The Late Night Spent

A STORM BREWED that night. Outside, the howling winds crashed onto the glass window panes, the noise audible even from within the room. Droplets of rainwater thudded against the walls of the building, washing away all dirt and grime if there were any that was foolhardy enough to cling onto the exterior. Every few seconds, lightning would flash across the sky in brilliant sparks, dancing from cloud to cloud before the rumble of thunder could be heard.

Rolling in bed, Alice wasn't able to fall asleep. It wasn't because of the rain, strangely enough. Even though the storm was indeed an uncomfortable commotion that disturbed the peace of the room, it wasn't the sole reason why sleep wouldn't come to Alice no matter how much she tried to seek it.

Instead, what preoccupied her mind was the dream that she had when she was in Spade's carriage.

Just as before, she couldn't recall the contents of the dream. However, the more she thought about it, the more she felt that it was an important bit of information that she simply had to recall. It might serve as a clue on how to get back home.

If she still wanted to go back, that is.

Unable to take the minutes wasted tossing and turning in bed, Alice sat up. Instead of climbing off the bed immediately, she sat still, turning to stare outside the window. Even though the window was a short distance away, she could still see the droplets of rainwater against the glass, shimmering like diamonds under the moonlight. The storm clouds couldn't mask the moon's shine despite the war it waged in the skies outside.

On the floor, the shadows of the rainwater were amplified in size. Alice watched, her eyes trained as each drop slid down the glass as if they were in a competition. Every time she thought a particular droplet would win, another would overtake it by merging with other droplets around it. The race was almost too fascinating to turn away from.

Nonetheless, it was too repetitive and boredom soon sought Alice once more.

Groaning, she flipped the covers off of her, nearly sending the sheets sprawling on the floor. Slipping into a pair of bedroom slippers, Alice padded across the room, yanking a shawl off the backrest of one of the couches in her room before heading out the door.

The hallways of the Ragan mansion were dead silent. After all, it was in the middle of the night and only masochists would be awake at the god-forsaken hour. For all Alice knew, everyone in the household was asleep in their beds with the exception of a few guards that might be patrolling the estate grounds.

With the shawl over her shoulders, the night's cold wasn't as bitter as it should've been. Despite being the height of summer, the nights in Gladiolum were nearly as cold as some winter mornings. If she wasn't so used to wearing thin clothing due to her upbringing in the twenty-first century, the thin nightdress on her body would surely not be enough to keep her warm, especially with the storm outside. The temperature was anything but forgiving.

Alice's feet wandered around the halls of the mansion without much direction in mind. Curving through the corridors, she eventually found herself in a familiar hall. The sound of metal against metal screeched and echoed into the night sky. Each step that Alice took forward, the sound only grew louder.

The corridor that Alice was on led to a training hall that was an open room, save for the roof that covered their heads and the pillars that held the roof up. Without a wall blocking the rain from coming in, the wind blew each droplet into the space. Thankfully, the training hall was large enough so that only a small portion of the floor was wet from the rain.

In the center of the courtyard, a lone man was training. He swung his sword, his movements swift and fluid, perfectly practiced as it sliced through the air before tackling the dummies that were set up for practice. Miles's orange hair blazed, particularly striking against the dark night and dim lighting. He seemed to be so engrossed with his training that he hadn't even noticed Alice standing a distance away, watching.

However, as luck would have it, he turned all of a sudden. Alice wasn't sure why but she ducked behind the only wall of the hall, careful not to get caught. For a while, the sound that came from Miles's sword practice ceased. Alice waited with bated breath for him to continue practicing again, the loud thud reverberating in the hall rivaling the sound of thunder. Once she was sure that he had forgotten about the intruder, Alice turned and darted away from the hall and back into the winding hallways, careful not to make a single sound.

The night was still young and Alice's journey had just started. Once again, she roamed the hallowed halls in search of a place that might help ease her boredom.

Her feet shuffled softly, walking along the line of carpets that lined the middle of the wood floors, searching for a place that might help ease her restlessness. In the end, Alice stopped by a room at the end of the corridor on the third level of the mansion. The large doors were much taller and wider than they needed be, reminding Alice of the palace library's entrance.

Alice wasn't sure if these set of doors led to a similar world of books but she was sure that it wasn't a restricted area. Wyatt and Miles had long pointed out to her the rooms that she was not to enter, including the master bedrooms, Wyatt's and Charlie's bedrooms, as well as their personal studies. Without explicit permission, Alice was restricted from entering these places on her own accord.

Of course, she had never planned to. The Ragans were kind enough to offer her food, shelter, and clothing for her to live comfortably just because of a fated encounter with their youngest son. If it wasn't for her duties as Charlie's assistant, she would never set foot into their personal studies, much less their bedrooms. Even while on task, she would wait outside the door of the study for Charlie to arrive before entering together.

That was the basic etiquette that was taught even back in the twenty-first century.

"Could this be?..." Murmuring to herself, Alice placed her hands on the doors before giving it a push.

The large doors swung open, revealing a scene that seemed more familiar than new. True to her guess, the room she had chanced upon was the mansion's library. It was filled with shelves after shelves of books, amounting to two floors' worth. Unlike the grand staircase found in the palace library, the Ragan Estate's library had a thin spiral staircase at a side, leading up to the second floor like a creeping vine.

There were a few tables found on the first level, each with four to eight seats depending on the capacity the table could accommodate. On one table, the books that she had borrowed from the palace library were placed in neat stacks of five, waiting for her to flip through.

She was just about to pick up the storybook Spade had told her about when a head full of white hair behind the stack of books stunned her into withdrawing her hand. The light of a single lit lamp flickered as she moved, the wind causing it to dance briefly before returning upright. When she finally put a name to the figure, her eyes widened, breath hitching. Using the glow's aid, she moved closer to the sleeping figure sprawled across the table.

"Wyatt?"