CORRUPTED FILE [Lumina Chronicles Past Drafts]

Level Sixteen

[MAGGIE'S PoV]

I squished my face between my hands as I walked away from Kindle, trying to calm the burning blush that colored my cheeks. "Remember you're still mad at him," I muttered to myself. I climbed the stairs to the roof, thankful for the cool air there. "You're still mad at him, and he has a girlfriend."

I went to my easel, a gift from Faye, and began setting up for the day's painting session.

Girlfriend? Would that be the right term for... whatever his relationship with the queen was? I wasn't sure, but regardless, thinking about it made me want to gag. What in the world did he see in her? And then there was the fact that the queen was married, which was a whole other can of worms that I especially didn't want to touch. Kindle's business was his own.

"...What are you muttering about...?" Carlyle asked as he materialized to my left. He was difficult to see in the bright, late-afternoon sunlight.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the stupid blush from returning. "Nothing," I answered, maybe a bit too defensively. But it wasn't like I could just say "Oh, y'know, Kindle and his relationship status."

Carlyle would get a kick out of that, and use it as blackmail fodder for weeks. Obviously a ghost who could only communicate with two people didn't have much of a use for blackmail, but seeing as one of those people was Kindle, I couldn't give Carlyle the chance.

"...Well, I could find out if I wanted to... but I'm too nice..." Carlyle said with a wink.

I wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, but then again he was a ghost, there were probably lots of things he could do that I didn't know—or wouldn't want to know.

I took the lids off the paint jars and mixed a few drops of oil into the colors that were starting to stiffen, then I pulled the canvas out from under the chair, where I stored it in case of rain. "Where were you all day?"

"...I um... places..." Carlyle answered hesitantly.

I raised an eyebrow. "That sounds pretty secretive for a ghost."

"...I suppose it doesn't matter if I tell you..." Carlyle ran a hand through his floating ginger hair. "...I was keeping an eye on Lydia for a while, but all she did was play piano and read romance novels... it's very boring to watch..." He wavered in place, maybe the ghost version of shifting nervously from foot to foot. "...So I watched Seraphim for a while instead... he looks like his normal self when he sleeps... and today his dreams were so peaceful..." Carlyle put his face in his hands.

I set down my brush and frowned. "His dreams?" I asked, but then his first statement registered and I found a more pressing question, "Wait, why were you 'keeping an eye' on Lydia?"

Carlyle moved his hands. "...For Kindle... Speaking of, I should probably go make sure everything is okay..."

Before I could ask him to elaborate, he vanished before my eyes.

With a sigh, I turned my attention back to the canvas and continued carefully filling in the shadow of Kindle's jaw. I tilted my head to examined his eyes, still unpainted pencil, since I was saving them for last. He didn't strike me as the creepy type that would have an invisible person keep tabs on his girlfriend, so what did Carlyle mean?

I started to mix a new shade of brown for Kindle's stubble (he really needed to shave) when—

"...Maggie, come quick...!" Carlyle's shout came from the bottom of the stairs.

The fear in his tone got me off my stool in an instant, and I raced down the stairs to meet him. "What, what is it?"

"...It's Kindle, hurry, follow me..." He floated swiftly down the hall and I ran beside him.