The meal was mediocre like always, although the atmosphere was pretty harsh. The few maids who served our meals all had completely blank faces as they tried to hide the disgust for Hannah who stood near the wall and watched everything. With glee, I noticed how the atmosphere turned even more icy as we ate. Everything was developing nicely so far. I should give myself a pat on my shoulder for predicting the tensions this well.

Mary seemed to notice as well, although she rather talked about something else.

“Did you know there is a new disease in the city?” She asked me as if I had any idea what she was talking about.

“Is everyone alright?” I asked, already guessing what was happening.

“Yes, all of those who got it are in a hospital and the other ones fled the part of the city. It does seem to be a rather local phenomenon though … the doctors are suspecting the mana disease.”

“It is great to hear everyone is safe.” Mary looked at me questioningly but didn’t go into the topic any further.

“So, what are you planning to do today? Oh, by the way, your tutoring will resume the day after tomorrow if that is alright with you.” It certainly wasn’t. The earlier I would need to go back to the royal palace, the earlier I would get a midlife crisis which meant a bit more to me than anyone else. After all, I was immortal.

“I thought about reading some books.” And some books I read. After all, I now had a maid who could carry all the books I wanted to read into my room without doing it myself, even though I had to describe their cover perfectly. It was a glorious sight as she couldn’t lift up too many books at once and had to move between the small library on the ground floor up into my room repeatedly. This poor girl was starving until the day before and now I started to work her to the bones.

“I´m finished.” She said, panting heavily and leaning onto a wardrobe.

“Are you alright? You are sweating like crazy. Here, sit down.” I patted the place right next to me on the bed, although her sweat disgusted me quite a bit. “Take a book, it´s going to do you some good.” I picked up a random book to my side and gave it to her as soon as she sat down and leaned against the headboard. Perplexed, she looked at it as if she had seen a ghost. I immediately noticed her issue as she made no move to turn the book around so that the writing would be actually readable.

“You don’t know how to read?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“I´m sorry.” She answered timidly.

“That´s noting to be ashamed of. Do you want me to teach you?” She nodded, albeit reluctantly. It obviously took a horrendous amount of my time during the day, but that wasn’t a problem at all. It was strangely fun to see her failing over and over again. At dawn though, I called it an end and made myself ready to go into bed.

“Goodnight.” She left the room, quite tired as she was constantly yawning. Tucked in my blanket, I waited a few minutes until I stood up and looked out of the window. She was walking along the path to the servants quarters, her gaze directed to the ground. I waited a few more minutes until I was sure that every servant left the main building except for the guards and wore a thick coat.

I left the mansion with a lamp in my hand and two guards following me. One of them did accompany me into the fires, the other one split up from us back then.

“Thank you for helping that day.”

“That´s what everyone would do, right?” I smiled brightly but left it at that. We strolled further away from the main building while I stared at the stars that finally peeked through the clouds.

“Why are we here, milady?” The other guard asked, constantly scanning the area of any threats. Obviously, there were none, otherwise, I would pick them up way sooner than he could.

“I´m worried.” I stated and gazed towards the servants’ quarters in the distance.

“About the elf?” I nodded and proceeded to walk towards the house that was still lit brightly. I already heard the weeping of a girl before she even ran out of the house. Tears flew down Hannah´s face as she leaned against the wall and crouched down.

“It does seem you are right.” Whispered the guard captain who stood behind me, waiting for me to resolve this situation myself.

I stepped forward and slowly approached Hannah who only realized I was there as I knelt down directly in front of her.

“Hey.” I said, trying to calm her down somewhat.

“Why … ar… are yo… you he… here?” She sobbed uncontrollably which made it a bit harder to understand her than usual.

“I feared that something like this may happen.” And my lying streak continued! I didn’t fear it, I rather anticipated it with glee. Every action so far fuelled the hatred of the servants towards her and I certainly wouldn’t stop at that point. Gently, I rubbed the tears out of her face and looked into her eyes. Her emotions were a mess. As far as I could see, she was still incredibly scared, but also thankful for everything I did for her, even if it backfired all the time.

“What happened?” I asked swiftly.

“They … they said I wasn’t allowed to sleep inside.”

“And they hit you, didn’t they?” I looked at the red mark on her cheeks sternly. Reluctantly, she nodded. I breathed out sharply but didn’t storm into the building right away.

“I´m sorry. I didn’t see that coming. Please forgive me.” Lies, lies and even more lies. I wondered how far I could go with all the lies I spouted out as I gently grabbed her hand and pulled her upwards as I stood up.

“You … don´t …” She still cried. I didn’t even know her real age, but she acted like a genuine teenager. Tom´s intel was right at this point at least, although he couldn’t tell me how old she exactly was, not that it mattered though.

“As I said, I am going to protect you. If it is from the citizens in the slums, or the servants at this mansion, my conviction doesn’t change.” I held her hand and dragged her back towards the mansion while flinching over the fact that I only lied partly here. As long as she was useful, I would protect her, that was true. Otherwise, she could end up in the gutters and I wouldn’t care. But the fact that she was an elf was already extremely useful to me, so I wouldn’t throw her away anytime soon.

With a broken lying streak of fifty-three, I pulled her into my room, locked the door behind us and placed my thick coat over my chair.

“What are we doing here?” She asked, having finally calmed down enough to speak like usual again.

“We are going to count sheep.” I said sarcastically and started a new lying streak if she took it literally. In any case, it was the little lies that made the big numbers!

I threw myself on my bed, tucked myself into the blanked, but held it up for her to sneak under it. At first, she didn’t understand what I was doing at all until she turned redder than a tomato.

“I- We- That´s-“ She stumbled over her words quite rapidly and left me no choice but to take her hand again and pull her onto the mattress.

“What´s the problem?” I asked, somewhat understanding why she was so bashfully.

“I-“ She stuttered again.

“Just lay down and keep quiet, alright? I´m tired as well and I don’t know any other place where you could sleep safely.” I said, thinking about the couch in Mary´s study, or the ground, or the ten other sleeping rooms this mansion had.

Reluctantly, she accepted her fate and laid down on her back while I wrapped the blanket around her.

“Oh, I didn’t expect that.” The blanket was too narrow for both of us to fit under. Shrugging, I inched closer to her until my head laid on her chest. She tensed up considerably as I did so, but didn’t move away too much.

“You are cold!” She exclaimed as her hand touched my naked arm by mistake.

“Maybe I was a bit too long outside? My temperature was always on the lower side as I was quite sickly as I was still younger.” It certainly didn’t work that way, but she definitely didn’t know much about human temperature.

She relaxed a few minutes afterwards as I left her no room to escape and fell asleep after a good fifteen minutes of silence. It was only me who was awake in this room now. Obviously, I used that time to do naughty things …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naturally not, I spent the night listening to her calming heartbeat. It did seem like I had found a new pillow after I had to sacrifice my old one for the sunglasses. Using her as my pillow was definitely something I would repeat as long as I could.