"Queens and commoners, princes and peasants, welcome to the party of the quincentury!"
For most people, receiving an invitation to the White King's Masquerade is an honor. Even attempting to attend is a chance to go down in history. But for Sol of M...
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Breakfast was sweetened buns and scrambled herring, with mugs of chocklot, served in the hall which I learnt was called the Great Hall.
"I hate scrambled herring," Fyn said sticking out her tongue, before proceeding to devour the plate.
I laughed but I understood. I was famished.
We spent the rest of the morning learning which plants were edible and which ones weren't in the Undergarden. Aester was surprisingly good at it, stopping Ciel from eating hemlock on three different occasions.
"So nightshade causes hallucinations but nightglove is good for inflamed skin," Fyn repeated as we headed back up to the castle.
"Sounds about right," I replied, before bumping into Ciel.
"Easy there," he grinned.
"Sorry," I replied sheepishly. I hadn't realized that we had stopped, Asriel changing direction before leading us forward again. But not back to the castle. In fact it seemed we were going down, deeper into the Undergarden.
We stopped in front of a large stone gate, with a myriad of colourful jewels embedded into it.
A tall, dark skinned man with a head of electric green hair and freckles sprinkled on his nose was leaning beside it.
"Finally," he smiled, in a heavily accented voice.
"This is Nero. He is fae," Asriel explained, as Nero gave a small bow, brown eyes glittering, "he will be helping you prepare for the Unworld."
"I thought fae hated being underground," Eleusis wondered aloud.
"We do," Nero replied, his eyes taking on a new intensity, "but we like trickery and the Unworld Labyrinth is the trickiest there is. So who better to train you?"
Asriel flicked his wrist and the stone gates silently slid open. We followed him inside, Nero at the back of our small group. We stepped into a small luminescent cavern, the walls glittering with various gems and the ground made of a pearly white rock. I took in the beauty around me, marveling at just how much of it there was outside Mycroft.
"This is usually a mine, but for today, for you, it will be a maze," Nero said, carefully enunciating each word, as he led us through a small opening at the end of the cavern into a dimly lit, damp stone room.
"We cannot exactly recreate the Unworld Labyrinth so we have created our own version. In some ways it will be worse but for the simple fact that the Unperor is not there it is much better," he smiled as he said the words. A fae's smile.
My stomach clenched.
"Let's begin," Nero said, suddenly. He smiled one final time, clapped his hands and plunged us into darkness.
My heartbeat quickened as I took in the pitch black around me. "Fyn? Guys?" I squeaked.
"Still here," Ciel replied calmly and I felt a hand grab my arm.
