This Chapter is dedicated to italma_rios.

Thank you so much for the golden tickets too. ❤️‍🩹🤗🫂

.....

The corridor outside Adele’s chamber was quiet.

The ball still lived loudly in the distance with music, laughter, and the clinking of glasses but here, the sound came softened, and dulled by thick stone walls and distance.

Mabel stood before Adele’s door, still and listening.

Her head tilted slightly. Her breath came out slow and controlled as she listened. She heard no footsteps, no voices, and no servants passing through.

Her fingers curled slightly at her sides before she reached for the handle.

The door opened without resistance. She gathered her ball gown, and quickly slipped inside the moment the door opened.

Adele’s room greeted her with stillness and order. Everything was exactly where it should be.

Mabel stepped in, closing the door behind her with careful precision.

Her eyes moved around immediately, scanning and searching the entire room.

The bed was untouched.

The vanity was clean, and arranged to perfection. Her brushes aligned, and her bottles were placed deliberately. Not a single thing out of place.

Mabel’s lips pressed slightly together as she brainstormed hard.

Adele was careful. That meant whatever she was looking for would not be so obvious pit in the open.

Mabel moved further into the room.

Her steps were quiet. She started with the desk. She depends the drawers one by one. She was greated with letters. Old ones, invitations, and nothing important.

She scanned quickly, closed each wardrobe, and moved on.

She moved towards Adele’s wardrobe. She opened it, and searched through it carefully. Fabrics brushed softly against each other as she pushed through them but still, she found nothing.

Just gowns arranged by color and training outfits.

Mabel exhaled slowly. Her eyes sharpened.

She sighed in tiny fustratuin, and mumured to herself. "Where would she hide something?"

She blinked, and her gaze lifted to the wall. Then, she saw a sword hung there. The swoed looked decorative to anyone who didn’t know better.

However, she knew Adele wasn’t decorative. Not in anything she did.

Mabel stepped closer. Her fingers brushed lightly along the hilt, and then the wood behind it.

She paused.

Her eyes narrowed at the feeling she felt at the tip of her fingers. She felt a slight shift there.

Mabel’s hand pressed gently against the panel behind the sword. It moved. The movement wasn’t much, but it was enough.

She slid her fingers into the narrow space between the wood, and pulled out what her hand reached first.

She found a hidden compartment.

Mabel’s breath stilled slowly. She reached in, and pulled them out. She pulled out six letters. The seals were already broken.

Her fingers tightened slightly around them. "Found you," she murmured softly as her breathing turned to relief.

She moved to the table with the letters, sat down, and opened them. She red through the first one, and found nothing she coukd use later.

Her eyes moved quickly across the page, then slowed and stopped. Her expression shifted at the second letter.

Still, she saw just pleasantries. She read through the third. By the fourth, her composure cracked.

Her brows furrowed, and her lips parted.

Mabel leaned back slowly with the letters still in her hands. Her mind moved faster than her body, fitting pieces together, and connecting things that had not made sense before.

"A seer..." she whispered. Her voice was barely there in auprise and delight. Her eyes dropped back to the words on the forth letter, reading the lines again carefully.

Two days.

They were leaving in two days, Adele and her father. To see the seer. A kind of seer that didn’t belong to the crown, and didn’t answer to the Moon Goddess.

A seer who could change fate, rewrite fate, or twist it.

Mabel’s breath slowed. Her fingers tightened slightly around the paper. "This is illegal," she murmured under her breath.

Her gaze darkened. "This is dark magic."

Mabel’s lips pressed together.

Then slowly, she placed the letters back together, and aligned them exactly as she had found them.

She stood up quickly, walked back to the wall, slid them into the hidden space, and closed it carefully.

Afterwards, she pllaced the sword back exactly as it had been.

She stepped back, and looked at the room one last time. Everything looked perfect again, as she had seen it

Mabel turned, and walked to the door. She opened it, stepped out quickly, and froze immediately.

Aire stood there. She was walking past when the door opened, and then stripped abruptly when she saw who just walked out.

For a second, neither of them moved nor blinked.

Aire’s eyes widened slightly, suprised, and confused.

"Mabel?" she asked.

Mabel flinched slightly. "I—" she started quickly.

Her composure snapped back into place almost instantly. "I was looking for you. I thought you might have come around here."

The lie came out easily.

Aire stared at her for a moment longer than necessary. The lie was visible, and almost insulting.

However, she exhaled softly.

Her hands moved instinctively, rubbing lightly against the fabric of her gown. She needed something to do with them, and something to ground herself.

"Never mind," she said quietly. She waved her hand slightly, dismissing what she had seen. "I don’t want to know."

Mabel blinked. That was not what she expected. Relief flooded through her quietly.

She inhaled deeply, steadying herself.

Her eyes softened slightly as she stepped closer to Aire. She reached for Aire’s arm gently.

"Did something happen, Aire?" she asked softly, her smile returning to place.

Aire shook her head immediately. "No," she said, but her voice betrayed her.

Her throat tightened, and her eyes shimmered. Tears gathered before she could stop them.

Mabel saw it. She didn’t ask again. Instead, she pulled her closer, and wrapped her arms around Aire.

"Shhh," she whispered softly. Her hand moving gently against Aire’s back, slow, and soothing. "Today is for you," she murmured. "Don’t shed the first tears."

Aire froze for half a second. Sibconciously, she melted into Mabel’s arms. Her arms came up slowly, and wrapped around Mabel holding on.

A soft sniff escaped her then another. King Elijah’s words kept ringing in her ears. Her fingers tightened slightly against Mabel’s dress.

"Can we just..." she started. Her voice broke slightly. She swallowed, and tried again.

"Can we just go back to my room?" she asked softly. "For at least... thirty minutes?"

Mabel didn’t hesitate. "Of course," she said gently.

As she pulled Aire slightly closer, her eyes flickered once to Adele’s door. She calculated an outcome ten steps away. She now knew something no one else did.