To His Hell and Back-Chapter 402: A Sleeping Tiger

Cassius then pointed the handwriting on the floor before picking her finger, placing it over the writing and with a hum he noted how there was a large gap between her finger and the strokes of each letters. At first, Arabella hadn’t noticed this unless he had pointed it out.

"The demon is still using your body in the end if it wishes to move," Cassius pointed out, "Then there should be an evidence that you were the one who wrote these letters. But as I suspected the writing is far too thick for your fingers."

Arabella pursed her lips, "But the handwriting underneath that," she pointed to the one that wrote about the curse," it fits my fingers.

"Exactly," he noted, "I suspect that while the demon did use your body last night, it wasn’t the one who had killed the servant. Maybe it had only wrote using, a red liquid to point out to you that there was a curse in this room."

Arabella narrowed her eyes at the writing of the curse, finally realizing that only that part of the writing was made from a red paint.

That would mean that while the demon had used her body, it really wasn’t the one who had killed. The words on the walls didn’t make sense either. If she tries to understand the sentence again, it sounded forced, as if they were made into a sentence to fit the only letter that said "curse".

Maybe the demon had used her body, write the word curse with a red paint, and then... someone had brought the body of the dead servant, pinned them on the wall, and finished the rest of the sentence with blood to blame her for the mistake.

After all she’s a witch and everyone knew the power she possess. They wouldn’t bother to read whether each letters were written by a red paint or blood, and the fact that the dead body is inside her body was enough to point her as a murderer.

If it wasn’t because of Cassius and Minister Lius earlier, wouldn’t someone pull her straight to the prison? They wouldn’t try to hear the words of a witch who had turn what was once impossible possible, so without a question, they would have pushed and try her as a murderer.

Was it someone else’s plan in the castle to blame her as a murderer on purpose? Because they don’t like the idea of having a witch as their Queen?

But the fact that the body here wouldn’t have been nailed on the wall without anyone’s notice unless they uses witchcraft meant that the perpetrator works with a witch or a witch themselves.

So perhaps it was simply someone who wishes for her demise.

The witch Wendy perhaps?

"Cassius," she then muttered, "If I had been taken away to be questioned for the servant’s body,"

"Your existence is as important as mine, no one in this castle would do that daringly," he pointed out and she nodded.

"I know but I wanted to know if I was taken away, would I be tried immediately?"

Cassius shook his head, "After the last death of a poor minister during my father’s reign, the criminal would only be put on dungeon the first day. An air tight dungeon until it is time for interrogation."

"But it’s possible to kill me there since I would be far from your sight and others who wants to protect me," Arabella pointed and Cassius raised his eyebrows.

"So their goal was to kill you." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Yes, but Morpheus wouldn’t want me dead since I still serve a purpose, so perhaps this isn’t his doing," Arabella thought to herself. But why is it that she couldn’t help and feel that this was the doing of the witch?

Cassius stared at her while she deepened in her ponder and at that moment, her words, what she pointed out, everything had made him wonder if now Morpheus had changed his mind. If perhaps he realized that by killing Arabella, it would cause her magic to explode.

But why would he want that to happen?

If Arabella dies... her magic explode, the entire Versailles would be wiped off the map.

Then.

Then even the sorcerers couldn’t leave their castle for good and die?

What was missing? Something vital was missing, something he needed to find out from the sorcerers but he couldn’t tell yet.

"First off," Cassius then uttered, bending down to take off his shoes and placing it underneath her bare feet, "We should move our room from here. My father’s room is filthy so I suggest going to the other chamber in the royal side."

"I don’t mind everywhere," Arabella said, feeling a little sad that they have to move as this was the room she had first came to when she had just met Cassius. Thinking about him who had first told her to sleep on the floor made her to smile. Everything has changed and for some reason she could feel that they were about to reach the end of their journey soon.

"Then a room where you can see the night view even better," Cassius suggest, walking away as she studied the curse that was left in the small parchment paper.

When Arabella entered her study, her gaze fell on the parchment spread across her desk. The strange markings seemed to twist and breathe on the page, and she dragged her fingers through her hair in frustration. It was a curse. That much she knew. But not one she recognized as Circe had never once mentioned anything like it.

What kind of curse is this? It had been nullified, she was certain, by the demon inside her.

"Can we talk to a demon?" she murmured aloud, not realizing how clearly the words had carried. Both men who had walked back and forth in her study room while studying and discussing magic on the whiteboard shot to their feet instantly, flanking her as though she had just set fire to the room.

"NO! Absolutely not!" Lastor shouted.

"Bad idea! Terrible idea!" Xavier chimed in, bobbing his head so fervently he looked like a startled bird.

Arabella glanced between the two of them, then sighed and offered a faint smile. "I meant the demon inside me."

"Still a bad idea!" Lastor said quickly, hands flailing as though he could fan away the thought. "Demons are born of Hell. They’re the twisted remains of sinful humans, cast out from the gates of paradise. They hate those who can enter paradise, so whenever they speak to us, it’s only to deceive, to drag us into sin so we will be damned like them!"

"Yes, yes, exactly!" Xavier agreed eagerly, his voice tripping over itself. "Nine lies for every ten words, the sorceress told me! They live to trick humans. If they can corrupt one, their rank in Hell climbs higher! It’s the same as stepping on the tail of a sleeping tiger, a grave idea to behold."

Seeing their fervent attempt to stop her from talking to the demon, all Arabella could do was smile while looking to them, finally giving up on the idea.

They were right. What if in her attempt the demon only tricks her even more and it seems that the demon inside her was really full of trick. According to the "future" that Xavier had seen she would ask the demon for help and in exchange for the help, the demon ask of her something that sounded vital to her, perhaps something that could endanger them even further.

The only reason why the demon had pointed out the curse that seemed to be planted in her room was only because the demon didn’t want her to die. After all, it’s living inside her body and if she dies, the demon would die along with her.

"Uhm..." the young voice that had spoke turns to come from the shy young man who was hiding half of his shy face with a book.

Noah’s red eyes looked at Arabella shyly before he pursed his lips into a soft smile and murmured, "Princess, about the curse on your hands..."

Noah is a vampire, a vampire through and through but it seems his family was saved by Circe and since admired witches to the point of learning witchcraft despite not being able to ever uses them.

When Noah was brought to the castle by Atlas, he tried to end his life and upon finding that out, Atlas had saved him.

The other week, Arabella had seen the young boy, listless at the castle’s garden and offered him to study to pass time and ever since then, she could see the boy’s eyes glitter whenever he sees her, like an admiration of seeing an older sister.

It touched Arabella’s heart, especially with how polite and kind he was. A little shy but would always help Ariel with the laundry.

For now though, Ariel wasn’t in the study room because she insisted on cleaning the castle. Though she had rose to the rank of being her sister and didn’t have to clean the castle like a servant, Ariel always told her that unless she moved around the house, she wouldn’t feel at peace.

It seems though Ariel didn’t say it by words, she misses the other sorcerers in the castle of sorcerers. After all, they were mostly innocent.

Arabella could tell that and though she would help her sister meet the sorcerers with the castle still under Morpheus’s government, she was afraid that it would bring more harm than good.

"Princess?" Noah asked out, calling her "princess" because Xavier and Lastor had taught him to do so.

"Yes, sorry Noah, what about the curse?"

"I think the curse isn’t complete," pointed Noah as he walked carefully with hands wrung at the front of his waist, "I think it should have been pinned and came with a straw doll."