After hours of journey, we reached west of the Greenlands and though it was five in the morning, not a single shop was closed. It was truly one of the liveliest cities in the entire kingdom of Adalolpha. 

Hailey seemed to know the paths around here very well. It wasn’t surprising for an assassin to know her hometown this well but I can understand why the Cermesi clan decided to settle in this part of Greenlands. The west of Greenlands was filled with dark alleys and although I did pass by a few police officers a while back; it was pretty obvious they were also dragged into the crimes which went on on the streets here. I could see evident looking thugs who were dealing with the officers in the corner of the road without any fear of the eyes.

Needless to say, this was a perfect tourist spot because of the royal restrictions which did not apply here as the royal dogs had fallen a sacrifice to the crimes. 

“How do you think of this place?” Hailey asked, almost proud of her hometown. Currently, she was leading me somewhere and I did not dare to let my brains do the thinking in a place like this. 

I was sure that the night welcomed all the wrong activities while I was yet to see the day here. It was quite obvious from how Sam had talked about this place that the days were pretty tourist-friendly. With that small thought, the rest of the thoughts I was having about this place dissipated from my mind. I had not come here to judge anything about this place, rather focus on Zelda. Because Sam was in the hospital waiting for his justice and so were the rest who lost their lives, along with the purest person I had met, Elaine.

“Let’s not get distracted from what we are here for,” I replied to Hailey, which had me receive an instant chuckle from her. 

She continued to lead me through the cobblestone paths, which went relatively downhill. Her eyes constantly searched for something on the right side of the road. I would have helped to search, whatever she was trying to figure out, but that was only possible if she let me know what it was. However, I did not want to take my eyes off of her given how cunning she was. 

After a few more steps, Hailey suddenly stopped in front of a huge building. It wasn’t tall but broad in its frame. “It should have been here,” she looked at the rundown building. 

The windows were broken and it was pretty obvious that stones had been thrown at the building. 

“What is this place?” I asked, taking in the appearance of the semi burnt walls. This could be easily used as a hideout for the people who worked in the dark. I turned to her and she was trying to figure out something with one of her hands folded on her chest and the other stroking her chin. 

Her tongue rolled over her canines while her eyes squinted with anger, which she was trying to hold back. 

My vision shifted between her and the building. I was trying my best to guess in what context was this place related to her but nothing came to my mind. “Are we just going to stand here?” I asked, just to receive a glare from Hailey. 

After a good stare, Hailey clicked her tongue, “Fine, let us check it out.” 

I cleared my throat, “okay, mind telling me what is there to check here?” But I should have known better and the fact that there was no way Hailey would actually answer me. 

She simply walked to the building and it wasn’t like I had any choice here. 

I followed her inside and the first thing I saw was a larger candle chandelier, that was shattered to the ground. The inside of the room was all burnt up along with the furniture and the walls were now filled with cobwebs. “Wow, someone did numbers on this place,” I said, not knowing what to say more than that. Hailey kept walking to the large stairs in the middle of the room and it was no less to a castle. Even though the place was now rundown, it spoke of the past riches. 

As we climbed to the upper floor, there was a seemingly uneven distribution of rooms and corridors. It was a labyrinth in itself. “Try not to get lost,” Hailey said before taking a sharp left between the uneven walls and rooms. 

She kept on changing directions too fast for me to keep track of my surrounding until she reached a particularly large door in the left corner. 

This building sure did a great job of looking like a residential area from the outside but the inside was as good as a castle. With that thought, the next thing I remembered was that Hailey was a clan heir. She was a princess herself! 

“Is this your house!” I exclaimed.

Hailey pushed the door open with force and the dust which had come to settle on it started to rain down. She did not back away because of that. I could tell that Hailey was applying a lot of pressure to open the door by the way how the muscles of her arms flexed. “Mind giving a hand?” she asked in an irritated tone and I rushed ahead to take hold of one of the doors. The hinges had been rusted, but the weight of the door itself was enough that a normal person won’t be able to open it. 

It took me some good efforts to push the door open entirely while Hailey was already done pushing the right side of the door completely open. 

I did not put any more effort and just entered the room while letting the door go, which banged with a huge thud. It was a long room and, as compared to the rest of the house, this looked in better shape. Probably because the people who had attacked this place had difficulty getting through the door. There was a throne in the middle where the person sitting could easily lie down or relax. 

“Is that your father’s?” I asked Hailey, who was looking through something in her table drawers. 

She hummed in response, “not exactly, his sitting is way bigger. This one is mine.” Hailey bent down to reach out to the back of a table and she was struggling with finding something. After some fiddling, she closed her eyes to better concentrate on what she wanted to get from here. Her hand jerked when she pulled something out from underneath the table and where her hand emerged out, it was covered in blood. 

“Are you okay!” I raced to her to see her hand but Hailey was busy opening the piece of parchment which she had retrieved. “Hailey-“

“Oh shut up, I am fine. This secret place was made in a way that it would rip off any person’s hand if put inside it mindlessly,” Hailey said as she struggled to open the tightly sealed parchment with her bloodied hand. “This injury is nothing for me. Now open this for me,” she stretched the folded piece of paper to me. 

I took it from her hand and started unwrapping it with care. The paper must have been here for a long time with the way it had stuck with its own folds. 

When I finally managed to open it, I immediately understood why it was stuck. 

The content written in it was with an old method of ink writing and the ink must have been fresh when it was folded, making it stick. But that was not the only problem. Because the ink had made the paper stick, it had also stained the writing inside it. The words weren’t even readable to eyes except for a few of them. 

“What does it say?” Hailey asked while cleaning her left hand to the right sleeve of the hoodie she was wearing. 

“I understand nothing,” I said while looking at her in rage for the fact that she was actually ruining one of the favourite pieces of clothing I owned. “You know you could ask me for a handkerchief if you want to clean your wounds.” 

“No need for that. I am done,” Hailey said that and then proceeded to rip the right sleeve of my precious hoodie right from its shoulder. 

“HEY!” I shouted and leapt at her, trying to stop her but the deed had already been done. Hailey stood there with the blood-stained sleeve in her hand and my eyes shot wide at them in her hand, “why would you do that!” 

“Why do you care what I do with my own clothes?” Hailey looked at me, irritated, and that made a nerve pop on my forehead. 

I shut my eyes while fisting my hands as the paper crumpled in my fingers, “That is MY hoodie.” 

Hailey raised one of her eyebrows as if it wasn’t, until she looked down and both her eyebrows raised in realisation. “Well…” She looked at her clothes and then at the sleeve she held in her hand and back at my hoodie, “I…” There were no words she could come up with for that before she handed me the torn sleeve, “here, I will return the rest of it once I buy clothes for myself.” Hailey smiled at me with a broad grin. I looked at the sleeve in my hand with my mouth open and speechless. She slowly took the paper from my hand, “let me just, you know, try to check what is in this.” 

I gritted my teeth, “YOU IRRESPONSIBLE PIECE OF CRAP!” 

Hailey jumped up at my scream and laughed guiltily. Her eyes went back to the paper in her hand, trying to avoid me. I stomped closer to her, ready to throw my fist at her but she stopped me, “Look here.” My anger had still not dissipated, but her face was serious enough for me to focus. “The Cermesi clan has moved out of here but to where is all erased out.” 

—–

Happy New year to everyone <3 

I hope you all have a wonderful year ahead ^^

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Also, there were so many people I had left to appreciate for their gifts as encouraging support <3 I have added all the names together in the author’s thoughts for just this once instead of highlighting just one. I am utterly grateful for your support and will definitely highlight the names as usual after this ^^.. I do this mainly because I can’t always find the comment which says the gift which you have offered to this book and also so I can wholeheartedly thank you for it. <3