“This leads to the dining room.” The ring of keys attached to Krow’s waist jingled as we walked through a dim hallway of the mansion. “The other guests have already arrived.”

“I can’t believe this is really happening.” Violetta’s eyes sparkled like she was walking on the red carpet or something. Well… okay, so the carpet was red and we were technically here to meet someone famous. Still, this level of excitement was going to get old fast. “Oh! Oh my gosh!” Violetta rushed ahead and pointed up at the wall. “Look at this! Ryley!” Really fast.

I looked over and realized there were two large portraits hanging on the wall next to us. The first was of a horny folk with the most chiseled jaw I had ever seen. He sported a smug smile and the kind of look in his eyes that told me he thought he was hot shit. Chronic handsome-guy face. There was no cure.

My eyes drifted to the second picture. This one was different. Really different. In fact, there was pretty much only one word that came to my mind when I saw it. Barf.

That was also what came out of my mouth.

“Whoa, gross!” Hadria giggled like a little sadist. “Ryley just lost his lunch.”

“No, Ryley,” Yaika said in the least concerned concerned voice I’d ever heard. “You have to swallow it, remember?”

“Bro, you okay?” Brad asked.

I wiped my mouth, my cheeks burning. How was I supposed to know that even a portrait of the lich was going to make me sick?

The face in the picture was like a melted candle. He was bald, and his drooping skin was a sickly yellow color. His eyes practically popped out of their sockets. He didn’t have lips, so his rotten teeth sat front and center in a sort of half smile, half grimace. So yeah. They weren’t kidding about the puke-on-sight thing.

“Uhh…” I glanced down at the ground. “Sorry about that…”

“Oh don’t worry about it,” Krow said, his face contorting. “I’ll just clean that up later. I don’t mind at all. Not one bit.”

“I can clean it if you want…”

“Oh no!” The veins in Krow’s neck bulged. “I insist!” Something told me that he minded.

I took a moment to look at the two pictures again. “So if this is the lich, who is this supposed to be?” I motioned to the non-candle faced one

“Can’t you tell?” Hadria walked up next to me. “It’s the Lich before he got all gross and stuff.” I take it all back. There was a cure for his handsome face after all. This was basically the worst before and after picture of all time.

“Yeah…” Yaika swallowed something. Ugh. “He traded his good looks for fire, ice, and lightning magic.”

“And I heard he’ll live a long time too, bro,” Brad added. “Like, way over a hundred years.”

“Ha. Totally not worth it.” Hadria adjusted her eyepatch. “I’d rather die than look like that.”

Yeah. I had to agree with her on this one. There was being ugly and then there was… this.

“This is… This is…” Violetta started, still looking up at the wall. She stood there almost trembling. “Kind of disappointing!”

“Uhh… How is this disappointing?”

“I just didn’t expect him to look like this…” Violetta sniffled.

She didn’t expect the guy that literally made people throw up on site to look like this? Whatever. This was a waste of time. She could whine about how he looked later when we met him in person.

“Alright, alright.” I pushed on her back just between her wings. “Can we just get moving already?” I also didn’t want to stand around next to my upchuck any longer.

Violetta sighed. “Okay…”

We continued down the hallway until we reached two large doors. “We’ve arrived.” Krow moved past us and threw them open with a push of his hands. They opened with significantly less creaking than the front door.

Inside, the carpet turned into a glossy marble, and it was much shinier than the floor in the entryway. The ceiling was high, and I could hear the sound of a clock ticking back and forth reverberating through the spacious room.

In the center, there was a long dark mahogany table that stretched from one side to the other. Sitting at it in the spot closest to us was a woman.

Her hair was the color of dark blood, and it stretched down all the way to her lower back. The curved horns coming out of the sides of her head were even darker, almost pitch black. In contrast, her eyes were a radiant gold, and they lit up as soon as they landed on us.

“My oh my!” The woman stood up to reveal her long flowing black dress. She quickly walked over to us, the heels of her shoes clicking against the floor. “Is that you, Yaika my dear?” She grabbed her and gave her a squeeze. “Goodness, you’ve gotten so big!”

“I’ve been busy helping the new law squad,” Yaika said before immediately breaking into an explosion of coughs. “I had to grow up a lot because of that.” Uhh… I had only been here like five days. Plus, was she trying to say that she physically grew during that time because of it?

I stopped myself. That was a close one. I nearly pulled something in my brain trying to do the gymnastics required to understand Yaika’s thought process.

The woman pulled away, scanning the rest of us. “Hmm? Where’s your brother?”

Yaika turned around with the speed of a turtle having an off day. When she finally did, she gave a small shrug. “Beats me.”

I looked around, but the little asshole was nowhere to be seen. Now that I thought of it, things had been suspiciously unobnoxious during the last few minutes. Maybe he fell into the moat.

“I’m sure he’s around here somewhere,” Yaika said.

I really hoped he fell into the moat.

Brad’s eyes darted around frantically. Chunky sweat dripped down his body before being sucked up back into his body and repeating the process. Gross, but not lich’s face gross.

“You alright?” I whispered to him.

“T-This isn’t good, man,” he whispered back. “If something happens to the Prince, the King’ll have my head.” I wasn’t sure how one would go about decapitating a blob of jelly but the execution squad would probably find a way.

“Maybe you should go look for him?”

“Y-Yeah… G-Good idea, bro.” Holy shit, Brad was starting to turn white. “I should… I should go find him.” He suddenly spoke up, almost screaming. “I’ll go look for him! Be back later!” He slid out of the room, tentacles flailing. Poor guy.

I still hoped Minzfel fell in though.

“Well now…” The woman stepped over to me. “You must be the Ryley I’ve been hearing so much about!”

“That’s me…”

Whoa. Now that she was right in front of me, I noticed she was over six feet tall. Her face was youthful, with soft cheeks that had just a tint of pink to them. She was… beautiful.

Oh, and she also had the biggest boobs I had ever seen in my entire fucking life. Seriously. When people called them melons, this was exactly what they meant. Not that I was paying them much attention, of course. Just a side note. Two very large side notes.

Yaika poked my side. “This is my aunt.”

“It’s an honor!” Violetta’s voice cracked. “I’m Violetta. I’m Ryley’s assistant.” She actually managed to introduce herself normally that time. “His lawing and lawyering and… and… and I’m his assistant... It’s an honor!” So close, yet so far.

“Hello dear.” Yaika’s aunt nodded in Violetta’s direction before bringing her attention back to me.

“Uhh… Hi,” I said. I tried my best to keep my eyes focused on her face with mixed results. “It’s nice to meet you, queen… uh… princess?” What title did the king’s sister have anyway?

“Oh my, does Hooks actually have you call him ‘your majesty’?” She covered her mouth with her hand and let out a laugh. “No need for titles, dear. You aren’t a demon, after all. Please, just call me Thorns.” Hooks and Thorns? For their mother’s sake, I hoped they weren’t named for how it felt giving birth to them. I mean, they weren’t born with the horns already grown… right? Oh god.

“Nice to meet you, Thorns,” I said. I meant it too. She seemed nice. Was there actually someone related to the king that didn’t creep me out or annoy the hell out of me? It was a miracle.

Thorns clapped her hands together in front of her giant breasts that I definitely wasn’t looking at. “Ryley, you are just so cute I could just pop your head like a grape!” I mean, I guess I wasn’t so bad. “I could just squeeze and squeeze until your skull shatters!” Uhh… Okay. So much for the not creeping me out thing, I guess.

Violetta put her mouth as close to my ear as possible. “What an honor.”

Thorns sighed. “I would give you a hug, but you’re quite wet, my dear.” I wasn’t sure if I should have felt disappointed or relieved.

“Yeah…” I looked down at myself. I had almost forgot how soaked my suit was. “I didn’t bring an umbrella.”

Suddenly, I heard the sound of a chair moving at the other end of the table followed by a very familiar voice. “How disgraceful, Sir Allard!” the voice said. “To be defeated by rain before you have been defeated by me.”

Yeah, I didn’t even need to look to know who it was.