Novel Writing - Tumblr Posts

To Decadent Poets - Summary

Hey, guys! That's my book here, I decided to post a few chapters (or maybe more) after translating it from Brazilian Portuguese to English. I really wanted to share this work and hope you enjoy it.

Here's a quick summary of the book:

Title: Taigh Hill Dedications

Series: To Decadent Poets

Tags: Dark Academia, Poetry, World War II, Scotland, Art;

If you liked... you're gonna like this: Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter (especially Marauders era), Anne with an E, Enola Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, etc.

Trigger Warning: child abuse/neglect, abusive relationships, racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, biphobia, homophobia, anxiety crisis, mentions of abortion, PTSD, post-partum depression.

Add: The book didn't have a Sensitive Editor, so any problems with how people of color, disabilities, or queer people are portrayed can be discussed directly with the author.

Synopsis: When the war begins Christian is sent to the North of Scotland to live with his estranged godfather in his isolated property. He couldn't imagine he would've found his kindred spirits at that forgotten place, his family in every way but blood.

Noah is a jew, Oliver is German, and Annie has a strong head that can rival his own. All of them were very different but their love for art and an old mystery of the old property can be enough to join them forever or never again allow their friendship to flourish.

Author's note: Historical accuracy is not something this author tried to pass on in this story, dear readers. There are a lot of historical changes happening in the books and in no way should this book be considered a good account of real events of the time they represent.

Summary (with links):

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7 - Coming soon...

Taigh Hill Dedications - Chapter 1

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

“In a Midnight dreary while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door ‘Tis some visitor’ I muttered ‘tapping at my chamber door Only this and nothing more’” — The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe

People could go fuck themselves, this was Christian Anthony Evans's motto for life.

From experience, the boy could say for sure that seeking people's approval was always something bad. And Christian had learned that in the worst way possible: through the suffering of being rejected by his own father. When he was a kid, Chris couldn't understand why Maxwell wouldn't behave like his friend's parents did, carrying him on his shoulders and laughing at silly jokes that made no sense.

“Your father doesn't know how to express his own love,” his mother Jeanne would say patiently while putting him to bed when his bedtime would come. “He feels too intensely, Chris, and tries to hide these feelings to protect himself.”

At seven, Chris could understand his dad, or at least, he tried to understand the man he admired the most in the whole world. At sixteen, after countless ignored anniversaries and conversations, he was tired of his mother's excuses for his father's behavior and simply decided not to care. Well, not about everything: Chris cared about his mom and his friends, but not about his father.

Never about Maxwell.

When Jeanne had something to say about Maxwell, he didn't want to hear. Ignore just how he was ignored, Chris thought, and he couldn't be happier after he started to really do it, occupying his time with entertaining his mother, since she suffered just like — or even more than — him with his father's absence. He would have fun with his friends until late — at least after his fourteenth birthday — so he could avoid his dad all day but the five minutes through breakfast.

It was for this reason that when Maxwell came into the house that cold September afternoon, Chris and Jeanne knew there was something wrong. 

At first, the day seemed like any other day: Chris woke up at the same hour to go to school, had breakfast in an uncomfortable silence between his parents, gave his mother a goodbye kiss, and left without looking at his dad. When he came back home at lunchtime, the employees served the food while Nana, the old housekeeper who had raised Jeanne, knit in her rocking chair with an amused smile to Chris. Both of them, like his mother and him, had been very close since he was a kid and she loved to curl her finger through Chris's hair, commenting on how she had only seen his deep shade of red hair in books.

Nana was the one who had awakened the boy's taste for literature, although he rarely mentioned he liked books. For some reason, his friends seemed to think reading was boring and Chris didn't know what to think about it. He thought books were so interesting and truthful, so full of emotions and adventures, capable of curing all his pain with their magic infinite stories. He loved them immediately.

“You're quiet today,” said the old housekeeper with her sweet husky voice, her white hair as soft as cotton.

“I'm eating, Nana,” said Chris in response with a sly smile to the older one while he leaned back and looked at her. “Weren't you the one to teach me it's impolite to eat with my mouth open?”

“Sassy boy,” she provoked, laughing, and got Chris to smile, too. Then, he returned to his food. The old lady, though, seemed restless and said: “I think something is happening.”

“What is it, Nana?” the boy asked, frowning when he looked up from his plate to look at the older woman carefully while she rocked herself and looked at the window, lost in thoughts.

Nana, though, just shook her head and strongly clipped her tongue, smiling a little, but her smile didn't reach her eyes.

“Nothing, son, just an old lady's silly feelings” she finally answered and Chris snorted, sarcastically.

Like his step-grandma could be considered anything near silly.

Knowing what he meant with that snorting, Nana just smiled and got back to her knitting. After some seconds of silence, which was broken just by the soft noise of the needles hitting each other, Chris gave up and continued to eat, aware he wouldn't get an answer from the old lady.

The rest of the afternoon also passed without any problem: after lunch, he got himself clean and went down, where he knew his mother would spend her whole afternoon, waiting for visits that wouldn't come and for a husband who wouldn't come home until late at night. Jeanne was the sweetest person Chris had ever met in his life and it wasn't rare for Nana to say he should always give thanks for having a mother like her, because not many people in the world were like his mother. In fact, there were too many insufferable ignorant people and Chris could even include some of his own friends on the bill. And his parents too.

As always, Jeanne was sitting on the burgundy patterned sofa, staring at the window in front of her, so lost inside herself that Chris laughed at the sight of her open-mouthed and starry-eyed, something anyone would find weird and still, his mother was beautiful.

Silently, he allowed Jeanne to compose herself after this moment of distraction when his arrival woke her up, and walked to the right bookshelf, at the back of the living room. There was two of them, each one in one side of the marble fireplace. The wood floor ran the vertical, from the window to the bookshelves and the cream-colored wall, smooth like his mother, who had decorated the room.

“How about a bit of Jane Eyre today?” the boy offered when his mother turned to him, holding the black vellum and golden words book for her to see it.

“No, I think I want some poetry today” was Jeanne's answer.

Her voice sounded to Chris's ears like a feeling symphony, he almost closed his eyes to hear it better. There were always so many tones printed on Jeanne's voice that it was almost impossible to understand all of it.

However, instead of closing his eyes, Chris just smiled jokingly and raised an eyebrow:

“You guess or you sure?” he raised his hands in peace when his mother gave him that look.

In Chris's opinion, every mother had a look capable of stopping their children from doing whatever they were doing. It was a warning mixed with a caring firmness, hard to explain, but he could feel he should stop what was annoying her at that moment.

“Right, lemme sit next to you then.”

He traded the books on the bookshelf and sat beside his mom, without caring about the fact that she continued to look out the window as she always did, still waiting for someone who would never come. Chris just looked at his mother's red hair and looked down, to the pages of his book. Edgar Allan Poe wasn't Jeanne's style, but Chris was sure she wouldn't hear a word he said, so he just took a deep breath and started:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…”

And just like that they spend the afternoon, with his mom looking through the window and Chris's voice, soft and sounding for the reading, filling up the room with the word master's words. He read poems and some tales to his mother and, at the end of the third tale — Berenice — Chris closed the book and supported it on his bent leg, looking to Jeanne with hesitation before asking softly:

“Why don't you try to paint for a while?”

That woke Jeanne up and she looked at him, speechless for a moment with her son's suggestion, then smiled, but there was something painful in her smile, something that made Chris's heart contort inside him.

“Why don't you read to me a little more, cariad? Or maybe I could. Your throat must be dry already” was all that Jeanne said as an answer.

Chris didn't say anything for a couple of seconds, just staring at his mom and trying to convince her silently to talk to him, but it was in vain. Jeanne could be twenty times more stubborn than her son and just looked back at him, that soft expression making keeping the discussion up impossible for Chris. The boy looked away and handed the book to Jeanne in silence, giving up after a few minutes, but before the delicate hands could hold the book, the front door pounded open with a wicked noise and Maxwell appeared in the opening that led to the living room. 

Different from the days he used to arrive early, his hair was a mess and his cravat really twisted. And his eyes, the one thing father and son shared, shone like crazy, wide. That expression in his usually stoic father made his wife move, standing from the sofa and going quickly to him with her preoccupation printed in her expression. Chris also got up, hesitant and unsure what to do, not linking a bit the change in his routine.

“Max, what happened?” asked Jeanne to her husband with a frown. Chris looked at his father, who was staring at him without even blinking, and put his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth while trying to ignore the uncomfortable aura of the room. “Max, talk to me.”

“I'll… let you talk,” said Chris when he heard the urgency in his mom's voice.

He didn't want to see Jeanne like that, especially because of his dad, but when Chris motioned to the exit, Maxwell moved abruptly, as if he had just woken up from a dream, and said with a husky voice:

“No, I need to talk with you two.”

Chris felt his body go stiff, resisting Maxwell's authoritarian tone, but the boy forced himself to just nod, clearly uncomfortable, and sat back on the sofa, putting the book in his hand on the table beside it while his father held Jeanne by the shoulders, firmly gentle, and put her in one of the armchairs.

For a moment, all of the three stood there in silence, looking at each other as if they were strangers. Chris was impatient but just vibrated his own leg while massaging his right hand, which was sore. Maxwell's eyes fixated on his son's hand, who recoiled quietly under his stare, ignoring his pity expression.

When he was younger, Chris had an accident and broke his hand, which had never been cured quite right. Maxwell didn't even go to the hospital, although his mother told him he was worried. Not enough to go to a hospital, apparently. The older man didn't seem satisfied when he knew Chris could never be a part of the military like him because of his hand.

“Talk to us, Max,” said Jeanne, taking her husband's hand, while he was standing.

The older man looked at them and sat down, his face frozen in an angst expression made Chris's heart beat faster inside his chest.

"Today by afternoon, less than an hour ago, the prime minister decided we're at war against Germany,” said Maxwell, and Chris almost snorted his disdain if it wasn't the preoccupation he was feeling. 

Different from his friends, he didn't share their arrogant beliefs of England's superiority. Actually, he didn't even understand it, but maybe that was the result of his mother being Scottish, and Scotland, in general, was still sore about England. None of them spoke for a long time, then Maxwell cleared his throat and said, looking at his son:

“You and your mother will go to your godfather's estate at the north of Scotland in a week. It's already decided, Elijah has given his permission…”

“Hold on” Chris got up, his hand in the air, making his father stop. “How come, out of nowhere, I'll go to Scotland? What about school? My education? What the hell am I going to do in the middle of Scotland?”

“You'll be secure!” Maxwell yelled, closing his eyes as if asking for patience Chris also had to control his own temper, but just because of his mom's eyes on him. “And don't worry, Elijah was an Oxford professor, he will be able to take care of your education.”

The last words were said in an impatient tone that made Chris want to continue the discussion, but he was tired of all of this. He knew his father wasn't sending him to Scotland to free him from some responsibility: Chris wouldn't be able to fight in a war even if he wanted to. So that meant England was expecting violent attacks on the capital. Air Strikes, probably, but attacks nonetheless.

“I'll help Chris with his bags,” said Jeanne calmly, exchanging looks with her son before turning to her husband and adding: “But I'm staying here.”

“No, you won't!” Maxwell had an immediate reaction, turning to his wife with an expression nearly panicked. 

Even feeling himself shivering and his body freezing with fear, Chris turned to his mom and stood silent, waiting to hear what she had to say.

“Max, I'm not gonna argue with you. I'm staying and that's final” said Jeanne with a silent firmness, her eyes shining strong to her husband, who swallowed and tried to protest, but the woman was already exposing arguments: “You're gonna need me here to take care of everything. Wars last year, you know that, and we won't leave this house for anyone to enter, we won't leave Nana here alone and in danger, I won't abuse my friend's hospitality, we won't leave our things to thieves and mostly, I won't leave you here alone for the time you'll be in England, even if it is just a little.”

The two adults looked at each other in a silent argument and Chris took advantage of that to climb up the stairs in his room's direction. His mom knew how to take care of herself and, unfortunately, there was nothing he could do or say to convince her to go with him. With Jeanne's stubbornness, there wasn't a soul capable of making her go to Scotland with him and Chris knew it better than anyone.

Sighing, confused, he passed his finger through his hair, feeling the curls straightening in his hand. 

He had a lot to think about.

Go to Chapter 2

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

And I'll tell thee: Love to understand'em 'Cause only those who loved could hear Could listen and understand stars. — Milky Way, Olavo Bilac

Oliver smiled from his house's window when he saw his father walking through the street, satisfied because Anton had come back home safe and sound. Not that he was afraid of the war, but he was afraid of what people could do to a German immigrant in the middle of it.

Of course, Oliver understood England's fear, but it didn't make him any less worried about his father, not even a little bit. The war had started six days ago and, on that day, especially, their memories of Germany were particularly hard on Anton and himself, but his father couldn't get out of work early to spend time with his son, especially because his dad's boss, the Terrible Mister Kurtz, as Oliver used to call him, didn't allowed it.

In general, the day had been good, something really surprising. Oliver had gone to school and had some fun with the colleagues he had, even if all those memories were there, pinching him every moment of the day and if it was hard to breathe sometimes. That was the reason why the sight of his dad entering through the door was such a relief for Oliver: he didn't know if he could go through the day without Anton's help.

The moment he heard the noise of the key scratching the door, Oliver left his bed and climbed down the stairs to the hall. Anton had just put his keys on the table when the boy hit the first floor and, when his eyes met, they stared at each other, motionless.

His dad looked like he had aged a lot more than the three years that had passed since Liora, Oliver's mom, had been taken from their house by the SS. That day, November 9th, 1936, would be marked in their memories forever. Anton tried to hide since then, but Oliver knew his dad was exhausted to the bone since they fled Germany to England.

The old man's blonde hair was grey and his eyes had dark circles and wrinkles. Anton walked increasingly more shrunken, trying not to drawn attention to himself in the middle of English society, because everyone knew that dark times would come to each one of the beings who lived under European skies.

“Let's go,” said Anton with his strong German accent in English, without a greeting, but stretching his hand to him with a sorry glow in his light-green eyes. “I'm going to make some dinner. Did you excuse Mrs. Mason, didn't you?”

Oliver swallowed hard and nodded, letting his father guide him by his dad's hand on his back, realizing how shaken they were by the touch. Anton didn't speak while making toast with jam for them, because the old man had no idea how to cook. Sometimes, Oliver thought that was the biggest mistake: how could someone leave to other such a basic necessity as food making?

Any other day, he'd have annoyed his dad with that, but not that day. Neither of them knew how to act normal even if they tried, Oliver knew that for sure. They had tried nine months ago on his mom's birthday and four months ago, on Hadrian's birthday.

Because of that, neither of them spoke while eating, facing the plaid white and red tablecloth they used for picnics in the countryside when his dad had to travel for work. Oliver had such sweet memories with his father and was grateful to Anton for all of them. He was a wonderful dad and had always been, Oliver just hadn't been capable of noticing it before they'd lost his mom.

When the boy got up after finishing up, aware that his every move was monitored by his dad, Anton caught his attention with a calm and tired tone of voice. He had been using this voice after the German soldiers had taken Liora, much weaker than his usual baritone voice, the voice his mother used to love echoing through the house in endless songs.

“Oliver,” he said, “sit down again, I want to talk to you about something.”

Slowly, the boy sat again, feeling the muscles on his back stiffening with the tension while Anton ran his hand through his face with a sigh full of exhaustion. That made Oliver’s heart miss a beat, sore for his dad’s pain, and he wanted to get up and hug him more than anything, but something in his father’s expression warned him not to.

“What about, dad?” he asked with caution, getting more worried when Anton stared at him with a shinier look than before.

“Do you remember me and mister Kurtz work for a Scottish man named Elijah Wood, right?” asked Anton and Oliver just nodded, frowning with the suspicion that he knew what way this was going. Anton had already tried to talk to him about it, but he thought his father had given up after a whole hour of fighting about the matter. “Mister Wood allowed you to stay with them in Scotland during the war.”

For a moment, both of them stared at each other, their eyes identical except for what they showed. Oliver was deeply mad at his dad even considering the thought of him leaving him alone in the middle of a goddamn war when they were the enemy there.

Anton, on the other hand, had decided that his son was going even if he had to force him to enter that train, the strong necessity of keeping Oliver safe was his everyday motivation and he wouldn’t give up on it that easily.

“You can’t be serious,” said Oliver after he processed the information his father had just given him. “I told you I didn’t want to go!”

“It’s not about what you want, it’s about your safety, Oliver,” Anton countered without raising his voice, his tone still calm as a windless night. “We’re talking about a war and London will be one of the most affected by it.”

“I’m not going,” Oliver declared, frowning. “You’ll be here, dad, you’re my only family.”

“And I’m going to be forever,” Anton said with a bit of soothing. “But I need you to be safe, Oliver, you know I need you to be safe.”

“Don’t use mom and Hadrian against me,” the cutting in Oliver’s tone made the older one recoil in his chair, shrinking even more and the boy hated that, he hated his father thought he had to hide from him, because of him. “You know as much as me this family would stay together if it was up to her.”

“And look how things turned out, Oliver!” Anton exclaimed and, even with the desperation in his voice, all the boy could do was resent it, because he was really trying to use his mother to make him change his mind. “You’ll go and I’m not going to discuss it further. I… can’t allow you to stay here.”

“You’d preferred if I had been taken last year,” Oliver said without looking at his dad, it seemed like such a horrible discussion he couldn’t do much to hold his tears. “It’s the reason why you want to send me away, right? Because you don’t wanna remember what you’ve lost.”

“Oliver...” Anton whispered upon hearing him, but his voice failed and he said nothing more, mainly because Oliver got up, dragging the chair on the floor and making the screeching noise echo in the house’s silence, and he left the cramped kitchen, leaving him alone.

The boy didn’t think of anything before climbing the stairs and entering his room, feeling the anger pump blood into his veins and making him hot. He threw himself on the bed, looking up at the painted stars in the white ceiling while they blurred with the unshed tears, and then focused again when they ran through his skin to the roots of his blonde hair.

Those stars reminded him of his mother and, when they’d arrived in England, to see them was like a self-inflicted punishment to compensate for the guilt Oliver carried around in his heart, but now they were just a painful sweet memory.

Liora Krause was the most wonderful person to ever exist, Oliver thought. His mom was the face of Life, always cheerful, always willing to drag the family men to a dance in the middle of the night or throw a party in the tiniest apartment in the world to close friends of their family, always willing to help old ladies cross the street and shelter and give food to shelterless boys even if one of them ended up robbing her every time.

She had a fiery spirit and carried words in her hands like her shield and sword, ready to defend the one she loved and be firm with those who needed firm words. It may have been because of that, and her harsh critique of Hitler and his hateful government, that she was marked as one of the Jewish women to be taken that night. It may have been just random. Oliver didn’t know and probably wouldn’t come a day when he’d find out.

His brother, Hadrian, was just six-year-old when he was killed by nazi soldiers. Oliver had seen it all. He saw it when the soldier pointed the gun at his brother’s head and shot, the blood and remaining brain matter spattering through the small apartment which had been his family’s, on the living room his parents used to dance and sing and play with him and Hadrian. Even after a year, Oliver could still hear in the silence the buzz the gun’s noise had caused in his ears.

Oliver heard when his father’s shuffled steps got closer and stopped by his room’s door. Hesitated. Anton carried on to his own room, closing the door quietly, so quietly Oliver barely heard it.

The things Oliver had said to his dad weren’t even close to the truth, he knew that. And knew he had broken Anton with his false accusation, but he was so mad the word just slipped out of his tongue, without any coherent thought. He knew that wasn’t a good excuse, that when he was angry, the best thing to do was take time, calm down, and think about it when he could, but the thought of leaving his father alone scared him more than anything.

After what happened that night, Oliver’s dad didn’t rest until he got his best friend, who was a soldier, to help them flee to English territory. Once they got to England, Anton was just a shadow of the man he was before, not even close to being the father Oliver remembered or needed.

Those first months were so hard sometimes that he didn’t even want to get up, knowing the day would find countless ways of making him melt down with the memory of his mom. Oliver could hardly breath in those times and now, they were a blur in his mind, so far away the seemed to have happened years ago, but still hurt like hours ago.

Oliver couldn’t sleep.

He couldn’t sleep, not yet, not when he knew he had hurt his dad, not when he knew the nightmares would torment him during sleep, hopeless and terrifying. When the clock struck eleven PM, he rolled over, took the book from his nightstand, and opened it to his most beloved page.

The paper was worn and yellowish, and curved slightly in the corners, but Oliver passed his fingers through the written words below one his mom’s favorite poems in life. Low-toned, he read to silence the buzz in his left ear:

“Well (you say) hear stars! Right Lost thy mind!” And I tell you, however, That, to listen’em, many times I wake up And open my windows, pale and baffled…

And we talk the whole night The Milky Way, as a pale openness, shines. And, coming the sun, wistful and morose, I still search for them in the desert sky.

You say now: “My mad friend! What do you talk about? What sense Can their words have, when with you?”

And I tell thee: “Love to understand’em! ‘Cause only those who love can hear Capable of listening and understanding the stars.

Oliver, then, read what was written below Olavo Bilac's poem with attention and felt his heart clenching as he saw the familiar handwriting:

I hear the stars because I love an easy-laughing boy and the smiling young man with a silver tongue to whom I gave birth and because I love the man who makes all the stars shine in his eyes.

He knew Anton was crying in his room and knew he should go to him and apologize for what he had said, especially after re-reading his mother’s words. He knew he’d been wrong, knew that Liora’s first priority in this situation would be ensuring that her kids and husband were safe. And he knew his dad couldn’t bear to lose him, knew he was the only thread of hope Anton had in his life because he was Oliver’s as well.

Dragging himself out of bed and through the corridor, Oliver didn’t knock before entering, finding his dad crying as he clutched to a portrait of Liora and Hadrian. In the picture, they were on a family trip to the countryside of Germany. It had been in the summer so they didn’t need to worry too much about coats and gloves. They were all smiling, having fun in the grass and, if he closed his eyes, Oliver could still hear the sound of his brother’s laughter and his mother’s arms around him.

At that moment, however, the broken, sad image of his dad crying over it broke his heart and ended up making Oliver realize the severity of his words and the effect they had had on Anton, as well as the fact he’d have to deal with it.

Oliver quickly closed the space between him and Anton, gently taking the portrait off his hands and sitting beside his dad on the bed before he could say anything. Anton didn’t look at him as he said, his voice hoarse from the crying:

“I’ve never, not in a single moment, wished you to have the same fate as your mom and brother, Oliver.”

“I know,” said the boy with a painful lump in his throat, stopping him from speaking anything he needed to. “I know you didn’t. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I said that. I’m... sorry.”

“I just want you to be safe,” murmured his father and Oliver couldn’t hold the tears back any longer.

He also started crying and hugged his dad with all his strength, as if he was never letting him go. Oliver was so completely terrified he wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with his dad just so that Anton could tuck him in like he did when Oliver was a kid — even if it wasn’t the same because of his age.

“I’m afraid, Dad,” said Oliver in a desperate whisper, “I don’t… I don’t believe anything I said to you in the kitchen, I’m just terrified of losing you too.”

Anton stayed quiet and didn’t promise anything. They knew some promises were Worth nothing in the face of war, knew Anton didn’t have a say whether he died or not in it. Instead, his dad said: “You’re a Krause, you’re Liora’s son. You carry part of her fire inside of you, Oliver, I could see that every day of my life. You’ll do it because if anyone could, it was your mom. And you are just like her”. Those words ensnared Oliver’s heart and consoled him enough that the perspective of going to the property of his dad’s boss didn’t seem so unbearable. When he nodded, consenting to the trip, Anton just said: “Let’s go down to the kitchen, I’ll make you come hot cocoa.”

Go to Chapter 3

Overanalyzing my OCs' relationship at 2AM just because I can

I know no one you'll read this but I wanted so bad to make a character analysis of the characters of my latest book series, so I'll just do it and leave it here for anyone who might be interested,

So, one of the things I love about Khaos and Amalie's dynamics (and something that is vital to understand about their relationship) is that they don't fall in love with each other until the third book because the romance is not what their stories are about.

Of course, they feel attracted to each other but they really, really don't like each other in the first two books. The thing about Khaos and Amalie's relationship in the first book (Prison of Darkness) is that they are learning to trust each other as people who can do the job they are assigned to in their mission - the one thing they do share and are obliged to in the story, the thing that brings them together.

The first book (for them) is about establishing Amalie's trust in Khaos' ability to lead and to actually respect those who are below him in this group's hierarchy, and about Khaos' ability to actually trust that Amalie will go through with her promises and stay by their side even when she has such a strong set of morals. Once they recognize that the other has the capacity to be and do what they need them to be or do, they realize they can trust each other to be a reliable part of the same team.

That's the point of the first book in regards to their relationship - to establish trust, not between romantic partners, but as part of the same team.

Then, by the first book, once Khaos is forced to confront the worst demons of his childhood, Amalie is forced to see the humanity of Khaos. And it's in this context the base of their romantic feelings will be set later on in the third book, but I digress: the point of the second book is that Khaos is not a good person and that's not supposed to be ignored by the readers - Khaos is not a good person and he isn't a good person by choice.

Amalie sees that, and she despises him for it, and she is right to do so because Khaos is aware of the pain and suffering his actions as well as his inaction put people through, and he still chooses it every time. And unlike some dark romances would make us believe, it's not actually sexy, healthy, or even healing to not give a damn because of trauma. It's actually the opposite of it.

Of course, Khaos has his reasons, he has deep-rooted trauma to overcome on the path to becoming a better person than he chooses to be but what Amalie is forced to see in the second book (Crown of Death) is that, deep down, he's not cruel or vindictive or insensitive for the sake of it. What she is forced to recognize and accept throughout the second book is that Khaos is very much human just like she is, and he has the same complexity she has.

It happens with Amalie's perception of other characters as well but especially when talking about Khaos, the second book forces her to see him in a new light so that the pot twist in the ending lands more heavily on her. The story of the second book will reveal to Amalie that even through his cruelty, Khaos is capable of not only caring but also capable of choosing better options, choosing to do better by himself and the people around him.

And for Khaos, the second book is about showing him that he can do better without losing himself like he fears will happen because of his trauma. It's about his understanding that change can happen and as such, forcing him to recognize that his perception of Amalie is jaded, is tainted by his trauma's lenses. For him, the development of his character gives Khaos the chance to look at Amalie as someone who can not only rival his intelligence but also push him in the direction he not only needs to be pushed but also wants to be pushed to, just by her personality alone.

It's about him understanding that Amalie was right, and being humbled by it, and accepting that he was wrong in his choices - albeit justified - and thus opening a path for him to change in the ways he needs to.

And that's the point where we reach the third book (Treason of Blood) and I absolutely love that Amalie and Khaos just start to sincerely love each other in the last book because it's only then they actually become the people they would fall in love with.

I could never have written Amalie falling in love with Khaos before because I could never fathom loving a person who thinks so little of my principles and morals, so little of my capacity to understand the world around me, like Khaos does for her. And for Khaos, I could never convincingly write someone falling in love with a person who thinks so little of me, of the person I am, who judges me even though she knows nothing of my struggles or my past or the things I've been through.

So the third book is about change, it's about becoming better versions of ourselves, and more than that: doing right by the rest of the world because of it. The third book is about forgiving bad deeds but demanding change for them, accepting traumas but also holding themselves and others accountable for their own choices (even when guided by these same traumas), it's about falling in love with a person because they're trying to do better (not for you but just because they realized they had a shitty attitude) and falling in love because of their capacity to forgive, to be kind and amorous even when we can't forgive ourselves.

I just love their dynamic so much, I wish more people knew about them.

I think life loves us

I honestly think we have the wrong idea about love and life. I think love is being tender and forgiving, even when we're not to ourselves. and I think love is being firm when needed because our actions have consequences and we need to accept them even when they hurt. Not shielding the people we love from the consequences of their actions is an act of love, it's a chance you have to say "I'm here, I'm with you, I'll stand by you, and I want you to be the best version of yourself you can be so I'm not gonna shield you from life."

And I think that's why life loves us. Because she won't shield us but she'll be with us every step of the way, holding our hands.

To Decadent Poets - Chapter 3

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

“Inside the night that covers me Black as the pit, from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.” — William E. Henley, Invictus

Christian didn’t want to talk but it seemed no one in this house knew how to understand the concepts of privacy and personal space. Maybe that was the reason why his father was almost knocking the door of his room down, demanding he open it, his voice grave and powerful.

And he would. Sometime after getting out of the shower and dressing up.

But he knew his mom would end up having to endure it if he didn’t open it soon, so Chris hurried up to change and opened up the damn door, facing Maxwell with stony eyes.

“What do you want?” he asked, hissing in anger while his father stared at him with a furious expression, the deep brown eyes they shared shining bright with his bad humor. Chris couldn’t care less about all of his drama.

“Why are you not having dinner?” asked Maxwell, clenching his teeth and Chris looked at him, incredulous.

“Oh... because I’m not hungry?” he asked in a sarcastic tone that made his father frown deeply, wrinkles appearing all across his forehead. It made him look old.

“You’re leaving tomorrow and you won’t even have dinner with your family?”

The question was loaded with accusations and it made Christian feel rage downing in his veins like lava flowing from a volcano. He passed through the door’s threshold, closing the door behind him to stand on the dark corridor of his house as Maxwell watched him.

“I already spent the day with my family,” Christian said, using the same tone Maxwell had, wishing more than ever that he could hurt him, wishing his father cared as much as Christ tried not to. “Mom and Nana had me the whole day, I don’t need to worry about me being an insensitive prat like you are.”

“Be careful of how you speak to me,” Maxwell stuck his finger in Chris’ face with a severe expression that would never intimidate him. “I’m your father”

Those words made everything inside Christian freeze. He looked Maxwell in the eyes, feeling nothing more than cold and ice cascading down his veins like a snowstorm. He had no will to get angry at that because as Much as it was true, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all.

“A father is one of the things you never were to me,” was all Chris said before leaving, going downstairs silently, not wanting to be noticed by anyone.

Miraculously, Maxwell didn’t follow him to continue their argument, and at least that made Chris relax as he walked slowly to the living room, where he knew he’d find what he needed to push away the knot in his throat and the tightness in his chest from what would happen tomorrow and in the nearest future.

Chris couldn't help but ask his mother during breakfast that day who was his godfather whose property he’d be staying indefinitely and Jeane was helpful in giving him all the information she could remember about his godfather, Elijah, the owner of Taigh Hill, and Elliot Wood, his younger brother. As it was, they both seemed happy to accept him just like two other boys his age, children of his staff who had solicited the favor.

Chris couldn’t deny he was curious to know more about the other boys but he also couldn’t push away the feeling he was abandoning his mom, which made him reluctant to think about such matters and get even a bit excited with the prospect.

Chris sighed as he looked at the shelves beside the fireplace, the countless books bound by leather whispering their stories, dropping their honey to those who were thirsty for them. Filled with life and too attractive for Chris not to let his fingers dance over their spines, reading the familiar titles, books his hand had passed through thousands of times, that made him feel like he wasn’t so alone. He knew it was cliche to say that but books had saved him from so Much unnecessary suffering.

They had saved him.

Finally, his fingers stopped at the book he was looking for and he pulled it from the shelf, leafing through the pages until he found the one he’d already read thousands of other times, running his finger over the ink and the letters, murmuring the words he knew by heart:

         Out of the Night that covers me          Black as the pit, from pole to pole,          I thank whatever gods may be          For my unconquerable soul.          [...]          It matters not how strait the gate          How charged with punishments the scroll          I am the master of my fate          I am the captain of my soul.

Chris looked at those words of blurred ink, internalizing them with an involuntary shiver. They were so powerful he could almost feel them physically, caressing his cheeks, warming his heart, loosening the knot in his throat as he knew they would do.

“Chris, is everything okay?” the sweet voice of his mom entered his ears, taking him from the world of the words with a sudden push, making him raise his eyes to her, blinking away his surprise at seeing her there with Nana, both of them knitting.

Jeane seemed better with the afternoon while Nana still had that serious, sour expression on her face, no doubt remembering the Great War time when she lost her husband. He forced himself to smile at his mom, walking towards them calmly, not allowing himself to hesitate.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he answered while sitting on the armchair beside hers and watching the two most important women in his life. Chris waited for a while until he took a deep breath to gather the courage to ask Jeane: “You’re really not going?”

He didn’t know what he looked like then but Chris could hear the tremble in his voice, the vulnerability in it. And maybe Jeane had seen something in her child’s eyes because he put aside her knitting needles and turned completely to him, her baby blue eyes shining with all the worry she was fighting to hide from him.

When her fingers touched Chris’ face, he felt the same as when he’d read the poem. It was like the words were penetrating his soul as if his mother’s touch was something sacred and revered. He let his head roll down, closing his eyes to enjoy the caress. When Jeane spoke, her voice was melodious, a murmur full of emotion:

“Believe me, cariad, I wish I could go with you or that I had a way to keep you close to me but I can’t...” Her voice was taken by emotion, making Chris open his eyes to look at his mom’s baby blues. “I can’t abandon your dad because this will be Hell for him and it’s my duty as his wife and life partner to stay by his side. I couldn’t bear, though, if you were in danger.”

“While you’re free to choose the risk,” Chris shot back resignedly, leaving the armchair to sit on the wooden floor, by his mother’s leg as he embraced them like he did when he was a child and felt sad his dad wasn’t present to some special date or event.

He let his head rest on her lap and Jeane didn’t hesitate to run her fingers through his hair soothingly.

“We’re all free to do so, mi hijo,” said Nana with her Spanish accent getting thicker because of the emotion she was trying so hard to hide. “But you know your parents would never know peace if you stayed. Or even me, to be honest. War is hard and it takes a lot of people, but more importantly, it takes a lot from people. The young ones especially.

“I’m realizing that,” was all Chris said in a murmur, his eyes closed as his mom kept running her fingers through his hair.

He didn’t leave when Maxwell entered, although it wasn’t the same relaxed feeling he felt as he talked to both women before, but Chris tried to pretend he didn’t exist as his father did the same. Chris found out pretty quickly it wasn’t so relieving as he thought it would be.

——— ◘ ———

On the following morning, Chris and his family arrived early at the train station, which was already filled with people coming and going from their jobs, all of them carrying tired expressions but with arrogant, optimistic feelings on their straightened backs. He could hear his father’s assistant commenting that they already had won the war and that the Germans wouldn’t have a chance. Chris almost laughed at the poor fool.

As a diligent reader, Chris had begun to understand the world they lived in too early and he had always cared about the news, especially When it was about external affairs. He knew well that England was broke, as were many countries because of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great War at the beginning of the century; he knew it’d be a difficult war that would drag on for years before it was over.

Chris also knew about what Hitler had been doing to the Jews in Germany and to think of that kind of cruelty gave him shivers even if he tried not to think about it, as his mother had requested some time ago. It was hard to have hope when one knew everything there was to know around the world and something they quite needed was hope.

Chris took a deep breath, trying to ignore the push and shove of people around him as he tried to also protect Jeane from it. They were in front of the train, impatient because they knew they had no time left. Maxwell seemed as cold and distant as always, and he didn’t even look at his son or Jeane as they said their goodbyes, preferring to speak to his assistant instead.

When the final moment arrived, mother and son looked at each other with pain filling their eyes. Chris didn’t even try to resist the impulse of pulling his mom in to hug her with all the strength he had, holding on to her as if she was all that he had. For a long time, it had been true.

Jeane hugged him back, always armed with her infinite softness and didn’t let go of him until the train whistled, warning the passengers to get in soon. As they let go, Chris touched their foreheads together for a couple of seconds, his eyes still closed. Then he let go of her, looking at Jeane, then at Maxwell.

They exchanged an uncomfortable look, neither of them knowing what to do. At last, Chris turned with his back straightened. As he walked away from his parents, he had this latent sensation that he was losing a part of himself and the shadow of his dad’s goodbyes was tormenting him. It was like the phantoms of Maxwell’s arms were around him as he walked, pushing him back to them so that their place was finally occupied. The words he could’ve said also brushed his brain, circling his thoughts he couldn’t get in order.

Chris knew if he’d stayed even one second more in Maxwell’s company, he’d end up saying something he would regret and they’d end up fighting just like they had done yesterday and the day before. And the weeks prior. And the months.

And all those years since Chris had grown tired of waiting for him at his birthday parties. He was thirteen when he cried for the last time because of his father’s absence and he remembered that night very well. It was the night of the accident. The night he’d lost part of the movement on his hand and what made it impossible for him to join the Army.

A sigh escaped his lungs before he could suppress it and Chris ignored the bad look of the old lady in front of him because of it. It wasn’t like he cared what she thought of him — the woman meant nothing to him anyway.

While passing through the cabins, Chris saw some interesting people and others that seemed as boring as attending a trigonometry class. He kept himself far away from the latter until he found an almost empty cabin: the only passenger was alone in it. The blond boy seemed unhappy and uncomfortable as he stared at the window, lost in his thoughts.

“Excuse me,” Chris said, catching the boy’s attention. “Is there someone seated here?”

“No,” said the boy in response, clearly apprehensive and the reason was obvious: Christian could easily identify the German accent.

This is the reason, he thought as he stared at the boy for a couple of seconds, why the cabin was empty. The boy was German. In the minds of ridiculous people, he might have been an enemy, although Christian could hardly conceive that logic.

“Right, I’m gonna sit with you then,” he said as he got over his moment of shameful hesitation. Christian pulled his suitcase along, putting it on the luggage rack above with some hardship, and sat in front of the boy, looking at him in open curiosity. “I’m Christian. You?

“Oliver,” the boy said, looking back at him with equal curiosity. “You know you can sit anywhere on the train, don’t you?

“Here seems like as good of a place as any,” Christian responded as he felt his stubbornness grow. He smiled, raising his hand to the boy in front of him. “It’s nice to meet you, Oliver.”

There was only a second of hesitation before Oliver smiled back and shook his hand.

“I can say the same, Christian.”

“Call me Chris.”

Go to Chapter 4

To Decadent Poets - Chapter 4

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

A friend: a being life can’t explain Who only goes when another is born And the mirror my soul multiplies... — Vinícius de Moraes, Friendship Sonnet

Oliver watched Chris attentively, hesitating, his leg shaking with the anxiety that was running through his blood. The boy seemed like a good company to have and he was really funny with a dry sense of humor. They had spent most of the journey talking and Oliver’s accent had kept other people away, not that Chris seemed to care.

He was surely a singular creature, Oliver thought, analyzing the boy: Chris had auburn hair and his brown eyes carried disdain for everything and everyone, making Oliver remember himself before everything happened.

The Oliver from before had been unruly and sarcastic, so much he could exasperate even his parents, who were the epitome of patience. But everything changed after his mother and Hadrian had been taken from them.

It changed because Oliver knew he shouldn’t give his father more grief than the one he was already in and also because no one liked foreigners, let alone a funny one. So, he’d spent a lot of time learning to bite his tongue to stop his dry comments and ironic observations from slipping out, as Much with his dad as with the rest of the world.

In reality, he had to do so a lot of times still: it was hard to give up that part of him, the only one that connected him to his old life, and Oliver didn’t like to do it. But he didn’t feel safe enough to go back to being himself and, if he faked long enough, maybe he wouldn’t be able to separate the mask from who he really was anymore. From what he’d lived through.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” asked Chris suddenly, his eyes still closed from the nap he’d announced he’d take, scaring Oliver, who felt himself flush for being caught staring.

And maybe it was because of his shock, but he snapped in a petulant tone that he hadn’t dared to use in a long time now:

“You’re not the epitome of sociability, mate,” Oliver was surprised at himself and his eyes widened, regretting his words almost immediately although his pride stopped him from apologizing, so he just swallowed, facing Chris, who just stared at him for a moment silently. Oliver was caught by surprise by the slow smile forming on Chris’s pale face.

“Touché,” he said before straightening on the train stool and changing the subject abruptly: “Where are you going to alone?”

“To my father’s boss’ property. He let me stay there during the war,” answered Oliver with a resigned sigh when he saw the daring Shine of Chris’ eyes, making it impossible not to be honest with the boy “What about you?”

“To my godfather’s property,” said Chris, shrugging even though it was noticeable, at least for Oliver, that was complicated “he also let me stay during the war. What’s the name of the place you’re going to?”

“Taigh Hill” Oliver’s pronunciation slipped a bit in the two words but it seemed that Chris had still understood him because for a moment he looked at Oliver as if assessing him, and then he smiled.

“It seems like Destiny got it right today, don’t you think, Oliver?” he softly asked, making him frown, confused with what Chris meant “I’m also going to Taigh Hill. I’m Elijah Wood’s godson, whom I believe is your father’s boss.”

——— ◘ ———

They talked during the rest of the journey, learning more about each other, or at least as much as they allowed each other to know. It was hard sometimes to talk about some things and they respected this, not pressuring the other into talking about what they didn’t want to and Oliver liked that. He liked that silent complicity that seemed to exist between him and Chris. It was encouraging and trustworthy, and as soon as they began to talk, Oliver realized Chris had a certain gift to encourage the worst parts of him, like his sarcasm and his temper.

And when they discovered their common taste in books, the talk flowed through them like a river’s stream, running between the two with a scary naturality that could make Jane Austen even more certain about her assessment of the human relationships in Sense and Sensibility:

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; —it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

Oliver really liked to get to know someone who wasn’t his father in all of London and wondered for a moment if that friendship would last. Chris seemed nice enough and didn’t care he was German, which was a more than good start.

And while they discussed how much they wished to read A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, next, both of them realized they had more in common than the rest of the world could guess they had. At that moment, Chris commented thoughtfully:

“I make a habit of thinking people are idiots. Of course, I always need to remind myself that they also have something good inside of them, even if they are idiots, but most of the time, I feel quite alone because of it. I mean, most people would advise me to not get close to you and I think that’s so dumb because look at us! It’s not like our differences mattered more than our similarities.”

Oliver smiled, really smiled, when he heard that. It was like Chris had just read his mind as if he could understand what Oliver thought. It was impressive considering they Only knew each Other for a couple of hours but some friendships were just like that, weren’t they? Spontaneous and simply inexplicable in the strength of their connections.

After his comment, Chris changed the subject, asking him about what he thought Taigh Hill would be like.

“Much bigger than my house, that’s for sure,” Oliver said with a sarcastic smirk blossoming on his face while he leaned down on the rough tissue of the train’s stool “But you’re the one practically related to them, what do you know about the place?”

“I’ve never been to Taigh Hill and never met my godfather or his family, to be honest,” Chris admitted, resting his feet on the stool after glancing out the door of the cabin they were at. He also had this smirk on his face, the kind of smirk just a young man who was arrogant and completely sure of himself could flash around like a trump card for life. “I think they’re old and deaf but really gentle. Elijah and his brother, I mean, Elliott. My mom said Elliott is married and has two daughters, one of them our age. My father and he were at her christening when I was a baby. What do you think about that?”

“I’m not sure there’s much to think about,” Said Oliver, shrugging and looking out the window. “If they’re not annoying and spoiled, I have nothing to say about any of them.”

“Maybe they’re like ghosts, walking through the mansion with pure, virginal white gowns, ready to give us heart attacks like in Gothic books,” Chris joked, making Oliver laugh out Loud and he didn’t even worry about the people passing through their cabin, who looked through the glassdoor as if they’d heard a specially nasty curse word. “Worse, they could be complaining harpies like old housekeepers who value morals and the old times.

“My God, I really hope not,” Oliver shivered, joking, and added: “I hope, by the way, that none of them are like that. It’d be torture.”

“Can you imagine if Elijah or Elliott want us to wear those old vests and hay hats, or worse, those white pants that get dirty with literally anything?” Chris’ eyes widened as if he couldn’t think about anything scarier thing and Oliver laughed. “I think I could have to run away and live the rest of my life in nowhere of Scotland.”

“Well, those clothes are not so bad,” Oliver said, and Chris looked at him incredulously. “They’re worse.”

They both laughed hard, imagining all kinds of scenarios possible for Taigh Hill and mocking them all. The conversation was comfortable and light like most conversations they’d had ‘til then weren’t. To Oliver because his longest conversations were, with the exception of his father, with the butcher; and to Chris because his friends were always talking about matters that didn’t concern him at all.

Soon the day transformed into twilight and both of them got silent to watch the rose and orange sky, the colors mixing up and changing every minute over the emerald-green lawn of the plains and the mountains that surrounded lakes so still they seemed like portals to the skies. It was in comfortable, soft silence they shared deeply; the kind of silence that could make old friends get emotional but not the two of them.

Because, after all, they had just met, and it’d be weird if it happened. But in that silence, their eyes met, hazel against green, and they laughed together with a complicity neither of them could understand because they had never experienced it before.

But it was one they liked a lot.

——— ◘ ———

When they finally got off the train, Chris was insistent that they stay close, so that it would be easier for Miss Turner, the Wood family’s housekeeper, who would come to get them, according to their parents, to find them. Although the thought was quite practical, Oliver could not help but notice that some of the boys their age were glaring at them when they heard his accent and he was thankful when Chris had nothing to say about the matter.

He didn’t need everyone reminding him of what he was all the time.

They walked through the station, then, trying to get rid of the crowd mounting together because of the small size of the place. They were in a small city near Inverness, as they had been instructed to stop; and decided to wait outside, in the street, something Oliver was grateful for, as those people were starting to make him really uncomfortable.

It didn’t take long for a lady with a prudish dress that seemed to belong to the last decade to pass by them with a car that seemed old. She looked at them both with a semblance that varied between doubt and a welcome. There was also a girl with red hair like crackling fire, who looked at them both curiously.

“What are your names, boys?” The Woman asked, and her voice was firm without being harsh, her hands were trembling and her black hair, which had begun to become gray, was the only thing that denounced her older age.

A rosary hung from her neck in a delicate silver chain and the darkness of the metal left it clear she had the habit of rubbing it.

“I’m Oliver Krause, ma’am,” the blond boy introduced himself in a meek tone of voice, very different from how he presented himself with Chris during their journey.

The other boy, with a quick glance at Oliver, also introduced himself with a charming smile, much more open than the first:

“I’m Christian Evans, at your pleasure, ma’am.”

The housekeeper, who frowned slightly at hearing Oliver, smiled a bit at Chris, commenting:

“A good christian name, just like the rest of your family, Mister Evans,” she paused, then added: “Get on, I’m Marjorie Turner, your new housekeeper, and this is Mister Elliott Wood’s youngest daughter, Annie.

They smiled at the red-haired girl and she smiled back at them, still cautious and timid like a little mouse. Oliver and Chris hurried to put their bags in the trunk of the car, which Miss Turner indicated while she seemed nervous, looking to the train station with a bit of anxiety clear on her face.

But as soon as it came, it went away when a boy their age left the station and looked around, seemingly lost. He had dark brown hair and eyes, and his skin was almost as pale as paper. As she saw him, Miss Turner made her way to him and spoke to the boy, bringing him along after a few seconds.

“Boys, this is Noah Kurtz. He’ll also live with us in Taigh Hill,” said the housekeeper while she climbed back into the car, which seemed to be even more filled with people.

Seeing that the only seats available were either at Annie’s side or Oliver’s side, the woman took the place beside Oliver, a very conscious choice the attentive young people noticed but didn’t comment about it. Oliver was tense since he heard the boy’s last name, knowing he was his dad’s boss’ son and worse, Jew.

His own ascendence from Liora made Oliver a Jew for all effects, both culturally and ethnically, although he never thought much about it — it wouldn’t help Oliver because when people looked at him, none of them saw a Jew and that’s what was important to the world.

Noah didn’t say anything more than a murmured and general greeting as he climbed into the vehicle, avoiding everyone’s eyes. This intrigued Chris, who tried, as the car started to make its way, shaking beyond what he thought was possible on the dirt road, making some kind of conversation with Noah, only to receive back monosyllabic answers that discouraged him. Finally, he turned his attention back to Oliver, talking to him in low voices.

The girl, who regarded the three boys with a curious look, soon lost her interest and directed her attention to the window, feeling ignored, which made Oliver feel bad for her — he knew what it was like to be ignored and left out for reasons outside his control. The housekeeper also kept quiet; her eyes lost to something none but her could see as she rubbed her rosary distractedly.

In general, it was a trembling, tedious path filled with silences far from comfortable like the ones Oliver and Chris shared on the train. The newest friends looked at each other, predicting a boring stay from that experience alone, not even dreaming of what they’d soon find in Taigh Hill.

Go to Chapter 5

All Creatures on Earth - Volume 1

Hey, guys! That's my book here, I decided to post a few chapters (or maybe more) after translating it from Brazilian Portuguese to English. I really wanted to share this work and hope you enjoy it.

Buy the entire work on Amazon through this link!

Here's a quick summary of the book:

Title: All Angels from Heaven Above

Series: All Creatures on Earth

Tags: Dark Academia, Murder Mystery, Fantast, witches, demons, angels, colonialism, imperialism, political intrigue, hate to love, friends to lovers, friends to enemies, hurt without comfort;

If you liked... you're gonna like this: Vicious, The Atlas Six, The Shadowhunters Chronicles, Stalking Jack the Ripper, etc.

Trigger Warning: the story deals with themes of grief and also mentions child neglect, physical and psychological abuse, as well as a few gory depictions of murder, and mentions addiction, though barely.

Add: The book didn't have a Sensitive Editor, so any problems with how people of color, disabilities, or queer people are portrayed can be discussed directly with the author.

Synopsis: Adra is a witch in a world of demons, which means problems all on its own, but when your father is murdered by the same person who is killing teenagers inside the mysterious Lethe Academy, she won't hesitate in the face of hardship to enter the school and hunt down the person responsible for it.

With Damian Kolasi, a cheating demon who's also charming as Hell, and his friends' help, Adra is prepared to take revenge on her father's killer. But what seems to be a simple case of assassination becomes embedded into a political web Adra didn't expect to fall into, just like she never expected her body to react to Damian as intensely as it does whenever he's near.

Sometimes, we can't get everything we want. And Darkness conquers all.

Summary (with links):

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4 - Coming Soon...

All Angels from Heaven Above - Chapter 1

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

Buy the whole book through this link!

The walls of Lethe Academy carried its ghosts the same way blood stained the walls of Jerusalem: just because it was impossible to see them, it didn’t mean they weren’t there. But, just like any dark past, they’d always come back to haunt innocent generations, which were ignorant of the crimes committed before their existence in the world. 

So, when all the papers in the city of Agraés published that Death had visited the Academy, none of their elders were surprised; but the young ones, anxious to hold the world in their hands and naively believing apt to do such inconceivable feat, watched it all with attentive and morbid curiosity, very little moved by the death of one of them.

Not that it mattered now that she was already dead, though Adra Anoixi while walking through the dark wooden floor of the store, her steps producing a hollow sound on the floor while her black dress rustled against the surface. She faced the three girls, as dazzling as goddesses, who waited for her in front of the counter, facing the entry. All of them wore the most expensive dresses money could buy and had their hair done in a way Adra would never use on a day-to-day basis.

Or to a funeral, like the one they were going to.

“Here it is,” she gave them the incense as it was asked.

The girls looked at Adra for a second longer than necessary before one of them — the taller one, with black dark skin — took the incense from her hand with a last look of contempt. 

Without any more words or thanks, they left the store, imperious as just demons could be, leaving her payment on the counter to not have to touch her. Adra looked to the ceiling with an impatient sigh.

“I should’ve given them the fake incense” she murmured to herself, remembering the terrible smell of that specific product. “It’d be deserved if they whisk away everyone with that stink.

But since the death at the Academy, the sales were low. The city hadn’t been receiving as many travelers as it used to every week and that was worrisome: if the tourists started to avoid the city because of superstition, a lot of stores would be forced to close.

If Witches & Daughters were one of them, that would break her mother’s heart. And that wasn’t acceptable, not when the store was a gift from her father, Kia’s only love.

Despite the lack of humans visiting Witches & Daughters, demons were interested enough in her to buy some cheap trinkets that humans made the mistake of thinking were magic. If they did it for mockery or because they believed the same as humans, it didn’t matter to her. What did matter was that the store would survive another month's savings from debts and debt collectors.

Many hours passed until the bell above the door rang again with the presence of other people in the dusty store, full of dried herbs, crystals, and other natural products. Happy to have something to do, Adra got up from the small chair behind the counter and raised her eyes to her new client.

The man in front of her wasn’t older than Adra herself and watched her with his black eyes full of glow — like a star —, there was a silver earring in his right ear and his brownish lips were curved in an arrogant smile. A demon, but not any demon: Adra could feel his power making her shiver, even two meters away from him. 

Powerful and handsome as Death: that was a dangerous combination, especially when talking about a fallen angel.

Adra was immediately suspicious and curious, and that made her frown: it wasn’t common for such a powerful demon to enter her store and Adra didn’t like what it could mean.

“It was way too easy to find you, miss Anoixi,” he said, his voice calm as a breeze.

Every single one of Adra’s instincts were alert at his words, the coldness in his expression. Carefully, she slipped her hand to the slit of her dress, just below the carpet, feeling the dagger’s hilt her father had given her.

“I wasn’t hiding,” Adra said, raising her chin proudly. “So, I’d imagine that finding me wouldn’t be a problem.”

She was, after all, one of the best witches in Agráes and people would look for her often, but never a powerful demon like that one in front of her. The shadows whispered to Adra as if feeling her uneasy with the demon’s power, even though he didn’t seem menacing.

“How can I help you?” Adra asked then, her voice professional, but the warning in them was unmistakable.

She didn’t think he’d do something bad, but being alert near demons was already an instinct for a long time now, especially those ridiculously handsome.

Her words made the corner of his lips tremble up as if he was finding all that quite funny for reasons Adra could only imagine, his dark eyes shining mysteriously.

Adra didn’t smile back, even though the amusement was taunting the corner of her own lips too.

The demon wore a dark gray overcoat, black social pants, shirt, and shoes — Lethe Academy’s uniform, she easily recognized. He walked to the counter, watching Adra carefully before saying anything else.

She didn’t move, uneasy under his scrutiny, but didn’t recoil from the slow and interested eyes of the demon, choosing to hold the dagger tighter instead, just in case. Finally, he smiled, still politely, and said:

"I am looking for you, Adra."

She didn’t ask how he knew her name. Most demons knew her because of her father, as was expected, but the fact that he had that little bit of advantage over her bothered Adra.

Despite her grip on the hidden dagger, Adra trusted that the demon wouldn’t dare to attack her. She knew that, in a power match, she couldn’t defeat him, but demons knew witches didn’t fight with their powers only. So Adra just arched an eyebrow while calmly asking:

“And what do you want?”

“Damian Kolasi” the demon introduced himself and held out his hand. Adra looked at it for a couple of seconds before shaking it.

Fortunately, her free hand got to keep holding the dagger.

“And do you know how to answer a direct question, Damian Kolasi?” Adra asked slowly.

The man laughed lowly and Adra was forced to suppress a shiver so he couldn’t notice the impact he had on her. The demon, however, looked at her like he knew exactly his effect.

“I want to make a deal with you.”

Absently, he walked away from her, examining the store. Damian gripped and shook a jar full of eyes. All of them false, of course — the eyes. Despite the gossip going around between the humans, no witch had the need to use anything but their own minds to yield their powers.

Adra watched him, expressionless, while he roamed through the place, picking up random products and crouching down to get a look at what interested him. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was disappointed. That demon looked dangerous enough to be interesting, but it looked like Adra was wrong.

“Any witch with common sense knows she shouldn’t make deals with demons, mister Kolasi,” she said, her voice stable and unperturbed. “So, your answer is no.”

“I don’t want... favors, Adra,” said Damian, and there was an edge of tension in his voice, something dark and gloomy that made Adra shiver. “I want you to join Lethe Academy as a student. The first witch student. I think you heard that there’s a place available.”

A rude way of saying that one of the students died, no doubt. Adra raised an eyebrow to him, but the demon just crouched to analyze the crow’s feathers in one of the lower shelves, without realizing his own lack of empathy.

Meanwhile, Adra’s mind was like a scorching cauldron about to overflow. The Lethe Academy had never had a witch among its students, since all the vacancies were destined to legitimate children of demons. 

As she was possibly the only witch who was the legit daughter of a demon, maybe she could enter, but it would have consequences for her father, so Adra never asked this of him, even when her fascination for the school was evident every time she got near it.

The fact that that unknown demon had entered her store and simply handed her oldest dream to Adra could only be some fucked up kind of prank.

“What do you want in return?” she asked this time, knowing very well how tricky the words of a demon could be. 

Damian smiled at her as if pleased with her question and got up from where he had crouched to look at the crow’s feathers, walking towards her again.

“I knew you’d be more intelligent than your friends,” he said and Adra rolled her eyes.

She filled in the information that Damian had already spoken to other witched about that ridiculous idea, however. It’d be useful to ask about that to her coven later. For now, she had to deal with a demon.

“Answer my question.”

“I already told you,” he said quietly, trying to judge her skills in detecting his bullshit. “I want to help you to become the first witch student in Lethe Academy.”

“I heard you the first time,” Adra said, raising her chin. “But I want to know why you want me at the Academy. I’m not stupid enough to think it doesn’t come with a price.”

“You’re the first witch I found that thought about indulging me,” Damian said with a satisfied smile.

“That’s because no other witch is interested in going to that place,” she said in an explanation tone of voice, but impatient nonetheless: “Far too many demons.”

“You don’t like us, do you?” he didn’t expect an answer so Adra didn’t give him one. The hate between their species was obvious and had good motives to exist, and yet, there he was, searching for a witch to help him in whatever it was he wanted help with. Even so, it was intriguing and Adra couldn’t deny to herself the shadow of curiosity present at the back of her mind. Damian analyzed her again and clicked his tongue. “I wonder what’s different about you.”

That was a dangerous question and the way he tilted his head to the side, looking at her, intrigued, was even more so.

“What do you want in exchange for the available place?” Adra asked again, tired of walking in circles with that annoying man.

“I need a witch to do a job for me,” said the demon with a dangerous smile forming on his face while his dark eyes made Adra want to recoil because of their intensity. She stood stubbornly still. “You see, I have a hunch about the murder of my... colleague.”

“You don’t know if it was murder,” Adra said, frowning.

All the papers had said was that the cause of death was a mystery and no one could say for certain if it was murder, suicide, or just an accident. No other detail. It was that, among other things, that made people so nervous about that situation.

“Oh, but I know,” he said, walking toward her again with that damned smile on his face. 

Adra had her dagger in his neck before Damian Kolasi could lean over the counter and the demon froze. She would rather go to prison for his murder than allow him to do something to her, thought Adra, alert to his every move.

Instead of being annoyed, however, Damian Kolasi laughed, looking even more amused by Adra. He looked at her like a cat would at a bird whose efforts to escape its claws were useless, even when she was the one holding the blade.

“Oh, you really are sweet, aren’t you?” he asked as if there was not a dagger about to slit his throat.

“I wouldn’t say that about someone who could kill me,” she said and he smiled, gloomy.

Adra frowned, allowing Damian Kolasi to lean over to her a bit, leveling their eyes, his face near enough that she could see the cracks of his lips.

“You’re so dangerous, candy” he smiled as the sweetest of the poisons when he said that as if he was satisfied with that. “Anyway, there is no motive for violence, I’m not going to attack you.”

Adra didn’t lower her dagger. She knew better than to trust a demon.

“How can you know that was a murder?”

He looked at her, incredulous.

“Do you really think that a completely healthy, right-handed young adult would stab herself in the ribs with her left hand, even in an accident?” Asked Damian as if Adra was stupid and she hissed at him, her shadows gathering around her, reacting to her feelings before she could control them. 

Damian’s black eyes followed that power, showing a little bit of preoccupation for the very first time.

And admiration.

Adra frowned — it was the first time a demon that wasn’t her dad looked like he was awed by what she could do. The shadows retreated, reacting with confusion to Adra’s control and shock. No one had seen her power without fearing it, not even other witches, because unlike them, Adra controlled them as easily as she breathed.

“And how do you know all that?” she asked.

“Oh, I found the body,” he said as if it wasn’t a big thing while shaking his hand to dismiss further explanations. “Criminalistics classes did the rest.”

Adra’s grip on the dagger relaxed a bit. Lethe Academy for Demonic Arts trull offered criminalistics classes, just like anatomy and necromancy lessons, each one depending on the year one was. It made sense that, if Damian Kolasi had found the body, he’d know all that. It would also make sense, however, if he was the murderer.

“And why, exactly, do you want me to enter in the place of your colleague?” she asked again, watching while the smile crept back to Damian’s perfect face.

“I have a hunch.”

“A hunch,” she repeated.

“I think the murderer at Lethe Academy is just at the beginning and you’re the only one that can help me to catch them, candy,” said Damian.

With a quick move, he took Adra’s dagger from her, twisting her wrist slightly before nailing the blade to the wood of the counter with a yellowish paper and backing away from her, smiling before pulling the doorknob.

“Meet me at this address in a week at six pm if you want to know more about it, Adra Anoixi. I’ll be waiting.”

Damian Kolasi laughed when Adra threw the dagger at him, missing by a few centimeters before he closed the door behind him.

She watched as he walked away through the street as if he had just had a nice afternoon tea, incredulous with the nerve of him. Then she circled the counter to catch her dagger from the doorframe.

When she turned, a simple letter had appeared at the side of Damian Kolasi’s address. Adra groaned when she recognized the letter’s handwriting.

Go to Chapter 2

My Books!

Hey, guys! Welcome to my profile, here you'll find my books (which are partially available here on Tumblr).

My books are self-translated, so my English might fail me sometimes, so I'd thank you if you could spare some minutes to critique my work if you decide to read it (I hope you do!)

Besides that, just enjoy the ride, I hope you love my stories and my characters as much as I do <3

All Creatures on Earth - Summary

The series will follow Adra, a witch born in a world of demons who has to navigate this world to get revenge for her father's murder. A murder mystery filled with political intrigue and a bit of Dark Academia vibes.

To Decadent Poets - Summary

The series is a coming-of-age type of story and will follow Chris, Annie, Oliver, and Noah as they grow up together in the north of Scotland as World War II devastates the world. A historical fiction with some mystery, a lot of comfort vibes, and Light Academia aesthetics!

The Freak Show Series - Summary

The series is based on two independent books but both are focused on heroines leaving abusive relationships with their families and discovering a whole new world ahead of them (and falling in love, of course). Ah, and there is a circus of horrors (running away with the circus was never more appealing haha).

Freedom Girl - Summary

Hey, guys! That's my book here, I decided to post a few chapters (or maybe more) after translating it from Brazilian Portuguese to English. I really wanted to share this work and hope you enjoy it.

Here's a quick summary of the book:

Title: Freedom Girl

Series: The Freak Show Series

Tags: contemporary romance, hurt and comfort, BAFM women, a horror circus, charming love interest;

If you liked... you're gonna like this: It Happened One Summer, The Roommate, Book Lovers, etc.

Trigger Warning: the story deals with themes of abusive relationships with family, emotional and psychological abuse, as well as a few gory depictions of wounds.

Add: The book didn't have a Sensitive Editor, so any problems with how people of color, disabilities, or queer people are portrayed can be discussed directly with the author.

Synopsis: Lana is tired of playing her grandfather's good girl. She wants more, she wishes for a fulfilling and intense life, she wishes to be free. The arrival of her grandfather's new wife, Cinara, might be exactly what she needs, Lana rapidly realizes when her family knocks on the door. Cinara's family are nothing short of itinerant workers who own a circus of horrors, something she'd never seen before, and yet, it seemed to call for Lana with their world of mystery and fantasy.

Cam, on the other hand, is not a fan of the world his godmother, Cinara, is entering. And he'll do anything he can to understand better the venomous pit that is Henrique Vidal's life, even if he needs to use his granddaughter for that. To protect his family, Cam would do anything, even the unthinkable. But what to do when Lana becomes a part of his family?

Summary (with links):

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 - Coming soon...

Prologue - A Broken Heart, Like a Clock

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

Part 1 – Shall be Lifted… Nevermore “And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted… Nevermore.” The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe

To make it right, Cinara needed to break two hearts that afternoon and conquer another one by night time.

If she couldn’t, lives would be ruined, all because of a failed-before-it-even-began engagement. At that moment, Cinara would pay to have her own head struck by something heavy, anything to get the hell away from that familiar campsite, full of motorcycles and motorhomes.

Full of freedom.

How the hell, Cinara asked herself, could she have the courage to break her own heart?

Go to Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - The Demon’s Castle Horror Circus

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

Lana felt the cold wind passing through the corridor, making her shiver while she kept her eyes wide open, trying to absorb all the details of that dark place she couldn't see the end of. Lana could feel her heart beating rapidly with the anxiety and the tension that accumulated in her body with each step she took. The mist that covered the ground was just slightly illuminated and she couldn't even see her own feet.

She could feel Gal's hands on her back. It was the only thing stopping her from turning back and leave that quiet, terrifying place and it was the slight push of her friend that made Lana put herself back together to continue to the first part of what promised to be a bloody night. Hesitating and feeling her body already trembling with excitation, she made herself move despite her loud heart in her chest, the sickness in her stomach and her sweating hands.

Then, two steps ahead, it happened. It was horrible and walked out the black wall as if was only made of mist. It had its eyes gushing thick blood and half of its disfigured face seemed like it was ripped out.

“Help me!” begged the creature from out of the shadows while grabbing Lana’s arm with his raw nail-less fingers, which sent a terrifying shiver through the girl’s body. “Please! He’s coming, help me!”

Lana stumbled forward, getting free of the man’s grip who continued to shout behind her, maddened. Not even two seconds passed when a little girl slipped right in front of her and stopped. Lana screamed, terrified of the little girl’s appearance, who wore a children’s dress. The little girl shouldn’t be more than ten and her eyelids had been pushed grotesquely to the sides, fixated with a wire that surrounded her head like a crown, highlighting the diamond-shaped raw meat around her eyes while her mouth was sewed shut.

Her silence, even with the other creature screaming in agony and despair behind Lana, was completely disturbing, and, staring at her green that didn’t blink, she felt her dinner coming up her throat for a moment. Lana almost couldn’t contain her gag, even though she couldn’t stop staring at the neon green eyes that made her panicking.

The girl slowly retreated from her way and Lana hurried, having to get away from that creature, but she was pushed back rudely at her third step and turned to see why. She felt she could pass out from the fear as she stared up at a man full of scars that had his mouth and skin looking like it was rotting, he smiled at her, his teeth all rotten as well, making her stop breathing for a second.

“Mine,” the creature growled with a maniac stare at Lana. “You’re mine.”

“No,” she mumbled weakly, stumbling backwards when another voice started to sound, yelling:

“Course she’s not yours, animal.” The demon appeared from the wall, just like the first creature, and still managed to surprise Lana. His eyes were totally white, he’s eyelids seemed to be in raw meat and he had horns on his forehead that had blood dripping from the torn skin. “She belongs to the Master.

“Yes, Master’s,” a whispered voice agreed but it didn’t embody anything and Lana couldn’t identify where it was coming from, which only made her more nervous as the whispers became louder. She ran to the exit, feeling her legs shaking. “Yes, she belongs to Mater, Master’s pet, Master’s, yes...”

And finally, finally, she reached the end of the corridor, but what Lana saw didn’t help her calm down. A clown was waiting in front of the wall that delimited the place and it was smiling to her with a smile that exposed its sharp and stained blood teeth from one ear to another. The white makeup on the clown’s face was stained with a blood-red color and the white wild eyes stared at her as if it could attack her at any given moment.

“Here, ma’am,” it spoke in a thin, grotesque voice that made her shiver while it pointed the passage to his side, for which she should go through. “The Master awaits you.”

Lana swallowed, but continued her way, making sure she was passing as far away as she could from the clown that kept staring at her with the wildness of a psycho. And maybe it is one, Lana thought while entering the place where the corridor led her. Maybe all people here are psychopaths for working in a place like the Demon’s Castle Horror Circus.

The circus surely was committed to fulfill their mission: terrorizing innocent people. Lana looked at the same mist of the corridor accumulating throughout the bleachers that lined up to the oval stage that seemed more like a black abyss than anything.

“I loved it!” Gal’s excited voice sounded behind her, making Lana scream from the scare, still tense because of what had happened in the corridor. Her scream echoed in the totally empty place, making it even louder. Lana looked at her only best friend with severity, scolding her while they walked to the middle of the bleachers.

“Don’t do that again.”

Gal just smiled, knowing that Lana loved to be scared and that, despite the panic, she loved the place. They sat in the third row, not far away from the stage, listening to the people screaming when passing through the corridor of torture, as Lana fondly had named it. The two friends felt the anxiety and expectations burning up with their blood running through their veins and looked at each other, excited, from time to time, while the audience filled up the bleachers, all of them seeming a little bit sick from the panic.

All the lights were turned off as soon as the last person sat. Lana could hear people yelling, scared, but she limited herself to holding Gal’s hand, smiling a little bit when feeling her heart in her throat. A single spotlight was lit up in the center of the stage, revealing a macabre figure.

The man's vest was all black, from his Victorian tailcoat and shoes to his cane, that was resting on his shoulder. His skin was pale as a corpse and his long thick beard was blue. The disturbingly white eyes were visible and penetrating even from afar. He stared at his audience with a serious expression, walking slowly to the border of the stage. His cane, now tapping on the wood floor, was the only thing was the only thing that made noise. The people, eager for the show to start soon, started to murmur between each other, impatient.

Lana knew that out there, the night was clear because of the new moon and the reality was way much gentler, but inside the circus the tension seemed to crush her and push her attention to the rhythmic movement of the presenting man’s cane, preventing her from thinking about her problems and how much she’d like her life was different.

“Silence!” Shouted the man to hear the crowd and all of them silenced again when they heard his voice tone down to a hoarse murmur that cursed all of them.  “The Master is getting closer.”

The echo of the steps could be heard from afar. The voice of the figure that was present on the stage was thick and echoed in the circus’s long black tarpaulins. He said again:

“Few little people know the Master personally, but those who do...,” he paused and delayed his look to the audience, “shout.”

And, for a fact, the screams were heard, all of them from the entry’s corridor. Turning back, like all the others when she heard the screams of agony and despair, Lana felt her heart, which was behaving while the cane was tapping the floor, speeding again and she had to take a deep breath to contain the sensation.

Then, he appeared. It was exactly the same man who had appeared in the middle of the stage: there was no difference between the two of them in their clothes, makeup, and appearance. They even seemed like the same person. Lana frowned, trying to find something in the second man’s height or weight that could differentiate them from the first one, but they looked alike even in those things. A laughter behind her made her jump and turned back to look at the stage, where the first man was no more.

“You, my slaves,” said the second man, turning back everyone’s attention to himself while he climbed down the stairs to the stage. The voice, which had a narrative tone, became a growl of contempt when Blue Beard mentioned the wife who defeated him, “have heard my story a lot of times, I guarantee. You heard about how I was feared and respected by women that belong to me and how they were punished when went to my basement. Until she came. My eighth wife.”

The man reached the middle of the stage and stood there, looking to the public as his doppelganger. He only stood there in silence until, not much time later, a new voice came and neutral, and it involved the audience in its soft plot, like a spiderweb, making them forget that it had a spider.

The man who was speaking now wore a modern and elegant, black and golden suit and a mask in the same colors. His way of walking, just like his voice, was calm and paced. He appeared from behind the black curtain from that was on the back of the stage and was smiling calmly while he spoke. His hair was caramel-blond, his face had sharp masculine edges and his stubble, but his eyes, weren’t visible because of the mask: there were black holes in her place.

 The witch Mágissa was Blue Beard’s eighth wife, also the smarter of them all,” he said and the man with the blue beard smiled with cruelty. “Mágissa was the most powerful among all of the witches and had a friend who she could rely on. This friend that always despised Blue Beard and was always despised by him.”

“Erick Soleir,” Blue Beard growled on his side, looking furious at the mention of Mágissa and Erick. “The cause of my destruction. I could easily rip off a man at that moment, but I’m gonna be content with yours for now.”

Before the public could process what, he was saying, Blue Beard ripped the man’s head off, making the audience gasp, shocked. It really seemed that he had decapitated the man: the body had fallen on the floor with a muffled noise and was immobile since then while his head was dripping blood between Blue Beard’s hands.

To Lana’s total despair and horror, the man smiled to the head that he ripped off and drank the dripping blood, leaking to his face with the deep red blood. She could have thrown up right there if not for her utter fascination for that revoltingly grotesque show. Blue Beard looked at the shocked or disgusted audience with a maniac satisfaction, the blood dripping through his neck and staining his tailcoat’s collar.

“He was the first one this night to lose his life,” Blue Beard announced while smiling and his teeth were reddish. “And I swear to Satan that I will take Erick Soleir’s blood tonight. If not, may the demons drag me to eternal damnation!”

 And like an explosion, the light was turned off again just the right amount of time to allow the actor to leave the stage. When they lit up again, the spotlights focused on a couple: a woman and a man who looked at each other with affection. The woman was dressed in a 19th-century dress that was ornate from the neckline to her waist with lace and the skirt was plain, covering her feet. The dress adapted to her body perfectly, highlighting her curves and making her look like a powerful woman. She was wearing a mask that made Lana touch her own face, uncomfortable with the sensation of looking at the woman’s face: the mask was made of skin and the impression Lana had been that it was stuck to her face with wire, but the woman was actually holding it by a thin stick.

         The man, that looked at the woman with a smile, also wore old black and red clothes. It wasn’t hard to guess that he was playing a vampire when Lana considered the pale skin from the makeup or the rose teeth from drinking blood. He looked like the man who was decapitated by Blue Beard with his blond hair and muscular body, but the difference was in his face: he had a thin face, not as sharp. The fangs that made part of his characterization, together with the blood, didn’t bother Lana, who was stretching to see his eyes. She felt an absurd necessity of looking at them.

By the corner of her eyes, she noticed that the dark characters she had encountered in the entry corridor had spread out through the bleachers and the audience avoided them as the devil ran from the cross. This made Lana distracted for a moment and she smiled at the people who were averted, and anxious when they saw a disfigured face between them. Or a killer clown. But soon her attention was once more attracted to the vampire.

He was fascinating in an almost analytical way for Lana. The smile he was showing off was real — he enjoyed what he was doing —, but it had a bit of irreverence and sarcasm. What could he possibly be thinking so that his smile would look like this?

His posture was impeccable and just like his smile, it showed an aura of rebellion around him. Lana felt jealous for a moment. Everything she could show with her own posture was that she was being sold in the marriage market. She tried to look at his eyes one more time and sighed in frustration when she realized he was wearing red lenses.

There was something in this character that irrevocably attracted her and Lana just came down from her thoughts' imaginary island when his voice was heard. It was low and hoarse, but somehow it could echo for the how arena, including through her body, which tingled softly, making her frown, confused with that sensation.

“Well, my dearest Mágissa, take off your mask for me. You know I’m your slave and your king and between us, there are no barriers nor secrets,” he said in a solemn tone and the witch smiled before taking off her mask, revealing its shape in her face in raw meat. The vampire murmured, looking delighted. “Your blood smells like a banquet just for me.”

“Come taste it, Erick,” said Mágissa in a low, passionate, and amused tone, all at the same time. She stayed still when the vampire’s expression turned almost predatory and got close to her slowly, leaning to her face as if he would kiss her.

Lana was close enough to see the vampire’s tongue as he tasted the fake blood of the raw meat of Mágissa’s cheekbone. The view sent a shiver that had absolutely nothing to do with fear through her body and she felt like everything around her was suddenly silencing. At that moment, she was completely hooked. She couldn’t even hear Gal whispering her sarcastic comments in her ear or the audience yelling in disgust or repulse.

“Your taste is sweet, my Mágissa,” said Erick while stopping and moving away from the witch with a satisfied smile. Lana felt her face heating up because of the double meaning of his words. She carefully looked while a conversation about Erick’s preoccupations started between him and her while also paying attention to the creatures walking through the bleachers so that she wouldn’t be caught by surprise by them.

Lana felt tense when she saw Blue Beard entering the scene and catching Mágissa and Erick together. The man with the blue beard had a cruel expression on his face and he raged about being the owner of everything that surrounded his castle, like the forest in which the witches lived, and about how Erick could never see his friend again if she didn’t marry him.

The vampire hated the proposal, he even thought about staying away to prevent that from happening while Mágissa insisted on becoming Blue Beard’s wife and that made them fight pretty badly. Lana watched, biting her lips, while the vampire went away, leaving Mágissa alone and obviously upset. But she was consoled by other witches who entered the stage and, just like her, wore black dresses and had parts of their skin missing out for everyone to see. It should be a characteristic of the witches, Lana considered, shrugging it off unlike the audience, who looked sick. She, on the other hand, was loving every bit of it, the macabre seeming even more appealing to her at every passing second, once it was the complete opposite of everything she was used to in her real life.

Lana smiled at the friendship the witches had, calling themselves sisters and being caring about Mágissa’s grief over the loss of her best friend and lover because of the fight they had earlier. Lana really liked to see how bad the witches treated Blue Beard, even on his own wedding day, and how they made up a plan for her to kill him.

While the play went on, the grotesque creatures that certainly would visit her nightmares circled the stage and spread out again throughout the bleachers, like they were expecting something. When they saw their Master, they would make a lot of noise and racket, but the rest of the time, they only walked along the bleachers, scaring those who were talking or too concentrated on the show, which made screams sound every now and then. Lana smiled when she saw one of them reach for her and then move away, disappointed that she was so attentive. She even considered letting herself get carried away to allow them to scare her, but decided against it. She was much more interested in the story and didn’t want to lose the details of it because of an unnecessary scare.

“Fascinating,” Lana heard Gal murmur when they watched Mágissa and Blue Beard’s wedding. She knew her friend was focused on the amount of research that would allow them to make that scene and she could almost already hear her discourse about that subject for the rest of the week after spending entire nights searching about it.

When she was already trapped in Blue Beard’s castle, Mágissa went into a stubborn mood and, as punishment, she had to watch as sacred animals were killed in front of her. The public, who looked already appalled by the macabre costumes and makeup, decided that it would be wise to leave the popcorn for later when they watched Blue Beard slicing owls and wolves in the middle.

Mágissa cried blood seeing the innocent animals being sliced open and screamed like she was the one being murdered. Lana felt her agony deep in her core, feeling extremely uncomfortable seeing those animals’ deaths in so much detail. In the moment Blue Beard was preparing himself to slice a living owl, Gal leaned into her and murmured:

“I found out that they show Blue Beard torturing Mágissa when she discovers the basement.” Lana frowned, wondering how her friend knew that, something that Gal clarified quickly, looking suspiciously innocent. “The city’s newspaper doesn’t have a loyal journalist.”

“Gabriel again, Gal?” Lana asked, forgetting about the play and turning to look at her best friend, preoccupied, even while remembering to keep her voice down. The girl, who had a careful disinterested expression on her face, shrugged.

“He’s good at what he does,” she murmured as an explanation and Lana rolled her eyes while pretending to pay attention in the play. “Plus, it’s not like I had accepted going back with him, Lana.”

“I know, but this doesn’t mean I don’t have to worry about it,” Lana said in an annoyed whisper. “Do you know how many abusive relationships start and how your relationship with Gabriel ends?”

Gal rolled her eyes, mad with her friend’s reaction, and said:

“Lana, you need to live in the real world and not in this bubble of fear and glass that Henrique has put you in since you were a kid. Then you’d be able to say what’s an abusive relationship.”

“Henrique doesn’t put me in...” Lana began to protest but they were interrupted by a thump of their bodies, as if they were on the bumper cars and had hit each other unknowingly. The yaw was caused by a man that was holding them by their shoulders.

“Silence, girls,” the reprimand was made in a funny tone, and the man, who was actually about their age, smiled at them naughtily. He, just like Erick Soleir, wore just a little makeup, just enough so that Lana could identify him as spirit because of the neck injury, and his skin, darker than hers, were dimmed to a grayish brown.

He had chocolate-colored eyes, an unshaven beard, and a sharp jawline, really masculine. His white shirt was open, allowing them to see his muscular chest. Gal arched her eyebrows to Lana, approving him, and had the audacity to whistle at him.

“Hey, Asher,” said Gal in a low voice, renewing Lana’s ulterior suspicions: her friend had already watched the play and they were here again just because of her. Lana squinted at Gal, but she was too concentrated on her flirt and ignored her.

As if he had just recognized Gal, the guy’s eyes shimmered with malice, but he didn’t say anything, just moved away from them and continued to do his job. Not wanting to be a victim of any more scares, they looked at each other, silently communicating, and turned their attention to the play. Lana rolled her eyes and snorted.

To this point, Blue Beard had already caught Mágissa in his basement and he had imprisoned the witch in a wood table fit for the torture of women in the Inquisition. Lana felt a shiver down her body when she thought about the torture she was about to see. Blue Beard had an almost calm voice when he said:

“What did you do, Mágissa?” he asked while turning her mask in his hand and looking at her fighting to be free from the chains that locked her and her magic up. “You betrayed your husband, Mágissa. Me, when I love you so much. What a horrible thing to do.”

“You don’t know what love is, Blue Beard,” the witch spat those words to her husband and stared at him like an equal despite her position at the table. Lana felt her admiration for that character increase and smiled a bit. “Don’t be a hypocrite, you bastard.”

The man just smiled softly and said in a smooth and dangerous voice that promised violence:

“Let’s see after that if you’ll be as naughty as you are now.”

Then he showed her mask and ripped it in two before ripping it again in four parts. Mágissa gasped from the pain and more blood dripped off her face, staining the white dress she was wearing. Amused by the witch’s suffering, Blue Beard smiled even more, his eyes shimmering with maniac while he grabbed a sharp knife.

“I want to know who the hell is responsible for their visual effects,” Gal said in resolution when the man stabbed Mágissa's arm without any hesitation or care, making her scream and cry while blood dripped down, dark red and thick. Mágissa's screams got higher and more disturbing while the torture went on and her sounds of despair were able to make Lana shiver in anguish. Some people paled and couldn’t watch as the show went on, looking away from what was happening.

Lana couldn’t avoid the gasp when she watched as Blue Beard slowly ripped the skin off Mágissa’s arm, revealing the raw muscle underneath it. Slowly, he also removed ir, leaving the nerves, bones, and veins exposed. Lana shivered as she saw it, holding her own arm tightly to placate the feeling crawling under her skin.

When she thought she couldn’t take the screams and Blue Beard’s slow torture, the witches, Mágissas’ sisters, broke in the cellar furiously, her skirts fling around them magically. None of them seemed happy and Lana shuddered with the rageful stares they were giving Blue Beard.

One of them, the oldest Lana could see, pointed her long thin finger at Blue Beard, who looked downright chilled and let his knife fall to the ground. Lana couldn’t hold back a smile as she noticed the fear in that horrible man’s eyes and expression.

“You abused our sisters before Mágissa, Blue Beard,” said the oldest witch with a warning voice. “Today you went too far. You tried to abuse the strongest among us and it won’t go unpunished, because you won’t defeat her. Mágissa will rise and get her revenge because no witch will ever forget the cruelty of men. You’ll meet your punishment by the hands of her who is our sister.”

With a wave of her hand, the oldest witch opened the cuffs locking Mágissa up and the young witch hurried to get up, almost falling over the table in which she had been tied up. She was grimacing in pain while she stood side by side with the other witches and cradled her injured arm. The oldest said to her:

“Erick told us you needed help.”

Mágissa smiled as she heard that, but her smile quickly faded as she turned to face Blue Beard, who stepped back.

“I really wanna know how they made this amputation look so real,” Gal murmured, intensely watching Mágissa as if she could read the answer inside the actress’ mind. Lana frowned.

“The skin of her hand was fake and the bones, veins, and nerves are body painted,” she explained, and Gal sighed after a few seconds in silence.

“I’ll never get how you can see this kind of thing,” she announced, putting an end to the matter and Lana didn’t bother to hide the smile growing on her lips.

“Seven times you maimed and tortured us, Blue Beard,” Mágissa said in an echoing voice that surprised Lana. She wasn’t expecting the special effect in the witch’s voice. “Therefore, seven times worse will be your punishment. You, Blue Beard, are doomed to suffer at the hands of the creatures you’ve imprisoned and enslaved. You’ll be hurt as you hurt others until the High Priestess says otherwise.”

“From now on,” the oldest witch, who was the High Priestess, announced: “This punishment will be forever and no power on Earth or underneath it will be able to stop it.”

A thunder rumbled and all of the creatures who were surrounding the audience gathered in a circle around Blue Beard, who had now a panicked expression that seemed to satisfy the audience. The lights flickered throughout Blue Beard’s demise, showing his face in flashes of despair as he was engulfed by the creatures and dragged out of the stage. The witches hugged and soon Erick appeared with a soft smile towards Mágissa. Slowly, the witches left the stage, leaving them alone.

Erick closed the distance between him and Mágissa, who smiled softly, her amputated hand long forgotten, probably because they didn’t seem to feel pain so intensely, seen as several parts of their bodies were skinless, Lana absently thought. The vampire and the witch held each other in silence and the lights went out, ending the show.

Lana felt the bleachers under her shaking as the other actors went downstairs to the stage and the lights went up again. All of the audience rose to applaud the group, who were all smiling, a lot less threatening than during the show. At some point in the middle of it all, Lana’s eyes traveled to Erick, who was openly smiling, just like his colleagues. His eyes, still with the red lenses, danced through the people in the crowd, who was applauding profusely, then stopped on her.

Erick’s intense stare made Lana’s body heat up and her lips tingled uncomfortably. He stared at her for a couple seconds, but it felt like years to her, who felt increasingly unable to avert her eyes from the vampire. So he was the one who did it first, ending the tremendous applauses and whistles with a final smile and disappearing behind the curtains with the other actors.

Gal, who was smiling beside her, was the first to pull her to the exit while people passed by them, talking about how much they liked the show.

“It’s a phenomenal review of Blue Beard,” the girl was saying, mesmerized as she side-hugged, Gal’s arm around her neck. “I got shivers in most of the scenes!”

“Me too and it was amazing,” Lana agreed with a smile.

“This city lives in the past centuries, I swear,” Gal suddenly said, cutting the conversation short.

Lana turned to where her friend was watching just to see a considerable amount of people protesting against the Circus with moralist and religious phrases in banners right at the place’s entryway; the workers trying to gently push people away. Both of them stood still for a few minutes, watching as the horde of revolted people tried to enter the circus by force. Gal didn’t hesitate to push Lana:

“These people are exactly like your grandfather; it isn’t a surprise he’s so idolized in the city.”

“My grandpa doesn’t live in the past century,” Lana defended him, feeling a bitter taste filling her mouth as she talked about Henrique. “He’s just conservative.”

Gal just snorted and pointed the obvious:

“He tried to scare my parents away from the city when we moved in, Lana. And look at what you’re wearing because of him! It looks like a seven-year-old's, for God’s sake.”

         Lana pictured the clothes she was wearing that night as she avoided looking down. It was one of the shortest dresses she could find and yet, it still went just a bit above her knee and probably had been bought to her when she was way younger. With her height, barely changed since she was twelve, it was hard to know if whether her clothes were from when she was a kid or not. The dress was yellow and its orange fall leaves were painted all around it and it had fall-themed drawings on the bottom. The cleavage covered her collarbone and it was sleeveless. As the night was cold, Lana had put on a thin yellow sweater and brown shoes. As she thought of it, Lana blushed.

“Okay, maybe this isn’t exactly the adequate attire to wear to a Horror Circus,” she admitted, blushing even harder when Gal let out a sarcastic laugh. “It’s not funny, Gal, you know I have no other thing to wear!”

         “If you were my size, I’d give you my clothes for when we hang out, but you’re too short, Lana,” Gal said in a kind mocking tone, then she grew serious: “And you only have these clothes because you’re too afraid to buy something your grandfather doesn’t approve of. You need to stand up for yourself, Lana, your grandfather can’t control you forever.”

 “He doesn’t control me,” Lana protested, but it lacked conviction as she knew that was a joke or a lie, and she felt the same bitter taste again. Lana just miserably added: “He just wants what’s best for me, Gal.”

“But he doesn’t trust you enough to let you decide what’s good for yourself,” Gal countered in a hard tone and Lana shut up, swallowing her own unpolite response and not commenting further. Gal, who still had her arm around Lana’s neck, noticed her reaction and sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be harsh. It’s not your fault.”

“Alright,” Lana mumbled back, her eyes on the grass under their feet. To break the ice, Lana brought back their earlier subject. “So you didn’t hang out with Gabriel, then.”

Gal gave her an apologetic smile.

“Does it help if I say I liked it so much I wanted to watch it again?” Asked her friend.

Lana sighed, her suspicion confirmed beyond any doubt: Gal had lied about not watching the show just to get her out of her house and bring her there. And, on the first time she came to the circus, she hooked up with the ghost who had scared them.

“No, but thank you for the effort,” Lana said.

Gal knew Lana couldn’t leave her house very often — it was too dangerous for Henrique to notice her absence —, but she couldn’t help but feel grateful for her friend’s effort in taking her out of the house and making her live a little. Something Lana didn’t do very often.

“Well, someone has to do it, since your grandfather was born in the Middle Ages,” Gal grumbled, probably not wanting to be heard.

Lana sighed. She was tired of that conversation, so she preferred to stay silent about it, knowing Gal wouldn’t instigate it also.

They walked through the wet grass to the parking lot, where Oman’s car was parked. Lana knew that what Gal had spoken back in their discussion was the truth, but even if the strongest desire in Lana’s heart was freedom, she couldn’t give up her relationship with her grandpa because of it.

It wasn’t a big sacrifice to give up her freedom when she never had any to begin with, or when she experienced it so little, she could barely feel its taste. Lana didn’t care enough about it if it’d make Henrique happy.

“What’s up?” Gal suddenly asked, waking Lana from her depressed thoughts about her life and making her look up to where the two young men stood near their motorcycles.

Gal obviously needed to stop and flirt with one of them, who Lana recognized as the ghost who had scared them during the show — Asher. He had chocolate brown eyes and a sexy aura Around him as he smirked: exactly the kind of guy who attracted her friend’s ferocious eyes.

Just like Gal, he had an unwavering malicious smile.

“We’re fine,” Asher answered. “This is Cam, the friend I mentioned last time.”

He gestured at his friend and Lana, as she looked at him for the first time, recognized him immediately. It was the vampire, Erick Soleir. With a curious look, she openly analyzed him, not worrying — as she always did — about being rude.

He had hazel eyes and smiled at Lana in a disdainful way that, even though it deeply annoyed her, just made him look even hotter. Cam had a thin face and his face without makeup was so sunburnt that his cheekbones and lips were reddish, something Lana considered a crime. Like, how could anyone keep their sanity seeing those slightly swollen, shining, rosy lips?

She certainly couldn’t, because she had to stop herself to bite her own lips when she noticed his. Cam was fit and both he and Ashe still wore their show costumes.

“This is Lana,” Gal said, smiling at Asher, her dark green hair shining under the full moon’s and the circus’ lights, which flickered rhythmically. “I also told you about her.”

If there was something Lana envied about her friend’s appearance, it was her hair. Usually, Gal always painted it dark green, which fit her skin tone, an olive tone that shone under golden light. Her hair, always voluminous, was shorter on the back, longer up front, and had bangs that fitted her. Gal’s face was oval and her lips attracted the attention, especially when she wore her favorite brown lipstick.

She had broad hips and big breasts, which always made her think she was fat, in consequence making Lana roll her eyes a lot, not because being fat was a problem, but because Gal was most certainly not.

She greeted the two men with a shy wave of her hand before turning to face the ground, silently asking to be left alone as she always did in the tedious parties her grandfather took her, all of them organized by her grandfather’s friends — or his children, which didn’t help.

“Are you two together now?” Asher asked without any embarrassment in his tone.

Amused, Lana smirked and lifted her eyes back to him.

“No,” she said with that small smile and Gal just explained:

“We’re just friends.”

Asher smiled, satisfied with his response, and hurried to invite them, his eyes never leaving Gal’s:

 “So do you want to go grab something to eat with us?”

Lana frowned, her smile fading when Gal turned to her, excited with the invitation and fighting not to let it too obvious. She checked the hours on her wristwatch, groaning softly as she saw it was already midnight, and showed it to Gal, who sighed.

“We can’t,” Gal said with another heavy sigh and Lana bit her lip, feeling guilty for depriving her friend of some fun. “I have to take Lana home in fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.”

“I can do it,” Cam offered in a calm and collected tone, the exact opposite of what Lana was feeling as she heard his offer. “She just has to give me the address.”

Gal looked at Lana, who, with her friend’s excitement at the prospect of hanging out with Asher in mind, couldn’t help but to nod, accepting a lift from the blond man. Gal smiled, satisfied, but quickly turned to Cam, a finger in his face as her expression grew dangerous:

“I’ll trust you because you’re an employee here and a friend of Asher’s, but touch a strand of her hair and I’ll hunt you down and destroy everything you love in your life.”

Lana laughed when Cam’s eyes got wide and he rose his hands as a peace sign, shaking his head while Gal and Asher walked away and got on his bike, which had a pretty dark green painting. Lana kept smiling as she watched the bike pulling away but became serious quickly as she turned to Cam, who watched her with amusement, although there was something in his expression, something she couldn’t quite place.

“Calm down, princess,” he said with that annoying smirk. “Even if your friend doesn’t trust me, I won’t bite unless you ask.”

Lana rolled her eyes — something she wasn’t used to do, but that man annoyed her in a way few people could. She refrained from commenting on how cliché that phrase was and said in an irritated tone:

“Just hurry up, vampire boy.”

He raised his eyebrows as if he was surprised and smiled a little bit more truthfully before pointing to his own bike.

“Your dress will go up too high if you get on the bike,” he warned in a provoking tone, smirking just because he knew it would annoy her.

Ignoring him with an angry look, Lana analyzed the bike, a black Yamaha YZF-R1 that made her frown in surprise. That was one of the most beautiful bikes she’d ever seen and its design had won the German Design Award. She suppressed the desire to whistle at the bike and just answered him:

“As long I get home quickly, it doesn’t really matter.”

“Since the princess is in such a hurry,” Cam said with a shrug, grabbing two leather jackets. Lana took one of them, even if it looked ridiculously big on her. Generally, most clothes looked ridiculously big on her, so Lana was used to it. Cam, however, said: “Maybe I can get the keys to the jeep if I can find my dad.”

She ignored him and got upon the bike behind him with some struggle as she tried to keep the dress down, but Cam’s mocking laughter made her give up and allow her dress to go up to the Middle of her thighs, hidden under the leather jacket. It doesn’t look so bad, she considered as she looked down to herself. It also shut Cam the hell up and he just started the engine and told her to hold onto him — passing her the helmet meanwhile — before asking her address.

Riding on a motorcycle, Lana considered, was definitely for few people, but she was most certainly included on the list. The feeling of the cold wind in her skin and hair, or at last the parts of her body that could feel it, was enough to make her heart beat faster in excitement. Although she was holding onto Cam’s middle strongly, Lana stretched out to let her face be hit by the wind through the helmet and smiled silly as she felt it cold.

Lana was so focused on the feelings running through her body, that she began to notice the feeling of Cam’s masculine body against her, the fact that her hands could feel his hard-defined abdomen against her fingers, how warm he was despite the cold night, and how close he was to her.

Before Lana could stop her own body from being inappropriate, the bike slowed down and stopped in front of Gal’s parent’s house, who were talking on the front porch while they waited for their children to come home in a piece and busied themselves with eating cookies and drinking hot cocoa, as usual. Mino and Sam Oman, who were Syrian refugees, had five children, of which three were adopted from everywhere in the world and two were biological.

The oldest of them was Sara, who was twenty-five; she had already moved out and lived in Rio de Janeiro, she was Mino’s biological daughter. The second was Jonie, who was twenty-two, was Sam’s biological son and hadn’t leave home yet, but had a stable job while he was majoring in International Relations; he said he was saving up to move to Brasília permanently. The middle child was Gal, who was eighteen and hadn’t left yet because of Lana. The fourth, who was fifteen, was Vichi (pronounced Viki), was quite shy, but a good friend to Lana as well. The youngest was little Ania, who was just five years old and loved to play with Lana every time she could.

When they saw him, Mino and Sam waved in a silent greeting, knowing they couldn’t warn Henrique about her presence. It was easy for them to be quiet, actually, once Sam was deaf. Lana had learned sign language with Gal and her younger siblings, which helped a lot When she snuck out. Ignoring Cam, she gestured at the two parents, warning them:

“Gal is fine, but she’s gonna be late.”

Sam seemed satisfied with that explanation and gestured back at her:

“Your granpa is in the office, careful with the noise of the bike.”

She thanked them with an adequate gesture and turned to Cam, who was watching their interaction with an amused and intrigued expression.

“You’ll have to wait until I get to my room before leaving,” Lana said in a professional tone and pointed at the window of her bedroom. “Can you see that window? The lights will go on, but you can only leave when I switch them off, okay?”

“You needed to sneak out of your house to go to a circus?” He asked as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said, but Lana could reprehend him. She was too busy blushing, embarrassed for the fact that he’d understood too well what was happening.

Of course, she was embarrassed: she was eighteen and still needed to sneak out of her house to go to a damned circus. How could Lana justify that without sounding like a childish fool? The answer was clear: she couldn’t, so she didn’t, suppressing the feeling of humiliation and the will to cry in anger.

“Did you hear what I said?” She asked, clenching her teeth without looking at him.

Cam smiled at her, provocatively, but just nodded, leaving her feeling relieved with the change of subject. Trusting his response, Lana walked through the side corridor to the back entrance, entering the kitchen of beige tiles where Dinda, the chef, was at, waiting for her to come back home. Lana gave Dinda a thank you kiss and followed to the corridor, tiptoeing, struggling to keep silent as she passed in front of her grandfather’s office. Fortunately, she managed to pass without any problem and went to her room.

After she cleaned the make-up on her face and put on comfortable pajamas, Lana switched off the lights and paid attention to the almost imperceptible noise of Cam’s bike, which seemed to be taking away all of the freedom she tasted that night.

Chapter 2 - Coming Soon...

All Angels From Heaven Above - Chapter 2

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

Buy the whole book through this link!

The address Damian Kolasi gave her was public and known enough so no one would find it strange seeing them together. On the other hand, it was also dangerously close to her coven’s headquarters, where witches gathered every time they could, which could mean that, if she decided to go, she’d have to explain herself to some curious wizards and witches. 

All those thoughts swirled in Adra’s mind while she closed the store and walked through the cobblestone street without a hurry, positioning her keys between her fingers. She wasn’t especially worried that someone could try to attack her — she had her powers to defend herself — but it was always good to be alert.

As if in mockery of Adra’s lack of fear, a thick fog filled Agraés, making her steps a mystery that should reveal itself in each corner while the old and imposing buildings loomed before her like ancient giants. She liked the city, despite the constant gloomy weather and the silent streets, full of danger waiting for her in every block.

Damian Kolasi’s deal, vastly different from the path she was taking because of the posteriors letter she had received, was intriguing and mysterious enough to make her suspicious. Adra didn’t like to be in that position, mainly because the demon knew her curiosity would be louder than her caution. He knew Adra would meet him even before she made her decision and that was utterly annoying.

Even so, that was a unique opportunity. Lethe Academy for Demonic Arts — a name she’d rather change — was quite literally the best school in all Nikaés, teaching demons from all over the world for dozens, if not hundreds, of generations. 

It didn’t even have a foundation date because no one knew how old was the school. It had five different libraries for each main subject of teaching, plus one for recreation, more than fifty classrooms, and a faculty with the best of the best teachers: the Academy was the most wonderful and intriguing place Adra had ever seen in her life.

And there she was, on the edge of getting in, if only she could dare to be the first witch to do so. Even if it hurt, even if it was going to be difficult as hell, even if she had to crawl her way onwards, that would be her only chance to get in.

Deciding she’d think about it, Adra sighed and hurried, in haste to get to the Coven. 

She heard footsteps behind her and tensed, unable to avoid them, even knowing that whoever it was would probably go away once they noticed she was a witch. And indeed it didn’t take long for that to happen, letting her relax again.

The city where Adra had grown up, Agraés, was in the south of Níkaes and it boiled down to a set of old-structured buildings, almost all of them beige or grayish, narrow streets and silent alleys between buildings, with a central river called Thanatos, which divided the city in two. Quite often, that was the description of tourists and uninterested visitors whose final destination was the capital, Mávros.

But to the residents and the Academy’s students who were brave enough, Agraés had its own magic inside its ancient structure and its alleys that would only wake up at dawn. At the main avenues, like the one where Kia and Adra’s apartment and store were located, the nights were monotonous and quiet, like no living soul lived there, but one just had to walk a couple of blocks to see the first evidence that Agraés wasn’t like any other city.

Adra turned at the familiar alley three blocks up from her apartment and smiled when she saw the awnings of the little underground pubs with their golden round lights spread through their metallic structures. 

As she crossed the alley, Adra saw young demons — probably local children, as the Academy didn’t allow its younger students to go out of its walls — walking through the place, amazed as a young human man did magic tricks that in reality had no magic at all, but were impressive enough so that they could cheat and delight others.

It took some minutes more and several other alleys for Adra to finally reach the Coven. Unlike other passages, the place where wizards and witches gathered didn’t look especially cozy or inviting. With a simple used wooden door, the only sign that there was some kind of life inside the cold gray building was the soft light pouring through the crescent moon-shaped hole in the door, which led to the underground saloon of peeled-off walls and hard capable of conserving a corpse — something Adra had already witnessed happening there.

The letter she’d received — sent through the Shadows — had been adamant that her presence at the Coven that night was required, something that intrigued Adra. Therefore, she entered the underground building, climbing down quickly the few steps that led to the door.

As soon as Adra entered, every other witch — and the few wizards that existed in the city — looked at her, none of them happy to see her. Adra just smirked, sarcastic: she wasn’t exactly happy to be summoned to attend the meeting tonight. But the Coven did what its matron witch determined and, as a witch, Adra owed obedience to her. 

Not that she respected Eupraxia Skourleti, the matron witch of her coven, very often. Adra just knew which fights to choose. Most of the time, at least.

Some witches smiled at Adra, not for affection, but purely for politeness. They never tried to make any conversation, however. 

To most, their coven was a refuge from a world that wasn’t made for them and didn’t make any effort to understand them. A world that was dominated by demons that believed themselves to be superior to any other species and whose oppressed — the humans — were too bitter and suspicious of any demonic thing to embrace them, considering that witches were the offspring of demons with humans. So, to the witches, their coven was the family most of them didn’t have and a refuge from the cruelty all of them endured.

But Adra was different and all of them knew that. Some few people didn’t resent what she had, but most hated her for having something they could only dream of: parents who were in love with each other. Most witches were born because of a meaningless seduction of human women by demons who would abandon them without hesitation with a bastard child in their arms.

Or worse.

Adra’s parents’ union wasn’t usual — in fact, she could easily affirm she was the only legitimate daughter of a demon and a human in all Nikaés.

That should include the Nephilim, children of angels and humans, and the ouralasi, children of angels and demons: they were too few, considering the country didn’t allow the entry of angels into its territory.

Like the witches, however, they had a lot of power: while the witches could control the Darkness, the Nephilim had a powerful affinity with at least one of the natural elements, and the ouralasi had ways to transform the matter if needed.

“Adra,” the known voice called her from one of the corners of the room. The shadows of that dreary place, however full, carried the call for her alone to hear. 

The voice had the shy tone that Adra knew very well and she turned to Thalassa Stathi at the other side of the room, sustaining the relieved look of her friend and ex-girlfriend. 

Well, Adra thought while walking towards her, maybe she was a friend. The things between them were complicated since Thassie had broken up with her months ago, but the relief was undeniable, and the gratitude both of them to see a familiar face in the crowd.

Adra looked at Thalassa’s black skin, which shone under the soft, golden light of the saloon, making her a queen of gold and shadows while she leaned in the gray stone wall.

“I’m surprised you came,” said Thassie before Adra could think of something to start a small talk. “You hate all of this.”

Adra tried not to sigh when she heard the slight accusation underlying the casualty of her tone. It wasn’t her fault that the Coven wasn’t exactly welcoming.

“Oh, you know, I have to make an appearance from time to time so that they remember I exist,” she said trying to sound excited despite the insistent looks from those who couldn’t tolerate her cutting her back without remorse. Thalassa snorted. “Actually, Eupraxia called me here today. Do you have any idea of what’s going to happen?”

“Well, she called all of us, but she doesn’t seem happy to see you,” said Thalassa, pointing her head in the direction of the Coven’s matron witch. “I guess she thought you’d disobey her again.”

Fearless, Adra turned to stare at Eupraxia Skourleti. The witch, who had curly voluminous hair and emerald green eyes, was one of the oldest witches of the coven and she simply hated Adra with all her might. The feeling was surely mutual. Their motives, however, were always unknown by all, including the two of them.

But behind that obvious rivalry, Eupraxia was a talented witch, powerful and full of ambition, something that made her dangerous and admirable in the same measure. If she had said that something big would happen, it was probably true.

When their eyes met, the witch showed her teeth, deeply displeased with Adra’s presence at the Coven that night, which was ironic, considering that it was Eupraxia who had sent the letter that called her, to begin with.

The dim golden lights of the saloon flickered when Adra smiled at her, the shadows fighting to fill the place like they did when Adra was mad at Damian Kolasi just a couple of hours ago. This time, however, the anger came from Eupraxia to Adra, who became immediately alert to any possible attack. 

But Eupraxia could control herself with as much ease as it escaped her and the witch went back to her always sober expression to murmur what was probably an excuse to the older witches that stood around her and walked towards Adra and Thassie, who straightened up in her place, locking her hands behind her back in a sign of respect for the matron witch.

Adra didn’t bother to do the same.

“Hello, Mrs. Skourleti,” greeted Thassie with a nervous half smile, receiving a polite and professorial nod in exchange.

“Miss Stathi,” said Eupraxia in a murmur before turning to Adra, the emerald green in her irises shining with hatred when the girl raised her chin. “Miss Anoixi, it’s a surprise to see you here.”

Adra smiled with the displeasure she found in the matron’s voice, perfectly delighted with that.

“Well, it’s your letter's fault, ma’am,” said Adra, just to see her squirm with anger. “It sounded important to be here tonight.”

“Yes, well...” Eupraxia looked like she sucked the sourest lemon, but didn’t have the chance to answer, because one of her apprentices, a girl with an innocent complexion and reverent eyes at her tutor, whispered in her ear. “I hope you enjoy the night, ladies. It’s about to begin.”

With that mysterious declaration, Eupraxia slipped to the other side of the saloon, leaving Thassie and Adra alone again. Adra frowned, resisting the curious desire to follow the woman and discover what the hell was happening under all of that secrecy.

“You shouldn’t treat her like this, Adra,” said Thalassa when they were sure they couldn’t be overheard by the matron, frowning in frustration when her blue-ice eyes went back to Adra. “It’ll come a day when you’ll need her and, with this kind of behavior, she’ll deny you.”

“She’s the adult here,” Adra retorted, looking at the place where Eupraxia had gone. “I’m eighteen, and she’s the one who should overlook my bad behavior.”

“And this was one of the reasons why I broke up with you.”

Thalassa took a deep breath, annoyed, and Adra felt a pang of guilt. She knew that she was a hard person to deal with, but that didn’t take away the merit of her point.

“It doesn’t matter,” Adra decided quickly, brushing off the subject by pressing Thalassa’s arm to catch the girl’s attention. “I need to tell you something.”

And just like that, with a preoccupied nod from Thassie, she told her about what had happened at the store that afternoon: Damian Kolasi, his proposal, and the meeting next week. At Adra’s every word, the girl looked even more preoccupied.

“You aren’t really thinking of going, are you?” she asked immediately when Adra finished and widened her eyes when she saw her hesitating. “Adra!”

“Shh,” Adra hissed, recoiling while the looks turned to them again. Both of them got silent for a couple of seconds. “And yes, I’m thinking of going. It’s a unique chance, Thassie. I could be the first witch to study at Lethe’s. The chances I could have...”

“Of getting yourself killed?” Thassie filled in sharply. “Adra, of all the crazy, dangerous things you did in your life, to think of believing that demon...”

But she never got to finish what she had to say, because powerful knocks sounded throughout the saloon, making all of them turn to the frail wooden door which looked ready to give in. Eupraxia appeared to shine while bouncing towards the door and opening it, allowing a big group of demons dressed in graffiti black to enter the saloon, as disciplined as an army.

The first reaction was a complete stupor of shock and incredulity, which spread through all of them like storm clouds. The Royal Guard of Agraés was there, in a weekly meeting of witches at the saloon of a decrepit building that was falling apart.

“My brothers and sisters,” Eupraxia’s voice sounded louder. Adra perceived she was using the darkness to spread her voice to all corners of the room. “Don’t be disturbed by our current company. The Royal Guard is here because we have something to do.”

Tempers flared — as was to be expected — while the witches looked around with suspicion. None of them trusted the Royal Guard at all. Authorities were full of self-importance and thought they could do anything and not be held accountable, especially when it came to witches.

The worst thing about, it was that they were right: they could easily escape from any harm done to any of them.

Adra frowned when the Guard’s lead detective entered at last, his black hair shining in the soft lighting and his lips pressed tight together in dissatisfaction. She looked away, however, when his eyes scanned the room, analyzing it with his violet irises.

Whatever it was the motive of the Royal Guard’s officers at the Coven at that moment, Adra knew that it was going to end badly: a lot of demons, with their sense of superiority, against the witches and wizard, who were feeling defensive, ready to strike like trapped animals and feeling like their safe harbor was being invaded. It was the perfect combination for chaos.

“Explain why you brought the Royal Guard, Eupraxia,” ordered Spiridon Louganis, one of the few wizards who were part of the coven for more years than Adra had spent on Earth, his guttural voice impossible to ignore. 

Eupraxia didn’t seem bothered by the veiled reprimand in Spiridon’s words and smiled at her brother.

“The Royal Guard of Agraés asked for our help in the mystery of Aglie Kalliergei’s death, the girl who died at Lethe Academy a couple of weeks ago.”

Eupraxia didn’t seem sorrowful for the death of a young woman while smiling to the group in front of her, all those wizards and witches surrounded by officers that would kill them all without thinking twice over it for the slightest sign — made up or real, it didn’t matter — of a threat in their part. None of them dared to breathe too heavily and Adra felt Thalassa squeezing her hand tightly enough to hurt.

“And what can we do?” asked Spiridon, hesitant, but directed his questions to the leading detective instead of Eupraxia. Adra and the others were even more careful and the climate around them was so tense that even that cold underground room was starting to feel stuffy.

“We want to know if the young woman was really murdered like our centers of investigation and criminalistics seem to indicate, or if it was an accident,” said the detective with an unaltered voice, looking the wizard in the eyes without any expression, be it disgust or respect. Damian Kolasi’s words echoed in Adra’s memories. A stab wound in the middle of her ribs. It couldn't be an accident, not if Damian was telling the truth. And, judging by the underlying tension on the detective’s shoulders, he was.

Go to Chapter 3

All Angels from Heaven Above on Amazon!

Hi, luvs!

So, for those of you who don't know, I posted here on Tumblr this past week a few chapters of my book, All Angels in Heaven Above, so that y'all could know it better.

It happens that I finished its translation and editing today and I managed to upload it on Amazon for you guys in its entirety, so here is the link to know more about it and read the preview on Tumblr...

And here is the link to Amazon (BR)

Just an addition: I know not everyone who reads in English is paying in American dollars, so if it's too expensive in your currency, let me know and I'll lower the prices for you!

All Angels from Heaven Above - Chapter 3

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

Buy the whole book through this link!

“I offered help to one of Detective Carino’s superiors and found a memory ritual that could answer the Royal Guard’s question regarding that… unpleasant situation,” explained Eupraxia before Spiridon could talk again, ignoring the strong tension in the saloon. 

A memory ritual demanded a lot of a group of witches and it was done in extremely delicate steps. The first part consisted of letting the shadows take their magic to where the situation had happened, which wasn’t so difficult. The second part, a bit more complicated, depended on the witch’s ability to weave a thin, intricated web of their own power so that memory could be trapped in it. 

The third one, the most dangerous of them, occurred when the other witches joined in the ritual: all of them, together, would build a bridge that would pull the memory from inside the mind of the witch responsible for the first two steps and project it into an open space, like a shadow theater.

Adra looked around, to the officers with equally disdainful and fearful expressions, and then to the nervous and cautious witches and wizards. She didn’t like the idea of doing such a difficult ritual with so much tension around her at all but the Guard would hardly accept leaving without it being done or giving them privacy.

To those demons, they needed to see to believe it. And they wouldn’t accept anything less because demons didn’t trust witches and vice-versa. The simple fact that they had accepted Eupraxia’s offer to one of her high-ranking lovers was a surprise, considering how the Royal Guard treated witches: pitiful beggars in the best-case scenario, prostitutes whose bodies and dignity were free-for-all in the worst case.

“Very well then,” Spiridon agreed begrudgingly. Not even he could deny such an important favor to the Royal Guard. “But if we’re going to do it, I want our most powerful witch doing the first two steps.”

Of course, you do, though Adra, frustrated when every pair of eyes turned to her. She didn’t like that attention and didn’t want it but didn’t have a lot of choice in it. 

Regardless of her power, the memory of the ritual would only indicate the culprit if the witch who was doing the ritual knew them. The most they would see were shadow figures and that was making her worry. Adra hoped they didn’t have too much hope about that, despite Eupraxia’s presumption.

Sighed in resignation, she stepped forward, letting Thalassa’s hand slip from her own, and stared at Eupraxia, who seemed ready to kick her. Adra ignored the lead detective’s stare when she spoke:

“Let’s go on then if no one is opposed.”

Despite Thalassa’s last warning, the woman didn’t interfere in the clash, probably too shocked by Eupraxia’s lack of prudence. That was big but it surely wasn’t good, especially considering that the chances of it going wrong were too high.

The witches seemed calmer now that Adra was chosen to do that task — she was the one in danger after all — and accepted her request, positioning herself. Spiridon nodded towards Adra when passing by her. His dark eyes didn’t apologize but Adra didn’t want apologies, so she only nodded back, walking towards the north side of the circle the other had opened in the middle of the room.

Eupraxia took to herself the task of moving the officers to a place where they could see what was happening but couldn’t interfere with the shadows. When everyone got silent, Adra closed her eyes, focusing on the Darkness, on the points of the room filled with it.

For witches, the Darkness was its own language that sang to them like old friends, as mermaids would sing to unsuspecting sailors. It could be good and bad and, especially, it could be controlled. Adra knew each song and each pun, therefore she let It flow around her, like the breath of a night breeze, cold and humid, making her hair flutter and trying to mix up with her soul.

It wasn’t so difficult to go through the city she was born into the Academy, even in the shadows, jumping from shadow to shadow quickly. And, when she entered the walls she had never entered, Adra followed to where the shadows came together more tightly, attracted by evil and Death.

She followed that still energy and, when she reached the place where Aglaie Kalliergei had died — even if she didn’t know which room was it because everything around her was just an echo of her power —, Adra focused on reviewing the dark memories, just like one would leaf through a book to see what was it about.

It wasn’t hard for her web to catch the memory she needed like a fly in a spiderweb. As soon as she got it, all the other witches felt the threads that connected them in that ritual being bound tighter, thus completing the ritual.

It was hard, however, to try not to be offended when they began to pull out the memory from her head: the feeling of being invaded was like strong dizziness and, for a moment, Adra couldn’t tell where she was or what she could see as she opened her eyes. With a deep breath, her sight adjusted to the scene that played in front of her.

The first figure appeared and Adra guessed it was the victim, even when all she could see was a black shadow like ink and water mixing up in the form of a manikin, with no sign of their own identity.

As a consequence of the successful ritual, Adra felt more than saw the restlessness of everyone in the saloon while her powers projected that image. 

If Aglaie’s death had really been a murder, the Royal Guard would have had serious problems to deal with, especially with King Stavros, since the prince had been studying at the Academy for a few years now. A piece of news like that wouldn’t be kept from the media for much longer, especially when there were other people involved in that ritual, which could chase away the usual clients of Agraés and would bring serious economic problems to the city.

Then, a second figure appeared and Adra frowned. Different from the first one, the second silhouette was diffuse, almost transparent, and she could see Thalassa’s blurred face through it.

It worried her.

Darkness called Darkness, and every kind of It — shadows made by the lights, inner evil, bad and/or too intense feelings — answered to the witches in the same way. It didn’t make sense the second figure was so different from the first one.

Confused, Adra followed the way through her own powers, trying to find something wrong in the web in which she captured the memory but there wasn’t anything. The silhouette just seemed to not have an inner darkness, which was quite literally impossible: every single one of them — demons, witches, and humans — had something bad that forced them to respond to a witch’s power, and that’s why they were so feared.

The two figures looked like they were talking but the Darkness didn’t speak the language of people and couldn’t hold on to words, that had their own power, therefore all they could hear was the cold silence of a possible fight. Then, like a snake, the blurred figure attacked the first one and a searing light blinded Adra for a second, cutting her powers off like one would cut the strings of a puppet, sending a sudden ray of pain through her throat and her chest. 

By the shocked gasps that Adra could hear through her own surprise, she could understand she wasn’t the only one who had felt it.

When all seemed back to normal and the room adjusted back to how it always was — the shadows slipping back to their rightful places — the witches looked at each other, all surprised and fearing. The ritual wasn’t supposed to end up like this, the memory should have continued.

But they still had an answer. 

“Murder,” Spiridon announced in a low tone of voice while the rest of the witches whispered among themselves, unease with what had just happened. 

Adra observed with caution when the officers walked as far away from the witches as they could while they moved but looking convinced enough to not cause trouble — or maybe they were a little more preoccupied with getting the hell out of there. She turned to Eupraxia, whose green eyes shone with presumption while facing the lead detective.

“As I said it would be,” she said.

Adra had the desire to recoil back at the danger those words could mean. By what she knew about the woman, Eupraxia was ambitious but rarely a fool. That was one of the few moments when the matron was purely stupid.

Detective Carino’s jawline was tense when he stared at Adra, ignoring Eupraxia and Spiridon’s verdict. It was just when she nodded that he turned to the woman and said:

“I’m going to send this information to my superiors, madam Skourleti, and I thank you for the help, just like I would for the discretion,” he said formally, his voice tight and rigid, his eyes sharp with an authority that seemed to come to him naturally, not from empty threats.

Eupraxia looked pleased with that answer and nodded, quickly moving away to join the fool group of women who admired her when the rest of the coven stared at her with caution. Spiridon, taking the reins of the situation, announced to the rest of the room, his voice echoing through the shadows this time:

“Well, this night was surprising to us all and I’m sure we’re all tired. Therefore, I think going home and having a good night's sleep.”

The witches grumbled their agreement, all ready to get rid of the officers, even when none of them were really planning to go home.

“Adra,” the lead detective’s voice caught her attention and Adra looked at the soft violet eyes they both shared. “We should go together.”

“Fine, Dad,” she agreed with a sigh, knowing that Carino would want to talk about what had happened that night in one way or another, so it would be better to be done with it.

Ignoring the equally disgusted looks from witches and officers, Adra took the overcoat her father gave her and put it on, sighing happily when she felt the warm flannel from the lining under the black fabric, pleased to verify that the garment was from her own wardrobe and it went all the way down the end of her equally black dress, hugging her waist like a bodice.

“Thank you for doing this,” she said, smiling at Carino, who returned the smile, still tense but caring.

“I thought you’d be here, with all this happening,” was his answer.

He sighed, looking tired, and Adra just pressed her lips together, without voicing her preoccupation. They would have time to talk while walking home.

In silence, both climbed up the stairs, emerging to the cold night air and the mist, the golden lights of the poles were the only thing they could see in the distance. Other officers from the Guard were there too, no doubt waiting to get company for the night and Adra tried not to frown at them when their eyes locked.

All of them knew she was the boss’ daughter, the only untouchable witch in that city. And not because Carino protected her but because she was the only one who had the chance to attack them back and not face the consequences of it. It was enough that they feared her even more than they feared other witches.

“Adra!” Thassie’s voice came to her ears, making her turn in time to see her friend climbing up the Coven’s stairs, her expression preoccupied but Thalassa’s arm was pulled by one of the officers, a heart-shaped man that was probably useless. 

Adra saw the panic growing in Thalassa’s eyes from afar and made her way back to her without thinking twice, in time to hear the officer saying:

“You’re a pretty piece, huh?” he sniveled, tightening his grip on her arm when Thalassa tried to escape. “Maybe you could show me what you can do, witch.”

Thassie tried to escape once again, looking scared but he just raised his hand to grip her hair. Adra caught his wrist before he could, however, making the unknown officer let go of Thalassa to face her.

“It’ll be better for your health if you don’t touch her,” Adra just said, her voice whispering the danger in the Darkness but it was the dagger in her hand, hidden from the other Guard officers, that posed the biggest threat.

The man’s eyes widened with fear when he felt the blade against his stomach.

“You little whore...”

“Careful, Gregório,” Carino said, appearing behind Adra, his voice soft, like his daughter’s, just a ruse to hide the promise of violence underneath his words. “My daughter is a bigger threat than I need to be. And I’m still your boss. Go home.”

The man looked from Adra to Carino, doubtless recognizing the semblance between them, and made his way back, whining his protests as the filthy pig he was. Letting him go, Adra turned to Thalassa, using the shield of her father’s broad shoulders to hide her dagger back in its place.

“Are you okay?” she asked and Thalassa just nodded, embracing herself. Adra’s voice got softer than she was used to when she spoke the next words: “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Thalassa said, staring at Carino, who sighed and walked away just enough so that they could talk without being heard. When she got comfortable, Thassie grabbed Adra’s hand and said, her blue eyes shining brightly. “Promise me you’re not going to hear that demon, Adra.”

She hesitated, caught by surprise by the gravity in Thalassa’s expression, and then pressed her lips together in a tight line, incapable of promising something she wasn’t able to uphold. When Thalassa saw that, her blue eyes shone with her frustration and she let go abruptly of her hand.

“Fine, and then,” she said, already climbing down the stairs, back to the Coven, no doubt to alert the other witches to use the alternative exit that night.

Adra watched her walking away, wanting to ask her friend to come back and promise her whatever she wanted but she knew she couldn’t. That was her only chance of getting into the Academy, of being the first witch to ever do such a thing. And Adra knew the importance of being the first. But she also couldn’t promise something to Thalassa because at the back of her mind, around a thin web, shone a part of the memory that wasn’t seen. 

And in it, Damian Kolasi entered the room where Aglaie Kalliergei had died just a couple of minutes after the killer.

Chapter 4 - Coming soon...

Buy the whole book through this link!

To Decadent Poets - Chapter 5

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

Once upon a time, there was a girl no one called for. No one uttered her name. (She didn’t have one) - Isabela Penov, The Impossible Lullaby.

Annie Wood was filled with expectation to meet the boys who’d be her company in Taigh Hill during the years of war but none of them seemed comfortable enough to start a conversation. Despite the terrible situation, she couldn’t say she hadn’t been expecting anxiously for the arrival of her uncle’s godson and the children of his two closest employees.

She was tired of walking around Taigh Hill alone like a too-colorful ghost haunting the sunny mansion, considering her sister, Ellen, seemed to be too busy with the clothes and jewelry she could lend from her mother to go to the city balls — and with her fiancée, of course.

Even Annie’s mother was more worried about the balls than her own youngest daughter, so Annie spent her days passing from one adult to the other. Sometimes she’d stay with her uncle Elijah in his office or the library but it wasn’t healthy for a teenager to be always inside the house, so it wasn’t rare that he ended up making her get out. Other times her father could spare some time with her but those were rare and, therefore, very loved also.

She didn’t think there was a human being she liked more than her dad.

Jamie Turner, however, was a close second. When he wasn’t working as a butler in Taigh Hill, he usually distracted Annie with his magic tricks and taught her to play poker (under the condition that she’d never bet, of course). But his obligations to the huge mansion usually didn’t allow Jamie to elongate those moments.

So, anyone could imagine how much Annie was excited to have some company her age to shake things up a bit. However, the boys didn’t seem at all comfortable and two of them didn’t even seem to be trustworthy.

She liked Noah and his shy, and calm manners. It didn’t take long for him to grab a book from the suitcase he’d brought, burying his face in it through the rest of the journey. Judging by the cover, Annie could see it was a book of poems and she got curious, just like the other two boys, Oliver and Christian.

She noticed when Evans poked Krause, pointing at Noah reading, and they exchanged a look like they were laughing at the fact the boy was reading. Annie frowned almost immediately, guessing the two were mocking the poor third boy.

Annie hated that kind of boy, who mocked everyone else because they thought so highly of themselves. But at least she already knew who she was gonna befriend: uncle’s godson wasn’t as interesting as she thought he’d be.

“Miss Wood, please!” Marjorie, her housekeeper, took Annie from her stream of thoughts and she soon realized why: while she was thinking, her body had been slowly sliding until she was seated at the edge of her seat, not even a bit worried about her posture.

Annie didn’t care that much but Marjorie, although loving, had always been very rigid regarding “christian” morals. Which basically meant Annie simply needed to, in the older woman’s mind, be a virginal lady at fourteen (almost fifteen) years old.

Which was obviously just a delusion. Teenagers were stupid and they’d always be stupid. This was the premise of being one, after all: making a lot of idiotic mistakes and regret bitterly, having their hearts broken by someone who wasn’t even worth it, fighting with their families, slamming their bedroom doors when they were made… things like that.

It was simply Annie’s purpose to be anything by a well-behaved lady.

But, of course, to her mother, whatever Annie firmly believed (or didn’t believe in) at her young age wasn’t important. So, she was tossed aside to etiquette lessons and to catechism with Marjorie during at least one-third of her week. Which was very, very boring.

Lest you misunderstood her, she knew it was important to learn about Jesus’ story and how he cared for the poor and vulnerable but there was just something in the way Marjorie spoke about it Annie couldn’t bear. She meant, how did the same man who preached about loving thy neighbor could dictate she couldn’t wear pants and more, punish her for it?

Uncle Elijah used to say Marjory had too much religion and too little faith but Annie wasn’t sure about that either. She’d seen the housekeeper getting emotional while she prayed, she’d seen her feeling God. Annie thought Marjorie let religion dictate her faith and that was dangerous: the Woman trusted more on others than herself — that was the problem.

At least, that was what Annie thought.

“We’re not far now,” said Marjorie suddenly, looking at the lawn that surrounded Taigh Hill. Annie followed the woman’s eyes when she grimaced and smiled as she saw Jack with his giant case on his back entering the property.

She couldn’t wait to get to know him but she needed to distract Marjorie first, since she thought the wanderer wasn’t a good influence on her. He mom as well didn’t think it was right of Annie to talk to someone from a lower social class. Elliott, on the other hand, was always making conversation with the man and Annie simply adored Jack.

Fortunately, Marjorie was too busy with the boy’s arrival and guiding them through the mansion, so Annie could manage to escape an run around. The first thing she did was run to Jack, who was ringing a little bell.

“Jack, I’m so glad you came!” She greeted him joyfully, watching as the man with a gray, thick beard, smiled at her, good-humored as always. “Do you have another quatrain for me?”

“Oh, Wood girl,” he greeted her with the same enthusiasm as she did even though he was almost thirty years older, his discreetly toothless smile illuminating his face through the thick beard. “Of course, I always have a quatrain for such a smart girl like yourself!”

“Declaim it, please!” She asked as he took off the bag from his shoulders, putting it on the ground. He opened the bag to reveal at least a dozen leather books, all of them about different matters, and the letters of their titles shining in gold on the covers.

She got to her knees to look at the volumes, listening intently as the vendor’s voice got deeper as he declaimed the small, funny little quatrain:

I’ll put your portrait On the pig stall So when me pigs need aid I’ll remember your love conquers all.

Annie laughed at the little rhyme, which Jack declaimed with an improvised and funny performance, throwing his arms around as he acted what he was declaiming.

“This was the worst love quatrain I’ve ever heard, Jack,” she said as her laughter died, and the old man, who was already laughing with her, laughed even more. He had a loud laughter, as happy as an adult could have.

Annie smiled at the books in the bag but soon the old salesman squeezed the tip of her nose between two curved fingers, daring her:

“I bet you can’t come up with one better right here and now, Wood girl.”

Annie smiled and looked around, watching the gardens of Taigh Hill’s property attentively, the quatrain rolling off of her tongue with scary ease:

Don’t give me yellow flowers For desperation is yet to come Give me little pink flowers So, I may yet return home

Jack, who always wore a black hat, took it off from his balding head and saluted her quatrain, clapping like a proud grandfather. It warmed Annie’s heart immediately and she didn’t hesitate to get up and thank her small, loved audience.

It was at that moment she saw Noah walking through the lawn. Annie didn’t know exactly what Marjorie had said or where she went with the boys but it seemed it didn’t take much time after all. Noah had a book in his hand and he was walking towards one of the huge willow trees next to the maze’s bush wall.

According to the map Annie had seen at the library, the maze on Taigh Hill’s property was gigantic and it even had a small stone fort in the Middle — a reminder of its feudal times, forgotten now — but she never managed to find it for real. On the other side of the mansion, there was a long set of lawn and a lake, in which Annie loved to swim when it was warm enough, which didn’t occur often.

Impulsively, Annie called, raising her voice:

“Kurtz!” The boy looked around, seemingly confused for being called by anyone.

When his eyes found Jack, who watched curiously, and Annie, the girl gestured for him to get closer.

Hesitant, Noah went to them, his skinny body seemed to shake in the breeze, which had gotten the tip of Annie’s nose cold and the joints of her fingers hurt. He was really pale, enough for the wind to make his cheeks blush, and he was tall. Annie reached just his chest, as she realized when he got close enough.

Noah also had bright brown eyes like those Annie had seen when she did charity work with underprivileged kids. It didn’t make sense but that wasn’t a matter to ask about in a casual conversation. He didn’t say anything as he got close, maybe too shy to strike up a conversation, so Annie turned back to Jack, smiling.

“Jack, this is Noah Kurtz, he’ll live with us for a while.”

“Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Master Noah,” said Jack, taking off his hat once more as he smiled in a friendly manner. “Why don’t you pick a book from my magic bag, huh?”

“I’m grateful, but...” the boy began to say, biting his lower lip hard. Je kept one hand in the pocket of his old tweed jacket while holding the same book from the carriage with the other. In general, Noah seemed hesitant, as if afraid of being himself. Annie could almost see his stiffened back through the fabric of his jacket. “I don’t have money to buy any of them.”

“Well, good thing my books are not for sale, then, Master Noah,” said the salesman as he’d once said to Annie the first time they’d met in the nearest city. “I’m a dream-sower, an enemy of the ignorance that plagues our lands. All of my books are a gift, not a product.”

“He lives off of selling antiques,” Annie kindly explained to Noah, smiling when she noticed the boy’s brown eyes shining in excitement. “You can choose one.”

“Just one per month,” Jack warned as he often did, and then he turned to Annie. “Oh, Wood girl here is quick as a little mouse at her reading. No doubt she already finished the one she got last week.”

Innocently, Annie smiled, knowing Jack’s accusation was right on track. The book (which had been great, by the way) was already tucked away in the small library she was slowly building for herself.

As she saw the timid smile on Noah’s face, however, all Annie could think of was that she might actually gain a friend from all of this.

Go to Chapter 6

Know more books from the Author

To Decadent Poets - Chapter 6

Summary - find more chapters, read the synopsis, and trigger warnings here!

The man, the beast and the insect, at its shadow Live, away from hunger and fatigue: In its branches take shelter the ditties And the loves of the mockingbird. — Olavo Bilac, Old Trees

Although he was used to a comfortable life, Chris wasn’t prepared for Taigh Hill: that wasn’t any mansion, it was a manor. Just the entry hall could encapsulate his entire house with space to spare, and he didn’t even talk about the decoration.

If anyone told Chris a king had lived there, he wouldn’t hesitate to believe it. The stairs to the second and third floors, which began across the hall, formed the shape of a tree, splitting into branches to reach each side of the two floors up. In the middle of the first store, a huge tapestry that had a story sewn into it was laid on the wall above a fireplace.

The housekeeper, however, didn’t allow any of them to take in their initial surprise, walking towards the stairs as if the place was nothing at all. For her, who took care of the place every day and all day long, it might not be, but fuck, Chris thought while the three of them jogged side by side to keep up with the rigid woman while still trying to take in everything, wishing they had a thousand eyes just so they could see it all.

There was a huge chandelier hanging from the high ceiling of the entry hall and the sounds spread, sounded, echoed throughout the place, especially because Miss Turner couldn’t stop talking, the echoes heightening the annoying tone of her voice. Chris was an inch away from telling her off when the echoes faded away and they entered a closeted corridor.

“You mustn’t make much noise because Mister Elliott’s wife has regular migraines and, if you do make noise, you’ll go to bed without dinner,” said Miss Turner severely without turning, as if she was sure she’d be heard, it didn’t matter by who. Chris considered some old people really sounded like that, shrugging to his thoughts while exchanging an exasperated look with Oliver. The boy smirked a bit, sarcastic, just like Chris had seen a couple of times during their trip together. “Oh, and I was warned that Mister Elliott’s eldest, Miss Ellen, doesn’t want you going inside her saloon. I ask that you respect it.”

“She has a saloon?” Chris asked the only one of the three there who seemed akin to breaking a couple of rules. Of course, he was the only one who could question them: he was somewhat akin to family, after all.

“Yes, she has, Mister Evans,” said the housekeeper, turning a bit, her voice polite. “It was a request from Miss Ellen herself to her father and uncle she matured.”

Although Chris thought the idea of giving a saloon to a nineteen-year-old girl was ridiculous, he didn’t say anything, shrinking back to the horizontal line, which was formed by him, Oliver, and Noah Kurtz, not realizing his shoulder brushing the second’s for a moment.

When Noah seemed to shrink, however, Chris looked at him. The boy, however, didn’t look back, making it clear as day he had no interest in speaking with Chris. The boy, for once, just shrugged internally and stopped so as not to bum pinto Miss Turner. She, on the other hand, had stopped in front of the fourth door to the right in the corridor.

“Your room is here. Mister Elijah wanted to put you in separate rooms but Mister Elliott thought it’d be best if you were sleeping in the same room so you could socialize and not being stuck in your own worlds.”

The woman obviously respected the two men she was speaking about and that made Chris feel a little less apprehensive about the godfather he never met and his family. If their employees liked them, that was enough to say they were likable enough. The housekeeper let them pass by her and scan the room while she kept speaking:

“Dinner will be ready at six pm and I’ll come get you when the time has come for you to go downstair today. For now, I’d suggest you use your time correctly and unpack or go explore the garden before it’s dark. And don’t forget to be quiet around the library!”

“Why do we have to...” but Chris didn’t have the chance to make his question, once the housekeeper closed the door behind her as she left before he could speak. The red-haired boy frowned, then whistled. “Is it me, or she doesn’t seem to like us very much?”

He was left to laugh alone and, when he turned to know the reason why at least Oliver didn’t comment, he found the boy turned to the bed he’d chosen, the one nearest the window. Meanwhile, Noah put his bag on the bed nearest to the door, leaving Chris with the bed by the wall. Even weirded out by the silence, Chris resigned himself to unpacking just like Miss Turner had suggested.

The beds in the room he’d share with the Other two boys could accommodate him and the others, plus at least more nine people put side by side. Chris didn’t doubt they could sleep the three of them in the same one with space to spare. It seemed the bed of a king, just like everything about that manor seemed to reek of royalty. There were even curtains on the beds: they were golden, just like the sheets and the blankets.

Chris wanted to say something to break the ice he felt around the two boys behind him but, before he could think of something, Noah left the room leaving his suitcase on the bed without unpacking it or saying anything.

“Kinda rude,” Chris commented quietly, raising an eyebrow at Oliver, who was still in the same position, silent as a crypt. Weirded out by this behavior, Chris went to his friend, brushing his shoulder gently with his own. “Hey, is there a problem? You can talk to me if you want.”

“It’s nothing, it’s just…” Oliver said, no doubt trying to lie because it was obvious there was something wrong. The boy sighed mourningfully, and said: “I miss my dad.”

There was more about it Oliver wasn’t telling him but Chris didn’t pressure him for more information. He couldn’t forget that, as much as it didn’t seem like it, he had met the other boy just some hours ago and there were limits Chris didn’t really know whether he could cross or not.

Therefore, all he did was sigh while sitting in his bed and smiled at his joined hands and separated knees.

“I also miss my mom.” Chris scrunched his nose at the reminder of Maxwell but didn’t say anything out loud. Instead, Chris talked about Jane and how amazing she was. Oliver looked over at him for the moment Chris began to describe his mother, his blank eyes making him look more German than ever but the boy still took a seat by his side, listening silently: “My mom loves to paint. She’s great and has always dreamed of being a painter but she gave up this dream when she married my dad, considering my grandpa wanted her to stay home to take care of me. My dad… I’ve never seen him agreeing with my grandpa but he also doesn’t disagree with him. My mom has the prettiest, softest hair I’ve ever seen and she smells like rosemary.”

Chris closed his eyes to imagine Jeane by his side, smiling at him the way just a mother could do. Looking at him the same way she smiled when Chris was younger and his biggest worry was whether or not she had made ginger biscuits.

Oliver stayed quiet for a long time after that, allowing Chris to recover from the onslaught of feelings after he talked about Jeane. He gulped, swallowing down the tears.

“My mother’s name was Liora,” the blond boy said in a murmur, so low it seemed like a whisper, his eyes staring at something Chris couldn’t see. Then, hesitating, as if he feared Chris was going to start yelling at him or something, Oliver added: “She was taken by the Führer before we left Germany.”

Chris knew “Führer” was a word they used to refer to Hitler. So the magnitude of it all hit him like a punch, comprehension making his heart beat painfully, cutting his airways. He couldn’t help but look at Oliver with pity, although he knew that was certainly not the desired reaction. It was just that Chris couldn’t help it: it was like Oliver’s pain had spread to him, because, after all, wasn’t it his own as well in a certain way?

All of those crimes committed against the Jews, the black people, Romanis, different peoples… wasn’t it his pain as well? They were humans. They were people, they could’ve been people he passed by on his way to school, they could be his professor, his friend’s parents, and relatives, they could’ve been his relatives. It could’ve been him.

Chris saw the pain as his duty. He had to feel the pain for all of the families destroyed by Hitler and by the war that was happening. He had to feel pain because it was the least, he could do if it really mattered for him.

But Chris didn’t say any of that. He didn’t ramble about how concentration camps or did a monologue stating the obvious — all human beings should be respected. No, Oliver knew all of that, he didn’t need anyone to talk his ear off about it. He needed to be heard, or his privacy respected, whichever he preferred.

“Do you want to talk about her?” Chris asked then, as delicately as he could even though he could still feel his disgust for Hitler leaving his tongue heavy and sticky, making it hard to swallow.

In his nape, there was a shiver being born. Oliver kept silent for longer this time; his lips half-open in almost words.

“No,” he finally exhaled, getting more comfortable in Chris’ bed, his back straight. “I was just worried because it’s my first time away from my dad since they took her and I don’t want him to… spiral because of it again.”

The worry in Oliver’s tone was palpable and, for a moment, Chris felt a bit envious about his relationship with his dad. He wanted Max to care enough about him and Jeane to actually mourn if something happened to them. He wanted his father to care.

Admitting that even to himself was like a Punch to his stomach. Chris knew trying not to care would be useless someday but until then, making these mistakes wouldn’t be allowed. He shouldn’t have to beg to have his Father in his life, he shouldn’t have to beg for anyone’s love. Love was something to be freely given, selflessly and happily given. Love was something to be offered, not something to be stolen.

After all, that was the reason why Chris thought it was ridiculous when one of his friends said he’d stolen a girl’s heart. It was ridiculous because they really thought that trying and trying and trying the same way everytime would give them a different outcome. If a girl wasn’t interested in giving him a chance, Chris just moved on to the next girl to interest him: it wasn’t so hard to hear a no after you got used to it.

Anyhow, he was digressing, Chris realized when Oliver shook his hand in front of his face, catching his attention back.

“Did I daydream for a bit?” Chris asked, embarrassed, and Oliver chuckled.

“For quite some time, actually,” he just said.

“I’m sorry”, said Chris with a sigh, turning in the bed to look straight at his friend. “I didn’t know what to say and ended up thinking about my own dad.”

“It’s okay, I can’t expect people to know what to say to something like that.” Oliver smiled, clearly embarrassed and a bit worried. “What did you think of Miss Turner?”

“I think she looks like a Woman from the last century, but who knows? She could surprise us.” Chris answered and shrugged as he laid on the bed, supporting his head with his fingers crossed under it, looking at the ceiling.

“She seems a bit nicer than those women.” Oliver also shrugged but didn’t lay down: he preferred to stay seated on the soft mattress. “What about the other boy... Noah?”

“He’s... quiet.” Chris shrugged again. “I still don’t know what to think of him, actually. I didn’t have the time to get to know him.”

Oliver made no comments, nor did he disagree about anything in regards to Noah. The two boys stayed quiet for a while, the silence of people that had nothing to talk about. So, to break the ice, or maybe to get some alone time, Oliver got up and said:

“I should write to my dad and tell him we arrived and it all went well. I promised him I would.

“Hm, I need to write to my mom as well, although I didn’t promise anything,” Chris said, closing his eyes as the Journey began to take a toll on him. He could feel his body getting heavier and his mind slower. — I’ll just sleep for a bit. Wake me up in an hour, please.

He didn’t even hear Oliver’s agreement before he was out.

Chapter 7 - Coming Soon...

Buy my other book on Amazon!

Fun Fact - or not so much

Okay, so, in my new book, there's a couple who is based off of Patroclus and Achilles and y'all know that quote from Song of Achilles right?

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”

My couple has various moments where "Patroclus" recognizes "Achilles" right away by the sound of him walking, or how he smells, or (when he's dying) by his touch as a reference.

I did that at random. I didn't plan it but still happened.

And now I'm crying.

Help me decide or I'll go mad

My current dilemma as a writer is whether I write...

A. A gay romance between Romeo and Mercutio with Juliet as Romeo's beard and best friend, the fight of both houses their most terrible enemy and a lot of angst because of compulsory heterosexuality

OR

B. A poly romance between Romeo, Mercutio, and Juliet with enemies to lovers Romeo and Juliet, a very-tired-of-the-fight-let's-make-them-kiss Mercutio, secret relationships, a side romance between Rosalina and Paris, and a mystery in fair Verona that Mercutio is obsessing over.