He took a large breath in, continuing to look at their sons before his eyes fell on the portrait next to it, “The girl…she came strolling in here,” he informed his wife who frowned at him.
“She was with us the entire time,” the woman then remembered Penelope getting up and going with the maid to the powder room, “She is unrelated. Not a relative, not a council member, don’t get worked up about it. She is no one to know about anything,” the woman consoled her husband, “I will talk to the servants tonight to manage the mansion better than let people walk around freely.”
“We cannot have people walking in the mansion,” he reminded his wife, a sigh coming out of her lips. Her expression turned from the sweet kind woman to one that looked serious and cold.
“We have already spoken about it. Bringing guests home will reduce our risk from being put under suspicion. Why do you think the white witches get caught easier than the black witches? It is because they hide and raise the curiosity of other people. The more we hide, the more people will want to know and question. The easiest is to live the way we have been living all these years. That way, no one will ever come to question us about anything.”
The elderly couple looked down at the portrait of the young boy and young girl in there with them. The girl had wavy red hair, her physique leaner than the boy in it and the boy who looked healthier than the girl, his eyes bright which the painter had captured well.
“Come. Let’s take a walk around the mansion. It has been many days since we visited all the corners,” she put her arm around him and took her husband away from the many portraits that were stuck on the wall.
In the Delcorv’s mansion, Penny couldn’t stop thinking about the two children whom she saw in the Artemis mansion this afternoon. It was something that ran at the back of her head while she was trying to read through the book of Lady Isabelle.
Reading the context of the book which was another page of life philosophy that was twisted and turned with riddles, Penny quickly moved to the next section.
‘Behold the hour of the night which opens the window and leaves it open until morning to let another window open. A door that never closes and the door which is locked to the ones who walk these lands. It is not just the moon or the sun that is present above us but also the stars which come and goes but there is more in the air.
Creatures of the night and the day, guardian of these both which has been written in the book of ‘Vervus’.’
Penny doubted there was a book with that name here. She had gone through most of the book’s name which Damien had brought from the corrupt councilman’s house and the book mentioned was definitely not that.
When Damien entered back from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, she called him, “Damien, do you have a moment,” he sauntered to her.
“What is it?”
“This word here, the one I am holding. The whole line actually, what does it read to you?”
Damien turned his head around, reading it out loud, “You need to make use of more than one garlic while wanting to use it to increase the heat along with the onions,” he looked up at her.
“Which one garlic here?” she moved her hand away and Damien placed his finger on top of the name ‘Vervus’, “Okay…” her words trailed. Even though the words were read differently in different contexts to him and her, it was still closely related to each other.
“What happened? Something not making sense?” he questioned, rubbing his wet hair with the towel that was hanging on his neck.
“I think we missed a book.”
“White witches?” he raised his eyebrow.
“Yes. The cookbook of Garlic to you and the book named Vervus to me.”
“What does it speak of?” Penny shrugged her shoulders.
“It says to refer to the book to know more. I didn’t come across it before.”
Damien nodded his head, saying, “Maybe it isn’t an important book if Creed didn’t collect it. According to ancient myth pureblooded vampires don’t like garlic.”
“But it isn’t true,” she pointed out to see him chuckle.
“People like to make up garbage and feed people garbage. And the people do get fed,” Damien put the towel on the chair to start wearing his nightclothes, “There was also a myth about holy water.”
“But that does affect you. No?” she asked to see him shake his head to a no.
“Holy water depends on whom you are trying to spill it on. If it is a vampire who is one of the lower categories of vampires then it does affect them, unlike pureblooded vampires who hold a higher ability or immunity against it. Also, you need to take in various factors like the generation of vampires.”
“I have a question on that,” she remembered hearing about the generation, “You are a second-generation vampire and Alexander is a third-generation vampire, how is that? If it were so, then…your father would be..” she looked at him with a confused expression trying to connect the two sides of the dots.
“Smart girl. Alexander’s father was somewhat an adoptive brother to my father. They aren’t blood-related,” Penny raised her eyebrows as she finally understood about it, “Not all generations of pureblooded vampires grew up the same way. The years have differed greatly. It is similar to the pure black witches who weren’t turned by tapping the forbidden magic. Though in black witches they can turn their age back and forth, the first generation pureblooded vampires took their time to grow up. Some who died early and some who still continue to live.”
So that was the answer to it, Penny said to herself in her mind.
She then asked, “What do we do with this book of garlic?”
“We can inquire about it once we go back to Bonelake. Antonio might know about it,” that was true, he was the only knowledgeable one compared to the rest of the white witches who worked there in the church.
