The Harvest of Souls

CHAPTER 41

ARKADIA

12.01.8462 - 8:30 am

Richard's MC's alarm clock began vibrating irritatingly on the nightstand on the left side of his bed. He groped around the little table for the source of the unpleasant sound, deactivating the alarm. When he finally woke up a few minutes later, he started accessing his messages in amazement. Apparently, the world had turned upside down. Richard soon located his aunt's contact and made the call.

"Hello, good morning. I was waiting for your call," Charlotte said.

"Good Morning," Richard said awkwardly.

"I was waiting for you to wake up so we can have a coffee, come up to my apartment," Charlotte spoke, turning off her MC.

Richard knocked on the doorbell of the Royal Apartment ten minutes later, teeth brushed, hair slicked back, and wearing one of his brown suits.

"Good Morning," Fernanda said, opening the door.

Richard noticed the Queen's first secretary had her eyes full of tears, while she led the short way to the round table in Charlotte's dining room, leaving the apartment right away.

The table was covered with bread and cold cuts, and as soon as Richard entered the small windowless room, Charlotte left her bedroom to join her nephew. She had an air of victory on her face, which worried Richard even more.

"Richard," Charlotte said, walking around the table and hugging her nephew.

The gesture caused even more fear in Richard.

"Good morning, Charlotte," he said without returning the hug.

"It's not been a good day, right?" She asked. "Sit down. Let's eat; I'm hungry," Charlotte said, sitting down, taking a piece of kaisersemmel and sticking it whole in her mouth, without ceremony. Charlotte calmly chewed the large piece of kaisersemmel, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. "Well..." She wiped her lips and finished swallowing the kaisersemmel. "Have you seen what happened?"

"Yes," Richard said, looking at an empty saucer in front of him.

"Complicated news for you," Charlotte said. "One of your employees breaking into my private library and my office," she said, almost humming. "Anyway, we found out who's behind it all. I already imagined that one person would not be capable of doing all this alone, so it makes a lot of sense when we discover both Fernand and Oswaldo plotting against me and against you too, my nephew."

"What? Oswaldo?" Richard questioned.

Charlotte raised her left eyebrow.

"Yes, Oswaldo too! Oswaldo had been visiting my private library for some time. It was a huge mistake of mine to have given him access. The fact is: everything is manually recorded in the library. Maybe your friend Fernand didn't know it, but we made a copy to one of the computers disconnected from the network. Fernand invaded the Royal Library intending to burn files that could incriminate Oswaldo. Oswaldo was researching about the Thirteen Souls Spell, Richard. Do you know this spell? Do you know how it is done?"

"By no means, I was never interested in such a thing," Richard said indignantly and openmouthed when he discovered that one of his chief representatives was researching such a subject.

"Well then, I'm sorry to inform you, Oswaldo has already started to perform the spell. And you know, what makes me most happy is: if Fernand hadn't tried to erase Oswaldo's footsteps, maybe we wouldn't have found out what he was up to until too late. But now we have the information. I will need your help. We have to find out where Fernand is. He must be tried."