Lucia and Veronique stepped in the Library and were instantly meet with glares

  Glancing around themselves Lucia and Veronique notice that most of the staff was either ignoring their presence or glaring at them with hostility.

  The shy maid was instantly intimidated, but a quick glance at her charge’s unamused face gave her a little reassurance.

  “Uh? What’s up with them?” Veronique wondered out aloud, then her frown deepened with annoyance as she came to terms that she was probably being blatantly disrespected

  “Fine I will look for them myself” she huffed and marched towards the bookcases, Lucia hastily following after her.

  “I-I am so s-sorry my L-lady” the maid apologized as if she had anything to do with it

  “Stop apologizing for stuff you didn’t do” she dismissed the apology “Just help me find those books so we can get out of here” and focused on the task, skimming trough the titles

  ‘Jeez this place is massive; this is going to take forever’ she thought unhappily ‘I can’t even make sense of how those books are ordered’ it surely wasn’t alphabetical as neither authors or titles followed that rule, volumes of the same series were grouped with each other but that was all Veronique could understand.

  The scowl on her face deepened as snickering laughs could be heard from the library’s staff

  “M-my lady” Lucia called out to her in warning, no doubt feeling nervous about it

  “Ignore them and keep looking” Veronique responded without stopping her search “They are not worth our time” she declared determined to get those books no matter what.

  Duchess Lucretia’s Study

  “You called for me my Lady?” Mr Jerkings had said entering the room, it was far more luminous and in a lighter color’s scheme then the Duke’s office as the left side went out to a balcony and it was more akin to a tea room then a study, as the Duchess preferred for her formal meetings with other nobles to go over a cup of tea, but she reserved their actual tea room to her close friends and family.

  Compared to the Duke, the Duchess had less burdens on her shoulders, yet unlike other noblewomen she still took more of them as a subtle way to honor her predecessor’s lead.

  It was something deeply appreciated in the household even if it wasn’t the same, they all understood things could ever be the same and were grateful no less.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “I came across a peculiar sight today” Duchess Lucretia started, she was sitting behind her desk her gaze focused on the butler as usual her faithful maid Amelia was impassibly standing to her right.

  “Was something not up to standard?” Mr Jerkings had no idea what this was all about, but the Duchess wasn’t one to call for minor matters so he prepared for the worst

  “It seems you assigned an inexperienced maid to my step daughter, but surprisingly that’s just the tip of the iceberg” the Duchess declared a bit vaguely, making it know there was a bigger problem ahead.

  “What do you mean my lady?” he asked for some clarification if there was something wrong, then it was his duty to act swiftly to correct it

  “So, you were really incompetent on such a trivial matter” Duchess Lucretia’s usually warm gaze turned cold “I never thought you of all people would disappoint me” she gathered some papers and wordlessly tasked Amelia to bring them to him.

  Mr Jerkings’s face went pale as he read over them.

  The Library

  ‘I am never going to find this book’ Veronique thought discouraged as hours had passed and she didn’t find anything remotely close to what she wanted even with Lucia’s help ‘this is taking too long’ she claimed as so much time had passed even the staff wasn’t amused by their struggling anymore, but there was another pressing matter weighting on her mind

  ‘I never left Bos and Mos alone in my room for this long and I don’t know how they will react’ she thought worried and tried to think back to how she dealt with this with her old pup, but came short as her late dog had never truly been alone at home ‘my sweet angel would get very upset if I left, but at most I would come back to chewed up book and all things considered her pup was truly an easy dog to handle…if strangers or food weren’t involved’ Veronique really needed those books, but was growing anxious because she had no idea what was awaiting her back in her room.

  -

  Too focused on the task Veronique didn’t notice the Dead accompanying her had been looking at the bookcases as well.

  The hanging jaw corpse was had suddenly jerked to a stop, its decaying finger going back on a book’s spine as if to help it reread the title and then checked the volumes around with visible excitement before it started signalizing to the others of its findings.

  As soon as the message was caught, the Dead flocked back towards Veronique and tried to catch her attention.

  -

  ‘Those stupid hallucinations of mine are being especially annoying today’ Veronique thought, as they acted quite odd today and on top of it they were grunting now, so much for them being silent, it must be her mind playing tricks on her for thinking about it.

  Clashing eyes, great now she was giving them nicknames, kept hovering over her and letting its hanging eyeballs get in her vision before moving back and repeating the gesture.

  Over and over again.

  It was infuriating as she couldn’t read right with those things in the way and she was already at her wits end in the first place

  “Could you stop that!?” Veronique ended up snapping, turning towards Clashing eyes with a furious glower, only for such anger to evaporate as she saw it was pointing to something which lead to another Dead to point as well, and another more doing the same thing.

  To her amazement all the Dead had coordinated to show her a path, which she ended up following all the way towards a bookshelf a few rows over where Hanging Jaw awaited her at the end, pointing towards a specific book.

  Curious Veronique walked over there and found six volumes titled -Techniques to train animals-