The Demon And The Siren [Completed]

|Chapter Seven : The Archives|

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M A R I L L A
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There are moments in life when you feel like you'd just faint then and there.

That, to be precise, is exactly how I feel as I raise my face up to stare at the five floors occupying Queen Annabeth's shady archive room.

After the rather heated argument yesterday night with devil incarnate and him telling me of Laira being Derek's sister, I couldn't claw away the guilt seeping into my bones. It had kept me up all night as if the nightmare about Layla wasn't enough.

The breakfast in the eerie dining hall this morning had been rather dull with only Derek making any efforts to strike up a conversation at all amidst a hatred-filled Zander who refused to acknowledge my presence and an almost ghost-like silent Avyanna. 

But during entire duration, I couldn't even meet Derek's eyes without feeling terrible. I know Zander noticed it too. And he took immense pleasure seeing me all guilt-ridden. Bloody moron.

Sighing, I focus back on my surroundings.

The archive hall looks like a library. Arrays of books and transcripts lined up in the wooden bookshelves maring the grey walls of the five floors. There's a long swivel staircase on the right corner of the archive hall which connects to each floor.

The lighting here is dim. So very dim that even with it being morning, it felt like night. I couldn't for the life of me spot a single window in sight. Maybe there's none to begin with but there's a huge chandelier-like lamp hanging from the high ceiling at the top of the fourth floor that elicits a faint white glow. But the problem here is,

"Do we have to search through all of these?!" My voice echoes, ringing in my ears like a thousand bells.

Beside me, Derek chortles, "Depends on what you want to look for, mon chéri."

From the barest of time—if you consider yesterday's bumping into each other or the next to silent breakfast a few moments ago as barest—I've come to know Derek, I realized that he's a very fun going man. Frank to the bones and a flirt. Zander is very much the same too, well to everyone except me. 

Whipping my head to the side, "The thing we need to search for is confidential and the information is not to be shared to anyone." I give him a sorry smile.

It was true though. Mentioning about the mission meant having to mention about Mellisa. And there's only one thing all of us kings and queens valued the most, that is keeping Mellisa's existence unknown to the world.

Derek shrugs, "Chill, I know. Zan told me. I wouldn't even try to think about what it is. As the second-in-command, I respect confidentiality above everything else."

I nod in understanding. Ursula would do the same. There's a reason I trusted her the most among my council members. She'd never pry into matters that didn't concern her.

"Now for whether you have to look through them all, don't fret. Zander will be assisting you in a while so he'd most definitely know where to look." His hazel eyes then shift to mine in curiosity, "I have a question though. May I ask?"