She brought to the second floor and led them down the right wing of the house before stopping and opening the door to one, “Chev, you can stay here.”

“Alright, the Ellie and Afina can-”

“If you were about to say that they could be in the rooms next to yours, I’m afraid they can’t.” She turned and smiled apologetically to them, “It seems the new maid made quite the mistake while doing laundry yesterday. There are only three rooms suitable for guests at the moment, and I’m sorry to say that the rest of them are on the fourth floor.”

Chevias’ eyebrow quirked up, “Is that so?”

“Yes, we’re terribly sorry about that. No, if the ladies will please follow me to their rooms.”

As it turns out, their rooms were on the fourth floor of the left wing, and right next to each other. So far as Ellie could see, each of the floors were pretty much identical except for the ground floor. Viscera told them to make themselves comfortable while she supervised the new maid on dinner preparations and told them she’d send a servant to fetch them for dinner. Ellie was left alone in the room for the time being.

She was surprised that despite the grand size of this mansion, the rooms were surprisingly small. It was larger than the guest room at the Haysham’s and her room at home, but small all the same. She supposed it had been built with the intent to house many at a time, though she was under the impression that witches didn’t travel enough to warrant that.

She set her bag down on the floor next to the bed before climbing into it. It seemed oddly high and Ellie almost slid off because of the fluffy blankets. She ended up having to grab onto the bedposts to hoist herself up. As she landed on the bed, she felt herself sink several inches. This bed was amazing. It wasn’t enormous, but it was covered in silk sheets and loaded with pillows. It was kind of bed princesses slept on. Ellie giggled and bounced around a bit, swinging her legs over the side and wondering if all the rooms had beds this nice.

Ellie was a bit relieved that the red was toned down in the rooms. It had the same light pink walls as the rest of the house, but the carpet and drapes were a deep purple. The only red in these rooms were the roses on the walls and the bright red bedspread. Aside from the bed there was an ornate writing desk, a fancy looking candle holder with a pink wax candle, and a small but elegant wardrobe.

She looked over to the wall opposite the door and saw that there was a door made entirely of glass flanked by two narrow windows. She slid off the bed and opened up the door, finding that it was connected to one of the many balconies of this building. It was a pretty narrow space, and spanned a little under the width of the room, so it didn’t connect to the many other balconies. There was a massive tree just a few feet from her balcony, but it’s foliage was so heavy she could barely see any branches in the dying light.

Ellie heard a clatter and looked over as Afina stumbled out of the door to her own balcony. Ellie was about to say hi before noticing that Afina was gasping for air and clutching her chest so tight her knuckles were turning white. Ellie was too shocked to say anything as Afina grabbed the rail of the balcony and leaned over it, panting. Her fit seemed to be dissipating quickly, but Ellie could see a sheen of sweat on her arms.

She finally mustered enough sense to go over to the end of the balcony, “Afina, are you ok?”

The elf’s eyes snapped up, a bit wild before settling down. She frowned and glared off into the trees, “I’m fine, I’m just…a little claustrophobic.”

“….”

“That room,” Afina continued, waving her hand, “It’s suffocating. To think that who knows how many witches slept in there…and those servants! How could any self respecting human work for them?!”

Ellie bit her lip and frowned, “…Chevias told me why you don’t like him. Err, witches, more like.”

Afina spat out a laugh, “Ha! I doubt he told you everything!”

“What do you mean?”

“Ellie.” Afina looked back to Ellie, her face grave. “What do you know about the Age of Ash?”

The term was unfamiliar, but Ellie felt a shiver work up her spine. “What’s that?”

“The time after the Great War. Or more like what ended the Great War.”

The most that Ellie could remember about the Great War was that it started as soon as the first settlers landed on Noelvah about five-hundred years ago, and ended about two-hundred years ago. Most of her time in history class was about great battles that happened in that three century time span, but they had never told her how such a long and bloody war ended.

She swallowed, “So what happened?”

Afina spat, “Witches happened. They-”

There was a sharp knock on Ellie’s door. She spun around just as the Marie opened it, “Ms., it’s time for dinner. If you’ll follow me please?”

“O-oh…alright.”

Ellie looked over at Afina, who was looking quite peeved at the interruption. She turned and headed for own door in a huff.

Ellie wanted to call after her, but a growl from her stomach told her the story could wait. She left the room to follow Maria to dinner.

As they were coming down the grand staircase to the entry hall, Ellie thought she could hear an odd squeaking from above. ‘Rats,’ she figured. ‘I guess even the fanciest places can have rodent problems.’

“Hey! Ya’ll okay?” Ellie looked to her left to see that Chevias had managed to get really close, coming down from the other staircase. Afina jumped away from him with a gasp, “Stop that!”

He backed off, “Sorry, sorry…are you okay? You’re really pale.”

Afina growled, “That’s rich coming from you.”

Chevias rolled his eyes and started leading them to the kitchen, “Come on, dining room’s over here.”

He and Afina started heading over, but Ellie was stopped short by a noise. A whisper from a nearby door. She looked over to see that it was cracked open, but no one seemed to be near it. Chevias stopped when he noticed Ellie wasn’t following. “Ellie, what’s wrong?”

Then the squeaking started again. Ellie’s eyes shot up just the sound of screeching metal rang out, and suddenly the chandelier was coming down on top of her.

It was like the lights that glinted off the chandelier had hypnotized her. She was aware of what was happening, but her joints had locked up. She realized that she couldn’t even breathe. What was surely the sound of clattering metal seemed far away and muffled. It was as though her brain couldn’t quite process the fact that she would surely die if that much metal fell on her in time to react.

At what was probably the last possible second, Ellie was brought out of her fear-induced paralysis by a black blur in her peripheral vision. This was shortly followed by a solid thunking as something slammed into Ellie’s stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

When the stars cleared from her eyes, she was staring at the ceiling in a daze. She felt that she should get up, but found that her muscles weren’t listening to her. Her belly hurt like someone had beaten her with a pipe, and the rest of her wasn’t doing too well either.

She felt hands grabbing her and pulling her upright. She blinked as Chevias’ face was right in front of hers. “Hey! Are you ok?!” That was the first thing to make it clearly through the fog in her head.

Considering she wasn’t dead, Ellie would’ve said that she was in a fine condition, but all she could do was nod her head dumbly. Chevias started feeling around her head, probably checking to make sure she didn’t bump it too hard.

Over his shoulder, Ellie could see that the chandelier was a crumpled and shattered mess about fifteen feet away. Afina came over and knelt down next to her, “Oh my Gods, are you ok?! How many fingers am I holding up?”

Ellie managed to choke out, “Four.”

Afina looked back from the chandelier to Ellie, then at Chevias, “Did you have to hit her so hard?! You threw her over ten feet! If you’d hit her any harder, she’d have had a better chance of survival if that damn thing fell on her!”

Chevias spared a sharp glare at her, “Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly have time to calculate exactly how much force I should use.” He turned back to Ellie, who was gazing around in her daze. He grabbed her head and made her look directly at him, “Hey. You’re okay kid. Bruised, but okay.”

The haze finally cleared. Ellie could hear everything with almost painful acuteness. She could hear the bustle as ten or so other servants came rushing in to see what had happened, and then Viscera herself. She could hear their chatter all blending together and she felt the panic finally well up. She could feel tears start to burn.

“Oh geez….” Chevias turned to the nearest servant, “Hey, where’s a bathroom?”

The human man with red hair and freckles sputtered before another with a pockmarked face jumped in and directed Chevias to go “down the right hall and it’s the third door on your left.”

He turned back and held out his hands, “Hey, can you stand?”

“I-I-I t-think so….”

She grabbed his hands and stood up on wobbly legs. She had to lean on him, but she managed to hold her composure until they reached the bathroom. Afina was right behind them.

When they got there, Afina took Ellie’s arm and gave Chevias a less-than-friendly shove, “You’re not going in with her. Stay out here.”

He rolled his eyes but took a leaning position right outside the door while Afina shut herself and Ellie in. Ellie’s knees gave out and she started furiously wiping at her eyes. The tears hadn’t fallen, but they burned like hell. More than the tears, a yell welled up in her throat.

“Gosh darn it! Cheese and crackers! I-I just…I COULDN’T FLIMFLAMMIN’ MOVE! I JUST FLIPPIN’ STOOD THERE! CRIMINEY! DADGUMMIT! SON OF A BISCUIT!! STUPID, IDIOT, MORON!”

Ellie didn’t realize she’d been hitting her own head with closed fists until Afina grabbed her firmly. As it turns out, even adult elves aren’t very strong, and Ellie almost ripped out of her grasp to land another blow on her noggin’ before realizing what she was doing.

She hissed in pain before gently holding her head. She had gotten a few good licks in, and she was going to suffer for it. “…Thank you.”

“By the ash of the land Ellie, you almost died and now you’re trying to beat yourself to death in a bathroom! Are you sure you didn’t hit your head too hard when he threw you?”

“No, I think I’m ok. I’m really sore though. And my heart’s beating like crazy.”

Afina sighed, “Almost dying will do that to you. Are you sure you’re ok?”

She nodded, “Positive.”

Afina stared at her a little more, “…You don’t want to cry?”

She firmly shook her head, “No, I’m ok.” She clenched her fists a little and stared at her dress in her lap, “I didn’t cry when I woke up not knowing where I was. I can handle this.”

Afina carefully ruffled and attempted to smooth down Ellie’s bird nest, “Brave girl…alright, let’s go then.”