Wandering the corridors had become one of Jade's habits.

"J-Jade." Vilma stuttered as our writer celebrated the fact that her new acquaintance called her by her bare name and not by her title. "With all due respects, could you please slow down?"

"There won't be the need for that." Her feet slid on the last few necessary meters.

The Ulv tumbled on those, her voice coming out, blending annoyance, a smile and a true curiosity. "Are we there?"

"Yes." Jade delicately opened one of the heavy doors, revealing the large bookshelves occupying the space.

As she did that, Vilma's eyes quickly veiled with astonishment, then filled with stars.
"Wow."

She thought that too when Jade had entered the majestic hall full of stories for the prime time, but it was the first moment when someone came here and shared her reaction, her family's members being weirdly airtight to magnificence itself.

"Where is the poems' section?" Vilma instantly asked, striking Jade with surprise.

"Over there." She mumbled as the third floor flaunted in front of her.

The princess' victim was hurrying between the tall shelves when Jade wondered out loud. "You love poems?"

The Ulv girl appeared troubled before pride covered it all up. "Is that a real question?"

Jade grinned, thinking this new mate would be a nice debater once she'll get used to her pinch of hard-to-swallow sarcasms. "Indeed," she lifted the corner of her lips, "it is. What do you like about them?"

"Everything."

Yeah, the explain all and nothing at the same time.
Our writer nodded, catching a compendium of a certain 'Mary Webb' just to not leave her arms fall awkwardly beside her body.
"Then would you like to do that later on?"

Vilma jolted. "Later on?" Her two pupils were small in shock, as if the most terrifying lighting had struck her right on the skull. "I— Well—" One short inhale, one trembling exhale. "No, writing poems later on won't be a thing I could do."

'Oh, and how so?' Jade would have vomited before her gaze landed on the knitted hands, furrowed brows, tightened lips and scrunched nose of the blond girl.

That discussion was hitting the personal cord.

After two breaths, she decided not to elaborate. "Who is your favorite poet?"

"Webb. Mary Webb."

She smiled with care at the swiftly answered question. "Which text is your favorite?"

"Green rain."

"That sounds good!" Her pacifist beam shone, trying to revive the conversation.

"So does the text." Vilma's sentence landed like a flattened egg on this tentative.

The silence oddly fell.

Jade felt awkward, it was true, yet, pressing someone into speaking would be even odder than now.

"Into the scented woods we'll go
And see the blackthorn swim in snow.
High above, in the budding leaves,
A brooding dove awakes and grieves;
The glades with mingled music stir,
And wildly laughs the woodpecker.
When blackthorn petals pearl the breeze,
There are the twisted hawthorn trees
Thick—set with buds, as clear and pale
As golden water or green hail—
As if a storm of rain had stood
Enchanted in the thorny wood,
And, hearing fairy voices call,
Hung poised, forgetting how to fall."

Vilma took a few seconds before she recovered up from throwing this up so fast.
However, Jade had been faster.

"It's beautiful." Was not close to enough to express how her ears felt soothed by those lines.

The blond girl's head jerked with a weird excitement. "Isn't it?"

Jade could only accept, like when her grandkids begged for something or when one of her siblings decided to yap about a brand-new interest, and frantically nod.
"Definitely."

Another silence, lighter and shorter.

"It fits." Vilma blurted, hands knitted again.

"P-pardon?" Jade straightened in surprise at that other unexpected phrase.

"You asked me why I liked poems." Vilma buried her head like to hide, as the words weren't of any sense for anyone apart from her and she realized it now. "They just fit me."

Jade beamed.
Vilma was a philosopher.
Jade loved that.

"That sounds so cool!" She couldn't restrain, jumping around like an excited child (our writer is still mentally ninety-three protagonist, if you asked).

"I guess, if you say so." Vilma began while an embarrassed grin covered her face.

Another friend acquired, YEAH!

Jade was able to maintain a non-wiggling figure at he depends of the loudness of her voice; more than high at the moment. "Would you like to borrow a b—"

A loud thud cut Jade's joy.

A thud composed of different sounds.
One alike meat when you smack it.
And another alike, a breaking skull.

"What was—"

"Quiet." Said Jade, covering her victim's mouth in a firm yet gentle move.
She dragged her to the darker end of the section as footsteps resonated in the hall.

When she had been thirty-one, Dahlia had been the horrified bystander of a suicide. Not that she stood at the bottom of the building to watch the tragedy, but she just happened to walk a meter away from the landing point of the lady who decided to take her own life.

With bones poking out of the flesh in positions that inspired pain and disturbance, the intense color of red shading the totality of the past turquoise hoodie the woman wore, and her wide-open eyes, like she was having the best sight a human could, still tainted with surprise and even joy.
She wouldn't wish the vision for her best enemy.

And the sound piercing the ears right before the view wasn't of the ones you forgot.
Someone just crashed down three floors; Jade was sure of it. Willingly or not remained a question.

She felt the scares pound in her veins.
Something was off.

"Nice." A third, and still alive person, was on this floor, and seemed absolutely glad about the death of that someone three floors under, or maybe caused the death.

What the hell was going on?

One step after the other, they were approaching.
If the person came to close, Jade and Vilma would be doomed since they could see them, and it was clear they had enjoyed someone's death right before, which was anything but sane and reassuring from someone.

'Close her eyes.' The familiar voice of the spirit whispered in her head.

She pulled her frightened mate nearer her, blocking her eyesight with her palm, Jade's own breath begging to exit her throat that she couldn't let it out, or it would be way too loud and uncontrollable with her panic.

The fuzzy bunny appeared on her right and traced a weird symbol in the air.
'He can't see, but hear.' It muttered under his breath, sticking to her even more. Then, it only patted one of his tall ears on her shoulder, which could have been the cutest thing ever in another situation.
Without anxiety, preferably.

'Spirot, what the heck is happening?'

'I don't know,' it coiled itself deeper in her collarbone. 'Just stay calm.'

'Yeah, of course when you have a psychopath in front of you.'

A young man, near Xander's age, arrived from the left, at the end of the bookshelf, five feet away from them. The guy from the previous night, blue-eyed and towering, was a killer. And he was just in her home, like it was some normal thing.

If they made any kind of noise, he would find them.
How calming for an interaction with a possible cold-blooded killer.

His pace, slow and dancing as a smirk veiled his figure, creeped our writer out; he suddenly lifted his face to the ceiling, his blue eyes gleaming with joy. "Let's report to Oga!"

Before vanishing into thin air.

Jade bolted, just to make sure, to witness, the supposed crime scene, three floors under.

Down there, thirty feet below, were the remains of a clear blue mane stuck on a head not so linked to the rest of the body.
The skin was there but visibly none of the vertebral discs did their jobs.
The shoulders lied uncomfortably, weirdly flat compared to any basic shoulder, as the white shirt covered the last inches without the joins in place.
Arms and legs were distorted in unhealthy manners, floating across the torso.

A disturbing painting was thirty feet below.

It was less strange than the bones poking out after a five-hundred-fifty-one-foot fall, nonetheless, Jade let her stomach finish on the ground instantly.

●●●

She wiped off any trace of liquid around her mouth.

Was this man coming back?
Let's pray not.

"J-J-Jade..." Vilma appeared right behind, practically as close as her to the balustrade, able to glimpse below, "what was that?"

"Vilma," the corners of her lips managed to lift as she rose between the girl and the balustrade. Letting her see that was a no-no. "Let's go back to the ballroom."

"Did someone just died?" Her voice didn't flutter, yet, something deep inside seemed to have broken and left a new emotion leak.

Jade stiffened, and gripped her hand. "Let's get going." She grinned with the calmest smile, grasping the girl and dragging her towards the third floor's door.
'Spirot.' She mentally called in her escape.

'What?' The bunny jiggled on her shoulder.

Her head cocked to it. 'Lock the doors with a seal or something.'

'Can't you do it yourself?' Sounded gentler than usual from the spirit but not kinder.

'First of all, no, I can't.' She snapped, not having the time to handle another complaint. 'And secondly, shut up and do it.'

The rabbit sighed before disappearing.

With the Ulv's wrist in her hands, Jade just couldn't ignore how stiffened the girl was.
"Vilma?"

"Y-yes?"

Jade sighed for the eleventh time in five minutes.
She was definitely scared, horrified even.
"It's alright." Jade offered a poor yet serene smile. "You're out of here. We're out."

All Jade knew was the wrist in her hand slightly loosened.

Bursting into the ballroom wasn't the main problem anymore.

"FATHER." Jade yelled, bringing to pieces everyone's ears.

Her dad, spinning around, happy as a puppy for the new surname from his daughter, gave her a grateful gaze.
"Yes, small one?"

"A-ahem," she introduced with a growing fluster, catching on to the fact that she called him father and not by his usual name, "Sir Dad," she took back. "I have to talk to you in private."

She felt all the stares groping her as her dad put on a saddened figure.
"...Where did the 'Father' go?" He mumbled.

Jade just tugged his sleeve to drag him out of the room.

But the dense Lord Ulv appeared next to her father.
"Princess Jade! How was it with Vilma? Where is she?"

Great, a matter more to handle. And not an easy one to begin with. Jade tried hard not snapping.
"Lord Ulv, could you please excuse my rudeness but—"

"Did my niece annoy you enough for you to get rid of her?" He just interrupted her like that, upsetting Jade even more.

"No, of course not—"

"So where is she?"

"I—"

"Did you lost her?"

Oh, please shut up.
"VILMA'S PROBABLY SOMEWHERE IN THE BALLROOM, I DON'T KNOW!"

He jerked back, shocked.

Damn it all.
"I don't know, Lord Ulv..." Jade intoned back, controlling the trembling exhales, the tone exasperated but already more composed. "She was near a few seconds ago."

Breathe one, breathe two.
It's alright.

She was going to get out, tell Sir Dad about the murder, sit down somewhere and melt there.
All of this to end peacefully.
Maybe she was just even going crazy, and nothing really happened.

Just when she approximately calmed down, Disŝiri crouched next to her, grinning, reassuring, and whispering.
"Are you perturbed by your mother and brother's departure?"

The what?

Xander had to go to Lumurus, it was true, for politics, for the friendship of her mother, for every good reason. But he had to go tomorrow.
Not today.

Her lips blurted. "Excuse me, what did you just—"

"Jade," her father claimed, the tone totally indisputable, "we'll talk about this later."

Too much, all at once.
Where was the peaceful arrangement her life should have been? WHERE WAS IT?
A MURDER, AND NOW A PROBLEM IN HER PLAN?

"No, no, no, we won't do that." She snarled, her head frantically shaking, the hands folded in tight fists.

"Jade, what do you—"

"Princess—"

"FIRST OF ALL, I NEED TO GO WITH XANDER." Exploded in the ballroom, shutting the mutters down in one good whack. "IT ISN'T A CHILDISH SCENE, IT'S A VITAL NEED. SO IF HE DEPARTS, I WILL TOO." That accusative finger tilted from her father to Lord Ulv. "SECOND, I DON'T KNOW WHERE VILMA IS. VILMAAAAAAAAAA."

Vilma, somewhere in the crowd, jumped around to show herself.

"SHE'S THERE." Came out like a terrifying growl with that same irked index raised. "AND NOW," she breathed slowly, "THIRDLY," she took the control of her voice back, "we need to talk about the cadaver."

"The what?" Sir Dad screeched, as astonished as the ballroom.

Jade inhale slowly.
The explanation part was surely the worst.
"Dear Sir Dad, I think we have a murder to resolve."

"A murder?" Her father repeated it, as it would change the affirmation.

"Yes, or something alike since I heard someone crash from the third floor in the library." Said Jade peacefully, trying to surpass the images of the dislocated body flooding her brain. "If you'd like to check, just go to the first floor there."

Her dad, fully distraught, gathered some guards and sent them with a sign of the hand, on which Jade could feel anything else than surprised about.
Adults never believed little children—she didn't do so too as Dahlia—so why would Sir Dad do it?
Being a ML of a romance novel didn't explain everything.

"Oh Gaila, small one are you alright?"

Jade realized her father was hugging her as she blabbered all of that mentally.
"I think. I ain't the one who fell three floors."

He could only pinch his nose bridge as his habit forced.
"Guess you're alright to say something like this."

"I suppose."

Alexander, who never really grasped people's thoughts—not even one snippet—still knew something was wrong in his youngest daughter's mind.

"Small one, sit down, or you'll crumble with those shivers." He tried to approach a chair, but something veiled his smallest daughter's eyes as she gazed at her hands .

Pure and heart-wrecking panic.

She needed to grasp a table just to still. "Yes, I-I'll do that." And she dragged herself to a pair of stairs where her butt landed.

As Disŝiri hugged his niece and the nobles muttered together, Alexander decided to finish it all.
His wife had already left, heading herself with Xander to the harbor, and the party had lasted long enough for society to be satisfied.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I think it's time to close this ceremony." He caught a glass, as he did at each end of a party, and gulped it down all at once.
"Have a nice evening."

Then he proceeded to push everyone out of his castle.