We still need man-things!

Chapter Eight

Rumors that Mike may have escaped from the dungeon began spreading among maids the next morning when the first one to wake up earlier than usual spotted his blood trail in the corridors. But before she could call others and inform the headmaid, Lady Dimitrescu ordered Daniela to clean it quickly. Normally, she never asked her own daughters to do that kind of dirty job, but this time was an exception: she wanted to cover up her failure.

She nervously walked around the house and checked the windows on both floors to discover a route that her prisoner might have used. Mike was discovered missing when she went down to give him food a few hours after his escape. Seeing the broken prison gate had made Alcina extremely baffled since she had no idea how he managed to break through the bars with only his bare hands and a few dirty remnants of a broken toilet.

Before Daniela had seen his blood, she concluded that her guards had just eaten him without any trace. Moroaicas were constantly hungry because of their enlarged stomachs; seven of them could easily consume a slim man like Mike in a single hour. But when Alcina found his bloody footwear from the slaughterhouse and heard about blood, she understood that miraculously and with unknown methods, the boy had fought with them and survived.

"That's my failure of the worst kind." She said this to herself and drank some wine in her chamber before continuing the search operation.

Mike was sleeping in Bela's quest room. He had been awake for the whole night and early morning while she cleaned and stitched his wounds. After feeding him raw beef and biscuits she had and listening to his story about disarming moroaica, Bela started to grow even more respect for her new pet.

When she heard her mother finally entering her workshop and asking about having seen Mike, she decided to lie and say that she hadn't seen him. Alcina left, truly believing that her daughter spoke the truth. Despite this, Bela knew that this lie wouldn't last long. Sooner or later, Mike will be discovered by Cassandra or Daniela and drained or sent back to the dungeon anyway. But for a day or two, the oldest daughter wanted somebody to be her companion. She rarely met new people and had almost no experience with people living outside. She wanted to know and hear stories about how life is there, and maybe one day go traveling around the world herself.

When Mike finally woke, it was already afternoon. He was a little confused at first, but then remembered everything that he had lived through. Bela's apartment was so unusual that everybody would be impressed. It was full of bone art and steampunk. Everywhere in the living room were bones and metal fused together, and not only animal bones; there were a lot of human remains too. A chandelier made from copper pipes and human skulls that had holes for candles drilled in them; a table with a giant cog wheel as a top and pieces of old railway tracks for its legs; and in the bathroom where Bela did wash him at night, the bath there was nothing but a large diameter naval mine cut in half. The most spectacular thing, however, was a three-meter-long dragon made entirely of deer skulls. There were hundreds of them making up that structure, and sisters spent years obtaining them by hunting in the mountains.

Mike got out of bed and thought about what to do next. He had his clothing on the floor next to his bone-frame bed.

Should I put them on and sneak out if she is not here? He had a crazy idea, even when realizing that it's not going to work anyway.

He spent some minutes thinking about where to go, then put on his clothes and made his bed. When he left the guest room and was about to enter the main living area, Bela suddenly appeared from the doorway with a red-hot, glowing sword and hammer in her hand.

"Good afternoon, little." She smiled. "Do you plan to run again?"

"Wow...what are you doing?" He was surprised to see a girl with goggles and a robust leather apron covering her normal appearance. "Is...is that the same sword I used down there?"