The King's Queen |2|

|23.|

Chapter Twenty Three▪︎The King's Queen |2|

Luca wasn't joking when he said he wanted to be close to the King and Queen. When he was given an apartment right under Dahlia and Alexander's, he blatantly refused and suggested that he be moved into their essentially useless library.

The couple felt like it was an intrusion of privacy, especially since they knew Luca had extremely sensitive senses, but at a time where there was a powerful force attemting to assasinate them, they didn't have much of choice.

They still felt bad about him sleeping in a library, so they decided to move Alexander's personal objects into Dahlia's room and free Alexander's room for Luca.

It was essentially useless since Luca had only brought the clothes he was wearing, making him constantly have to borrow Alexander's clothes.

They were all lounging in Alexander's mess of an office, sitting on the floor, surrounded by piles and piles of paperwork.

"Are you sure nothing died in here?" Luca asked for the umpteenth time that day. "Smells like there was a genocide here." He added, frowning due to his overly sensitive senses picking up on old scents.

"As I have told you before, the last thing that died here was my cat, who died in the 2000's. There is no way you could smell it, especially because this office has been refurbished and renovated hundreds of times since then. Shut up, stop procrastinating and do your work. If not, stop bothering us." Alex groaned.

"I'm serious. Try closing your eyes, maybe you'll pick up on it too. It's really faint, but it smells recent." Luca closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. Alexander sighed and mirrored Luca's actions, expecting not to smell anything.

But it was there. A faint rotten scent, too old to be completely faded away, but too recent to not be sensed when you're actively looking for it-or if you are Luca the demigod.

"I can feel it. How the hell did you motice that? What the hell is it?" Alexander closed his eyes once more, sitting up and going towards the other end of the office to see if it's stronger or weaker there.

It was only slightly fading, barely noticeable.

"It's fading here." He told the others.

"I can't smell anything." Dahlia shrugged.

"Are you sure? Once you notice it, it's kind of hard to miss." Luca breathed in again, sitting up and moving to the glass wall facing the forest, on the opposite sode of Alexander.

"Nope." Dahlia breathed in again, not smelling anything out of the ordinary. She figured that they either had stronger senses than her, considering their older age, or that they were going slightly mad from being cooped up in the office all day long.

"It's fading here too. It's a barely there difference, but it's less obvious than in the middle of the office."

"Which means that it's somewhere around me." Dahlia stood up and turned to check the bookshelf she was leaning on while sitting, still unable to smell anything out of the ordinary.

"We could check the books, right? We haven't had a break for a while. It's not like it would do any harm." Luca shrugged, walking closer to Dahlia and helping her check the bookshelf.

"It's definitely stronger here." He pointed to the books she just checked.

"Or you're going crazy." She shrugged, smelling another old book. Dust flew up from it, making her sneeze into her elbow.

"Alexander, come here. Can you smell how it's stronger here? It's fading though..."

Alexander neared him, nodding to Luca about their discovery.

"You are going crazy." Dahlia sniffled, the dust having done a number on her eyes and nose.

"You wouldn't understand, kid." Luca teased her, making fun of her age.

"It's not my fault you two use centuries instead of years for age." She walked out of the office and into the bathroom, finding a tissue to wipe her runny nose.

A second later, Luca and Alexander wrre patting her down, looking for something. "What the hell are you doing? I'd ask if you're crazy but I already know the answer." They ignored her remark and continued patting her down. "Seriously, what the hell?" She held their hands and stopped them from continuing to pat her down.

"You're the scent. We assume someone put a hex bag on you and the dead whatever inside is producing the smell." Alexander explained, frantically searching her pockets and sleeves.

"Take off your hoodie and slippers. They're the easiest to hide things in." Luca asked her.

She looked at them as though they were indeed crazy, but complied with their request nonetheless. She could feel that their emotions were genuine.

Alexander smelled her hoodie while Luca smelled her rubber slippers.

"It's not the hoodie."

"I think it's the slippers. It was probably put in the rubber soles so you couldn't feel anything."

Luca reached for a knife from the inside of his duster coat and used it to cut the rubbery material enough for him to be able to rip it in half himself.

Sure enough, there was a hex bag inside.it was flat and quite small, perfect for concealing in a slipper.

"What the hell?" Dahlia exclaimed, shocked by the fact that Alexander and Luca had somehow been able to sense the (now obvious) scent of rotten bones through rubber and the several other scents in the crowded office.

Luca instantly poured the insides of the bag onto the floor. A silver coin, a small bone and dried white flowers.

"What's that for?" Dahlia asked.

"This seems like an infant bone. The coin is Hera's coin, the roman goddess of fertility, specifically of heirs and Kings and Queens. This seems like a fertility bag to me." Luca concluded.

"The herbs seem familiar to me. I practised with herbs when I was just turned, I think I saw this in a textbook or something." Dahlia held up a small dried flower.

"We should look up the fertility books on herbs." Alex spoke up, heading to the library.

Luca stoppe him. "No need. I think it's a Black Cohosh. Good for fertility."

"Yes, I think so too. Now that you've said it, it sounds very familiar." Dahlia agreed.

"So... Someone is trying to get Dahlia pregnant?" Alex asked.

"Could it be that they've seen me pregnant in a vision and want me to get pregnant earlier, which would make me unable to participate in battle?"

"I don't really know about the vision, but it's possible that they have a man on the inside who read your lab tests and saw that you had done research regarding your fertility. It would be the most effective hex to stop you from going to battle, and the easiest to create."

"You don't think it's been there for a long time, do you?" Dahlia asked Luca, suddenly realising that the bag could've been in her slipper for quite a while.

"It could've been." Luca swallowed.

"So she could be pregnant, right now?" Alex asked, feeling like someone poured a bucket of ice water on him.

"I think she definitely could." Luca confirmed.