Chapter Twenty-Five

Entry:

Your name rolls off my tongue as I mumble to myself, over and over, how could I be so wrong? About you, about me, about them and him? About us? I should have listened to Roman, he tried to warn me what would happen to me. We were doomed to fail. 

Phoenix

--

The Prince kept his word. 

That night, Phoenix strolled into the library where Roman greeted her. She offered a smile, but he turned his back on her and walked straight for the mural. Business only, then. 

A silence wrapped around them as they weaved through books and journals alike, down to the vault, down to the cavern, until the soles of their shoes squished with mud. They nestled into the same nook as before, decorated with one chair, a pillar of books, and a discarded cup. 

Phoenix planted herself onto the ground, across from Roman in his chair. The candle light flickered, casting long shadows across Roman's face, in and out of focus. 

"The Prince got to me. I'm here. I'm here, yes indeed," he chanted.

"Well," Phoenix started, "I was wondering if-"

"You know," Roman interrupted, "I was on my way over here when I accidentally bumped into another councilman. You know what he said? He said, 'watch it old man.' People can be so mean, mean indeed. Why can people be so cruel?" Roman stared at his large hands in sorrow. Age spots plagued him like freckles, a rash inside his wrist revealed his anxiety and loose skin sagging from his knuckles showed his experience.

Phoenix looked up in pity for a moment but noticed that he was mumbling to himself. Was mumbling a habit of the insane? No, it wasn't, just of people sorting out their own mind. 

"Are you okay now?" she asked. 

"I'm indeed fine." 

"Is there anything else you would like to share?" Phoenix said. She wanted to talk to him about the missing information about the file, but she couldn't set him off. He looked at her in confusion for a split second before his face lit up and he started to tell her a story. 

"Well," he started, "Once there was a boy…" 

The story made no sense. Roman would go on rambling about this or that, how people were mean, things that interested him—but in all his gibberish there were treasures from his past. A thread weaving into a tragic tapestry, one of sorrow and loss. There, he once sailed the sea. And there, he wasn't always in this castle. 

Roman's hair was thinning, his eyebrows protruding past his pointy nose. He might have been handsome as a boy but now his eyes looked tired with permanent frown marks. He looked almost a decade older than when she last saw him. 

As Roman told this story, a story with no plot line, Phoenix felt a protective instinct bloom in her chest. Sometimes Roman's face would glow like a child's, growing into a wide smile and blushing like a young boy. At one point he randomly proclaimed, "throwing a penny into a pond while making a wish is something every adult should do!"

"Yes," Phoenix commented with a goofy grin of her own.

"And who knows! Maybe when you do, you'll find a penny yourself, just like the character did!" 

Roman had a lot to say about nothing in particular, but the odd ways he told stories kept Phoenix interested. He finally stopped talking after twenty minutes of continuous chatter. 

"How about you?" he concluded his story. The character had a happy ending and was rich enough to throw an infinite number of pennies into murky water. 

"Well, I do have a story if you care to hear it." Phoenix had lost, her wall had crumbled and the man before her was someone she respected. 

Roman scooted to the edge of his seat and propped his chin on his hands. He nodded and waited for Phoenix to continue. 

"There's this person who wants power, and they find out about a rare mineral. They go to the castle to steal it. A third party gets to it first. Now the Queen sits without a crown. The gem is returned to an urban legend. They all live happily ever after," Phoenix described her situation as vaguely as possible. 

"A horrible story. Horrible, indeed," Roman replied, shaking his head. 

"Why?" 

"First, I applaud you for figuring out that the Burning Stone was in the crown. Second, I am astonished that you would do something as stupid as to try to steal from the royal family without knowing what the power of the Burning Stone is." 

Phoenix had never heard Roman speak a sentence so clearly and intentionally. She was caught off guard for a moment, there was still so much she didn't know about him. 

"Then what should I do?" Phoenix asked him, hypothetical situation tossed to the side. 

"That, I am unsure of. Unsure indeed." 

An honest adult, how rare. 

"Can you at least tell me what power this Burning Stone has?" Phoenix asked. 

He smiled softly and looked at the floor again.

"No. If I do that, you too may call me 'Old Guy Roman'."

People could be sensitive about the most peculiar of things.

"Roman, what does that mean? Why would I call you something so harsh?" 

She could tell that she wasn't reaching him. He was rubbing his hands together and mumbling to himself into the ground again, scratching his own skin raw and red, disappearing into himself. 

"Roman," Phoenix tried again, "I don't have any other ideas. I'm going to steal that crown and give it back to its owner, give it back to Serva. What do you think of that?"

His eyes snapped to hers at the mention of Serva, and his whole body changed. He sat up straight, his eyes met hers fiercely, and then he pulled at the cuff of his shirt to straighten it out. 

Roman proclaimed, "I miss Serva. He is dead. He cannot come back; you cannot return it." 

"Why?" 

"Serva was buried alive in grief. He was suffocated, and now he is dead." Roman slouched and his gaze retracted back to the floor. 

Phoenix was still thoroughly confused but she had a theory that needed testing, so she continued her questions. 

"Are you the only one who remembers Serva?"

"Only me. Only me, indeed," Roman answered distantly as he studied his calloused hands. They were rather large, decorated with little scars proving his experience with life. 

"Roman, you're the only person that has had any information about the Burning Stone beyond a rhyme. How do you know so much about it?" 

He remained silent. Phoenix was understanding why Roman was the only one who remembered Serva, why he was the only one who knew valuable information about the Burning Stone.

"Roman," she inquired again, "why do people call you old? And why does it bother you so much?"

"It's not nice. Not nice at all," he replied while swaying back and forth like a nervous clock. 

Phoenix could tell that she was asking the right questions by his inability to answer properly. It was as if Roman never thought someone would ask him these questions, and he had convinced himself of that. 

"Roman, you're Serva, aren't you?"

Roman's fidgeting stopped. For the first time, he stopped moving altogether, and the only sound was an inhale and exhale of stale air. Phoenix waited, perched at the edge of her seat, with her hands clasped together.

"You, Serva, made the Burning Stone; that's why you know so much about it." Phoenix paused; he stared. "Sometimes you act like different people. You get nervous and talk to yourself, but then you sit up straight and convey a message perfectly clear without any problems. I don't think Serva is dead at all. I think he's still in you, clawing his way out as you continue life." Phoenix studied Roman's eyes as they slowly began to glass over and then blink rapidly. 

She had never seen a grown man cry before.

Within seconds, a wall of tears rushed out of Roman's eyes. She didn't know what to do, so she just leaned forward and patted his head in the same way he had done for her. The sound of his sobs echoed through the entire library, so loud that she was convinced people above ground could hear the wails, so loud she feared his howls would knock over leaning towers of books. 

"Phoenix," Roman whispered hoarsely once his voice found him again. 

A rough hand came up to softly caress her cheek, Roman's face decorated with a weak smile. She leaned into his touch and urged him to continue.

"Can I be alone for a minute? Just a minute, indeed. You are precious and clever, too clever. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, indeed. Let me be alone with him for a minute," he rambled. 

Phoenix nodded and got up to leave. After glancing at him over her shoulder, she made her way up back to the main floor. She climbed up, up, up with a triumphant smirk that didn't dissolve until she was sitting in her favorite chair. Things were adding up, but it raised more questions.

Roman's age was missing because the Burning Stone's power was to make him live forever. 

And the fact that he had aged a decade over the past day meant that not having the Stone affected him. But if Roman has been using that established power, then why did the Queen need to experiment on others? 

It didn't matter, all Phoenix had to do was stop it. All uncertainty left Phoenix. She had to steal that crown before the Queen could use it on more innocents and give it back to Roman to keep him alive. Haste was vital. Phoenix had to return the Stone to Roman before his age caught up to him. 

The opportunity of the ball with the royal family attending, Greyson having insight on the guard rotations, and her invitation to attend… it was still rough and Phoenix wasn't wholly sold on it yet, but the plan forming in her head was a solid start. She just had to run it by Greyson and the rest of her family. 

Fifteen minutes later a scruffy beard emerged from the underground library. His eyes were still red and swollen but it seemed that the well of tears had dried up. Phoenix walked up to meet him, his dragging gait exposing his mental exhaustion.

"Can I walk you to your room?" she offered.

He let out a quick shake of his head. "No, darling. I think I'll go myself. You have been too helpful already." 

"Be careful." 

Roman laughed a little. "That's my line, darling."

A small chuckle spilled from her chapped lips. 

"He's a good kid, you know," Roman added.

"Who?"

"Talon, that boy. He was cute as a kid—always had his eyes on precious things. The boy has become a little warped now, twisted and knotted like a large tree standing on a dark road. But inside the witch's elm is a bella child who feels more than anyone else and fails at expressing it the most. I wonder, will he ever let his roots come back and be that boy again? I wonder indeed."

"Bella? Like beautiful?" Phoenix connected.

"Precious things, indeed." Roman looked at her with a particular twinkle in his eyes. 

Roman offered her a warm smile and another pat on the head. She leaned into the fatherly touch. Then he strolled out of the dusty library, a tired man with red eyes and a heart of gold. A smile and desire to smooth her hair overcame her. Phoenix couldn't see a cute boy in the Prince, but Roman seemed to trust the kid. And that spoke volumes. 

Now it was time to plan.

Phoenix marched out of the library and toward her family. Something had to be done soon, before the Queen had an opportunity to use the Burning Stone on herself and kill Roman with her selfishness. 

Phoenix left the library in a rush to find her siblings. It was time to plot a heist.