#wayv reader insert

He’s sitting on the floor with his back against the edge of the bed, watching the sunrise just as you are. He jumps only slightly when your fingers brush through the top of his hair, but he relaxes back into your touch.

“Good morning.” His voice sounds rough from lack of use. “I don’t think I’ve seen a sunrise like this since I was alive.”

You slide over to lay at the edge of the bed, your head right beside his. “I miss sunrises. Hell City makes me miss even the rain, the snow, anything other than just, like the perpetual duskiness.” You could paint sunrises in your apartment, you suppose, like you’d done with the night sky. “I miss waking up on winter mornings, the inside of my blankets all nice and cozy while I know the world outside is too cold. I miss the weather, the passing hours of the day.”

“That’s immortality for you,” Mark sighs. “It all just fades away into a blur where day meets night, where everything just kind of averages out, unchanging.” He turns his head, and his mouth is so close to yours that you could almost give in to that urge again. The same one you’d felt last night to kiss him. 

But then you think of Yuta and Ten, hidden away somewhere in the universe, hopefully close by. You think of WinWin sleeping soundly behind you, his fingertips just barely in contact with your lower back. And you realize you can’t kiss Mark, not here or now. 

The sunrise kisses his lips instead. Mark rolls onto his knees and then stands. The gentle light of the sun lays over his skin, and you slip over onto your back again, looking up at him and looking for anything to say to change the subject. “Did you find anything in all of your explorations of the House last night?”

Mark shakes his head. “I saw more of the Watchers. They live up to their names. Watching me walk the halls, I swear half of them wanted to lock me up in chains and throw me in some prison.” He shivers, moving back to lean against the window sill. “There are so many damn rooms in this place, I don’t think it’s even possible for us to know where to look for anything unless we spend an eon here. I found the entrance hall again, though. I don’t know why the Watcher that brought us in brought us the way up here that he did. There’s literally a staircase right at the bottom of that big spiral one that brings us straight to the hallway that runs along the front of the House.”

“Maybe the house rearranges itself,” WinWin mumbles, his voice groggy with sleep even as his eyes are still closed. “Look, the sun’s rising, which means you’re both talking way too much for this early in the morning.”

Mark laughs. “What do you mean the house rearranges itself?” 

WinWin lifts his head from the pillow to look over at the vampire outlined in sunlight. “I mean, like, maybe he brought us here in the most direct way last night, but the house rearranged between then and when you went out there. Maybe it’s constantly shifting and reworking itself into new pathways. Or maybe it’s designed specifically to make it difficult for people like us to sneak around and learn the secrets the Watchers are trying so hard to hide. Didn’t you hear those sounds last night on the way up here?” 

You think back to the distant clinking and clanging you’d heard the previous day as the Watcher led you to these rooms. Maybe that was the sound of the house hiding secrets out of sight. “He might be onto something,” you say, flipping over onto your belly, but propping yourself up on your elbows to look down at WinWin. “Maybe we should talk to that Renjun guy. He said yesterday that he would help us with anything we needed, show us anywhere in the House.”

Mark makes a derisive snort. WinWin rolls his eyes. 

“What?” You ask.

Both of them exchange a look, but it’s WinWin that speaks up first. “Do you really think we can trust him?”

“I don’t see why not?” You sit up. “He seems friendly.”

“So do priests and pretty-boy exorcists,” WinWin spits out, sitting up as well. “But you learned your lesson there, didn’t you, princess? Haven’t you ever thought that you trust too easily?”

“I trusted you, didn’t I?” You push out of bed, anger firing your words. “Even when Ten and Yuta hated you, I trusted you. But maybe that was a mistake.” 

A look of hurt shoots across WinWin’s face. Mark reaches for you, but you brush right by him. 

“Where are you going?” WinWin asks when you walk out of the bedroom. You hear the sound of sheets being thrown off, the bed creaking as he moves to follow you. You hear Mark’s voice, the quiet exchange of words. 

You walk straight out of the common room as well, out into the House. You don’t wait for either of them to catch up to you, you just start down the long spiral of the stairs. Rain lashes the windows on the first curve of the stairs, but the windows on the landing the floor beneath your rooms look out on a calm sunny river in the middle of a city. Cars buzz by on the street below, trees are in blossom. You wonder if you were to press your ear to the glass, would you hear the constant noise of a living city?

Someone begins to clatter down the spiral stairs, and you set off, ducking down a nearby hallway to avoid whoever it may be. 

You find another flight of stairs down at the end of the hallway. A narrow stone set of stairs descend on a curve, sunny stained glass windows lining the wall. You wonder if these are the ones that Mark had mentioned, but when you step out at the bottom, you find yourself not in the long main hallway, but rather in what appears to be the corner of an empty ballroom. A massive, ornate mirror takes up a good majority of the wall beside you, with a pair of double doors set into the mirror itself. Enormous floor-to-ceiling windows make up the other three walls, overlooking a garden that at first-glance you believe to be the one that you’d passed through the day before, but at a closer look through the misty windows, you see that it’s a luxurious Parisian garden in full bloom. 

The glass is cool and damp with condensation beneath your touch. Small droplets glisten on the panes, shimmering with the newly captured sunlight. You walk along the wall of windows, trailing your fingers over the glass until you reach a door set seamlessly into the series of windows. There’s a patio just outside, tempting you to step out into the morning, to feel the cool damp air on your skin, to feel the sunrise as it spreads its reach over the garden. You want to know if you can smell the flowers and the grass. 

The door’s golden handle turns easily in your hand.

A hand lands on your arm, another reaches around you to press flat against the door’s edge. 

“You can’t go outside.” A light, chiming voice says from right behind you. “It’s dangerous, and you won’t be able to get back inside.”

You twist around, coming face-to-face with the silver-eyed Renjun. His gentle expression from the day before, all smiles and politeness, is sharpened now with an intense emotion that you can’t identify in that moment. You’re too close to the elfin man, and even when he takes a step away from you, you don’t get the opportunity to figure out what the look in his eye means before it’s replaced with his generic kindness. 

“Breakfast should be served soon,” he says, and he gestures towards the doors of the ballroom. “I can show you the way.”

You don’t think you truly have much of a choice. Renjun waits until you’re already ahead of him before he begins walking as well, quickly catching up with your stride. For the first time, you realize that although he’s not dressed in the hood and cloak of the Watchers, he’s also not dressed plainly like a normal non-Watcher might be. He’s wearing what could be described as a hooded tunic in a faded black color. He’s got a belt cinched around his waist, and he wears a pair of leggings underneath the tunic, which ends just above his knee. So, although he’s not wearing the whole Watcher ensemble, the hood on his tunic does draw that connection faintly.

“Are you one of them?” You ask, looking Renjun up and down. “A Watcher?”

“No.” He smiles, a little laugh escaping him. “This way.” 

He points along an arcade, a hallway that runs beside a row of arches that lead out to a courtyard housing a smooth black pool of water surrounded by ferns. The ceiling there is open to the natural sky, and you see the same foggy cloud cover as you’d passed under yesterday on your trip through the forest and the garden. 

Renjun lightly touches your elbow, prompting you to turn a corner, and steering you away from the pool and the open sky. 

You’ve forgotten that you asked him a question until Renjun begins speaking.

“I’m not one of them, not really,” he says. “My father was a Watcher, so I was raised here in the House. I’ve been taught by the Watchers, and if I chose to go through the rigorous training and monastic dedication that it takes, I could do it. But they don’t want me, and I won’t do it either. It’s a long story. One that would bore you probably.” Renjun glances sideways at you, his eyes glinting silver in the light of a window you pass by. “Your story seems much more interesting.”

What could he know of your story?

You don’t want to talk about your story right now. You’re more interested in his. “You said your father was a Watcher? I’ve read about them in an encyclopedia on the supernatural. I didn’t think being a Watcher was something that one could stop being. They’re immortal, aren’t they?” 

Renjun laughs again, the sound ringing off the walls of the hallway like a bell. “Being immortal doesn’t really mean that you can’t stop being, you know. Immortals die all the time, but for much different reasons than humans do. It won’t simply be old age or illness or just a clumsy accident that wipes an immortal out. There are other ways. And sometimes a Watcher can be removed from the order, too.”

He doesn’t say anything more on the subject, though you give him a few long moments of silence to continue. 

When he says nothing, you ask, “What do you know about my story? What makes you think mine is interesting? You grew up in a place like this, how much more interesting can it get?” As if to reinforce your words, you pass through a crossroads of hallways, and above your head is a dome of glass, shaped just so perfectly as to rain shards of rainbow down through the air and across the floor and the walls. One of the hallways is a gallery of glass, filled with marble statues, flooded with sunlight. Another is dark and lined with windows that flash with lightning. The one you’ve just left had lush carpet and rich wallpaper, thick curtains tied back over portraits that remind you of the illustrations from the encyclopedia, and you swear the eyes followed you through the flickering flame light of the wall sconces. 

Somewhere far away, the deep gonging of a belltower sounds. 

“Breakfast is starting,” Renjun says, and he sets off faster, passing through the rainbow lights, heading for the stormy corridor. As you catch up, walking quickly beside Renjun, you hear him speaking quietly, so softly that at first you think he’s speaking to himself, before you realize that the words are actually directed at you. “Your story is very interesting, I promise you that. You’ve had a full life, filled with experiences outside of these walls.” Thunder rumbles through the windows of this corridor, muffling Renjun’s next words. “I know only what I’ve heard the Watchers whispering about when they forget that I’m around. They know who you are, who your friends are, and they’ve had an eye on all of you for a very long time.” 

The thunder, the lightning, the dark and stormy hallway fade away suddenly as Renjun tugs on your sleeve, dragging you sideways through a tapestry, propelling you through a dark space, and out through another fluttering tapestry into the openness of the Banquet Hall. 

The tapestry falls back into place behind you, concealing the secret passage once again. Renjun doesn’t emerge, leaving you to face breakfast alone.

The first thing that you notice is that the Banquet Hall amplifies sound a lot more than you remember from when you sat here yesterday. The vaulted ceiling, the shiny hardwood floors, the stone fireplaces and empty walls echo back all of the quiet conversations of the gathered Watchers. 

The second thing you notice is the variety in the robes of the Watchers. The majority of them wear white robes. There are some wearing black robes. A few wear silver robes that shimmer as they move to their seats at the table. You wonder if the different colors mean anything, but you can’t really discern any difference in them. Some of the Watchers sit with their hoods still lifted, others have let theirs fall, and for the first time you see that Watchers aren’t just the grizzled old men that you’d been picturing. They vary in ages and levels of grizzledness. But they are all men.

As you step away from the tapestry, a few of them turn to look your way, eyeing you with suspicion, some with mild contempt. You hurry quickly down the length of the table, searching for Mark or WinWin, cursing Renjun for shoving you through the tapestry, and not coming out on this side with you.

“There you are!” A voice hisses, a hand snags your wrist, and you’re abruptly jerked down into an empty seat. “Even if you’re mad at me, please don’t run off. Where have you been?”

WinWin holds tight to your wrist, scooting his seat closer to you as the white-cloaked Watcher on his other side throws a look at the two of you. There’s no one else in this hall that’s not a Watcher, as far as you can tell. They’re all wearing their hooded robes, except for you. Though WinWin is still wearing the white robe that he’d been given yesterday, so perhaps, if there are any other non-Watchers here, they’re also wearing the white uniform. You hope WinWin has at least found some clothes to wear beneath his robe.

“Where’s Mark?” You ask, avoiding the question he’s posed to you. 

“He ordered room service. Didn’t want to be down here drinking a goblet full of blood while surrounded by the supernatural police.” He whispers, glancing around at the other occupants of this feast table. “Now, where were you?”

Maybe you were going to answer him, maybe just to see the pissed off look on his face when you said that you were talking to Renjun, but just then, a blanket of silence falls over the hall. The Watchers who haven’t yet found their seats quickly fill in the empty spots around the table. They straighten in their seats, all of them turning their attention to the head of the table and the incredibly wizened old man in a dingy cloak who stands hunched before the chair, holding an ancient carved staff that looks hardly more sturdy than he is.

Beneath the table, WinWin squeezes your wrist, and you hear him let out a breath. 

“That’s the High Watcher,” WinWin breathes out, his lips close to your ear. “I passed a portrait of him on my way down.”

The man’s brown skin is so wrinkled, his form so shrunken, that you’re disturbingly reminded of a mummy, his heavy cloak wrapped around him like a funeral shroud. Tufts of white hair sprout from the sides of his head, from his ears, above his eyes. His eyes are an eerie silvery-gray, shining out from beneath his wild eyebrows, far more clear than you would expect of a man his age. But he’s not just any man. He’s a Watcher, and from the looks of it, he might just be the original Watcher, looking over the world when humanity dawned.

“Brothers,” his voice is a rasp barely above a whisper, but he captures the attention of every person in the room. His gaze sweeps along the table, and when at last you feel his gaze tickling along the side of your face, he says, “And honored guests.”

A few quiet grumbles sound around the table, but another quick look from the elderly Watcher silences them all. The man seated across from you does, however, continue to glare menacingly at you. Beneath the table, WinWin slides his hand against yours, slotting his fingers between yours. A very low, nearly imperceptible growl rolls from him, his lip twitching as he glares right back at the man.

The High Watcher continues on with what appears to be a normal morning speech, a run-down of duties and deployments. It’s all very normal, and it reminds you of a monastery you once visited with your mother, particularly when the Watchers all bow their heads, and the High Watcher commences a prayer in a language that you’ve never heard before. It reminds you of the warbling Latin prayers when you’d sat with the priests in the monastery over lunch. 

Between one blink and the next, the expansive table is covered in breakfast finery. Platters of sausages and bacon, basins of scrambled eggs, towers of toast, pearl-handled utensils, decanters of fruit juice and water, steaming carafes of coffee. There was nothing, and then there is an entire breakfast feast laid out before you. 

You try not to flinch when one of the white-cloaked Watchers slaps a slab of raw meat down onto the plate in front of WinWin. 

“Here, dog,” the man says, sitting back in his seat with a smug grin. “Just the way you like it, I’m sure.”

WinWin leans back, and you can see the limits of his restraint being tested. His eyes shimmer wolfishly as he looks around at the laughing Watchers. His hand tightens against yours beneath the table, the other clenches around the pearl handled knife sitting beside his plate. He eyes the Watcher that had made the oh-so-funny joke, and you can tell that WinWin is considering how easily he could just drive the pearl-handed blade into the man’s throat. You squeeze his hand.

Slowly, WinWin lowers his gaze to his plate. The raw meat sits, leaking a small amount of blood on the immaculately white porcelain dish. 

You know he’s not going to eat it raw. But he doesn’t know how to react in front of all of these Watchers either. 

When you lift your hand, calling to that eternal heat inside you, guiding it to the surface, you hold your hand over WinWin’s plate, cranking up your flames as they burst through your skin. The meat cooks quickly beneath your flames, the edges of it charring just perfectly. You extinguish your fire, peck a kiss against WinWin’s cheek, and turn back to your own plate, silently daring any of the Watchers to say anything.

The rest of breakfast passes without much incident. There are a few passive aggressive comments, but no one dares to do much under the eye of the High Watcher. He had referred to you and WinWin as honored guests after all, though the way that the Watchers regard you makes you feel much less than that revered status. It reminds you of what Renjun had said to you in the moment before he pushed you through the tapestry. They know who you are, who your friends are, and they’ve had an eye on all of you for a very long time.

The table is weighed down with fruits, pastries, and many dishes that you don’t know the names of. There is a savory dish of sausages and onions and peppers, a vegetable-y bean mixture with fresh bread, a stack of za’atar flatbreads with various additional toppings on the side, an interesting egg and yogurt dish, and a few rice-based dishes as well. You didn’t realize quite how hungry you were until you’re reaching over WinWin, having already sampled everything that is readily right in front of you. You could eat half the table, it seems, and WinWin just laughs softly when you pile a bit more onto your plate. 

You’ve just taken a bit of a slice of honeyed toast covered in a fruity jam and some kind of cheese when WinWin starts moving dishes that are out of your reach a little closer to you.

“Portal travel takes a lot of energy,” he explains softly, leaning his shoulder against yours. When you throw an inquisitive look his way, he explains further, “You were too caught up in the stress and wonder of yesterday to feel it, probably. With the excitement of all of this place, the confusion and emotions stirred up by the conversations we had at the table yesterday, I’m sure hunger was kinda pushed to the back of your mind. Though that little meal probably took the edge off. Eat all you want, Princess, I’m sure they’re good for it.”

You do exactly that.

Unlike the feast you’d been treated to upon arrival yesterday, this table remains laden with food even as the Watchers begin to leave. You devour everything within reach, ignoring the Watchers that stare, focusing only on your plate and the hot shape of WinWin’s hand at your knee. 

The only issue arrives when you’re finally feeling like you’ve eaten your fill.

A cluster of black-hooded Watchers remains at the end of the table, heads bowed together as they converse in whispers with the High Watcher. As you emerge from your feasting daze, you think you catch the sound of your name. Maybe one of the Watchers turn their hoods toward you and WinWin. 

WinWin growls when your nails suddenly dig sharply into his hand, talons biting into his flesh. “Shit! What are you–?”

He looks up and sees exactly why you’ve taken a vice-like hold. For very good reason.

One of the Watchers from the head of the table is now approaching where you and WinWin sit alone, the last remaining attendees to this breakfast feast.

The Watcher glides across the floor towards you, his hood steadfastly hiding his face in its shadow, as if even a sliver of light would be the end for him. His movement is so smooth that you can’t help wondering if his feet are even touching the ground or if he’s just hovering above it like a ghost. When he stops beside your seat, his robes flutter and sway from the motion, and you manage to catch sight of a pair of shiny black shoes beneath the edge of the robe. 

WinWin’s fingers knot with yours, holding tight like he’s ready to bolt and drag you with him at the slightest provocation. He glares at the hooded figure, his eyes flickering towards the wolfish shade of amber. “Can we help you?”

The Watcher stands there for a few silent seconds before he nods his head. “Our High Watcher requests the attendance of the young Miss for an interview.”

  An interview? 

“An interview for what?” You glance over at WinWin. 

“The prisoners face a trial. Our High Watcher would like to interview you as a witness,” the Watcher explains. There’s something in his voice that lights up part of your brain, but that part is overruled by an important question – how can you be a witness to an alleged crime that hasn’t even been clarified to you? The Watcher doesn’t budge when you ask that aloud, he only folds his hands resolutely in front of him, and after another moment of silence says, “Your cooperation would be very much appreciated.”

“Don’t go.” WinWin hisses. “I don’t trust them.”

“She will be perfectly safe with us, I assure you, werewolf.” There is a tone of sharpness bordering on bitterness in the Watcher’s voice. “A brief interview with our High Watcher, and she will be returned safely to you and your vampire companion in your suite of rooms.”

Your heart sinks. You’d been hoping that if you cooperated, agreeing to this interview, that WinWin could at least come with you. You dislike the idea of being alone with the Watchers just as much as WinWin dislikes it. Additionally, you haven’t spent long away from either Mark or WinWin in days now, and the idea fills you with a mild panic.

“Can’t I come along?” WinWin asks.

Although you can’t see the Watcher’s face, you can feel his eyes on your face even as he speaks to WinWin. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. For confidentiality and an unbiased interview process, no one may accompany her who may have influence over her version of events.”

“And what events are those?” You twist in your seat to fully face the hooded man of mythological stature. “From where I’m sitting, the only ones committing any crime are you and the other Watchers. My boyfriends were kidnapped, or at the very least are being unlawfully held by you. You refuse time and again to tell me what crimes they’ve committed, so if you expect honest answers from me in an interview, the least you can do is be open with me first.”

Still, his dark eyes graze your face from beneath the shelter of his hood in silence. 

“During the interview, you will perhaps find answers.” The raspy voice of the High Watcher grates out from his seat at the far end of the table. His bizarre misty gray eyes are focused on you, his hood pooled around his shoulders, though the weight of it looks like it could easily collapse the ancient man. “There are answers that both sides of this may provide the other with.” He steeples his bony fingers together before him on the table, gazing expectantly at you.

Beneath the force of the High Watcher’s gaze, you feel compelled to agree to come along with them. 

The chair squeals across the floor when you push back from the table.

“Don’t go!” WinWin quietly insists once more, still clinging to your hand. 

Carefully, you pull your hand out of his. “It’ll be fine, WinWin. I’m sure of it.”

“Well, I’m not sure of it. I don’t trust any of them.” His amber gaze sweeps around the room, from the Watcher nearest to you to the ones gathered around the High Watcher at the head of the table and even to the few that linger in the main entrance to the Banquet Hall. “An hour. That’s all I’ll give them before I drag Mark from that room and we scour this manor for you, whether their damned interview is finished or not.”

The passion and fiery anger in his eyes ignites something inside you, and you lean in quickly, twisting your fingers in the front of his shirt. “I’ll be back with you before the hour is up, I promise you. No matter what I have to do.” You press in, dropping a quick, light kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve, remember?”

WinWin lets you go, but he’s still reluctant. His hand slides along yours until your fingertips fall away, and he stays seated, watching you as you follow behind the Watcher.

The High Watcher is already leaving the room with his escort of black-robed Watchers around him, and you’re not even surprised when the Watcher walking in front of you joins the parade. You follow suit, trailing behind the black cloaks out into a narrow wood-paneled hallway that smells of dust. The hallway takes several ninety degree turns before it straightens out, leading by a vestibule that butts up to a pair of doors out onto the courtyard you’d passed through the previous day. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that this pair of doors as well as the front doors both open out onto the same courtyard, but there’s a lot about this place that doesn’t make sense.

Only a short distance further, this company of Watchers you’ve found yourself a part of now passes through a pair of doors into what appears to be a court room.  Not a courtroom like you’ve seen on TV or during  school field trips while you were younger, but a room for holding court. Like a throne room. 

A long, rectangular room with gleaming marble floors stretches out before you.. Rows of fluted pillars march down either side of the space in front of a row of half-shadowed seats in the gallery. And upon the dais at the far end of this room is the crown jewel of the space: the throne of pure white stone before a rose window of gorgeous stained glass. Light arcs through the room from the window set high above the pillars on either side, as well as the rainbow-colored sunlight through the rose window behind the throne. 

The High Watcher passes up the center of the room, climbing the stairs to the throne. He hobbles along slowly, using his staff to keep from toppling over. The other Watchers disappear to either side, filing in among the seats half-hidden in the arcade behind the pillars. Only one Watcher remains beside you, and you suspect it’s the same one that had been sent to fetch you from WinWin’s side at the breakfast table. He has the same height, the same posture, and when he reaches out and gestures for you to move in through the doorway, he also says, “Take a seat, miss,” in the same voice. 

For the first time, as you follow the path of his hand, you notice a seat in the center of the room. Just a plain wooden chair placed almost exactly at the center of the room. You can only assume that’s exactly the seat you’re meant to take. 

Your footsteps echo around the room, though the same Watcher trails silently behind you, only the faint swish of his cloak audible in the eerie silence. The others don’t make a sound, not like you would expect in a gathering. No coughs or clearing of throats. No creaking of chairs or the shuffle of clothing during movement. They all sit still as statues. None more so than High Watcher. He seems carved from stone the moment that he’s settled into the throne with not even a twitch of his wrinkled face. Only the slight movement of his eyes following your progress towards the seat at the center of the room give any indication that he’s still living. 

They’re all just watching you, though you suppose that’s a given. It’s in the name. But there’s nothing quite like being watched by a bunch of men to put you on edge. You feel like you’re fifteen again, so unsure of yourself but trying to look like you’re confident, trying to put on a face that says you don’t feel like bolting from the room. 

You take a seat in that central chair. 

The Watcher steps into place behind your chair while all of the others look on, and you stare straight forward at the High Watcher. 

The light from the rose window creates a halo effect around the High Watcher’s head, and for a moment you feel like you’re staring into the face of God himself. Especially when a moment later your full name booms out of the frail old man’s mouth. His voice has entirely lost that whispery rasp, now powerful and commanding your attention. 

You grip the arms of your wooden chair. “Yes, sir?”

“Why are you here?” He asks, leaning forward slightly in his high seat, his silvery eyes squinting down at you. “In Purgatory, child. State your purpose.”

A surge of anger bleeds through to the surface of your overwhelming nerves about your present position. You straighten up in your seat, holding eye contact with the elderly Watcher as you say, “I’m here due to my boyfriends being held here with no explanation that I’m aware of. I want to see them freed, or, at the very least, know what they’re being accused of.”

“So you and your companions arrived, uninvited, to trespass on our lands?” The High Watcher asks.

Are you the one on trial here? For trespassing?

The Watcher behind you curls his hands over the back of the chair. The wood freaks slightly in response. “Sir, to be fair, the portal to Hell City is open to anyone that has the proper pass. It’s easy enough to get turned around in those woods, plenty of pathways to take. Perhaps she and her companions just mistakenly took the back entrance.”

Why is the Watcher defending you? You fight the impulse to twist around and attempt a look beneath his hood at his face. 

“I thought I was here right now to answer questions and receive answers in turn about Yuta and Ten.” Your voice echoes around the room. “Or is this just an interrogation of me?”

The High Watcher smiles, a wide grin that catches you off-guard. “Child, why don’t you tell us about yourself.”

“About myself?” 

He nods. 

“What about me?”

The High Watcher leans back in his seat, folding his hands over his belly. “Why don’t you start at the beginning. But make it rather quick. We’ve only approximately fifty minutes before that werewolf friend of yours comes looking.” He laughs drily, and you hear a few of the other onlookers chuckle from their seats in the arcade. “Tell us what you know of yourself.”

You start at the beginning, like he’d suggested. “My parents tried their best to protect me from the truth, from my true identity and heritage. That didn’t matter, of course. As the saying goes: the truth will out.”

The Watchers listen in silence as you tell them about your parents. Your mother and your father, their diligent faith, the occasional trips to religious institutions with your mother to visit old friends or just to spend a little while immersed in a place like that. All of these things that helped to conceal the truth of your heritage from yourself. The Watchers listen as you tell them a brief summary of the curious deaths of your parents, your subsequent struggles with faith and feelings of hopelessness and not knowing who you were anymore. 

Even now, years later, it’s difficult to talk about, so you decide to skip forward, glossing entirely over your rediscovery of faith. Instead you jump ahead quite a bit. 

“And then I met Ten and Yuta. I came with them to Hell City, and immediately I felt like this was a place that both challenged what I’d always known while it also had a familiar feeling, like there was a part of me that called to this place. Yuta and Ten made me feel at home; they showed me around and introduced me to people, and they became my closest friends, my partners, my boyfriends.”

You half expect the Watchers to show some sign of disapproval at your casual mention of polyamory, but there’s not a twitch of an eyelid nor a sound of disgust among them. There is a pause, and your throat feels dry from talking, the silence ringing with expectation for you to continue. You don’t. 

“Did you stay in Hell City? From the time of your arrival until your trip here?” The High Watcher asks, his voice dipping once more into the whispery rasp. 

The fact he’s asking you that question makes you think that he already knows the answer. You shake your head no. “I left the city, and I went back home for a while. To my hometown, and I tried to live my life as normally as I had before. I wanted to return to ignorance, honestly. I wanted to feel comfort in my faith like I once had, and to pretend that everything was nothing more than just a strange dream. I believed it for a little while. I was happy sometimes, but confused and making myself feel a bit crazy too. I wanted to be happy back in my hometown, to forget that Yuta and Ten and all of Hell City even existed.”

“And the demons allowed that, did they?” The High Watcher leans forward in his seat once more. “How did you find your way back to Hell City? If you were happy in your ignorant human life, why did you come back to Hell?”

You draw your hands together in your lap, wringing them together. “There was a… complication. I trusted someone that I shouldn’t have, and it almost killed me. Ten and Yuta, and WinWin as well, came to my rescue. They neutralized the problem in my defense, and then they brought me back with them. I’ve been happy with them since. Happier than I ever was when I went back to my ignorant human life.” 

And that’s the full truth. 

You have never felt happier or more complete than you have when you were with them. Those moments since you came back to Hell City, when it was you, Ten, Yuta, Mark, and WinWin were the happiest moments. They have painted your life into happier shades than you’ve seen since long before the deaths of your parents. You feel complete when you’re with all of them, and even now, as you douse yourself in the memories you feel a little light of happiness inside yourself. The need to be with them. 

“I just want to see them set free again. Whatever you all think that Yuta and Ten did, I’m certain that they’re innocent.” You gaze forward, imploring the High Watcher to hear and understand your plea. It’s up to him, isn’t it? To grant your boyfriends freedom so you can get back to your happy life in Hell City?

But apparently it’s not that easy. Silence falls over the room for a moment. Complete silence where no one moves or makes a sound or even seems to breathe. Even the Watcher that stands at your back doesn’t so much as twitch a fingertip. Silence so tense that it feels like a definitive snap when the High Watcher finally sits forward. 

“Let us go back, dear, tell us again about the demons. From the moment you met them.” His staff comes down on the floor with a sound like breaking ice, a command. 

Now, you don’t want to tell these Watchers everything. There are plenty of private moments in this story that you certainly don’t want to share with a room of strange men. But you do your best to recount your initial meeting with Ten and with Yuta in the cemetery. You can’t even remember many of the details of that night, the things that were said to convince you to come with them. 

“They appeared out of nowhere,” you say to the room, “And they were handsome, a little terrifying, but overall charming. I wasn’t difficult to convince, I know that. Yuta offered me a home, safety, and he didn’t say it but I could see in his eyes that he was someone to trust. So I took his hand, closed my eyes, and when I opened them I was transported somewhere entirely new.” You don’t know what these Watchers want you to say. They’re not really interviewing you so much as having you repeat back details of your story, of the unchanging hours you’d spent with the demons in Hell City. They’re focused on seemingly meaningless moments, like when you mentioned there was a stretch of days when Ten was gone, how he clung to you afterwards. 

A part of you feels like you’re betraying something as you talk, but the words keep coming as if they’re being pulled right out of your mouth by some trick of the Watchers. 

You feel like you’re talking for hours, recounting the same bits and pieces of stories, wringing them for any tiny details that you haven’t already described. Still, you can’t discern any specific reason that the Watchers would care for those parts of your stories. But your mouth feels dry from speaking, and you can’t believe that WinWin hasn’t broken through the doors behind you with Mark in tow to come to your rescue. 

You’re just taking a pause, a moment to try to get some saliva to wet your dry mouth, when the High Watcher gets to his feet. 

Is that it? Are you done?

The butt of his staff hits the ground again with that sharp cracking sound that resonates around the room. “We’re done for the day. Go, child. You’ve given us much to think about.”

Have you? 

You try to think of what you’ve said. What have you said that could be important? But all you do is give yourself a headache. 

The Watcher behind you moves when you move, and you turn your head sharply to look at him. Still, you can discern nothing of his face, but you do finally notice something on his black robe that perhaps sets him apart from some of the other black-cloaked Watchers in the shadow of the arcade. A silver medal is pinned to his left breast, and a thin silver chain connects that medal to another one pinned higher at his shoulder. 

“I can lead you back,” the Watcher says, gesturing back towards the doors. “Like I promised your werewolf friend.” 

“Please,” is all you say before the Watcher sets off, and you follow. 

You try to keep track of the path the Watcher leads you along, but there are many twists and turns and new hallways and staircases, one elevated covered walkway that seems to stretch between two wings of the building over an enclosed tree garden. He leads you past a long winding hallway that finally curves smoothly around a raised oval-shaped sitting room, and you see a familiar door straight ahead at the end of a room furnished with games of all sorts. You notice that there are a few Watchers scattered around at the game tables, all dressed in white robes like the one WinWin had been given, some of them wear their hoods up, some down.  

These all look to be on the younger end of the spectrum you’d witnessed at breakfast. Quickly you scan their faces, but there’s no sign of Renjun, though you feel like he would easily fit in amongst them. 

The Watcher that has accompanied you through the interview until now, melts away as you run to the door. It flies open just before you reach it, and there stands WinWin framed in the fire with his shoulders hunched and fiery determination burning in his eyes. Mark stands just behind him looking angry and scared and nervous in equal parts. 

You fly into WinWin’s chest, wrapping your arms around him, pushing him back into the room. His arms squeeze around you in return, and the tip of his nose buried into your hair, breathing in deeply before he asks, “Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you, right?” His hands flutter, worriedly. 

“No.” You let him touch you, running his hands over every inch he can reach until he’s satisfied that you’re in one piece. “They just asked me to talk about myself and about Yuta and Ten. I don’t know what they could have possibly learned from what I said.”

“Probably more than you thought you had to give away.” Mark steps around WinWin, and he rests his hand on your shoulder. “We were just getting ready to come find you.”

It’s still rather early in the morning, probably only about two hours after dawn. “If you’re both already ready to go out, should we explore for a bit? I know you looked around last night, Mark, but maybe there’s even more to see in the daylight?”

“I’m sure there is.” He nods, pulling his hand away from your shoulder. “And I’m sure it’s in all new places. If we go out and actually look around, how are we going to be able to find our way back here?”

“Well, how did you do it last night?” WinWin asks.

Mark shrugs. “I didn’t go all that far honestly, but then I had to wander around for a bit before I found that staircase out there again. Of course, I didn’t realize that everything was gonna fucking move on me. So I just thought I was finding secret passages or something.”

“They’ve got plenty of those too, I’m sure.” You step away from WinWin’s embrace, but he keeps a hand resting against your lower back. “This place makes no sense, architecturally speaking. Like, when they just took me to their court room or throne room or whatever, there was a door just outside it that led into that main courtyard the Watcher brought us through yesterday, even though we walked so far and took so many turns there’s no way that we could’ve been anywhere near the courtyard.”

Mark shrugs. “Maybe that’s all part of it. Maybe this place defies physics, like the laws of space and stuff. So, still, if we go out, how are we going to find our way back?”

“I guess we wander around like you did, or we ask for help.” You turn to look back out the open doorway behind you. The young Watchers are still out there playing games, but the black hooded Watcher who had brought you here is gone. “But I want to see what we can find. I still think a library or something like it could be very helpful. I’m sure there’s got to be one. They’ve got a ballroom, for fuck’s sake.”

“Before we go,” Mark clears his throat. “Do you want to change clothes? While you were both down at breakfast, I rang the bell to get us some new clothes. If we’re going to be here a few days until Ten and Yuta’s trial, we might need a change or two of clothes, at least.”

He’s right, and it’s only now that you notice WinWin isn’t wearing the white Watcher cloak that he’d been given. He’s dressed more similarly to Renjun now. Actually, both he and Mark are wearing the tunic and leggings like you’d seen on the strange young man earlier this morning. 

Mark gestures back towards the bedroom you’d slept in. “Your clothes are laid out on the bed.”

You find a dress on the bed. A long one with multiple layers of skirts, flowy sleeves that taper down to your wrists, a corset that looks like torture to even attempt to get on. There are a pair of boots. All of it looks old and dusty, like whoever had gathered these clothes had had to dig down into storage to find something for a woman to wear in this house of solely male Watchers. 

No part of this outfit appeals to you, although you’re sure it would look lovely on someone else. You just don’t feel like a full skirt and a corset is going to be at all comfortable for you to go exploring in. So, while you hear Mark and WinWin’s muffled conversation start up through the closed bedroom door, you get to work on manifesting your own outfit. 

You don’t want something that would stand out, but you also don’t necessarily want a Watcher robe or the tunic and leggings that WinWin and Mark (and Renjun) are wearing. So you want something that still gives you a medieval-esque type of feel, but nothing that goes overboard. Something subtle, like you may have seen at a Renaissance Faire (which your father had once taken you to) or in a historical drama (which your mother had always been a fan of), so eventually you settle on a loose white top, a pair of durable brown leggings, and a reddish sleeveless tunic sort of thing. You wear a belt around your waist to hold it all together, the boots that were provided for you, and as you look in the mirror you almost laugh. You look like a pirate woman minus the big feathered hat, eye patch, peg leg or parrot on your shoulder. But it’s fine. You’re comfortable, it fits with a similar look to what the others are wearing. 

Mark’s eyebrows draw slightly together when you step out of the room like that, but he doesn’t say anything. WinWin just pushes to his feet, walking immediately towards the door, ready to go out and explore the enemy territory. 

“Ready?” You ask Mark, and he nods although he’s still frowning slightly. Somewhat self-conscious, you ask, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He shakes his head, blinking a few times as if he’s trying to bring himself out of a daze. “Sorry. You just, uh, look really pretty.”

That makes you laugh enough that WinWin steps back into the common room to see what is happening. Mark looks a little embarrassed and a little amused by your reaction. 

“You’ve seen me in all kinds of actually pretty outfits. Dresses and fancy things, all made up pretty, but this medieval wench-core or pirate type of thing is what you think is pretty?” You laugh, gesturing at your outfit. “You’re a funny guy, Mark.”

WinWin looks just as amused, but he’s looking you up and down with an approving sort of gaze. 

Mark clears his throat and heads for the doorway. “I’ve seen you a lot of different ways, but you’re always pretty. Are we going to explore, or are you just going to tease me some more?” 

As soon as Mark is close enough to WinWin, the werewolf throws his arm around Mark’s shoulders, drawing him in close. “I don’t see why we can’t do both, bro!” 

Mark throws a look of dread back over his shoulder at you, but you only smile, tighten your belt a little, and walk out of the common room to follow the two of them. The mysteries of the House of the Watchers call to you, and you are more than ready to answer that call.

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a/n: sorry this chapter’s a little on the shorter side, I’m basically rewriting this entire section of the story, and I was running out of time before my update time, so this is all that I have completed for this week, but hopefully I’ll have more next week (otherwise I’m going to have to postpone the update to actually write lol) but I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It’s basically a filler chapter, though there’s a tiny little bit of something in there