Claimed by the Prince of Darkness novel Chapter 232

Chapter 232: Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Ruelle stared at King Septimus, who had refused to give her a direct answer and bothered only to leave her with a clue. Lucian was his nephew. Did he not understand that time was of the essence?

Seeing Maude still waiting by the door, Ruelle offered the king a reluctant bow before stepping out of the prayer hall.

’I would brush up on what I learned during Sexton.’

She followed Maude down the corridor, her brows drawing together. The first subject that came to mind was Seduction Techniques. She immediately shook her head. Surely it wasn’t that. Not Mr. Jinxy’s class either.

What about haematology? Her steps slowed slightly. Lucian’s blood was what the corruption was tainting, after all. She tried to recall everything she had been taught about it. The composition of blood, the difference between human and vampire bodies, and the way certain ailments travelled through it. But corruption was not an ailment. At least, she did not think it was.

Ruelle’s mouth tightened.

Maude glanced over her shoulder. "Is something wrong, Miss Ruelle?"

"No." Ruelle’s answer came too quickly. She offered a smile. "I was just thinking."

But if there was another way... wouldn’t Lucian know about it? He knew far more about vampires and corruption than she ever had. And if he did know, but had never mentioned it to her, was it perhaps because the answer carried a cost he didn’t want her to consider?

Lady Maxine appeared at the other end of the corridor, and Ruelle slowed as they approached one another. She said,

"I heard you were looking for me."

"I was," Lady Maxine replied, resting a hand lightly against Ruelle’s back. She gave Maude a small nod, and the housekeeper bowed before leaving them. "The weather has cleared, and I thought you could use some fresh air. I asked the servants to set up tea and food outside."

Ruelle glanced towards the windows lining the corridor. She had hardly paid attention to the weather these past few days. She followed Lady Maxine down the corridor, their heels clicking against the ground. When she stepped outside onto the terrace, she felt the rays of sun touch her.

"Ruelle!" Hailey waved for her to sit next to her. Beside her sat Angelina and Lady Ravencroft, Lady Maxine’s mother.

There was tea, short cakes and finger sandwiches resting on the table.

As Ruelle crossed the terrace, the winter sun warmed her healing face. She lowered herself into the chair beside Hailey. The cushion was soft, the tea already steaming in a cup set before her, and for a moment the ordinary comfort of it made it feel like nothing was amiss.

Lady Ravencroft nudged a small jam tart towards Ruelle. She said, "Try this one, darling. Lucian asked the cook to make them."

"Do you remember the last time we offered him sweets? He wouldn’t touch a single one." Lady Maxine laughed softly at the memory. "For someone who doesn’t care for them, he seems remarkably good at choosing which ones taste best."

The Ravencrofts, King Septimus and Lady Maxine’s family had stayed behind at the Slaters’ mansion. They tried to make things feel as normal as possible. One might have thought they were beginning to move forward, but Ruelle could sense the unease beneath it. Everyone was waiting for something to happen.

Yet, no one knew which shoe was going to drop first.

Ruelle accepted the jam tart, turning it over before she bit into it.

"His Highness liked these too," Lady Ravencroft said with a warm chuckle, nodding at the small tray of tarts. "He had them packed before he left this morning. Though I believe they weren’t completely baked."

Ruelle’s attention was pulled towards her and she asked, "Did he return to the castle?"

"Not yet." Lady Ravencroft’s smile softened. "He went along with Sawyer to scout around the Sylvan mansion to keep an eye on things there."

Since the mirror’s location had been found, the Sylvan mansion had been kept under watch. They needed to make sure no one came to use it or discovered that the mirror had somehow become whole again.

After spending some more time with them, Ruelle finally excused herself and Hailey tagged along with her.

"Don’t worry, Ruelle." Hailey slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Even if Mr. S doesn’t wake... nobody is going to blame you for it. I know it is easy to say, but don’t be hard on yourself."

"It’s not what is weighing on my mind," Ruelle confessed.

Hailey turned to look at her with one eyebrow lifting. She said, "I am all ears. I’d like to ease your mind," before joking lightly, "though I doubt I’d be as efficient at it as Lucian."

Ruelle’s footsteps paused, and Hailey’s followed a beat later, her skirts settling as she stopped mid-stride. Ruelle glanced down both ends of the corridor, which was empty. Her voice then dropped,

"It has to do with what we learned in Sexton. The classes. The subjects they covered."

Hailey blinked. Whatever she had expected, it clearly wasn’t this. Her cheeks coloured, a warm, embarrassed pink creeping up from her collar.

"You do remember I barely scraped through most of those, right?" she said, half a laugh caught in her throat. "I passed on the strength of your notes and sheer luck. There’s nothing retained in here," she pointed at her head. She then asked, "But why do you want to go through the subjects again?"

Ruelle recognised the look in Hailey’s eyes. Her friend seemed to be wondering whether grief had finally driven her to the point of voluntarily revisiting classwork.

Pulling Hailey to the side, Ruelle said softly, "King Septimus said there’s a way to help Lucian."

Hailey’s eyes widened at those words. She exclaimed, "That’s excellent news! You should get to it right away—"

"But I don’t know what it is," Ruelle cut in, her voice quieter. "He didn’t tell me what it was. He only gave me a clue and left it at that."

A scowl formed on Hailey’s face. "What is wrong with him?" She caught herself, waving a hand as if physically batting the question away. "Don’t answer that. Maybe the answer is easy?"

Ruelle hoped that it was so. Unless King Septimus overestimated her calibre in Sexton.

"In a way... if it was something he could do, he would have tried to help, right?" Hailey said, thinking hard, her words coming slowly as she worked through the logic out loud. "Maybe it is something only you can do. Something with your spell or—"

"Like potions..." Ruelle murmured.

She had walked into that room still shaky from the morning before she had seen Lucian break a student’s face with his bare hands. She had missed the beginning of Mr. Savantique’s introduction but had paid attention once he began to speak about the potion.

"I know what King Septimus meant!"

A grin broke across Hailey’s face. "Squeezing my brain does wonders sometimes," she laughed, wiping an imaginary sweat from her brow.

"He mentioned the purest victims being one of the ingredients. Forbidden," she breathed, adrenaline building, the pieces clicking into place.

Hailey frowned. "Victims?"

"Not the ingredient itself. The person used to grow it, which is the boline plant," she whispered. Her lips widened, a spark catching in her chest. The kind of bright, reckless hope she hadn’t felt in days. "Mr Savantique was talking about Boline. The victim had to be someone the witch was attached to! It is the Belladonna potion"

Hailey’s smile faltered at this, her head tilting slightly in doubt before she asked, "But, Ruelle... Aren’t we going to do that already?"

"Not that. King Septimus was worried how it would affect him because of the meddling repercussions. Of the change caused by time!" Ruelle explained to her friend. "I should go check it!" and she ran.

The sound of her shoes echoed through the corridor before she ended up in the mansion’s library. Hailey followed her shortly, startled with the urgency, and she asked,

"What are you looking for?"

"Anything on Belladonna. Anything on witches, actually. We can narrow it down later," Ruelle replied, walking past the racks and beginning to scan the shelves one by one, her fingers trailing along spines. "If I remember correctly, it has a dark blue binding."

"Okay," Hailey nodded to help her. "Something blue. Blue," she murmured as she began to look through before pulling one of them. "Origin of halflings. Not the one," and she put it back.

The library was vast, shelves rising higher than either of them could reach without a ladder, the air thick with the smell of old leather and paper and dust. Candles burned in wall sconces, casting long shadows between the stacks, and somewhere above them a window let in the last grey light of the fading afternoon.

Ruelle was too focussed, going through the books and pulling random blue ones, before she finally found the one. "This is the one, Hailey. I found it."

Hailey quickly hurried to stand beside Ruelle while the latter turned the pages with her fingers trembling with anticipation.

Ruelle’s finger stopped at the line and she said softly, "This works with potion and spell, which has never been attempted before. There are also side effects."

"Is it going to steal your life force?" Hailey asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"No. Not life force. It said—What is known cannot be returned to ignorance. The one who learns beside the witch shall no longer walk with the witcher as they once would have. What is there won’t be there without consequences..." Ruelle stared at the words.

"It sounds quite ominous..." Hailey murmured with worry.

Ruelle, who was quiet, finally realised why King Septimus refused to give her a proper solution. Her eyes moved to Hailey, who blinked at her. Because the moment the spell would be cast, things wouldn’t be the same for Hailey and her.

Closing the book quickly, Ruelle slid it back into its place on the shelf.

"Ruelle?"

"Hailey, forget I brought this up and don’t bring it up with anyone else," Ruelle pressed at her friend. She doubted Hailey understood the exact meaning and she didn’t want to draw her into it further.

Leaving the library, the two women began to walk through the corridors, their steps slower now. When they turned a corner and saw Lucian’s silhouette at the far end of the hall, Hailey gave Ruelle’s arm a brief squeeze and quietly excused herself. He stood next to the tall window, the last grey light of the afternoon falling across his face, casting silvered edges on his dark coat, his single eye catching the fading sun like a coal that had not yet gone cold.

Ruelle walked toward him on her own.

When his hand extended to her, she placed hers in it, feeling him pull her closer as if the whole corridor and the hour it belonged to had been arranged solely for this small motion.

"I was looking for you," Lucian said, the darkness in his gaze continuing to linger, the shadow of something he hadn’t said yet still coiled behind his words.

"You found me." Ruelle smiled, and even after everything, the smile came easily around him.

He lifted her hand and carefully brushed the faint dust from her sleeve, his thumb passing once over her knuckles, the motion slow enough to be a kind of devotion rather than mere tidiness. He didn’t let go of her hand once the dust was gone.

"I did." His eye returned to hers, as though searching for something buried just beneath the surface of her face. Then he said, "I have arranged a meeting with the Sylvans tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," she murmured.

The Boline plant would sprout by tomorrow morning, thought Ruelle. It was only right to set things in motion rather than let it drag on any longer. Not to mention, there was guilt at the thought of leaving Brother Lachlan to decompose in the room. The faint smell had begun drifting through halls but no one spoke about it.

Lucian’s fingers tightened around hers, just slightly, a silent acknowledgement of her worries. He said, "I will be right there with you."

Ruelle looked at him and for a moment she let herself simply lean into the warmth of his hand instead of the cold weight of everything she hadn’t told him yet. Worried it would alter things between them.

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