Getting bored, looking down to the books, and making them float up for me to see the titles.

Oho. Someone wants to become a lawyer.

Kidding...we had all sorts of books in the manor, and there were a lot of legal ones to deal with territorial issues. I wasn't surprised those kinds of things could come from his shelves, or after the night prior that he was looking at them at all. In fact, the only point of surprise was that he'd bothered to stack an obviously-banned book in the middle of it, one that no doubt came from Father's...collection.

The one I thought I confiscated completely and stuck in the basement of my dungeon...how did this escape my spell?

Pulling it upward, it twisted through the air for me to see its title underneath the glamor put over it, making it look like an innocent noble lineage book.

The Effects of Holy Magic on Demonic Creatures.

Oooh...that's disturbing.

Why would he have something like that? If anything, I would've expected a "Demons' physiology" book like Grandfather had.

But Martin returned soon enough so that I did not have to ponder it for too long, merely slipping it out, replacing it with an actual noble lineage book - since my storage actually had quite a few of them - and following him to where my parents had roused themselves in anticipation of my arrival.

Anastasia and Earl were ready. Or at least, that was the scent their auras gave off when standing, for some reason, in the doorway of the earl's room, where we'd all been sleeping just earlier as Mother was jealous and sneaked into bed with us after Father took advantage of my sleeping state. Martin stopped just to the side, letting me look at them with the stoniest eyes over my scarf, wondering what the heck they thought they were doing standing perfectly still and unsure what to do. I'd calmed down from earlier, having had time to process it, having dinner, being with Magaris, seeing Sarah. They'd stewed long after I left, it seemed, and were only more nervous than before.

Especially after Martin had not taken his sweet time to explain to them, before rushing back to make sure I was still there and hadn't flaked out, what exactly I was there for.

"Come."

The bedroom seemed too comfortable for that kind of conversation, but I'd learned my lesson with them and parlors. So I decided to make a change of venue that wouldn't end up scarring anyone, and wouldn't be too comfortable, nor too formal.

"-Martin..."

"What about him?"

"..."