Chapter 10

In the days following, Alcina tries to catch a moment alone with Lord Brendan to properly thank him for the books but finds the man’s presence to be difficult to find, you can as well describe him as almost nonexistent. 

She searched for the man in Library, at the battlegrounds, even in the Maze where she spent a minimum of time alone with the man, but it was like he has vanished into thin air.

She doesn't even catch in during the night. When it's time for sleep, he is already in his side of the room, with a closed door.

And Alcina still doesn't dare to enter the monster’s lair all alone in the darkness of this deadly night. Who knows what might be waiting for her at the other side of the room. So meeting Lord Brendan in his lair is out of choice.

The only times she ever sees him are the spare few dinners they have together, forcibly ordered to by Alpha Warner, whose overwhelmingly jovial presence at dinner looms over any and all possibility of conversation.

Ariadne tries to catch Lord Brendan after these dinners, but again, is hindered, by the way, the man seems to disappear into thin air at a moment’s notice.

She almost begins to suspect that Lord Brendan's Gift is not over those dark things in life, but invisibility, for how minimal he is able to make himself.

It’s ridiculous.

In the meantime, she’s read through nearly the entire collection.

After all, she has nothing but free time as it is, with nothing to occupy her within this vast and unfamiliar castle, besides the books provided for her by her husband-to-be. 

And with each book she reads, she feels - absurdly - as though she’s gotten to know something more, something better, about the Lord of House Warner.

As if, somehow, by reading these same pages - of tracing the same words that Brendan had, with her own finger, of mouthing along to the same words that Brendan had read - Alcina has, in some way, gotten closer to Brendon.

That’s absurd, of course, considering she’s still yet to have an actual conversation with the man, outside of his introduction she got from Commander Lincoln.

But Alcina can’t help the way that when she glances up at Lord Brendan from across the prosperous dinner table, she no longer thinks first of- what nightmares have you cast, to be such a fearsome and terrible creature of lore.

But rather, of things like what were you thinking, when you dog-eared the page about how there are an uncountable number of stars in the universe and stars that we will never see?  

It makes an unbearably impatient urge to speak with him, for some reason, rise within her.

This rampant curiosity, suddenly, to look into those same dark eyes and see if she can find traces of not the Shadowed Beast, but the man who scrawled little indistinct notes alongside the names of constellations in a book about the greatest stars in the galaxy.

It builds, and builds, into this anticipation bubbling in Alcina's chest, as she spends each endlessly free day reading, and re-reading these books, studying closely any little mark or crease in a page like it might grant her the secrets hidden away in Lord Brendan's mind.

Until one day, following dinner, Alcina abandons all semblance at propriety and practically sprints out the doors of the dining hall after Lord Brendan.

She bursts through the double doors, and, spies the Lord’s quickly diminishing figure down the hall, and more or less throws herself along the corridor with a much-too loud, “Wait!”

Brendan's figure visibly startles as he turns around, brow furrowed and looking at Alcina as if she’s mildly touched in the head.

Alcina scrambles to a clumsy stop in front of him, panting for breaths, cheeks flushed with a bit more embarrassment than effort. “Um.”

Brendan eyes her weirdly. Alcina can’t blame him.

“I, um. I wanted to thank you for, for, the books,” Alcina blurts.

Brendan's furrowed brow slowly straightens, before rising up into his hairline. He looks vaguely stupefied if a largely expressionless face were to manage to convey stupefaction. 

Alcina's cheeks burn redder than ever before. 

“I heard that the books in my room were yours, Lord Brendan, so I- I wanted to thank you for them.”

Alcina stares, mortified, at the tips of her shoes. She doesn’t know what had possessed her, to act so- so randomly.  

Brendan makes a sound that sounds suspiciously close to a laugh muffled by a cough.

“I see,” he says slowly. “Did you enjoy them, then?”

Alcina brightens. “Yes,” she chirps.

“I really enjoyed the one about the North Star, in particular, I hadn’t known that-”

She catches the glimmer of amusement flickering in the other lord’s eyes and abruptly looks back down, cheeks flushing.

Too eager and too loud to ever have the graceful class as a representative of House Clair, she’d once heard her instructors describe her as.

She misses the way Brendan's eyes sweep over her, appraising, and the way his lips twitch at the corners.

“Well,” Brendan says slowly, and something about his tone makes Alcina's ears flush red.

“I’m glad they were suitable to your literary taste, then.”

Alcina nods, still staring fixedly at the floor.

“Is there anything else?”

Alcina mildly wonders why she couldn’t have been born with a gift that would enable her to open up the earth below to swallow her and put her out of her embarrassing misery. 

“Oh, um. N-no, that- that was all.”

Alcina is too busy considering never leaving her room again for the embarrassment she’s put on House Clair by the integrity of her awkward behavior, to notice the way Brendan's lips twitch again, a little larger this time.

“Good night, Lady Alcina,” Brendan bids his goodbye and begins to turn back around.

At the last moment, however, he pauses, just long enough to murmur another “Sweet dreams,” with that same lingering amusement as the last time he’d murmured the same words.

But this time, instead of a wickedly teasing threat, Alcina hears instead-- a touch of ironic humor, and wonders if this had been the Lord’s attempt at a joke, all along.

The Shadowed Beast, making jokes.

What an odd thing to consider.