She Belongs To The Devil

Just as Theodore had instructed her, Adeline gathered up all the guards and then told them that everything \'unnatural\' that happened to them was to be kept a secret.

And in return for their cooperation, she said that she was going to clear them of the punishment that they would otherwise receive for disregarding the King\'s order and helping Lillian at the beginning of the battle.

Everyone gladly agreed to keep everything a secret because they felt indebted towards Theodore. And they were more than happy to return the favor to their guardian.

After everything was said and done, Adeline then ordered them, "Okay then, let\'s head back. We won\'t stop until we are inside the walls of the Palace. Is it clear?"

"Yes, Your Highness," all the guards replied in unison.

Then everyone took their respective position. Adeline climbed inside Edwin\'s carriage, followed by Edwin and Raphael.

The carriage began to move. Edwin was still very quiet and the whole atmosphere inside the carriage became gloomy and awkward.

Adeline glanced at Raphael and then asked him with covert eye and brows movement if Edwin talked with him. Raphael pressed his lips into a thin line and then shook his head.

Adeline took a deep breath in and then finally broke the silence, "Edwin, are you alright? You know you can talk with us, right?"

Edwin was brought back from his deep thoughts. He glanced at Adeline and forced a smile but he didn\'t say anything.

Adeline somehow felt guilty seeing Edwin like that. And she tried to reach out to him, "Edwin, you don\'t have to pretend that you are fine right now. She is your mother after all. And I can understand if you are angry with me for orchestrating all this and even involving you in it."

Edwin sighed and finally spoke, "I am not angry at you, Adeline. There is no reason to be. I am just angry at myself. I cannot believe that I never saw through my mother\'s manipulation. I simply followed the path that she showed, no questions asked. I am just glad that she didn\'t do anything to harm my wife and my daughter."

Raphael patted on Edwin\'s shoulder and then tried to make him feel a little better about himself, "Edwin, it\'s not your fault for trusting your mother. It\'s her fault for breaking your trust that she would lead you down a good path. You learned what you were taught. It might have taken you some time but you are doing well now, aren\'t you?"

Edwin smiled and glanced at both Raphael and Adeline. And he said, "I wish I had tried to spend more time with you lot during our training days. Then maybe I would have had some good influence."

Raphael teasingly shrugged his shoulders and instantly added, "Or maybe we could have had a bad influence from you."

"Raph!" Adeline raised her brows and gave a glare to him for being so insensitive at times like this.

But Edwin suddenly laughed while saying, "Yeah, maybe I could have!" He then pointed at Adeline and said to Raphael, still chuckling, "Just imagine her with a temper like mine. She would have gutted half of our father\'s children by the age of ten."

Raphael also joined in the laughter and agreed with Edwin, "Oh, with her strength mixed with the anger that you used to have, she would be our worst nightmare."

Adeline scoffed at how the brothers had ganged up against her. She teasingly narrowed he eyes and scolded her brothers, "Unbelievable! Just keep on teasing me and I will become your nightmare for real."

Raphael suddenly became all quiet and said in a serious tone, "Yeah, she is not to be messed with. I mean, the literal Devil is on her side now. He even accepted her as his sister-in-law already."

Adeline hid her face behind her palm and chuckled. "Stop it already, Raph! Don\'t make me buy you a ticket to Hell."

The three of them kept on bantering with each other along the way.

They arrived at the Golden Street after about 45 minutes. And that was when Edwin realized something. He held his head and exclaimed, "Oh gosh!"

Both Adeline and Raphael looked at him thinking why he looked shocked.

"What happened? Is something wrong?" Adeline asked Edwin.

Edwin nodded his head and replied, "My mother\'s maid was traveling in my carriage. I think we left her back at the willow creek."

"Oh!" Adeline tapped her feet and then thought for a while. She couldn\'t afford to stop in the middle of the busy street and then order one of the soldiers to go back and search for that maid. She had already made it clear that they were not going to stop before they reached inside the Palace.

So she sighed and said, "I think we will have to wait for 15 more minutes. I will send two cavalries to look for her."

Edwin also thought that it was a bad idea to stop in the middle of the street just to send someone looking for a maid. "Maybe she was hiding somewhere because of all the commotion. That\'s why everyone forgot about her."

They resumed back to teasing and bantering with each other again. Edwin bonded with the other two siblings really well in the one-hour-long carriage ride. He had never bonded this deeply with the others, apart from Alan of course. But his relationship with Alan had turned sour because of the differences in their ideologies.

He looked at the two cheerful half-siblings of his and promised himself that he would work out his relationship with Alan as well.

When they were nearing the Palace, Adeline finally remembered that she had yet to clean off the blood.

"Will you help me remove these bloodstains?" Adeline asked her brothers. They helped her without hesitation.

And when they were done with that, she took out the sword that Lucifer had given her.

The pommel and the cross-guard of the sword had a head of the hound each, as though it was a representation of Cerberus. Even the scabbard of the sword looked otherworldly, with inscriptions that she didn\'t understand. And there was no way that she could take that sword inside her quarter without anyone noticing it.

So she wondered out loud, "How am I going to hide this sword?"

Both Raphael and Edwin, whose eyes were fixated on that marvelous sword, were stunned when something unexpected happened.

"What? Where did it go?" Raphael exclaimed when the sword disappeared in front of his eyes.

Adeline was confused as to what he was talking about. "It is right on my hand! Stop trying to make fun of me!"

"No, for real. It\'s not there!" Edwin also exclaimed.

Adeline just rolled her eyes and took the sword out of its scabbard. She inspected the blade and the material that the sword was made out of. It was light to hold but it did look unbreakable.

The brothers were still bamboozled. They could only see Adeline doing some hand movements but they didn\'t see the sword.

Adeline put the sword back in its scabbard and glared at them. "Why are the two of you still staring at me like that?"

Edwin then swore to Adeline, "Adeline, I swear on my daughter that the sword is not visible to us right now."

Adeline leaned back with her jaw wide open. She finally believed them.

"Then how do I make it appear to you both again?" Adeline thought for a while and used the word that she had heard Theodore use to reveal any hidden things, "Revelare!"

As if on cue, both Raphael and Edwin jumped like excited babies and shouted, "We can see it. We can see it!"

Adeline narrowed her eyes and tried a different word, "Hide!"

"Now it\'s gone!" they screamed excitedly again.

They were all shouting and clapping as if they got a new toy and they discovered how to make it work.