Seconds to Midnight: A Maiden of Midnight Prequel

Cain- Day Nineteen

“Ah, there you are, Prince!” My foot hovered above the step, my eyes closing with frustration before I forced myself to slowly turn, giving a tense, polite smile to Joseph where he stood at the bottom of the stairs, catching me out in a crowd that included my mother.

Over his shoulder, Lilith gave me a knowing smile, silently reminding me of the promise I had made her; to comply with Joseph’s demands.

Damn it!

After the meeting with Lilith and Zeella, I’d taken Alishan’s advice and gotten out of the Manor, taking a three-and-a-half-week holiday in Pangorama. I was hesitant to call it ‘hiding’ from the Nephilim or Project Eden, but that was exactly what it was. Zeella had sent Tingen with me, preventing me from using the time away from the watchful eye of the Manor to look further into Project Eden and what it was, so I had spent the three weeks instead drinking myself half to death in the many bars around the city.

A couple of the more elicit clubs knew me by name now, as did their dancers.

I’d made a contact in a man who ran a bar called ‘The Vault’, although I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name.

I’d thought I was safe, sneaking in during one of the parties thrown by the Sins, deciding that not even the stupidest Nephilim would be anywhere but locked in their room during one of them. Instead, it sealed my fate. Apparently, Joseph truly feared nothing.

“Joseph,” I forced my lips to form his name as politely as I could, “What can I do for you?”

My mother must have told him that I would follow his orders, because there was a smug smile on his face when he declared, “Take me on a tour of the Manor!”

I was going to take him out into the icy fields and wring his neck!

Tamping down on my anger, which was part frustration and part lingering fury from the ridiculous amount of alcohol still clouding my brain, I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Of course. Where to first?”

“Start down here, would you? Explain to me the rooms, what they’re used for, all of that.”

He needed me to explain what the throne room was used for?

Turning, I walked back down the six stairs I’d made it up, and brandished to the room we were in, muttering, “Grand entrance, obviously.” Joseph flipped his notebook open to a sheet of what looked like parchment paper, stuck into the middle with glue. Upon it, he had sketched a rough map of the Manor. He wrote the words ‘grand entrance’ across the little box that symbolised the room we were in.

Seriously? The Sins- worse, my mother- was okay with him making a map of the Manor? We might as well open a gift shop, if we were going to be selling maps of the building, the layout of which helped keep us safe!

Demonic-beings were stronger than every other Super-Natural, but that did not mean we were immune to war. Even we could be wiped out. The war on Earth had made that painfully clear, until Zeella and Lilith had struck a deal with the Archangels.

My eyes swept over the room bursting with Demonic-beings, the thought of all of them dead as foreign to me as The Borderlands.

The Manor was the one constant in our lives. That, and the knowledge that leaving was a guaranteed death sentence.

It was why none of the Heirs had run, not even Des and I, try as she might to convince me we should. The worst part was- I wanted to take her, I just couldn’t risk us being caught. I didn’t want to see what they would do to her for dissertion, or what they would make me do to her. My punishment would include killing her, before turning the blade on myself.

I made a slow round through every room, cupboard and servant tunnel that Joseph requested, explaining what each room was using the barest details I could find- somehow, he’d accurately drawn the tunnels that only the staff used to run supplies around the Manor, unseen. He had every cell in our dungeons labelled, including the torture rooms.

Even the damned attic was on there!

On rooms that belonged to the Heirs, he had written down our full names, and where to find more details about us. According to his handwritten labels, he had multiple journals of information about everything.

In fact, after glancing over his shoulder to read the map while he spoke to a Demonic-being who’d approached him, I realised the only room he didn’t have drawn in was Destiny’s.

A cold unease skittered over my skin. Joseph wanted something, and I was beginning to be willing to bet that it was information about her.

Could someone have told him about a mysterious Assassin in Caliem? Had his Queen sent him out here to gather information about her? From the history I gathered in Ordeallan’s books, the city was wrought with peril for the Royal family and upper class. Assassinations were a common theme.

Joseph would have a motive here beyond money. A meagre pay, as he described it, would not be enough to entice someone to stay here for close to a month, filling multiple journals with information.

We cleared room after room, going through multiple levels. I tried thinking of a way to prevent him from seeing Destiny’s room, which was obviously his end goal. Knock him out?

Use a mirage to convince him that it was nothing spectacular?

Entering Des and I’s private chambers, I opened the door, showing him my room, and my private bathroom, giving him a bullshit history of the rooms. Joseph’s eyes continued to slide expectantly to Destiny’s bedroom door. He remained silent, patiently listening, until I went to guide him out of the chambers.

Clearing his throat, he dipped his chin to the door.

“What’s in there?” He strode over, pushing down on the latch, which held firm. Destiny had decent locks on her door.

“It really is nothing, just an empty room,” I insisted, gripping the handle tightly in case he had some trick way of opening it, “Come, I’ll show you-”

“I want you to show me what’s on the other side of the door.” His voice was firm. I snarled, my lips curling back as I took a threatening step toward him, and Joseph smirked.

“Your mother would be disappointed to hear you refused to show me, after you promised her your complete obedience. It truly would be a shame to see you end up like General Ogmok.”

I felt a muscle in my jaw feather. Joseph’s smirk remained.

He might as well have grabbed me by the balls and threatened to twist.

Elbowing him aside, I spat, “It belongs to someone who cannot give her permission for you to enter.”

“A her, hm? A lover of yours?” He suggested slyly. I snarled again.

Destiny and I weren’t lovers. I wouldn’t betray her trust like that. She looked up to me in the same way a little sister would with a brother!

“A friend.”

“Related?”

I remained silent. I wasn’t giving Joseph the information he wanted.

“Related, then,” Joseph concluded, flipping through his journal pages, “It can’t be a sister, since your mother said she only had two children, both boys, which means it’s a cousin.”

I ground my teeth together. Joseph didn’t know Destiny’s life story, but he knew she existed, which meant he could take that bare knowledge to any of the Heirs or Sins in the Manor, and have the rest of the details filled in.

If I was the one to tell him, I could control the narrative a little; twist it into something that would scare Joseph away from Destiny permanently.

“Her name is Desterium Maladur. She’s a Princess, and my cousin.”

“You share your quarters with her. The two of you must be close.”

“We are. All I can tell you about her is that she was lucky at birth, and not so lucky every day after it.” Understatement of the century, “She’s not in Caliem, so I won’t grant you entry into her room. I value my loyalty to her over my life!” I spat with a growl when Joseph attempted to threaten me again, “So don’t try your bullshit threats!”

Joseph flicked his eyes over me. I glared at him.

Whatever he saw in me now, or whatever rubbish he told my mother about me, I no longer cared. He had information on Destiny; enough to make him a threat.

He seemed to realise that, finally backing down, tilting his chin in a subtle bow, concluding, “Thank you for the tour, General. I’ll let you get back to your private life.”

He left me standing sentinel by Destiny’s door. I watched him exit the chambers, closing the door.

Behind me, Destiny’s door opened, Nym poking her head out, “Want me to tail him?”

“Sure.” She slipped by me, quiet as a ghost, and began to follow him.

We might as well know where he was going to go now that he knew about Destiny’s existence.

He would corroborate the information I’d given him with information from other Caliem members now. I wouldn’t be surprised if, once getting what he needed, he disappeared tonight.

Running a hand down my face, I swore in Demonic, opening Destiny’s door and sliding in.

Nym had been sitting on the end of the bed, where a book had been abandoned. It was a novel, one I had bought for Destiny back on Earth. Closing it, I ran my hand over the embossed cover. I could remember her assessment of it, how accurate she’d found the Faeries within to be compared to the real Fae.

Keeping the page with a bookmark, I snapped the book shut, and placed it back on her desk, sitting on the end of the bed and dropping my head into my hands. Tears prickled at my eyes that I fought back, groaning, “I’m making a mess of this mission, Des.”

Later that night, Nym returned. Joseph had been to Lyna Maladur first, and then to Zeella.

Both times had been to ask about Destiny.