Celeste gave Arthur no room to alter the trajectory. Gripping his sleeve with unyielding enthusiasm, she steered him past the scattered islands of luggage, pulling him directly toward the towering arched entry of the Northern Dormitory. Cyril hurried his steps to follow, his white robes billowing lightly as his boots found an easy cadence over the rising stone steps.
Passing beneath the heavy limestone lintel, the oppressive heat and clamor of the plaza were severed by the cool, echoing quiet of the interior. High ribbed vaults climbed above them, catching pale slants of daylight filtering through tall, slender lancet windows. The frantic scrape of carriage wheels faded into a muted, hollow rumble behind thick masonry walls. As they ascended the wide spiral staircase and turned into the upper residential wing, the polished stone gave way to narrow runners of deep blue carpet that dampened their footfalls to faint thuds.
They came to a stop before a pair of double-paneled oak doors at the far end of the gallery. Unlocked, unlatched, and left conspicuously ajar, the door swung inward as Celeste booted the wood with the back of her heel. It struck the interior stone wall with a dull clatter.
"I'm back, Beastie!" she called out, breezing straight across the threshold.
She waved both hands with theatrical vigor toward an entirely empty stretch of dark oak floorboards near the fringe of a frayed rug, humming pleasantly before venturing deeper into the disordered expanse of her quarters.
Arthur followed immediately behind her. Without a beat of hesitation or skepticism, he came to an effortless stop just inside the doorway, raised a hand toward the identical bare spot on the floor, and inclined his head with practiced courtesy.
"Hello, Beastie," Arthur said, his voice mild, smooth, and impeccably pleasant. Lowering his hand, he stepped aside, granting clearance to the entrance as he took in the familiar disarray of the room.
Cyril crossed the threshold last, pulling the heavy oak door partway shut behind him. His crimson eyes instinctively tracked downward, fixing upon the precise patch of floorboards where both Arthur and Celeste had focused their greetings.
There was nothing there.
No curled hound, no sleeping familiar, not even a sun-warmed cat. Only the polished grain of dark wood and a faint swirl of resting dust.
There's nothing there? Cyril wondered, tilting his head as his brow pinched in quiet contemplation.
A memory from Grenfell Village surfaced—the quiet hearth of a home, where an untouched bowl of barley was set beside the threshold every evening, accompanied by a soft, spoken greeting to the vacant air. An honoring of those who had passed beyond the veil, practiced by several village elders to show hospitality to the unseen spirits of the home.
It must be a sign of respect to a person who died, Cyril reasoned, a solemn reverence settling over his expression. I remember that a few of the villagers practiced a similar rite. Mentor did it, so I should follow along.
Turning his full body toward the vacant floorboards, Cyril brought his hands together, pressing his palms flat in a traditional ascetic posture. He bowed from the waist with earnest humility.
"Thank you for having me in your home, Beastie," Cyril said softly, his voice ringing with pure, unvarnished sincerity.
A few paces away, among the half-unpacked trunks and scattered dresses, Arthur stood motionless. His amber eyes narrowed by a fraction of a degree, shifting from the boy's bowed posture back toward Celeste, who had abruptly pivoted mid-stride.
How will these two interact?
Celeste's eyes widened to dinner plates. A brilliant, feral grin split across her face, lighting up her features with overwhelming energy. She bounded straight back toward the doorway, leaning down until her face was inches from Cyril's.
"You have a good eye, white-hair!" she declared, her voice ringing out in triumphant delight. "Only me and Cedric have ever acknowledged Beastie, for some reason. But now, so can you!"
Arthur maintained his pleasant smile, though his jaw set with faint, unyielding rigidity beneath the surface.
No one has ever acknowledged it because there's nothing there, Arthur noted privately. The only reason why I greet it is because the second time I came here, you spent the entire day trying to convince me that it was real, after noticing that I didn't greet it. I reluctantly confirmed the imaginary creature's existence just so that I could leave.
Before Cyril could fully straighten from his bow, Celeste's right hand shot out.
Her palm landed abruptly on the crown of his head. She held it there with firm, unmoving pressure, flattening the untamed halo of white curls beneath her fingers.
Cyril blinked in mild surprise, lifting his head to make direct eye contact with her.
Celeste, however, did not meet his gaze. Her amber-gold eyes remained fixed intently on the shock of white hair resting against her knuckles, studying the texture with childlike fascination.
"Your hair is just like Beastie's," she said, her voice dropping into a rare, quiet warmth that held no mock threat or manic bounce.
A fond, open smile touched her lips. Then, as quickly as the gentleness had appeared, she yanked her hand away, clamped her fingers firmly around Cyril's wrist, and pulled him along into the center of the room.
The chamber was a sprawling collision of grand ducal wealth and absolute neglect. Velvet drapes were bunched and tied with discarded bootlaces to let in the sun, while fine silk gowns, riding trousers, and unlatched trunks spilled across the dark oak floorboards. At the center stood a colossal four-poster bed smothered under an avalanche of unmade linens and pillows.
Dominating the far masonry wall hung the room's starkest feature: two life-sized, gold-framed portraits of the Grand Duke and Duchess of Devreux, their aristocratic faces carved through with thin, deliberate blade slashes. Directly beneath them, planted two inches deep into a rosewood vanity littered with uncorked perfumes and candy wrappers, sat the decorative silver dagger she had used to cut them.
To Cyril, whose life had been measured in bare stone and woven mats, it didn't look like the home of high nobility—it looked like the nest of a wild animal that slept on silk.
Celeste spun on her heel, releasing Cyril's wrist so abruptly that his arm drifted back to his side. She planted her hands on her hips, her amber-gold eyes narrowing in sudden, fierce appraisal.
"You!" she said, thrusting a slender finger toward him.
Arthur stepped smoothly into her peripheral vision, his posture relaxed, hands resting easily at his sides. "His name is Cyril."
Celeste didn't miss a beat. Her finger remained locked onto Cyril's chest before flicking sharply toward the far wall.
"Cyril! Handle those paintings!"
She gestured toward the two colossal, gold-framed canvases flanking the head of her four-poster bed. Even from several paces away, the damage was appalling. Ribbons of lacquered canvas hung in ragged strips where deliberate, vicious blade strokes had crosshatched the figures, peeling outward like split bark.
Cyril tilted his head, taking a hesitant step forward over a bundle of crumpled velvet. His crimson eyes scanned the shredded oil paint, trying to piece together the mangled shapes.
Are those portraits of people? he thought, his white eyebrows knitting together in quiet bewilderment. It is so heavily damaged that I can't make out any of the features, but I don't see any white, so maybe this is a portrait of them from their youth?
He looked from the hanging strips of canvas down to the silver dagger buried firmly in the rosewood surface below, then back up. An earnest, reverent conclusion formed in his mind.
"Is one of these Beastie, perhaps?" Cyril asked softly, turning an open, respectful look toward her.
Celeste blinked, her mouth falling open in genuine disbelief. "Huh? No, they are my parents."
Cyril paused. His crimson eyes widened by a hair, shifting between the mutilated depictions of high nobility and the girl chewing complacently on her caramel stick. If a family kept carved-up likenesses of their elders enshrined in ribbons above their bed, surrounded by discarded steel, it could only mean one thing: a violent, tragic end, honored through some severe, ancient grief ritual he had never encountered in Grenfell.
A deep, solemn compassion settled over his face.
"Oh," Cyril murmured, pressing his hands lightly together against his chest. "Well, may I know their names so that I can pray for their peaceful rest?"
Celeste scowled, throwing her hands in the air with exasperated melodrama. "They're still alive! Stop stalling, and get to work!"
Cyril blinked, his hands lingering near his chest as she marched past him toward an upturned armoire.
"I wasn't stalling, though," he murmured to himself, his voice mild and utterly earnest.