🌹 x5 :3c (I’ll send in some WIPs when I get home 👀)
🌹 “You remember everything.” The world wanted to crash all around him. It did nothing of the sort, but to Gilbert, it felt the same as if it had. “You knew…?”
Chrysi’s smile tightened. Pain paled her eyes. “I did.”
He was ecstatically happy. He was agonizingly betrayed. “You… lied to me.” His words sunk in and a surge of hurt turned his tone accusatory. “You lied to me.”
———
🌹 Chrysi caught his wrist, though she couldn’t bring herself to look up into his face. It still brought about turmoil in her chest, so hot and furious and helpless that she wanted to vomit from it all.
But she still said, “Thank you.”
Archibald paused. He kept his hands studiously by his sides.
“You don’t need to thank me,” he said. There was a smile in his voice, like there always was, this time with a self-effacing bend. “I should have told you sooner. I have been a coward.
“Yes. You have.” Chrysi finally dared to look up, her face wiped clean of emotion.
That made Archibald’s smile brighten, more self-hating, but unfairly angelic on his face. “This is why I like you, Mademoiselle Executioner,” he said. “You are ruthlessly honest.”
She arched a brow. “Well, we can’t have worked if not for transparency on both our parts, Archie.”
———
🌹 The empty black hole of Daeshim’s cloak tilted to the room over, then returned its hungry, empty gaze to Jacks. “Make that three favors you owe me now, Prince of Hearts.”
He looked up at him hazily.
Jacks could owe the Assassin all the favors in the world and he wouldn’t give a damn. All he cared about was Chrysi in the next room over. Her anger and grief and horror mixed with his, melding together into a twisted sculpture of their hearts. He didn’t even want to speak with the Assassin.
But he knew that owing the Assassin a favor—singular—was bad enough. Jacks couldn’t be owing Daeshim three of them and allow them to be on bad terms when he ultimately decided to cash them in.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, eyes roaming the room around them. It looked unfamiliar. Pale, tall Grecian columns and elegant crown molding. He saw some potted plants, a welcome hint of color in the white room. “Where are we?”
The Assassin stared at him with that black hood.
“Somewhere safe,” he settled on saying.
Jacks doubted the truthfulness of that statement, but he didn’t care. So long as they were away from the Undead Queen and whatever other secrets Mistress Luck had uttered, it was good enough for him.
“Thank you,” he said again, and he meant it a little more this time.
“The Prince of Hearts thanking someone,” the Assassin commented in that flat tone of his. “What a treat.”
———
🌹 Not daring to take a breath, Mordred gently laid his hand on her side. The delicate edge of her rib cage and the angle of her hip bone framed the opposite sides of his hand. Small finger to thumb, the reminder of how fragile and small this girl to whom he’d pledged himself.
Underneath his palm, her breathing stilled. Mordred could feel an invisible surge, like lightning sparking underneath her skin and underneath his in tandem.
But she didn’t move away.
He didn’t either.
Mordred peered over her tangled mess of curls and into the tree line. He hadn’t sensed anything from his horse—she would be sure to wake him if need be. And he so wanted this lowering of his guard. He wanted to curl closer, tighter around Chrysi and see if she felt the same spark he did.
The thought of her rejection terrified him, though, and so he withheld himself. They were close enough for their purposes—they needed nothing more.
He wanted something more.
———
🌹 Despair pushed off the ground, desperate to reach her.
Thwack!
He crashed as a jolt of agony split his head and his vision with white-hot pain. The floor scraped at his hands, at his knees.
He tried to push up from the ground again.
Another jab, right at the base of his spine.
He crumpled with a groan. His body spasmed without his permission.
A wordless cry of anguish tore from Chrysi.
Femt clicked his tongue. “Not so fast, Caeruleus,” he said cruelly, voice sing-song, and taking great amusement at Despair’s huddle of pain on the floor. “I can’t have you ruining the show before it even starts.”
“Don’t,” Despair gasped. “Don’t—hurt her.”
“Aw, why not?”
His body protested as he twisted his head to find Femt looking down at him once again, his cane hooked over his arm and his chin in his palm, grinning horribly down at him.
At Despair’s attention, Femt’s smile twisted unnaturally. “She’s dying anyway! We may as well have some fun with it.”
Ice sheeted over him. Emptiness yawned where his heart should’ve been.
He looked at Chrysi once more, agonized, panicked.
She stared back at him with a twisted expression—but none of that worry was for herself.
Despair wanted to scream, wanted to cry.
“If you kill her,” he snarled, and it was to cover his sob, “I will hunt you down for eternity.”
Femt cocked his head to the side. Hope—that traitorous thing—began to bloom in his chest.
But then Femt crooned, “At least it’ll keep things interesting” and Despair’s whole body shuddered.