Violette went to her room, for once Dante was right – she needed to sleep even if she didn't actually want to. Her eyes wanted to close but her mind wandered in many thoughts that were flying over her head. Too much information and riddles. And Dante, perhaps, wanted to rest as well. She didn't know how long vampires slept – to be honest, she wasn’t sure if they slept at all. It had never crossed her mind until now. She might ask him later but for now, she let herself close her eyes and fall into a deep sleep.
Chapter 14
HOLDING FOR THE TRACES
An inquisitiveness didn't want to leave Violette's mind. She was puzzling over the written riddle, lying in her bed for hours after she woke up.
Unable to bear sitting in her room any longer, she crawled out of bed, deciding today was a good day to explore something new. Even if she wasn't in a big, exciting city, she knew for sure she'd find something to keep herself occupied.
The place they stopped in was an old township, which reminded her a little bit of a witches' town not far away from her home city. Its antique architecture looked straight from the old fairytales with those small cottages and narrow alleyways, infusing it with a peculiar charm.
She wandered around, scrutinizing the windows of colorful shops. Her nose caught the scent of a whole mixture of flowers, which later turned out to come from a beautiful, quaint flower shop.
A line of small stores lined the entire street: cozy bakeries, clothing stores, a small bookstore. She even decided to visit the last, but to her surprise there were practically no textbooks on magic and sorcery. They had an assortment of novels, tales, legends of magic, but nothing that would help to learn spells or potions. Apparently, this was one of those towns that Dante spoke about: where wizards were either not a common occurrence, or witchcraft was absolutely prohibited here. Be that as it may, Violette decided to cover her wand with her cloak. She wouldn'twant to tempt fate; she already had plenty of problems.
She walked through the small alleys for a bit before she realised she had already managed to get around all of the town. As she reached the notice board located next to the small, quiet park, her eyes scanned the posters and other signs on it:
Perhaps magic was not forbidden here – Violette felt relieved.
She lowered her eyes to the bigger thesis:
Her eyes quickly ran to another edge of the board, looking through the advertisements and announcements until she heard a low grumbling.
“Fools!” an old man spat out. “Lake of Hope! How many times should I tell them it's called the Lake of Despair? Hope in the dark forest? Idiots!” He waved his hand, not stopping muttering under his breath.
He caught Violette's eye. He was an old man with a long silver beard and embittered eyes, not a really pleasant type of a person to meet. She would easily disappear in the moment to stay away from this grump if not for his words that brought her attention. She glanced again on the thin, yellow paper pinned to the sign with a warning. Her mind went back to the namethe Lake of Despairand thegears in her head immediately started to work. She tried to hang on to the last word.
Dark forest…What did the riddle say?
If she remembered it right, it was something about the depth ofdespair.
Something clicked. Her head quickly turned to the old man who had already started walking away.
“Excuse me, sir!” She hurried to catch up with him. “Did you say the Lake of Despair?”
“I know what I said!” he snapped. “Want to tell me I'm wrong? Stupid kids, if only you'd listened to your elders!”
Violette froze. The man's tone sounded so rude, as if she didn't just speak to him but accused him of something terribly ridiculous. Trying to collect her thoughts, she swallowed the desire to tell him what she thinks about his behavior.
“Um, no…” she started cautiously. “I actually wanted to ask you about the lake. Why do you call it differently than it's written?”
“Because only desperate people would go into that cursed forest. It was called the Lake of Despair in the past and for a good reason! But no, some wiseacre decided to call it the Lake of Hope,” he mocked. “A lake in the middle of a beastly forest? Bilge!”
Violette forced a smile. Unfortunately, she dealt with people like him while working in the potion shop. Despite how many good customers visited her shop there always were a few who could ruin a day and suck the life out ofanyone just out of spite. Sometimes she wondered if these people just come up to quarrel and vent their anger.
No matter how hard it was, she tried to be polite and asked, “Is it a magic lake?”
“Who knows? Nobody goes there, and if they do, they never come back.”
Great…
The last thing she wanted to hear about was a cursed forest where people go missing. First vampires, now this. She must have incredibly terrible luck.
“Thank you! You actually really helped me,” Violette blurted out and spun on her heels, hurrying back to the lodge. She has to tell Dante about it immediately!
“Oh, another fool soul,” the old man grumbled under his breath, watching as the young wizardling ran away.
Violette'sbooming steps could have alerted Dante about her appearance even before she opened the door in his room but it didn't happen, instead she saw the vampire sleeping in the bed facing the pillow.
