Sitting up properly in bed, you let out a shaky sigh. Deep breaths, holding the air in before exhaling slowly. It was just a dream, no matter how real it felt. You find little comfort in the mantra. The heat of the room is enveloping, contrasting poorly against your cold and clammy skin. The neckline of your chemise is an inch and a half below the collarbone, and even that feels like it’s choking you. You almost want to rip the thing off.

Pushing your hair back to smooth it over, you look for any sign of disturbance. Looming shadows dance on the wall, taunting you in some way, you’re sure. The bedroom is modest for a castle; a bed large enough for two people (maybe three, if everyone squeezed in), ornate oak wood furniture, paintings of people you didn’t know or care for. A fireplace with no wood and a square carpet in the hearth. Where there used to be a cross above the bed, there’s now the sigil of Los Illuminados.

Your book and the scraps of food remain untouched on the nightstand. The small goblet is still turned on its side in the far corner with the contents spilled onto the floor. Most drinking liquids dry up or soak into the flooring, whatever drink was in the cup has turned into a firm sludge. You think the chair to the vanity is out of place. You don’t go to sit and stare at yourself in the mirror often, but when you do the stool is always tucked under the desk. It’s been pulled out some, though. 

You don’t want to think about it. It makes you feel all-overish. You think that maybe it hasn’t changed position at all; maybe you’re so rattled that you’re seeing signs where there are none. 

…

You’re being stupid, you decide. 

When the fears that you tell yourself are unfounded are assuaged, you bring your attention back to yourself. To another problem of sorts. Chewing on your bottom lip, you stare down at your lap, covered by the cotton blanket. Before you can work yourself up over it, you push back the blanket and lift the chemise skirt to the hinge of your hips so you can look between your legs.

You reach a hand down past the waistband of your underwear to check. Warm, but not blood. You don’t feel as relieved as you think you should. It’s coming up on the second month that you’ve been without menstruation. It’s just as likely to be stress related as it is anything else. You fix your dress and pull the blanket back over your legs, sticking your tongue in your cheek, mulling things over.

As if on cue, there’s the sound of a key being put into place and a lock being turned. Your heart rate spikes and your eyes widen again, trained on the door. Should you get up? You’re not sure if it’s worth hiding, the window certainly isn’t an option. People come and go from time to time, but in the dead of night?  The fork is still on your plate, you could reach over and use it. Maybe it’s better to just pretend you’re asleep, you shouldn’t even be up—

There’s a few clicks from the other side, and the door opens.

It’s that guy. Louis—Luis. 

He looks surprised to see that you’re not only awake, but staring dead at him as if you’ve seen an apparition. It doesn’t stop him from coming in and letting the door close behind him, but it does give him pause. “Woah, easy there. It’s just me.” He smiles, hands up disarmingly. It does put you at ease, for what it’s worth. Out of the rotation of men that could have walked through that door, Luis is most preferred.

He’s nice.

“I didn’t know the lady of this castle was a night owl,” He steps further into the room. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.” Your shoulders relax slightly though you aren’t able to make yourself seem any less distressed. Even if it is just him, generally everytime someone has come in here, your day has gotten worse. “Did something happen?” You cringe at the sound of your voice, hoarse and weak. You have to cough to clear your throat.

“No, no,” Luis looks around, then steps towards the vanity to grab something off of the table. “Ah! This,” He shows it to you, a lighter, embossed with a design that you can’t make out. “it’s my favorite, forgot where I put it, and I thought that I miiight have left it in your room.” With the flick of his wrist, he pops off the swinging top of the lighter to light the flame, checking if it works, then looking back at you. You’re still staring at him blankly. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, trying to smile. Someone’s got to keep the mood up.

Ah. Right. He had swung by recently, let himself in to check on you. He must have left it then. That was yesterday, or maybe it was two days ago? Why hadn’t you noticed? It’s not like you could have rang the guy up and told him yourself, but still. You frown, hardly able to recount the exact time. The days all blend together, it seems.  “You had to get it now?” You ask, blinking. Luis puts his hands up in a “well, what can you do?” motion. “I was trying to use a different one till I found it, but it ran out of fluid.” He shrugs, tapping the top of the lighter with his finger before sticking it in one of his jacket pockets. “This one is just special.”

There’s a beat of silence, and he takes a glance around the room, making a mental note to bring another book for you the next time he gets a chance to visit. “Well, I’m very sorry to have disturbed you,” He goes away from the vanity, heading for the exit. “I’ll be leaving, if you–” “Wait,” Luis pauses, perking up at your request, waiting for more like you said.

Swallowing thickly, your fingers grasp at the sheets. The sense of claustrophobia seems so much more acute now, heightened by Luis’s imminent departure. “Where are you going?” You watch him glance to the door, then back at you, one hand scratching the nape of his neck awkwardly. “Me? Uh, just going to walk around. Look for something to do, until I get tired.” You’re sure he’s lying, but you try not to hold it against him. If he was going to do something important, he probably wouldn’t be allowed to tell you anyway.

“Can I come with you?’ 

“Come with me?” He echoes stupidly.

You’re already slipping out from under the blanket before Luis can deny you, feet touching the cold floor. If you weren’t so determined, you might have drawn back in favor of the warm bed. You take three steps forward and he takes one back. “I need some air.” You say. It's both a plea and a demand at the same time. “I can't stay in here.” Luis looks at you, and you almost want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Why isn’t he saying yes already? Whose side is he on here? “Please?”

Luis looks at you with a nervous smile, his gaze flickering around as if looking for a way out of this. “Aha, well… Maybe you should ask the big guy himself when he comes back, I’m sure he’ll–” “He won’t.” You cut him off, taking another step closer. “I’ve asked before.” A white lie. You have enough sense not to ask Krauser stupid things, afterall. Despite this, he still looks conflicted, consternation faltering.

“Just for a little while, I won’t make any trouble for you.” He finally looks at you as if seriously considering your request, if only somewhat. You look up at him, as nicely as you can, throwing in an extra “please?” for good measure. It takes little more wheedling before he cracks. “Alright, fine,” Before you can get too giddy, Luis puts a hand up, finger pointed as if to tell you to hold your enthusiasm. 

“But he cannot find out about this, seriously.” 

“I know.” 

“If he asks–” 

“He’s not going to ask because he won’t find out.”

Despite his acquiescence, you can tell Luis isn’t completely on board with this. You’ll think of ways to make it up to him, surely. As much as you want to take this opportunity to your advantage, it might not be a good idea to push it. You’re already asking Luis for quite the favor. You occupy yourself with putting on your one (1) pair of shoes while Luis gathers his nerves. Hand-made leather that comes to a blunt point, the heel of the shoe continually scrapes against your own in a way that socks won’t help with. At least it’s a pretty mauve color.

The first time you asked for any sort of footwear, Krauser made a face and cocked his brow. Said “Why? You’re not going anywhere.” You wished you could have punched him and have it affect him in a meaningful way. For what it’s worth, he did bring a pair of worn slippers the next time around. Not exactly your style or good for anything other than shuffling around your cage of a room, but they fit decently, and you weren’t going to risk having him take them back. 

You glance back at the room, chewing on your lower lip in thought. It’s not like you have anything else to put on or better shoes to wear. You haphazardly grab a shawl from the armoire. Woven and soft, but it smells like a cobweb. It was thrown in there along with some other clothes that Krauser generously dumped onto you upon your complaints. He’d told you to make it work. They weren’t torn up or excessively dirty, so you’d make do.

Asshole. He doesn’t subject himself to wearing old rags. 

You step out of the room with Luis, and he seems more nervous than you are. He looks down both ends of the halls, then ushers you out behind him. “Does the lady want to go anywhere in particular?” He looks back at you, and you look behind you to make sure there isn’t anyone there. “I don’t think I can take you to the garden, lot’s of creepy-crawlies in there.” He laughs lowly, voice hushed and steps deliberate and careful. Even if Krauser isn’t around, there’s still the problem of sneaking past chanting cloaked figures with shuffling gaits.

Not exactly a herculean task, of course. 

“Anywhere is fine.” You murmur back, clinging to the shawl over your arms and shoulders. Despite the candlelight lining the castle halls, the lighting isn’t any less eerie than it was in the room. “I’m just sick of being in there.” Luis nods in understanding, trying to be careful with his wording. “Right, of course.”

You trail after him, looking up and around the halls. The gothic windows are almost opaque with the frosted glass and there are more paintings decorating the walls. Carefully made statuettes sit on carved pedestals as if they were collectors items. There’s an icy draft in the corridors, and you’re surprised to think that your room is warmer. Luis offers commentary on the decor choices, on some of the portraits in passing, and on how the majority of the rooms are sparsely used for their original purpose.

The sprawling passageways seem never ending; arched doorways etched with animal faces, high vaulted ceilings and plates of armor standing at attention with no knight inside of them. There was even an indoor fountain, and Luis made brief mention of a cable car system somewhere around. You store that information in the back of your mind for now. The current room has more paintings on the wall, dining chairs with no table and shelves of books with peeling spines.

You stop in front of one portrait in particular, and Luis doesn’t notice that you’ve stopped following until he’s several paces ahead. He turns back, then makes his way to stand by your side. It’s the castellan of the castle, though he’s hardly recognizable if not for the hair and getup. He’s painted with a tepid face and pink complexion, rosy cheeks and delicate lines of a graceful age. His eyes and smile are soft like a girl’s. 

It doesn’t match his overweening nature in the slightest.

 “He looks much better in the painting, doesn’t he?” Luis asks chaffingly, and nudges you with his elbow, and you smile. It shouldn’t be too surprising, you doubt the man would want to be painted in his true image. Guess he did have some level of self awareness. 

You continue your impromptu tour of the castle, Luis careful not to lead you too far from your room, lest you both need to rush back. Your shoes are beginning to dig into your heels, but you try to ignore the sensation. If you pause to look at where the skin has been rubbed raw, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it, you’re sure. It isn’t until you two turn the corner into a gallery hall that you stop dead in your tracks.

There’s someone there. One of the followers of Los Illuminados, tall and robed with a ghastly white face peeking out from under his hood. In his left hand, a flail loosely held. The spikes on the ball dig into the red carpet, the metal chain tarnished a dark color. If you got any closer, you’d be able to see your own reflection in it.

Unmoving and silent, he stands like a false statue, waiting for any reason to act. You shift behind Luis, peeking around him to the cloaked figure. You’re both just as still and quiet as he, waiting for him to make the first move. Seconds pass, then a minute, and you both stare at each other in consternation.

Luis shrugs. “Maybe he’s asleep?” He whispers. “Asleep?” You furrow your brows, the notion ridiculous to you. You’re not sure if those guys even can sleep. You two watch, and the shrouded man doesn’t move. He doesn’t call out to you or call anyone else. The shadow of his hood obscures the upper half of his face, you can’t guess where exactly he’s looking. For all you know, he doesn’t see you at all.

Slowly, Luis begins to tiptoe around him. Without much choice,  you follow closely behind, holding your breath. Eyeing for any sign of rousing, the cloaked man continues to stand there even as you pass. Now that you’re closer, you can see that he’s swaying slightly. As you two slink off behind him, the man makes a noise like a boar’s snort, startling himself awake. You freeze, and Luis takes your wrist to pick up the pace and get out of there, hopefully to a part of the castle without robed figures.

-

Call it intuition or whatnot, but something had been gnawing at Krauser for the past few hours. Something always is, it seems. He’d ignored it until he couldn’t. Even a good roll of tobacco couldn’t get whatever it was off his mind. And so, he finds himself back in that castle, standing on the other side of the door where he’s left you.

He usually wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to do something, especially now when all Saddler seemed to want to do was wait. Maybe he could tolerate it if his patience wasn’t constantly being whittled down. For all the work that Krauser has done to appeal himself to Saddler, he wasn’t even given a seat at the table, much less allowed in the room. 

He’ll have to ruminate over it later, something more pressing is at attention.

Krauser stares at the padlock, fingers twisting the shackle from the body. It’s not actually locked, go figure. Scarred lips press into a thin line, and he tries to reign in his irritation. Great, just fucking great. He enters, a tiny part of him hopes that someone just forgot to lock the door after themselves. The room is empty, of course. The flame in the oil lamp flickers like it’s trying to hold in a laugh. The bedsheets are tossed back, food is still left on the dresser top, and there’s a cup that you apparently threw at the wall, scattered onto the ground now. 

So you really were gone. Couldn’t even be bothered to clean up after yourself. 

Had he missed something? You’d been more servile and withdrawn in the past week, but nothing he chalked up to being flighty. Every sign of you is still here, there’s even a stray hair of yours left on the pillowcase. He thinks it’s mocking him. Your shoes are missing, though. The pair you pestered him about until he decided to be nice and give in. The pair that, up till now, you were letting collect dust in the corner of the room.

God fucking damn it.

-

The cold wind nips at your face and legs, and you wrap the shawl tighter around yourself. It hits your airway and chills your lungs. There’s a hum of crepuscular insects; buzzing that vibrates too deeply in your chest to be from a small mosquito. Luis must feel it too, and must be familiar with it, because he hurries you along the loggia and back inside the castle. He’d said he knew a shortcut, and you would have complained if not for the bouts of fresh air along the route.

You walk through the interior, then back out of a door that leads to a rooftop area. Not the top of the castle, not even close. But it’s open and spacious. There are wooden crates stacked against some walls and a large catapult that isn’t in use. Luis seems a little antsy now, and you suppose it has been a while. The wind blows through his hair and it whistles an odd tune. 

“That’s the garden?” You peel away from your guide, looking over the parapet. Luis comes up behind you, standing close as if afraid you’ll tip over the railing and fall into the garden. It’s a crawling hedge maze with a large fountain in the middle, water flowing from a marble woman’s pot. You can’t see any of the “creepy-crawlies” Luis had mentioned earlier, even in the full moon.

“It used to be a lot nicer, lot’s of flowers,” Luis gestures with his hand. “Now it’s just an eyesore.” “It’s not that bad.” You say, though you can’t see all of the details from up here anyway. Luis only shrugs, gazing out into the night with you.

He’s been lucky enough to not have run into anyone else with you, it makes him wonder if his lucky streak will break by dawn. No good deed goes unpunished, or something like that. This was the least he could do, if nothing else. He doesn’t know where Krauser is, and hasn’t cared to know until now. Maybe he’s in his own encampment away from the castle, maybe he’s fast asleep, or maybe he’s staring you both down through the scope of a rifle, perched somewhere high and out of sight.

He’ll deal with that when the time comes—if the time comes. What the big guy doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Luis glances at you through the corner of his eye, and you seem to be in better spirits. You’re not smiling, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen you do that in the time you’ve been here. But neutrality is better than despair, right? 

You’re both quiet for a long time before a sudden buzzing sound startles you two. It’s so loud that you think it’ll shake the castle’s foundation. It sounds like a heavy drill, it’s hard to tell if it’s one giant bug or many medium-sized ones. You both flinch at the noise, Luis pulling you back from the parapet and towards one of the doors that leads back inside the castle.

“What was that?” “Don’t worry about it, let’s go!” 

-

You were back in bed. Asleep, too.

Krauser stares down at your sleeping form, hair tousled and your shoes kicked off in the corner of the room. The blanket is still strewn haphazardly on the side of the bed, not covering you at all. He looks you over from head to toe, not missing the red mark on your heels where the skin has been irritated and scraped. 

When did you get back? He’d done an exploratory round of the whole goddamn castle, and for all he knows, you could have slipped back into bed like you were never gone just minutes after he left. 

Not that he would even bother with the lower members of the cult (nor would they have an intelligible answer), but the one he did pass in the corridors was sleeping standing up, drooling over himself. And God forbid that old geezer Saddler or the garden gnome that constantly flanks him got wind of your midnight rendezvous. 

Maybe you hadn’t left the room at all, maybe he’s so paranoid that he was seeing things.

…No, no, that’s just stupid. That’s really fucking stupid.

He could wake you up now. He certainly wants to—shake you until you give him some answers. Knock some sense into you while he’s at it. A few ideas run through his mind. It’d be better to do it now rather than wait till tomorrow when you could have come up with a stupid lie. His face settles in contemplation before he decides against it. 

He pulls out the chair from the vanity, taking a seat and running his hands over his face. Rubbing under his eyes in frustration, he looks over you again. He leans over to pull the blanket over you, almost mechanically. At least you’re back, less trouble for him, as much as he might have liked the hunt. You're getting some sleep tonight, that’s more than he can say for himself.