Thank you all so much for 100+ Power Stones! Like I promised, here's a special Mass Release consisting of Chapter 41 and 42! (Psst, chap 42 has an illustration waiting for y'all!)

I put up the whole shindig for future Mass Releases up in my Synopsis, don't forget to check that out! Support the Novel with more Power Stones, Gifts, Comments, Reviews+ and we'll whip up some more quality chapters.

ENJOY!~~~

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My second day since I've escaped from the palace, and I have no idea where I am.

"W-what do you mean there are weirdos roaming this area? Why, where is this?" I asked as I got up and followed Faustine to the kitchen where she was stirring something in a large black pot. The whole room smelled most strange and I retracted away from the doorway almost immediately.

"What do you mean there are weirdos roaming around here?" I asked her again.

She looked up from whatever she was stirring and after acknowledging my presence, said, "Just...drunkards and robbers… Nothing to worry about though, my love. Why don't you taste this gravy and tell me if I got the spices right?"

Still unsatisfied with Faustine's explanation, I took a step through the threshold as I breathed not from my nose and slurped in the grey-ish brown gunk that was served before my mouth in a spoon. I should've been more hesitant, I am aware, but a day's worth of meal was enough to persuade me that Faustine was a great cook.

"Good?" she asked, side-eyeing me.

"Yes, it's good. A bit heavy on the salt, though."

She patted my shoulder for my help and then shooed me outside just before closing the kitchen door. If I was someone else, I would've felt a bit offended by her brash actions, but I knew how much concentration it took while cooking something up that you are painfully aware will be placed under the judgement of people out of your inner circle. I've felt it myself.

I remember once when my 2nd eldest sister brought a couple of her friends over after a karaoke night. She told me to go make something for them and for herself because, and I quote, they were 'starving as f**k!' and could practically 'eat a whole damn horse'.

Timidly, I had asked her what she wanted to eat and they all yelled different articles of food till they reached a compromise and told me to go make some fried chicken.

Fried chicken was something only Juwon and I had at home alone. It was our little thing. He didn't care how I made it, he just liked to eat it if I was the one it was made by. But now that my 2nd sister's friends had also joined the bandwagon, things were a lot tougher. I had to take care of the oil temperature, the amount of cornflakes I coated on the outer side of the chicken, the thickness of the batter, everything.

I had to concentrate real hard because I knew other people would be tasting my food and it had to be picture-perfect. It took me a few oil splashes and several tries to finally get my things right. I was literally in tears by the time I handed them their tray because I feared I wouldn't be able to meet their expectations. And I was only 12 myself.

So like I said, I understood Faustine.

I was starting to wonder how long it'll take Reynard to return when he came barging through the front door, yelling, "Aunty, did someone give you trouble again?"

I stood in the living room like a frozen statue as I tried to register who the hell this was. Oh, silly me, it was just reckless Reynard!

I stood at ease and glanced at the jar in his hand. "What do we have here?"

He ignored me. "Aunty," he yelled again. "Why'd you bust the door again?"

"So it really is normal behavior to go off breaking glass, huh?"

"Aunty!"

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Reynard! Do keep it down," I said, clutching my ears. "A strange man was peeking through the glass part of the door. Faustine threw at him her wooden spoon."

"Oh..." His shoulders sagged. "Nobody tried to break in, right?"

I shrugged. "I don't think so," I told him. "So did you bring the dye?"

"Oh, yes," he replied, flashing at me the white jar. "Sorry it took me so long. Most places were out of stock so I had to go the long way to Mister Piret's barber stall. He's always got some dye on hand."

As we walked shoulder to shoulder towards the room, I asked with my eyes still on the jar in his hand, "Do you know everyone around here?"

"Pardon?" he said, stopping in his tracks.

"It appears that you know everybody's names, whether they may be Mister Piret or Uncle Franke or-"

He laughed, cutting me in. "Oh, well. I've lived around here since so long ago, everyone's names come naturally to me now. I roamed the streets a lot with my sister when I was little. We used to play so many games and whatnot with the other kids on the streets, so needless to say, we grew close to the people around us. It's like we're one big family."

"How strange," I mumbled, but when he looked at me, I quickly completed by saying, "but not in a bad way!"

Close call.

"So how many people do you really know around here?" I asked as I opened the door to my room.

"Well..." he said, lifting his fingers to count. "There's Uncle Franke, of course and Mister Piret, like I said. There's Madam Orva, the fortune teller right along the street and Charleen Fay, the girl who sells flowers beside Jesekiel, the blacksmith's stall. Mister Tallifer with his grand, black hounds sits in front of his house at the end of the street to protect his garden from kids running over it and Little Alric and Small Boy Colby are the kids in question. Then we've got Ulitta Graemes, the widow who never leaves her house but us kids do deliver free apples to her once a week. Ronni and Helmi Carlyle, the twins who perform gymnastics on the street and their little sister, Tristi plays the vielle with them and dare I say, they make a ton off it. Oh, I forgot to mention..."

The whole while Reynard had been animatedly telling me about his 'one big family', I had already seated myself on the bed and he had instinctively pulled out the chair. His rant was still ongoing and I had been listening with interest at first but now the same interest had been replaced with envy. He had everything I could only imagine. A nice sister, loving parents, freedom to act and on top of that, everyone was a friend of his.

Unknowingly, it was eating away at me from the inside.

When he had finally finished after announcing 'Ida Thorpe, the woman with the crazy clothes who resides smackdab in the middle of the main, commercial street of Eyress and wouldn't move even for a several hundred golds', I smiled and told him how wonderful it was but in reality, it hurt.

"So the dye," I brought up the subject again. "What color did you pick?"

"Oh, it's charcoal. That's what there usually is."

Great! I thought. Black!

"Shall we try applying it, then?" I said expectantly.

He got off the chair with a grunt and one-handedly pushed the large table in front of the door to prevent anyone from coming in. "This should keep everyone out," he muttered. Weirdly, it felt like deja vu, but the last time we had attempted something like this was with a large bedside table lined with gold.

Without a word spoken between us, I took off the bonnet, letting my hair roll down and broke off a couple hairs from my head. I presented it to Reynard but he didn't do anything to them immediately.

"Careful, Your Highness," he said, smiling, "This stuff stinks. It's best if we apply it outside the window to prevent any fumes from throwing suspicion on us."

I nodded and we stepped closer to the window. Reynard grabbed a couple of my lilac hairs which looked white under the early afternoon's light and dipped them into the jar of blackness.

He was right, it did smell strongly of charcoal. I screwed up my nose as I saw blackened hairs emerge from the jar's top. Reynard quickly closed the lid and we observed the hair together under the sunlight. They very much did look black and the excess dye was dropping onto the window sill, but Reynard cared not.

After a while, he said, "I think they should be completely colored now..."

"Do we wash it to check?" I asked, my eyes on the two long strands.

Reynard nodded. He put one finger in his mouth and rubbed the strands with his spit to check if the dye came off. It didn't.

I smacked Reynard's back. "That's disgusting. Couldn't you have used water?"

He chuckled. "We've blocked off the door. It'd be much of a hassle to remove the table, go wash the hair, and then come back to push the table in place again. Aunty would surely grow suspicious of us."

Though I did agree with him, I wasn't going to let him off this easily. "How can you act so vile in front of your princess, nonetheless?"

"Runaway princess," he corrected and I sighed.

"Now check if the strands will still heal," I told him.

He proceeded to scratch his arm again, this time a lot lighter. There wasn't any blood but it was still an injury. He hovered the hair over the cut and looked at me hesitantly. I nodded while I prayed under my breath for it to work and I guess God heard my voice because the moment the dyed strand came in contact with the scratch, the skin started to come together until there was no sign of the cut itself.

We both sighed with relief. I fell back on the bed while Reynard threw himself on the floor, looks of accomplishment all over our faces. It worked.