Page 95 of Stolen
That I’m longing for the day he comes back to me.
Meanwhile, I’m learning.
About Nightfall. About the Eyrie. About what it means to be Lady Jules, which is a title I’m still not fully sure I deserve.
But I can’t get anyone to stop using it, so I might as well embrace it.
The Eyrie is huge—like, Hogwarts-had-a-baby-with-an-elven-castle huge—and I still get turned around in the corridors.
Shade says I’ll get the hang of it. I say we need some of thoseyou-are-here mapslike they have at zoos and shopping malls.
There are attendants everywhere, kind and strange and quiet, and while I’ve met several of them, I admit I have a hard time keeping all their names straight.
They bow a lot. One of them offered me a tiny dragon fruit thing yesterday, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to eat it or name it.
Harold, though—Harold I adore.
He’s head of the kitchens and gives serious no-nonsense-grandpa energy.
He grumbled the first time I asked for something sweet and fizzy, but after I showed him how to make whipped milk foam and shape it into little hearts, I think he secretly fell in love with me. In a platonic, tea-sipping, grumble-while-stirring kind of way.
There’s no coffee here—tragic—but they do have something close. The people call it fyrran, a dark, rich brew made from roasted sunfruit seeds, and honestly, it slaps.
There are also teas for everything.
Sleep, energy, stomachaches, lust—you name it.
Nyna, one of the cooks, even showed me a type of gelatin made from flower stems, and I used it to mold little fruit jellies in the shape of stars and moons.
The kids went nuts for them.
It helps, all of this.
The routine. The budding friendships. The quiet sense of belonging I feel when someone calls me Lady Jules without hesitation.
This place could be home—feels like home—even if a piece of me is still raw without Alaric beside me.
Right now, though, there’s a ruckus coming from the kitchens, and that usually means something’s on fire or Harold is yelling again.
I walk in, brushing flour from my palms onto the apron I’m wearing over a loose blouse and fitted pants.
Shade helped me modify the blouse, adding ties at the arms so I could roll them up without dragging them through whatever stew I’m stirring or bandage I’m tying.
We’ve had a steady stream of displaced families arriving from the lower villages—people whose homes were destroyed or made unsafe when the SoulTakers breached the North Road.
Some are nobles, but most are just scared families trying to get through another day.
Alaric’s estate is massive, and while many are staying in the outer houses around the Eyrie, we’ve made space inside for those who need more care.
The kids are my favorite.
Sticky-fingered, full of questions, and bold enough to ask me if I really did ride a Dragon or if Alaric just wears a costume for dramatic effect.
I assured them, quite seriously, that he does not do cosplay.
We’ve been doing arts and crafts in the playroom—well, they make crafts, I mostly try not to get glue in my hair—and I read to them in the evenings.
Shade found me a collection of old Nightfall stories, full of heroes and monsters and weird enchanted objects.
