GRAND PLANS

James came to strapped to some strange metal chair.

In front of him were two very pretty ladies, but he knew not to trust their beauty. He remembered seeing the brown haired one kill three men with some strange kind of magic. To be honest, when his memories came back, he thought he had dreamt the whole thing, but the other one, the blonde girl, was levitating three books in front of her, so he was pretty sure he hadn't been dreaming after all.

"What do you want with me?" He asked, his voice slightly hoarse.

The books Selene had been levitating dropped to the floor as her focus was interrupted. She cursed as Sophia glared at her for possibly ruining the books, before they both turned to James.

"I need a personal knight." Sophia said.

James couldn't help but laugh. "I'm a slave, not a knight."

"You'll get taught how to be a knight, it's fine. Besides, you won't have to follow me everywhere, Selene and I are dangerous enough on our own. But there will be some jobs I'll need you to do for me."

That was true enough. He'd seen first hand their magic, they definitely didn't need him.

"It's not like I have a choice here, do I?"

Sophia grinned. "Smart boy. But don't worry, we'll treat you well. You'll get paid, and have a roof over your head, hot meals everyday. Doesn't sound like such a bad deal, does it?"

Compared to other slave owners, she was practically an angel. James knew he could've ended up being sold to someone much worse, but he was still very wary of these two girls, and the kind of work they wanted him to get involved with.

Seeing that he had mostly accepted his situation, Sophia then pulled out a sheet of paper and held it up. "This is a magical contract. You sign it with your blood. Once you've signed, it means we're officially your employers."

Selene unstrapped his wrists from the chair.

He took the paper in his hands shakily.

"It's a simple contract. It just says that you work for me and you'll do whatever I say, and protect me with your life. It also says that if you betray me or Selene you'll be cursed to die a slow, agonising death."

He gulped. "What do I have to do?"

Selene walked over then and pricked his finger quickly with a needle. He caught on, and pressed his bloody thumb to the blank section of the page. He gasped as he felt something strange pull at him, probably the effect of the magic.

There was no going back now.

They quickly showed him to his room in the huge manor that they were living in, told him to clean up before going to the training grounds to receive his knight training.

Henry was a bit sceptical about this strange new and untrained knight that Sophia had brought, but she spun a whole story about how she found him starving and on the streets and took pity on him. Henry could not figure out why Sophia, who rejected every well trained knight, would take on a street urchin instead. He stopped questioning it though, as he went to the training grounds and saw that he was taking to the training very quickly. He was doing quite well, too.

At the same time, Selene was lounging lazily on Sophia's bed and half heartedly listening to whatever Sophia was talking about.

"Wait, what was the plan again?"

Sophia sighed loudly. "How many times do I have to explain this?"

"Um... just one more?"

"We kill the royal family."

"Right... why?"

"To take over the kingdom, duh."

"Ugh... that sounds like work."

"Oh, come on, don't you want to be my general and fight wars for me once I take the throne?"

"... Fight wars?"

"Fight wars."

"Hm.... that does sound interesting."

Selene listened properly this time as Sophia explained her plan again. Now that they were both sorcerers they had immediate power at their hands, but that alone wasn't enough to take Astrum for themselves. They needed an army, too. So, first things first, they needed a way into the royal family. At this point, Sophia glared pointedly at Selene and said that her engagement to Cassius would've been very useful, but Selene merely shrugged, unrepentant.

Sophia suggested that they would have to go for the next best thing then, and that was the second prince, Julius. It wouldn't do for Selene, who was originally going to get engaged to the first prince, to suddenly get engaged to the second, so it was up to Sophia this time. Sophia had it all figured out already. Since Julius was going to have a ball to celebrate his seventeenth birthday soon, and all the Ellsworths were invited, she'd make her move there.

Selene was a bit dubious, as in their old lives neither her nor Sophia had much experience in the romance department. Neither of them cared for it. Trying to take over the world meant they had no space for things like dating or love. Sophia reassured her by saying that she wouldn't be relying on anything as flimsy as flirting her way into his heart, and that she was simply going to enchant him.

Even dark sorcery wouldn't be able to force him to love her, but it would force him to be overtly interested and create an effect of something similar to love. No one would be able to tell that it wasn't actually love, and as there wasn't anybody around that still remembered sorcery or magic, Sophia would be safe of suspicion.

Selene wished desperately that she could stay home, but that would only lead to talk and speculation and so she was forced to go too. Sophia had to warn her not to start any fights, at least not where anyone could see, and Selene sighed dramatically at the thought that she'd have to spend hours talking to boring rich snobs.

The faster Sophia could take the throne, the better.