“Alright, Sir Allard.” Lyili stood up. “I’ll leave it to you to notify the Lich.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“We’ve done a sufficient job checking the butler’s body.” She did her model runway walk down the stairs before turning back to look up at me. “I believe it is time to notify Princess Thorns about what is going on.”

“I hope everyone’s okay…” Violetta trailed off.

“Huh. Now that I think of it…” I paused. “Shouldn’t you have gone to check on them earlier? I mean, there is a murderer running around, right?”

Lyili’s cheeks turned bright red. “M-Madam Thorns is more than capable of defending herself if the need arises. I-It’s extremely unlikely that someone would attack them while they are in a group.” She quickly recomposed herself, clearing her throat. “I did not slack on my escort duties, do you understand?”

“Uh-uh.”

“I’m… I’m serious!”

“Got it.”

“G-Good,” Lyili said. “Then if you’ll excuse me.” With that, she disappeared down the hall that lead to the dining room.

I was giving her a hard time about it, but she was probably right. Hadria could certainly hold her own in a fight, after all. I just felt like embarrassing her a little.

Oh god, I was actually starting to think the woman that tried to cut off my head just a few days ago was cute. This place was making me crazy.

Violetta tapped my shoulder. “Come on. We should go see if the Lich is in his office!” She sounded a little too excited about it given the current situation, but alright.

We walked back up to the second floor and turned left. The hallway on this side was noticeably darker than the others, and unlike the other hall, there were only two doors. The one at the very end that apparently led to the lich’s office, and another along the back wall just a few feet away from it.

We walked past the other door and stopped in front of the office. “I can’t believe this is happening,” Violetta whispered to herself before speaking to me. “How does my hair look?”

I looked back at her. She might have changed into a dress, but her hair looked just as messy as when we were on the boat. “Like you just got out of a rainstorm.”

“Okay good,” Violetta answered back immediately. Yeah. She obviously wasn’t even listening to what I said.

I turned back and knocked on the door three times. We waited for a few seconds, listening intently for any sign of someone coming to open it, but were only greeted with silence.

“Uhh… Lich?” Mr. Lich? I mean, his name wasn’t actually ‘Lich’, right? I knocked again. “Are you in there?”

Violetta got on her toes to whisper in my ear. “Maybe you need to knock louder.”

“Hello?” I pounded on the door again, but there was still no answer. “Is anyone there?” I reached out for the knob…. and had my hand immediately swatted away.

“Ryley!” Violetta whispered as loud as she could. “You can’t just go around opening people’s offices without permission.”

I gave her a dirty look. “Do you really think it’s the time to worry about something like that?” I reached back for the knob, only for Violetta to slap it again. “Will you stop it!?” I yelled. Seriously, she hit my arm often enough. I didn’t need this to me an entire body thing.

“There should be a law against doing that!” Violetta’s face got all pouty. “No entering without permission!”

“You literally just barged into my room without knocking a few minutes ago,” I said. “You have no business telling me what doors I can’t open.”

“B-But that was different.” Her pouty face reached critical mass. “I’m your assistant so it’s different!” No it wasn’t, and no amount of frowning was going to change my mind.

I glared at her. “I’m opening this door.”

“Ryley!”

Before she could react, I grabbed onto the doorknob and turned it as hard as possible. However, much to my disappointment, it didn’t even budge. Now I just looked like an idiot. This was the table humping incident all over again.

“I guess he really isn’t in there.” Violetta put her finger on her lips and looked up at the ceiling. For some reason, she didn’t even seem mad anymore. Did she already forget like some kind of demon goldfish?

“Maybe he went back to the dining room,” I sighed. “Let’s just go downstairs and meet up with everyone.”

I turned. And Violetta screamed.

And someone screamed back.

The only other door in the hall was cracked open, revealing a single eye looking back at us. It didn’t take me more than a second to recognize it.

Fucking Minzfel.

“Oh my goodness!” Violetta clutched her chest near her heart. “Prince, you scared me.”

The door flew open revealing the little piece of shit with his greasy black mop of hair and somehow equally greasy looking horns.

“V-Violetta!” Minzfel stammered. “I knew I recognized your voice. I mean, of course I did. Even when the other Succy Girls sang, I could always pick out your voice perfectly. S-So I knew it was you!” Ugh. If only we could have found him dead on the stairs instead.

Speaking of which.

“There’s been a murder,” I said.

Minzfel scowled at me like he was furious I had even spoken to him, but then his face quickly turned to one of terror.

“Wait, a… murder? W-Who? You mean… someone’s dead?”

“Krow. The butler,” I continued. “He’s dead.”

“Oh.” Minzfel’s extremely punchable face twisted back into a scowl. “Just that old guy.” He was clearly very shaken by the news.

“It’s okay, Prince.” Violetta nodded her head, furiously agreeing with herself. “We’re here to protect you.” I wasn’t. I never signed up to be head of the protection squad.

I glanced behind Minzfel. The room behind him was filled with bookshelves packed with what you would expect bookshelves to be packed with. It also looked a lot bigger than my guest room, which explained why it was the only other room on this side of the hall.

But it didn’t explain what Minzfel was doing in there.

“Brad’s crawling around somewhere looking for you, you know,” I sighed. “Care to explain what you were doing in the library?”

“Reading. But I don’t answer to you, Allard.” Minzfel answered me like he was spitting the words out onto the expensive carpet. And it probably seemed that way because he actually spit out a huge loogie as he said it. Wonderful. Krow would be turning over in his grave right now if he wasn’t busy on the stairs.

So yeah, Minzfel was acting like his usual obnoxious self. However, what he didn’t realize was that the Ryley he was an asshole to a few days ago and the Ryley standing before him now were in two very different positions. The Ryley before was alone, scared, and had his head under a guillotine. The Ryley today worked for his dad, was friends with his sister, and had almost had sex with the one responsible for the aforementioned guillotine. Oh, and his crush was this Ryley's underling too.

Yeah. It was time to embarrass a teenager in front of the girl he liked.

“So let me get this straight.” I took a few steps forward. “You ran off just as we got here without telling anyone where you were going so you could… read?”

Minzfel seized up. “What… What are you implying?”

I channeled the power of every parent that had ‘the talk’ at some point with their kids. “Look, prince, it’s okay, I get it. Your body is going through a lot of changes right now.”

Violetta wrinkled her brow. “Changes?”

“Allard, you’d better shut your mouth right now!” Minzfel grabbed his cult robe between his fingers and squeezed.

“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.” I used the opportunity to push past him and walked into the library. And before I could even pretend to find something, I found something. A stack of magazines. With the Succy Girls on the covers.

“It’s not what it looks like!” Minzfel shouted.

Oh god. It was exactly what it looked like.

“I just found these here!” Minzfel threw himself on top of the stack. “These aren’t even mine!”

“Wow!” Violetta poked her head in just in time to see. “Those are the Succy Photobooks, aren’t they?” She clapped her hands together, completely oblivious as usual. “Most of those are really rare!” I bet they sucked.

“Wait, what?” I narrowed my eyes. “These are a part of the lich’s book collection? He’s a fan?”

“Yeah,” Minzfel barked. “I mean… I guess he must be.”

Violetta gasped. “This is so flattering…” The fanboy to her fangirl. How romantic.

“I-I really wasn’t doing anything weird, okay?” Minzfel stood back up, breathing heavily. “Can’t a guy look at his favorite band without b-being accused of something?”

“You’re right,” I said. “I was wrong.” I really, really wanted to be wrong. “Anyway, we should meet with everyone downstairs. They’re probably waiting for us.”

Plus I needed to wash my eyes out. And my brain. If only I was a demon goldish.

“And I’m not going through any c-changes,” Minzfel added. “I just turned 18. You should know. You ruined my party!” This kid was 18?

First of all, I was still grossed out. Second of all, admitting he was an adult after flipping over a birthday cake in rage wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.

Flipping over tables was very adult though.