It was quite early in the morning for Ray. He wasn’t used to getting out of bed until later. But Ahel was already dressed. She found him sitting in the living room. He looked up at her and smiled faintly in greeting. Strangely enough, she felt the base of her ears slowly heating.

Ahel looked away from Ray and scanned the room to see if there was anything out of place. After a moment she said, “I think I should go to work now.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ray said.

“Yes. By chance, while I’m gone, if…” she started, but Ray cut her off.

“I don’t think I’ll leave before then,” he said as if she had already known what she was going to say.

Ahel couldn’t help but jerk her head back in surprise when he finished her sentence. “I see. I’ll be back around sundown. Will you be alright being alone here until then?”

She’s like a mother leaving her child at home while she goes off to work. Ray chuckled to himself. He could see the pressing nervousness on her face.

It was clear she was reluctant to leave her home in the hands of someone she knew nothing about; aside from his name, that is. On top of that, she had found him hiding, wounded in a dark alley. He couldn’t blame her for being a little edgy with the situation.

Ray decided to ease Ahel’s mind using the truth she had uncovered earlier. “Are you suspicious of me, the oldest son of the Grand Nobleman Count Herman? If so, I am disappointed in you.”

“You’re the eldest son of… Grand nobleman… Count Herman? You’re that Ray?” Ahel asked in blatant shock.

At her question, Ray dug in his pocket and pulled something out. He held it up with a grin. “I am. Do I have to prove myself here, too?”

It was a fake ID card he used to travel in disguise. There wasn’t really a count in the Lobel Empire that went by the name Herman. Despite it being fake, his purpose of showing it to her was clear enough; he was trusting her with something important to win her trust so he could stay in her home a little longer.

Ray still hadn’t gotten an answer to the letter he’d sent to his assistant. That’s one more thing for me to check up on. His lively green eyes stared at Ahel as he tried to guess her thoughts. He knew he couldn’t leave this place.

Ahel couldn’t determine if his ID card was real or fake anyway. She was, after all, just a commoner. So, at the sight of the card, her face relaxed. “So you are a nobleman. I wasn’t being suspicious of you. My apologies if that’s how it looked,” Ahel said against her better nature.

Ray looked at her and arrogantly raised his chin.  “That’s a relief. Didn’t you say you had to go to work? It’s been a little while since then…”

Ahel’s cheeks blushed faintly with color at his comment. It almost looked like she was embarrassed. “I put your breakfast on the table. Now, let me go…” When she realized how late it was, she bolted out the house.

Ray watched her disappear through the open door. Once she was gone, he got up and walked out the room to the kitchen. On the table, just like Ahel had said, were neatly placed meals for him; breakfast and lunch.

He stared at the neatly divided food as a grin slowly spread over his face. She prepared meals for me even though she is afraid of leaving me alone in the house? 

“How fun,” he said out loud, with a look of childish excitement in his green eyes.

A small, knocking sound filled the room.

Ray looked up to see his hawk had returned and was knocking against the window with its sharp beak. As he went to open the window, the bird circled back into the sky before gliding down and coming to land on the windowsill. Tied to its neck was a letter, a different color to the one Ray had sent yesterday.

Ray took the letter and stroked the hawk on its side. With its mission accomplished, the hawk flapped its wings once then shot back into the sky.

Once he could no longer see it, Ray closed the window and read the letter it had brought:

The assassin who was chasing you has been taken care of, as has the one who was in the Imperial Palace. I am safe. The person behind this is exactly who you thought it was. 

Ray crumbled the letter up and frowned so deeply that it created wrinkles on his forehead. There was an assassin in the Imperial Palace? This meant it was wiser for him to stay in hiding. They really are determined. 

His  mouth twisted violently in a reflection of his steadily worsening mood. “So I was right all along about the one behind this,” he murmured coldly. He crunched the letter into an even tighter ball, almost beyond recognition of what it used to be.

He stalked through the house then, frantically looking for a match. Once he found one, he opened the window and held the scrunched up ball of paper out of it. Then he set it alight.

In an instant, flames flickered over the tiny piece of paper. Fire reflected in his eyes, picking out an expression so cold that it would give any onlooker goosebumps.

The fire quickly reduced the paper to ashes that were swept away by a sudden gust of wind. There was no trace of the letter, not even a flutter of soot.

“Duke Seraf…” Ray mumbled bleakly into the wind before he stepped back and slammed the window closed.