"I have just received word that our Lady Annetta has miraculously
recovered," he says. "Why have you not got rid of her
yet?"
"She must be an exceptionally stubborn soul," Janessa says.
"I will work a brain cancer spell on her next. It is incurable,
and disables the conscious will."
"Poison could kill her in fifteen seconds, and you mess around
with spells."
"Poisons are traceable, Harun."
"Her wedding is tomorrow! Or have you forgotten that
detail?"
Janessa loses all her composure. Her face twists into an ugly snarl.
"I forget? I? Never! Oh, you are a member of the royal family,
you have no conception of what it is like to suffer as I have! We
were all children together, Annetta and Thibault and I, and it wasn't
until I grew older that I even realized that I was considered lesser.
Love grows up naturally among childhood friends! But it's just like
in all those fairy tales, a prince can only marry a princess! The
little Lord only has eyes for the little Lady, and I'm just her
faithful servant! They think I'm happy for
her!"
You don't trust Janessa one bit. You remember the cold, hard look in
her eye and decide to follow her without being seen, to find out what
she's up to. She enters a small, bare room next to yours and
dissappears through a trapdoor in the floor. You peer through the
keyhole of the trapdoor. She is in what appears to be a small cellar
excavated from the dirt. Shelves line the walls. Janessa builds a
small fire on the floor, takes out a few herbs and throws them in.
She waits until the fire dies down, then pricks her finger and lets a
drop of blood fall in. The embers immediately blaze up again, then
turn green, then blue, then violet, and then the flame turns nearly
invisible and a face appears above it. The face is that of an adult
male elf, with features somewhat similiar to yours, but with an
expression on his face that turns your blood cold.