A Protective Friend
POV: Jess
Today was a school day but I was not look forward to the day since it had been a while since we had to escort Xan to school. I had been in town a couple of days back when we were shopping for a new dress for her to wear to the tea party and I had heard the whispers. They all thought she had faked the threat left in her room to gain attention from the King. The whispers were something like, “I cannot believe she dared to show herself in public.” “Oh, I know, I am pretty sure she used the blood from her family to write that threat on her room wall.” They didn’t care that all the members of the family had been ruled out of suspicion, they just cared that she was a rival to Melody and those women were allies to her. I had always secretly nicknamed her Malicious Maigny. She was a calculating and manipulative person, probably about the fakest woman out there. She put on a front for those who could give her what she wanted like the Prince, the Queen and the King but with others that mask came off quite quickly. She was especially vicious to Xan and I didn’t like it. I had always felt when we were little that she would one day get all the negative energy that she put out in the world. My intuition was rarely wrong but I was waiting for the day that it would come.
I was sitting silently with Derek at the dining table, eating our breakfast and waiting for Xan to come into the room. He cleared his throat and looked at me, “Do you really have no objections to putting her in danger?" I stared at him for a while trying to figure out if he was trying to get me to admit it so that he could use my true thoughts to try and talk her out of doing what she felt like she must. I shook that thought from my head but not completely, “Before I tell you that, you need to promise me that you will not say anything to her if anything I tell you is contrary to what I had told her.” He sighed, “You are afraid I will use your words to talk her out of it. Right?” I nodded and he nodded back, “Okay, everything you say here is in strict confidence.” I drew in a sharp breath and puffed it out, “I don’t like it. I’m with you and Blake totally but as her best friend, I wanted to respect her wishes. I know that she has a capable bodyguard, a guard familiar that can grow to the size of a house if needed and the rest of us who are fiercely protective. My initial hesitation is slowly dying because of these factors. Do you not have confidence in your skills?” He shrugged, “No, I do have confidence but I know that in any situation that something can go very wrong. I am just afraid that if all the contingency plans fail, that she could get hurt or die. I would never be able to live with myself should that happen.” I fully understood his apprehension and perceived guilt that would set in should anything happen to her.
Xan entered the room a few moments later with a smile on her face, “Good morning lovely people. How are we this morning?” I smiled at her, “I’m doing fine but a little worried about the backlash you will face at university today. I heard whispers in town the other day.” Derek furrowed his brows, “You didn’t mention that to me.” I shrugged, “I guess another conversation occupied our time before I could bring it up.” Xan smiled and winked at me but I think she was misunderstanding the nature of our conversation before she came in. I shook my head at her and she shrugged as she popped a piece of blueberry muffin in her mouth. I saw that she was only drinking coffee and eating a muffin, “Is that all you’re going to eat today?” She nodded, “I’m supposed to have a small breakfast with the Headmaster this morning. He wants to go over table etiquette with real food. I felt like perhaps I should eat a little but not so much that I would be rude. I want to get off on the right foot.”
Derek spoke, “Makes sense. Shall we go now that you’ve finished?” She nodded, “Off to the bat cave, kids.” There was her time in the human realm showing up again and there was the Derek looking confused face. He leaned in a whispered, “Human stuff again?” I blushed at the feel of his breath on my neck. I looked down and nodded, not wanting to look him in the eye in an attempt to hide my desire to kiss him at that particular moment. We made our way to the study where the hidden passage started. Just as we walked in Sebastian had just finished his own breakfast. He bounded away from his dish in the corner of the room and disappeared into Xan’s shadow. His movements often reminded me of a fox and sometimes he would remind me of a cat. I know that he slept a lot because it took a lot to morph and hide himself in the shadows when needed so he would need to recharge when he wasn’t doing those things. We ducked behind the bookshelf that housed the door to the entrance. Xan pondered aloud, “I wonder what possessed whoever built this tunnel to do this. What’s the practicality of going from Blackwood to LDMU?” I spoke up, “Well, whatever the practicality was in the past is sort of irrelevant since the present use is very practical. At that that’s what I would think. I’m sure the Headmaster could tell you if you are truly curious.” She nodded, “I suppose so. You do make a very compelling point there Jess.” Derek who was behind us just made a mmhm sound to let us know that he agreed.
We finally got to the other side of the tunnel to spiral stairs that led up to the door in the Headmaster’s tower. I knocked on Isaiah’s office door to let him know that we were there without barging in. He opened the door, “I’m glad to you see that you are early. The Headmaster has a busy schedule today so your being early helps him to keep to the schedule a little better. Come in.” He shuffled us in then turned to Xan, “You will be alone with him today. I have an errand to run to the Council this morning. Please be on your best behavior.” She nodded at him, “Understood, thank you sir.” He harrumphed at her as he left the room, Isaiah took full advantage of the no rank rule in the university. He was so disrespectful to Xan but I think I can understand why. He was a cousin to Maximillian Maigny and she was in clearly in the way of his family from becoming royalty. That whole family had animosity towards her when they laid eyes on her at her ceremony. The feud went back to before that though, this was as old as when Darren Batiste was a young man. I don’t exactly know what the problem was but I knew that something happened that the Maignys had put a scornful target on the Batistes. Xan had long disappeared into the headmaster’s office. I perused the books along the walls to see if there was a possible answer to the question that Xan had asked about the tunnels this morning. Derek leaned in over my shoulder, “What are you looking for?” I could feel the heat rising in my face at the close proximity of his chest to the back of my head. I stuttered, “I-I am j-just seeing if I can find any information on that tunnel.” I looked up at him and narrowed his eyes at the bookshelf, “Mmm, I don’t think we will find that here. You really think that tunnel would be public knowledge?” I shook my head, “I guess not but it was worth a shot, right?” He gasped then reached up to the book just above my head, this caused his chest to press into me and I felt his hard pecks cradling my head. When he drew back with the book, he spoke, “Sorry about that Jess. Was that uncomfortable?” I shook my head and looked down, “No, I didn’t mind.” I said it so quietly he pretended like he heard me and took long strides to the couch next to the Headmaster’s door.
I had been curious as to what had piqued his interest so much. I walked over to him and looked at the book but couldn’t make out the title. I asked, “What’s that book?” He looked up and smiled, “It’s the Book of Life for Talon Esperanza.” I had wondered why something like that was in the Headmaster’s library, usually those went to close friends and family members. He was flipping to the page where Talon fought off the dragon in an attempt to save the King. It was the attack that had killed him. He read it out loud which wasn’t a new story to anyone in Vellum. We all read about his heroics that day, how he had saved the Queen Mother and her sons. The tower had crumbled under the weight of the dragon which had crushed both the King and Talon. That should have been his last page but he had other pages. There was gibberish on the other pages after that, I looked like some kind of other language. We looked at each other, puzzled. I simply muttered, “Do the Fates write about the afterlife?”
