Alcina sips dutifully at the glass of water Brendan had forced upon her, eyes doleful as she peeks up at him from underneath her lashes.Brendan stands over her, arms crossed, not unlike an ominous guard watching with keen eyes as if to ensure Alcina truly is drinking the water. They had hardly made it to the closest parlor room from the courtyard entrance when Brendan had promptly sat her down on a chair and ordered a terrified attendant to fetch a pitcher of water.Alcina sips obediently at her second glass now, shoulders slumped both in exhaustion and misery as she glances up at Brendan through her drenched bangs.“Why do you look as though someone has slaughtered your childhood pet?” Brendan demands.Alcina recognizes the terseness of Brendan’s awkward attempts at caring for someone, but cannot help the slight grimace all the same. “You were watching, weren’t you?” she says sullenly, mouthing at the rim of her cup. “I was terrible-”“You were not terrible,” Brendan begins to say,

Somewhere far, far below the grounds of the Western Plains, is an elaborate passageway of holding cells, built of heavy metal bars and lit only by the sparse torches.The dungeons, though no one quite likes to use the word.The dungeons have long been empty for years, having only been used once in recent times. And only briefly, too, given that the inhabitant had been quickly disposed of, once all the information had been extracted from his mind with Lord Alfred’s Gift.Today, the unused torches in the dungeons have been lit once more, for a new guest.It is a young woman, hardly older than twenty, her features lovely and delicate in violent contrast to the grimy holding cell she has been chained to. Everything about her seems like a sacrilege, here, in the dank walls of a dirty underground prison; as though she is something that does not belong in a place so dirty and murky.Even the color of her hair - pale pink locks, vibrant even in the darkness of the cell - stands at odds with t