Lina wasn't too happy about waking up. For one thing, the bed was sinfully soft, comfortable, and warm. It's that heavenly feeling that makes you just want to lie in bed all day, waited on hand and foot so you didn't have to get out. Of course, she didn't have servants so that wasn't likely to happen.
She was also sore, sore from head to toe like she had...had walked to Zefilia and back over a mountain range after a year of no exercise. Or something. Lina just knew what she didn't want. And that was to get up.
Strange how she never appreciated her bed until now.
Lina reprocessed that thought.
Muscles screamed in protest as she suddenly sat up. Silk sheets, varnished matching furniture, canopy bed, fine silk lined chaise, ivory toiletry... This was not her room.
And the nightgown she was wearing was not hers either. Heck, she never even put her hair in a lace cap when she went to sleep either. Which meant someone else had dressed her, and in order to dress her had to undress her.
She took a minute to be embarrassed, infuriated, and indignant at the thought.
Then she got back on track, trying to remember what had happened that had led to this. She had been poking around in the cargo hold of the ship, with the unwelcome addition of her employer. They had been discussing some possibilities when for some reason he had grabbed her to leave and then-
"The explosion!"
No wonder she was sore, Lina grimaced, quickly checking over her aching body. Bruises galore, especially from that dockworker, but she didn't appear to have suffered from anything major. And though Lina wasn't particularly vain, she was satisfied to find all of her minor bumps and scratches to be of non-permanent types.
Still, she had been in the middle of an explosion. Lina didn't remember casting any kind of protective spell though she had still been maintaining the flight spell. That must be why her head was faintly aching, it was draining to keep a spell running for a long period of time. Maybe she had cast one instinctively? She doubted Zelgadiss could do a better one, if he could manage such a draining spell.
"Zelgadiss!!" Lina blurted out, suddenly recalling fully that he had been there as well. And she realized why it had taken her sharp mind a bit longer than usual to recognize the different surroundings. This had been her room when she had stayed as a guest at the Graywords townhouse. Which meant...
She owed him.
"Grrrr, now he's really going to hold it over me," growled the girl. If her arm wasn't as numb and heavy like lead, she would have punched something. The bed was close by but she preferred decking Zelgadiss. Then her stomach growled. "Oh well, might as well get some food first."
Lina was a bit surprised to open the wardrobe and find clothing in her size, well actually a lot of her old clothing, the exceeding fine and expensive ones she had purposely left behind because she didn't want to be beholden to their buyer, Zelgadiss. Now if it had been his mother or such who had insisted on buying them, Lina could understand and probably accept that. But from him?? That would have looked like she was his mistress or something.
Digging through the clothes for something simple, she was sure there had been one or two, she came across a new addition, a Bellevair to be exact and the one she had been admiring the day before this entire affair started. She paused, trying to figure out why it was here. The obvious answer was because someone had bought it and hung it in the wardrobe. Except that, for whatever reasons the Graywords had, this room held all of her things. Why they were still here was a mystery to Lina but she wasn't going to think too deeply into it now. Perhaps the Graywords had never needed to use the room again and just left it as is.
Zelgadiss had seen her looking at the dress. Had he bought it then? And if so, for what reason?
Then her stomach reminded her that it was empty. Conceding to her more basic instinct, Lina just grabbed a light blue frock and changed into it. Then she added a sweater to cover the yellow and purple bruises on her arms. No need to show them off to the servants of the house.
Her concern though was unwarranted, as she didn't pass a soul on her way down to the dining room. Lina didn't think she was up that late and was quietly relieved to hear voices coming from the dining room off of the main stairway. She couldn't quite make out what was being said or who were talking but the door opened to reveal Jedah.
Jedah was the second son and youngest child of the current head of the Graywords family, which is to say that he was Zelgadiss's younger brother, the same age as Lina. He literally beamed upon seeing Lina, half-crouched next to the stair banister, caught in the act of eavesdropping.
"Hey, no need to worry. She's apparently well enough to be listening to people's conversations." Jedah called, leaning back a bit through the doorway. Lina's stomach rumbled. "And she's hungry too."
Lina tried to take a swing at him but the mischievous Graywords dodged and skipped down another hallway. He was as annoying as his brother was, except instead of being arrogant, Jedah was annoyance personified. At times, she was hard-pressed to say who was worst.
Since she was expected, Lina straightened her shoulders and tried to walk in as normally as she could. No matter how casual Zelgadiss took the employer-employee relationship, she was not going to show weakness, if only to spare her pride.
Zelgadiss was alone in the room, as Lina had surmised from the way Jedah was acting. She steeled herself not to look at him, walking instead straight to the sideboard where all of the dishes were laid out and proceeded to fill her plate. If he wanted to make something out of what Jedah said, let him. Heavens only know how much he believes that prankster.
However, Zelgadiss said nothing though Lina could feel his gaze on her the entire time. For now, she decided to ignore him, tending to her noisy stomach before it could embarrass her anymore.
Zelgadiss softly sighed, too softly for Lina to hear or so he hoped. She was sore and hurting, he saw that immediately when she stepped into the room. But otherwise her movements didn't indicate anything more serious.
When the ship blew up, the force of the explosion had blown them up and out into the waters. Lina had been struck by a piece of flying debris but he managed to get to her before she began to drown. No one noticed a dark figure flying away from the burning ship, seeing how eye-catching the entire thing was.
Kitzero, grumpy at first at being hauled out of bed at such an ungodly hour, had pronounced Lina fine after a quick inspection. Considering how she was still unconscious at the time, Zelgadiss was inclined to disagree. However, he wasn't the one with the medical degree and he had been forcefully put to bed by the doctor himself.
When he found out who had rigged the ship to explode, they were going to wish they had died with the sailors who were dead on it. A slightly less fatal and permanent fate was still being decided in his mind for that laborer who dared to lay a finger on Lina. Zelgadiss was very possessive.
"Apparently, our vampire enjoyed his first local meal last night." He tapped the folded paper, revealing the article in question, next to Lina's plate. A prostitute had been found in an alley, her blood staining the ground and walls around her. "Apparently, he doesn't want to attract too much attention, making it look like some kind of messy murder."
Did he think this was an appropriate topic to bring up during the morning meal? Not that Lina minded, she had a cast-iron stomach. But it irked her how...how to say it, how he treated her with no regard to her gender or anything. Thrice-damned gentry.
"What makes you so sure it was the supposed vampire we're chasing? Maybe some others moved in last night," Lina remarked sarcastically. Great, now he's gotten her thinking that the culprit they were chasing was a vampire. There wasn't any evidence yet indicating that conclusion. Zelgadiss, in that perverse way of his, would counter that they didn't have any evidence contradicting it either.
"Hmmmm. That would complicate matters. But then perhaps the vampires will take care of this business for us. Do you suppose they're the territorial types?" he seriously considered.
Lina fiercely stabbed her omelet.
"Well, considering how you are here and all, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for us to interview Rezo about his purchases, don't you?"
Just who the hell was the running the investigation here? And what was with this 'we' stuff, Lina wanted to know. There wasn't supposed to be any 'we', just her and an extra. Well, seeing Rezo was bound to lift her spirits at any rate.
"Lina! I haven't seen you in ages!! My how you've grown. Filled out too though not in the way I would expect."
Zelgadiss took the enthusiastic hugging and patting with good humor. Then he directed his blinder than a bat great-grandfather toward Lina. "She's over there, old man."
The hugging and gushing started all over again.
Rezo Graywords, as mentioned before, had the fortune, or misfortune, of having a grandson who looked exactly like him except for their different eye colors and lens prescriptions. Kitzero only had slight myopia; Rezo couldn't see anything further than two inches from his face.
"Come in, come in, I hardly get visitors." The hidden patriarch waved them into the interior of his cluttered quarters, tripping over stools and knocking over piles of books left and right. It was a miracle that he hadn't set the place on fire yet. Perhaps that was because all of the lights in here were magical in nature.
Lina and Zelgadiss managed to make their way to some armchairs without adding to their assortment of glowing bruises. Rezo tapped on a teakettle hanging over the fireplace. When it didn't pour forth tea, he lifted up the lid and took a sniff. "Oh dear, that's not Earl Gray tea..."
"That's quite alright," the redhead reassured him. "We just ate." She didn't want to try whatever concoction the near-sighted sorcerer had in that kettle.
"You did? Oh, alright then." Rezo deflated a bit, he had apparently been so looking forward to serving them tea. "What can I do for you then? Are congratulations in order? Will there be the pitter patter of little great-great-grandchildren around the place soon?"
If they had been drinking tea, both would have been choking and sputtering right about now.
"No! Of course not!" Lina protested, face aflame. Of all the things the old quack could of said, he says that. "We'd have to be married before that!"
"You're getting married then?" asked Rezo non-plussed.
"NO!!"
Zelgadiss was no help at all, holding his sides, laughing silently. Whether it was because of Rezo's harmless questions or Lina's reactions to them, he was in no condition to tell.
After a few more misconceptions regarding the reason why Zelgadiss and Lina were down here together, they finally got down to business. Rezo was not very happy that all of the cargo he had asked for was now either blown to smithereens or at the murky bottom of the Saillune River.
"Those were very important items I needed for my research! How can I do research without what I am researching right in front of me! I cannot work under these conditions! Where's my tea?!"
"What kind of research is he doing?" Lina whispered to Zelgadiss while Rezo walked in circles and raved at a cloak rack. "Magical research?"
"No, I think it had something to do with eyes and vision..."
"Absolutely!" Rezo suddenly interposed his head into their conversation. "Bats! Bats have terrible eyesight and I am researching how to cure them of that horrible affliction! To never be able to see the marvelous colors of the world! To never be able to clearly see that delectable red petal flower with its yellow pistons! Such tragedy!"
If Kitzero inherited his grandfather's looks, Lina was sure that Jedah had inherited his great-grandfather's flair for the melodramatic.
"I don't think it's all that terrible for that bats as you think it is..."
"What are you talking about? Look at the suffering and anguish on his face!" Rezo thrust forth a bat that was indeed in suffering and anguish, mainly because it was being squeezed by the man's fist around its small body.
"Of course, Rezo, of course," Zelgadiss said patronizingly, patting his poor senile great-grandfather on the back and surreptitiously releasing the bat from certain death. "I'm certain it was, um is very important. So if you could just give us a rundown on what items you were expecting to come in, we'll get to work on getting them for you again."
"You would? Really? That's why you're my favorite great-grandson, Zelgadiss! Is there anything I can do for you? Make you stronger? Make your skin turn blue? Give you more magical power? A love potion?"
"The list, Rezo, the list."
After a few more hours in the lonely man's company, the two finally escaped with promises to bring Rezo those little tarts with strawberry jam from the bakery next to the city park's north entrance. For someone over a hundred years old, he certainly had a lot of energy. Reminded Lina forcibly of her maternal grandmother Narina. The two would probably get along splendidly and be banned from entering every city on the peninsula because of their antics and magical experimentation.
"I can't believe this," Lina groaned, looking over the messy list Rezo finally managed to uncover in his mess of notes. It looked like the supply list for a forbidden magic shop. "And you actually agreed to buy this stuff for him??"
"What's wrong with it?"
What was wrong with it?? It was illegal to the tenth circle, that was what was wrong with it!! Not that Lina ever had any personal experience dealing with this kind of stuff, oh no, not at all.
Well, maybe just a little. Nothing criminal at any rate, if you had no proof.
"You'd better hope this was all destroyed in the blast," she sighed, looking over the other things on the list. "What's with all of this stuff from the Outer World? Shaman's staff? A wooden tribal mask?? I know the latest trend in magic is to explore the primitive forms used by the savages but I didn't think Rezo was interested in it. And where the in the world would he expect to find an Orihalcon statue of a praying goddess?"
"He's interested in everything. After all, he has been sealed away for over six decades," Zelgadiss commented, comfortably looking an uncomfortable Lina's shoulder. "Just as I thought, nothing in and of itself related to vampires. Perhaps it was a unique curse that everyone attributed to primitive superstition on one of the Outer World items Rezo requested."
"Are you ever going to drop that vampire thing?"