Pillows are the pinnacle of all creation. That was my conclusion after spending half a day hugging my self-made pillow in the room Mary used for doing her work as a duchess. The couch wasn’t the most comfortable thing to spend my time on, but the pillow helped massively in that regard. With my eyes closed, I could only sigh from time to time as Mary rarely talked while doing administrative work. Occasionally, I yawned quietly and rubbed my cheek against my pillow. Those were beautiful times … until Laura barged in.

“Mary, Lucinda, I have a proposal. Let me move back into the cottage I have outside the city. I cannot raise my child in the same house with a vampire who refuses to even look at Sofie, my duchess.” She said, radiating hope as if she wanted to hurt me.

Mary hesitated to answer and rather waited for my response. She knew the topic was rather peculiar for me, but after thinking about it for some time, I wasn’t able to see the negative aspects of Laura´s proposal.

“Sure, do that. We send your living expenses over monthly, but if you mess up once …” Her death wouldn’t be simple, that was for sure.

“… thank you … I am going to pack my things now. It was a pleasure living with you for these past few days.” Without any further words, she left the room. Mary was speechless, not because of Mary´s behaviour, but rather because I changed my opinion rather swiftly. I was already back to rubbing my cheek against the pillow as Mary spoke up.

“What changed your mind about keeping them close?” She asked with furrowed brows.

“I never expected an infant to be this loud at night. It is always crying, sleeping, crying and so on. It is torture! No, even worse!” I claimed and left it at that. Naturally, I didn’t change my opinion solely on that. It would probably anger the goddess that I threatened her continuously by keeping Sofie close. Even if the goddess decided to end my life, there was no way I could stop her or even try to hurt Sofie. Occasionally seeing her was enough for me to demonstrate that the goddess either needed to kill me and risk Aska´s revenge, or leave me alone.

“Are you admitting a mistake? It is a wonder this day ever came!” She exclaimed loudly and a bit too happly in my opinion. In return, I grunted and covered my head with the blanket. “Any other mistakes you have to admit?”

“Nah, I am perfect otherwise. So perfect that I cannot sleep at all.” I claimed and yawned loudly. I knew I had to sleep, but I just couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes. I feared what may come if I did so. “You know what, I am going to bed now.” Armed with a pillow and blanket, I carefully stood up and walked towards the door while having my hands in front of me.

“More to the right …” I touched the door, but was unable to find the handle right away. “up … up … are you sure about this?” Mary asked rather concerned as I was unable to open the door, let alone get back into my room.

“No. If you would be so kind.” Mary stood up from her chair, strolled towards me and took my hand. It was a bit embarrassing to be led around like this, but there really was no other choice. The sun, my undying enemy, still hovered high above our heads. Maybe I could try to kill the sun at night one day, but I would probably never get tall enough for that.

A bit tired, I drank a whole litre of animal blood in one go, naturally after Mary left my room again. After that, I laid down on my bed and hugged my pillow again, this time more tightly.

Sleeping was quite the issue though. I didn’t know the intentions of the goddess at all, but I knew she messed my whole life up. Although she was ambiguous at best with her question, it fundamentally underlined what I thought about for a long time. Aska lied. I didn’t know how much, or even where he lied, but it was a fact he did. Tasking me with saving him from purgatory and then asking me to wait clearly indicated there was more to it than I thought. But telling me all this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. After all, I kind of knew that Aska had something else in mind already.

If I understood her correctly, then she shielded my thoughts off. Even Aska wouldn’t be able to read them this way, which sounded nice on the surface but was the worst that could happen to me for one simple reason. Aska and I had massive trust issues, even towards each other. The power balance was always tilted in his direction, but that wasn’t an issue as long as he could read my memories. He rarely did, at least hopefully because I really hated it, but there was always the option.

For him, that meant security, and for me, that meant he would never have to confirm my words through other ways. Deep down, I knew that Aska would be furious and lash out at me because of this development, even if I wasn’t at fault. After all, I would do exactly the same.

Sighing, I stood up and walked to the window as I still couldn’t sleep. I knew exactly what was coming for me and I honestly didn’t want to sleep at all, but I still had to do it. My hands trembled as I reached towards the curtains and I gulped loudly. Knowing what was about to happen to me didn’t make it better. As such, I still had my eyes closed as I opened the curtains. The warm sun shone on my cold skin and for a few minutes. I bathed in this feeling for a bit, unable to let it go.

“Lucinda, are you in there?” Tom asked as he opened the door rapidly. “I … what are you doing there?”

“Everything I can to fix this mess I am in. Tom, could you barricade this room from the outside and only let me out after a few days?” I asked quietly. I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but it was better to take some precautions.

“Uhm, why?” He asked confused.

“For your own safety.” I said and opened my eyes. Sunlight flooded into them and I sank into a deep sleep before I even hit the ground. At least I was spared of that pain.