Morpheus had always possessed the upper hand when it ca to the use of magic, and that alone had long troubled Arabella. His precision, his confidence, and the way he molded the air itself to his will had made him nearly untouchable. Every ti she had crossed paths with him, the difference in their mastery had been glaring; she was capable, yes, but he was terrifyingly effortless. And that difference had always defined their encounters, forcing her to rely on her cunning more than her strength.
But if he were to turn into a demon... the scales might finally shift.
A demon’s power was brutish, unrefined— more instinct than art. He would be granted a body enhanced beyond human limits, strength that could crush walls and senses that could track prey in darkness. But he would lose his grace, the delicate agility of a magician who knew every pulse of his magic. That kind of power ca at the cost of control.
Morpheus would no longer be the elegant conjurer who could bend the world to his will, he’d be a creature trying to rember how to hold it.
"Can you do it?" Cassius’s voice ca quietly, carrying no mockery, no sharp edge as he usually wielded. It was softer, almost fragile, a tone that belonged to a man who would always cater to her even if it was going to cost them instead. There was sothing deeply human in his question, like soone who would rather abandon a plan altogether than see her break.
She looked at him, this man who stood there not as a prince or an enemy but as sothing else, soone her soul seed to know, even when her mind refused to rember. His eyes, those dark, haunted eyes, held a pain that did not belong to a stranger.
Clearly, he had once been more than just an acquaintance. His voice carried a wound that her forgetfulness had deepened, a kind of hurt only love or sothing dangerously close to it could inflict.
And though her heart no longer leapt at his presence, though every mory of him had been stripped away, sothing within her stirred. His presence wrapped around her like a lullaby half-forgotten, an old comfort her soul rembered even if her mind could not.
She might have forgotten the shape of her love, but her soul... her soul still knew the peace that ca when he was near.
"It will be difficult," she admitted, her voice calm, steady.
Cassius smiled faintly — not with amusent, but with quiet pride.
"But not impossible," she finished. "Will you help if I request you for help?"
"Of course," Cassius said, his lips curving into a brief chuckle. There was sothing wistful in that sound, as if the echo of their old selves lingered between them. To him, she was still the sa Arabella he had known — the one who spoke with conviction, who never once trembled before impossibility. The sa woman whose strength, even broken and altered, still outshone the darkness around her.
When the next morning ca, the soft light of dawn spilled through the tall windows of her chamber, dust motes shimring in the beam like suspended stars. Arabella sat at her desk, surrounded by chaos — papers strewn across every inch of wood, so even pasted haphazardly to the walls and floor, forming a constellation of symbols, calculations, and fragnted thoughts.
Her fingers were smudged with ink; strands of hair had escaped her ribbon and frad her face. A cup of tea sat untouched beside her, long since gone cold, and a small porcelain plate lay nearly overflowing with cookies she hadn’t spared a glance at. Her eyes were sharp, feverish with concentration, as if she were dissecting the very nature of the world.
Then ca a hurried knock — and the door cracked open just enough for Isaac’s anxious face to appear before he quickly slipped inside, closing it behind him with a soft click.
"Milady, milady, milady," he hissed in a rushed whisper, spinning around to double-check the latch. Once certain they were alone, he darted to her side, leaning close enough that his voice trembled right into her ear. "It seems that Sir Morpheus will co back by the third day of your promise. At the evening even."
Arabella paused mid-sentence, her quill hovering over parchnt. Her lashes flickered upward."Oh?" she murmured, a hint of suspicion curling around her words. "That is odd. Isn’t this an easy task for him? I did give him three days, but knowing him, he could have easily brought the flower back by now."
"You’re right! I was also startled," Isaac exclaid, pacing back and forth with his usual nervous energy. "I questioned why, but no one else wanted to talk to . It seems that so rumors have echoed in this castle — that I have stolen your heart from Morpheus! So people are upset at , but I think this is just another ruse of his. He wanted to receive no information whatsoever around the castle by ruining my good na. Oh, this is so upsetting! So upsetting!"
Arabella’s brow furrowed slightly, her eyes narrowing not at his distress, but at the ntion of Morpheus’s supposed delay. There was sothing unsettling about it. He was not the type to waste ti, not the type to linger unless it served him.
"So why do you think he cos early?" she asked, her tone asured, cautious, though her mind already raced through possibilities.
"I don’t know..." Isaac admitted, his lips pouting miserably. He scratched his head as though searching for sense in a web that had none.
"I know," a maid step up when Isaac was humming in a deep thought. The maid’s bright red eyes seed to gleam and despite her head covered with the linen cloth, she seed to beam with such grace it’s difficult to imagine that she was just a maid. "Because he can’t find the flower."
"What?" Isaac turned, startled by the maid a little as he had marched in without noticing her presence at all. "How could there be not even a single flower?"
Chuckling the maid shrugged, "Maybe because the snowy mountain had suddenly turned un-snowy?"
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