Draco's Predicament ✔️

Chapter 3 - Ready My Troops

"I've been looking all over the castle for you! You've got to stop coming to the library; I never come here." Lady Jane said, crossing her arms. "What's that you got in your hands? A book? Nasty."

I snapped the book shut. "I just wanted a quiet place. To think."

Lady Jane scoffed, tapping her long red nailed fingers against a bookshelf. "You don't need to think, Draco. Just follow my instructions." She closed her eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and snapped them open, her dark pupils seemingly emitting a deep ruby aura, "Did you use magic?"

I swallowed and nodded. I wasn't sure why I was nervous- Lady Jane likes it when I do memory bubbles.

"What did you do?" Lady Jane asked, voice as cold as stone.

"A-a memory bubble, ma'am." I stuttered out, backing up a step.

Lady Jane's scowl lessened into a frown. "On whom?"

"Rainb-... Cake hat.."

Her frown turned into a smile. A wicked smile. "Good job, Draco. You read my mind. I was just about to ask you to disturb that little girl a little bit... I apologize for my overreaction, I just don't want you to be using magic I gave you... to your own benefits."

"I would never, Lady Jane!" I said without thinking. My mind seemed to have decided it was the right thing to do, and just went ahead and ordered my mouth to say it without consulting with my brain first.

Lady Jane smiled again, pulling her hand away from the shelf to rest on my shoulder. It felt like she was resting a boulder on my shoulder, instead of just her hand. "I know I can always count on you Draco, my dear boy."

She retracted her hand, and I didn't miss the way she wiped her hand against her draping dress, as if she'd she'd just touched something nasty. My mind immediately assured itself that my eyes were playing tricks on me.

"The reason I came to find you, Draco, is because I've decided that it's time for us to launch an attack on the pesky girls. Not just any attack, an epic attack. I want to do a number on them. A number they won't recover from."

I nodded, a feeling of excitement growing. I'd always loved battling, and just any type of action. Even though there's always a feeling of wrongness before I storm their castle, the feeling disappears almost immediately once the actual fun begins.

"What's the battle plan, Lady Jane?"

"You may choose, Draco. You've been on enough raids to know what kind of results I want, and how to achieve them. I don't care about the process, as long as the results are there." Lady Jane said, turning to leave, but stopped. "Bring Philip along with you. I think a certain someone would be happy to see him. If she decides to show up... that is."

"Philip? Does he know how to fight?"

One corner of her mouth lifted up, "Yes. I sent a bat to go watch him ever since little seal ran off to find the dragon flames. He has good potential, and now that he's been curs- freed from those girls' spell, he will be able to fully demonstrate his worthiness in combat."

I nodded, a little excited to be going on a raid with an actual human being who still has a human figure, instead of just a bunch of beasts who can only growl, snarl and make angry noises. Lady Jane had told me that once I am able to free someone of my sisters' curse, they will automatically go back to their true form.

She said that because they were so ugly before, that's why my sisters forced the curse upon their "subjects" and turned them pretty. She said my sisters were like the discriminating townspeople in Beauty and the Beast. My head throbs at the thought of the memory.

"I'll leave you to it." And with that, Lady Jane swished around and walked out.

Wow, Lady Jane trusts me enough to lead my own raid? I have to, I must, get good results this time. Philip should be a good asset, I should find him and brainstorm plans.

There's no announcer in the castle to call for people, although that would be so useful right now. Lady Jane has some sort of sixth sense in finding out where I am most of the time, and I almost never needed to talk to her, I rarely had to run around the castle searching. But Philip is new, and I had no idea where he is in the humongous castle.

As I was walking down the stairs towards the main level, I passed a freed ex-subject of my sisters'. "Hey!" I said, and the beast froze. "If you pass a teal-haired dude, please tell him to come find me in the library." The monster drifted away. This beast was one of the floating ones, the kind who can't growl or speak at all.

I went back to the library and grabbed a few books about battle strategies. Judging from the fact that I can actually understand the cover words, I think these books were stolen from the Krewdom.

I sat down on the old, tattered rug and spread the books out, examining them. It wasn't long before the library doors opened, and Philip walked in. His eyes were less ambery now, and slightly more of a teal colour. He sat down beside me and said, "A spirit said you wanted to see me."

I nodded. "Yeah. Lady Jane told me to come up with a battle plan for the raid happening in a few days, and she wanted you to come along, so I thought I'd get your input on the battle plan."

Philip nodded, looking at the books surrounding us. "Wow, who knew this old castle had so many new books?"

"Oh, they're not new. They were taken from the Krewdom. It's not like they need these anyway, they use dark magic to fight, not actual fighting techniques."

Philip nodded. "Okay. Who's our target?"

"We need to try to free as many servants as possible. Lady Jane said that the princesses have been disappearing one by one for a few days now, and the teal-haired one hasn't shown up in a while."

"I'm still new to the princesses, who's the teal-haired one?" Philip asked.

"Her name is Lunar. She's the witchy one who turned all our monsters into their minions to work for them."

"Lunar.." Philip repeated, frowning. Suddenly, he let out a loud groan of pain and squeezed his eyes shut, like he's having one of those memory pains I get. But that's impossible, he doesn't know who Lunar is... he lives all the way up in the North Mountains!

"Are you good?" I asked, a little concerned.

"Yeah... I 'm going to get some fresh air." Philip said, staggering up.

I thought about warning him to not tell Lady Jane what happened if he sees her in the hallways, but decided against it. I didn't know if Philip is having memory pains or something else, and didn't want to make matters worse.

"Okay," I said, watching him stumble out to the halls.

I spent the next few hours making progress on the battle plan until a monster comes and knocks on the library door.

I look up, surprised at how fast the time has gone by. "Yes?"

The monster, not a spirit but an actual beast, growled and waved at me to follow him.

Lady Jane probably sent this monster, I thought as I got up and closed the books, leaving them where they are.

"But Philip hasn't come back yet," I said to the monster, who ignored me and marched to the far west wing, and stopped before a pair of huge doors.

The monster opened the doors and lumbered in.

I took a deep breath before following suit.