Chapter Twenty Five: Public Hearing Day
The training session ended with another surprise of Devon beating Aurora with his wits once again.
She wasn't happy about losing to him for the second time in a row but Devon felt pretty good about it after all this was the first time in a while that he was beating her consecutively.
With the training session now done, they just had to go about their day but without going far so that they would be available whenever Michael needed them.
It didn't take long before everyone went through the hallway and disappeared into either their rooms or outside, and before long, the long and dark hallway fell into a state of sudden silence.
With the level of tranquility in the area now, anybody would be able to hear the sound of a pin dropping down to the floor, but that silence didn't last for long as Devon quickly burst through the door putting on a different hoodie from the one he was usually seen on.
The one he used to wear was just black with no extra color on any part of it, but this one had a little bit of style to it.
It had red outlines on everywhere a thread was supposed to go so the threads were the reason for that.
The inside of the hood was completely red just like the tip of the long sleeves.
Just after coming out of his room, he slowly made his way down the hallway until he got to Alvis' room.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Just after knocking on the door thrice, he heard the shuffling of feet before a sigh from inside.
'Why does he love sighing so much.'
"Who's there?"
"It's me, Devon," Devon replied with his ear pressed against the door.
"Oh, Devon, hold up let me get the door."
Devon still had his ear against the door but as soon as he heard him get close enough to the door, he slowly moved his face away.
However, all he heard was the door move before Alvis made his way back to his seat and sat down.
"Alvis." He called with a confused expression on his face.
"The door's open now, just open it and come inside."
"Seriously?" He grumbled before quickly pushing the door open. "You know you could have just opened the door." He added with his eyes quickly scanning the room.
His room was neat and well arranged just like always but the same could not be said for his table.
There were a couple of water spills that obviously came from the bowl of water there, a bottle of cooking oil, a couple of dry paper that was still whole, and a few grounded ones and then there were a couple of small plastic and metal containers plus a few other things Devon couldn't recognize.
"Yeah, but why go through the trouble of doing that when you can do it yourself?" Alvis replied with a little groan before stretching himself out while he was still in his seat.
Devon was lost for words after hearing him say that, he wanted to retort but all that came out was a sigh.
"Have you made any progress with the pepper spray?" He asked after accepting his defeat.
"Yeah, I already have two that are working okay." He replied before pushing them into his view.
They were in two dark plastic bottles so there was no way he could see what was inside but there seemed to be some kind of lid on top.
"What's this?"
"Stop!" He sputtered just before Devon could place his hand on the lid.
"Huh?" Devon had to stop his hand mid-air to ask.
"Unless you don't want to get sprayed with pepper then you can go ahead and touch it carelessly."
"Oh." He replied in realization before he grabbed the bottle instead to observe what he thought was the lid. "Oh, I see, there's a tiny hole right here." He added as soon as he spotted the tiny hole on the side.
"Yeah," Alvis muttered with a nod.
"So, I guess you just turn this like this and press this down." He articulated as he turned the side with the hole away from his face and pressed down on it.
He still covered his face with his hands just in case it was faulty but it turned out to be working just like he thought, the liquid was spraying out in a little but sufficient amount from the hole.
"Wow, you're a genius, Alvis." His face was beaming with a smile as he turned his gaze back to him.
"I know, now drop it back, I'm not done yet." He ordered.
"Sure." He replied before dropping it back on the table.
"I heard today's public hearing day." Alvis felt the need to change the topic as he picked up one of the plastic parts on his table.
"Yeah, there's a fixed date for it every year and it's today, everyone knows that," Devon replied before crossing his arms.
"Yeah, but the king isn't around so as the only heir the princess will have to take care of it."
"Everyone also knows that."
Devon's tone indicated that he wasn't really interested in this topic.
"I know, I was just wondering what tiara the princess was going to wear now that you stole the one she was supposed to wear today," Alvis remarked before he turned and began to make his way to his cupboard.
"Um…I don't know, another one, she has other ones I'm sure, and besides she doesn't even seem like someone who likes putting that stuff on her head." Devon replied with a shrug.
"Hmm, and how do you know that?"
"Just my perception of her, I mean the other day I saw her putting on trousers in her academy uniform while her mates were putting on skirts."
"Oh, I see. Anyway, I was just wondering…"
He was mid-sentence when he just felt the need to turn his gaze to Devon to see if he was still there and just like he thought, he was no longer there.
He slowly got up from his squatting position and made his way to the table to see that one of the two pepper sprays he was done with was gone.
"I should have known better." He sighed. "But how does he leave the room so quietly?" He added before turning his gaze to the door which was closed now.
Staying underground for long was quite suffocating to the extent that Devon would feel this refreshing sense of liberty anytime he got outside.
The sky was pretty bright that morning and the tingling feeling of the sun on his face felt great.
Today was the public hearing day so there weren't many people moving around as most of them had already gathered in front of the castle.
Well, Devon believed that he didn't have anything to do with any of that and was just going to grab himself some pizza.
He was making his way down the road when he ran into Evangeline who seemed to be heading somewhere.
"Oh, hey, Devon." She said with a wave as soon as she spotted him.
"Oh, hi, Miss. Evangeline."
"How are you?"
"I'm okay, it's sort of odd to see you out of the booth," Devon remarked before slowly bringing his gaze down to her legs.
"Yeah, I don't usually leave the booth unless it's the end of the day but there's something urgent that I have to go deal with." She replied.
"Oh, I see, well then take care."
"Hey, hold up." She called out just before he could walk away.
"Huh?" He muttered before slowly turning his gaze back to her.
"Did you hear what happened at Sunglow village?" She inquired.
"Um…no, what happened?" He replied with a look of oblivion.
"Well, it looks like all the women got their pieces of jewelry stolen last night every single one of them, the only exception was the merchant you escorted home but that may have had something to do with you and Erina sleeping over at his place." She explained.
"Oh, that's quite sad, maybe they should try keeping them somewhere safer next time." He suggested with a shrug.
"Yeah, but who could have robbed a whole village in one night?" She pondered with her hand on her chin.
"I don't think we'll ever find out." He said before shaking his head.
"Unless he tries it again." She said.
"He probably won't."
"Yeah, if he's smart, anyway, I have to go now, see you around."
With that said, she quickly disappeared down the road with Devon still standing in the same spot.
'Why did I think she was going to suspect me?' He thought. 'Anyway.'
He was about to continue his trip to the pizza shop when he caught sight of people gathering in front of the academy which was just a little distance to the right from where he was standing.
"Huh? Is the public hearing being done there now or is it something else?" He pondered with his arms crossed.
He wanted to ignore it but his curiosity got the better of him in the end as he began to make his way to the area with the conviction that he was just going to see what it was and then leave.
Well, when he got to the area there were quite a lot of people there but there weren't as many as he expected after he found out what they were there for.
All he had to do was look up to spot the princess standing on the battlement of the academy walls but something was off.
The walls of the academy weren't as high as the castle walls so the people wouldn't have any trouble hearing her from there.
"Huh?"
She was putting on what looked like the same tiara he stole last night, it was golden and the ruby was there so there was no doubt about that.
'What the heck is going on? Uncle never said anything about there being two of them.'
He still had his gaze on her when she quickly shot him gaze forcing him to quickly turn away from her.
"Hmm." She breathed with a smile before slowly turning her gaze back to the book she was holding.