The trust she's earned

Melissa and Lu meet each other halfway, finding themselves standing in front of the manor's porch with Melissa holding a warm bowl of rice porridge out for Lu.

The archdemon curiously stares at the warm porridge that still has steam flowing out of it.

"Here, you must be hungry right? Have something to eat," Melissa says as Lu receives the warm bowl into her hands.

"Thanks, but why?" Lu asks while sitting down on the porch stairs. She grabs the spoon from the bowl and begins eating.

As delicious as it is for her, Lu couldn't appreciate it as her mind is focused on Melissa, wondering if she heard her conversation with Adela.

She remembers that Andrew wanted to keep the Cerulean Witch a secret from Melissa, which she never got a straight answer as to why from him.

"It's pretty cold tonight, don't you want to go inside? Besides, being out here alone is kinda lonely, right?" Melissa tries to coax Lucifia into coming inside and warming up.

It's not like Melissa's unaware of what Lu did. She killed 51 people today without showing a hint of guilt, but she did so out of the need to protect them and that's why she still believes that Lu has some good.

"I'm sure Aranea would jump out of her skin if she saw me inside, and I don't want to argue with an old man past his prime," Lu says snickering as she hands Melissa an empty bowl. "It was delicious, did you make it?"

"It was a combined effort from me and Aranea, and she's the one who told me to bring you inside you know." With a smile on her face, Melissa grabs Lu's wrist and pulls it to try and get the archdemon off the porch stairs. "C'mon, Hagurd also wants to talk to you in the living room."

Lu lets out a visible sigh as she relents to Melissa's insistent tugging.

Going back inside, Lucifia goes to the living room where she sees Hagurd sitting on the sofa waiting for her with his hands together. In front of Hagurd are a bottle of whiskey and a half-empty glass set on the coffee table.

Taking a seat in front of him, Lu waits for Hagurd to go on a rant about what she did this afternoon and how inhumane it is. Though she didn't mean to, Lu has a scowl on her face just thinking about what's going to happen.

The tired old man lets out a sigh as he grabs his drink and finishes it.

"What's our next move now?" Hagurd asks Lu with a straight look in his eyes which catches the archdemon by surprise.

Hagurd pours himself another glass as he waits for Lu.

"This place is no good anymore and I'm planning on running away with Aranea. I don't know where, but anywhere is better than here.

But before I think of that, what about Drew? Do you have a plan on how to save him?"

Lu doesn't stay stupefied and she starts thinking of how to rescue Drew which leads her pondering if she could have one of Adela's accomplices help Drew escape.

"Why don't I rescue him myself then?" Melissa suggests which causes Hagurd to shake his head.

"You'd be rushing into a barracks filled with knights and knights in training. Even if Lu here managed to cut a good chunk of Aspen's defenses, you'd still be walking to an early execution," Hagurd explains as he takes his drink up to his mouth only for Aranea to grab his hand and take his drink away. "Hey!"

"That's enough! You shouldn't be drinking if you got business to do Mr. Hagurd," Aranea scolds her father as she takes the glass and bottle to the kitchen with her.

"A, -At least if you're going to treat me like a dad can you drop the 'Mister'? It surprisingly hurts," Hagurd says rubbing his chest.

Melissa snickers at the skit that Lu ignores as she's now deep in thought about her alliance with Adela and whether or not to tell it to everyone. Unfortunately, before she could come to a conclusion, Hagurd calls out to her.

"What is it?" Lu asks and decides to hold back on telling them, hoping that they'd understand.

"We're talking about breaking Drew out of the barracks and you became silent. Don't you have any ideas?" Hagurd basically repeats himself to Lu, hoping this time it'll sink in.

"Sneaking him out would be our best bet, but since you made yourself an enemy of Aspen, Melissa and Aranea are witches, and I'm a mass murderer, there's no way any of us will

-wait, don't you have that kid around with you? Your boy toy what's his name." Lu remembers Basil and how he's the perfect choice for helping Drew escape, but the boy in question isn't here and the look Lu is seeing on Hagurd makes it clear that they can't rely on the squire.

"I haven't seen the kid since last night, and he's always with me so I don't think we'll be able to ask for his help.

I wouldn't want to either. Basil has no reason to help us and I don't want a kid like him throwing his entire life to become a fugitive," Hagurd says with a firm conviction of wanting to protect Basil's future.

That squire has been the only one who managed to last Hagurd's personality and is the only other person that doesn't despise Aranea, so to the old man he's as important as family.

"What if he's the one who tattled the location of the manor? What should I do if he turns out to be one of the faces in a crowd of knights sent tomorrow?" Lu asks a dangerous question that ends up getting on Hagurd's nerves causing him to glare at the archdemon.

"Don't run your mouth when you-" Hagurd's about to go on a full rant on Lu but Aranea interrupts him.

"B, -Basil isn't like that at all! He's the least bit cunning, if anything he's quite the opposite! He's gullible and easy to please. Finny and I would talk to him to get on his good side so he would let us out!" If Basil was here he would have taken a lot of mental damage from Aranea's sweet but dangerously brutal words.

"So d, -don't say mean things behind his back okay, Lu? You too Melly!" Aranea tells the two girls that bullied Basil.

"Y, -Yeah, I'll do that," Melissa replies with an awkward grin.

Lu finds herself slack-jawed once more as she could not believe such brutal words could be said with such sincere kindness and a beaming smile. She slowly turns to Hagurd who she sees is now directing his hateful glare at Finny.

There's an urge in the man, a desire to tear an accessory apart until there's nothing left but a pile of string and patches of cloth.

Hagurd knows that Aranea got those words from the potty-mouth hat on her. With Finny always on top of her head, it's not at all surprising that Aranea will pick up some of his nasty languages with a twisted idea of what they mean in context.

To calm his rattled nerves, Hagurd is silently rubbing his temple.

"I'll go back outside now if that's all you wanted to talk about." Lu suddenly gets up from the couch she sat down on.

"Wait Lu! I, -I just want to say thank you," Aranea once again speaks out, stopping Lu dead in her tracks. She twiddles with her fingers as her face turns visibly red. Aranea's reaching her social interaction limit.

"For? I don't particularly remember doing anything for you," Lu replies.

"Y, -You did though! You saved Mr. Hagurd. Not just that but, well, I don't know if you intended to make me more vocal at that time or just your way of harassing me, but it did help me!" Aranea says before finally collapsing to her knees and pulling Finny down to hide her face from everyone.

"A-Aghgh! Stop! Stop! You're tearing my limbs Aranea!" Finny screams in agony.

"Well, on that note I'd like to say thank you as well. Your attitude's abrasive and the way you go about things in that antagonistic angle makes me worry for you since it reminds me of Drew's problem.

But I trust ya two though since I can see that you're kind just like Drew. I'm sorry as well for getting bothered with me, but I also wanna thank ya since it's not every day that I got two people carin' for me~" Melissa says jovially, completely forgetting to check her accent that's coming out. Without Drew here to tell her, she's blissfully unaware.

Aranea wants to add something by the way she peeks up to look at Melissa. She wants to say if she's not a part of the people Melissa's referring to.

Like an attentive big sister though, Melissa notices that and begins trying her best to cheer up Aranea.

Seeing these two smile and thank Lu made her reconsider her alliances with Adela all together, but it's not as though she has any other option on the table. She has no footing in this world and by this point, she believes that the only haven they might be able to settle down is with other witches.

A faint smile grows on Lu as she turns back and prepares to leave, but Hagurd calls out to her, stopping her before she could go out.

"Tell me, what if Basil turns out to be one of those knights that get sent here tomorrow, what're you going to do?" Hagurd asks causing Lu to look back at him.

"Then I'll make an exception for him. Since you and Aranea seem to care about him," Lu answers as she turns back to face the door, opening it and heading outside.

Stepping back out into the cold, the first thing Lu does is get out of the porch's roof to look up at the night sky. The snow has gotten worse and is making it difficult for Lu to tell apart snowflakes from stars, but one thing is clear to her and that's the moon that makes her wonder if Andrew is looking at the same sky as her right now.

He isn't. In his windowless prison cell, Andrew does not even have an opening that would let the moonlight in. The only light he's allowed is from a candle that he has on the table in his room.

As Drew sits on a chair while staring at the flame that's burning away its tallow, he's trying to come up of a way to break free from where he is.

'The only reason the guards are doing their jobs right now is that the capital knights are coming. I bet they'll throw a ceremony to honor them.' To Drew, breaking out of a measly reinforced room is easy but the real difficulty is what comes after he escapes. Timing is key and if he's impatient and takes action too soon he'll lose his only chance. So he's thinking critically about his actions.

'I'm going to use the ceremony. Once they're distracted I can get out. The problem after that would be the knights themselves. Can I outrun Sigmund and his group?' Andrew contemplates once more whether or not he would break out on the third day or tomorrow.

He continues to stare distantly at the candle as its light burns his eyes causing him to blink and rub them while looking away.