Chapter 24: The Head Maid Steps Forward
Chapter 24: The Head Maid Steps Forward
For a moment, no one moved.
Rin stared at me with those hollow raven eyes, blinking slowly like she was still trying to decide whether I was edible.
The many-eyed woman beside her wrung her apron between her hands as if she wished she could shrink herself smaller.
Marrok looked like someone had handed him a crying infant and told him to solve it with diplomacy.
I blinked once more.
They all blinked back.
Except the spider-eyed one, who blinked eight times. Which was... very much its own experience.
Marrok cleared his throat and took a slow, pained breath. "My lady... please do not worry. Rin merely... enjoys the taste of human blood."
I turned my head toward him very slowly.
Very stiffly.
Very much like someone winding up before slapping the absolute shit out of a stone statue.
"I’m sorry," I said, voice completely dead. "How—exactly—am I not supposed to worry when my personal maid is into drinking human blood?"
Rin perked up like I had complimented her hobbies.
Before she could speak, the spider-eyed woman stepped forward with a flutter of hands—two human-looking, the others delicate and half-tucked against her sides.
"Please do not fret, my Lady," she said, her voice soft and almost melodic despite the bouquet of eyes watching me. "Rin would never drink from you without permission."
"That is... somehow not as comforting as you think it is," I said, forcing a smile so fake it deserved an award.
Rin nodded. "I have discipline. Mostly. I also have gloves now, so that helps."
"Gloves?" I asked her with a frown.
"What she means is... she has restrictions. Our Lord makes sure her kind doesn’t drink blood anymore without permission, and also not just because they are curious," Marrok said.
"No, I have gloves. Really," Rin said to us and brought out two black gloves from a pocket I had no idea existed in her dress.
"See?" she told us. "Gloves."
"And what are those supposed to do to help you?" Marrok asked her.
Rin paused and stared at the gloves with a frown. "I do not know. I just got them because they were shiny."
I took a better look at the gloves, and sure enough, they were a bit shiny.
I decided to move past that conversation since it was giving me a headache—one I couldn’t deal with at the moment. "Well... um... thank you for bringing me a maid, but you don’t need to worry about any of that. I already have a personal maid."
Rin’s expression shifted instantly.
She scoffed loudly.
"A maid from the human realm," she said. "She’s weak. She wouldn’t survive long in this castle."
"Rin," Marrok snapped, turning his head sharply. His stone wings flexed once in warning. "Shut. Up."
Rin crossed her arms and muttered something about "soft mortals" under her breath, but obeyed. Barely.
I exhaled, tension easing slightly—until the woman with eight eyes stepped forward again.
Marrok shot me a look that said brace yourself.
He gestured toward her with a resigned sweep of his hand. "And this... is Versha. The head maid of the Demon Lord’s household. She will be working closely with you to help oversee the castle."
Versha.
It fit her—soft, whispering, elegant but unnerving.
I offered a polite nod.
She moved closer.
Too close.
Her eight eyes focused on me—every single one—and I instinctively moved back so fast my heel nearly caught the bedframe.
Versha paused, hands raised delicately. "Forgive me if I frightened you, my Lady. We have all been... anxiously awaiting the day our Lord would bring home a wife."
Eight eyes softened in what I assumed was supposed to be tenderness.
"You are extremely beautiful," she added. "And you suit the Demon Lord very well."
I swallowed because my throat forgot how to function.
Marrok reached out and grabbed Versha by the back of her apron like she weighed nothing and physically pulled her two steps backward.
"Give her space," he muttered.
Versha folded all six of her arms primly. "I was giving space."
"You were hovering," Marrok replied.
"That is my job," Versha insisted.
"That is stalking," Marrok snapped.
That was hardly stalking, but I didn’t correct him.
The back-and-forth would’ve been funny if I wasn’t still trying to process eight eyes zeroing in on me like I was a shiny dessert.
Marrok then turned to me with a sigh. A deep one.
"My lady, I came here because you wanted a tour around the castle. But you need to change out of your riding clothes first. Rin will help with that."
I looked at Rin. And she smiled back at me widely. I doubted she could help me dress up after what I’d seen.
"I already have a perfect idea for what you should wear," she said, sounding eerily delighted.
I instinctively shuddered at her words, wrapping my hands tighter around the pillow.
And then I asked, "What about Vaelory? Where is she?"
All three demons paused.
Marrok winced.
"Oh," he said slowly. "Vaelory is the maid you brought with you, right?"
"Yes."
"Um... she... collapsed. Again."
"Again?!" I repeated.
"Yes. She saw Versha and fainted immediately."
Rin raised a hand. "She screamed first."
Versha nodded with eight synchronized blinks. "She does that whenever she sees me. I don’t understand why."
I looked at them as if they had grown horns on their heads. Or maybe there were horns somewhere but I just couldn’t find them... I wasn’t sure.
"You guys are joking, right?" I asked them.
"No. Perhaps you can explain why she faints. She has fainted three times now. I understand her fainting because of Marrok—he’s not exactly welcoming to the eyes and appears scary—but I don’t understand why she would faint at the sight of me or Rin," Versha said to me, genuinely confused.
I laughed because this had to be a joke, right? But they didn’t laugh; they didn’t find it funny.
"You’re serious?" I asked them, and they nodded.
Funny how Marrok was the slightly less scary one among the three of them.