Page 65 of Myths and Manuscripts
If I set everything back to the way it was before I’d started feeling all these emotions and interacting with people, then maybe the pain would go away. I’d spent plenty of alone time here without feeling lonely, so why was this eating at me so much now? She’d only been gone for a few days, but it felt like weeks.
Willow wasn’t coming back and without her writing, my fate was sealed. I’d be the villain forever.
Behind me, Dain shuffled like he couldn’t decide if he should stay or go, so I turned back to give him my final command. “Leave this castle and don’t come back. I appreciate all you’vedone for me, but your services are no longer required. Spend time with your family and friends, enjoy your life. Just stay away from the castle from now on.”
His face fell, but he pressed his hand to his chest anyway in a salute, bowing to me for the last time before he left. A lump formed in my stomach as he walked away. Apparently, I’d grown attached to him as well. Willow’s presence had opened me up to far too many attachments.
“Did you have to be so mean?” Leo’s voice startled me as he hopped off the kitchen counter, finishing off a slice of apple pie like he lived here. “Really, that soldier deserved better. And what’s all that about Willow leaving?” I must have given him a funny look, because he shrugged and scooped up another slice of pie. “What? Voices carry in this castle. Now tell me everything.”
The eager look on his face cut through my pain and filled me with irritation instead. He was the reason I’d been written as the villain in the first place, to make him shine brighter and give him somebody terrifying to defeat. My entire purpose in life was to make him look good. I should hate him for that, but after spending so much time together, I’d started feeling a sort of kinship with him. And that really set my teeth on edge.
“I want to be alone.” I nodded at the door, hoping he’d take the hint. “Shouldn’t you be with your people anyway? They must be worried about you.”
“Ehhh, they’re fine.” He brushed crumbs off his face with a goofy grin. “My party’s handling things and they don’t need a half-demon like me screwing that up for them.” He grinned as he took another bite of pie. “Mmmm, this really is amazing. I should coax them into opening a shop in our lands.”
I snorted. “Right, because the Destroyer would definitely be welcome.”
“If he kept making pies like this, you never know.” He laughed, eating the last crumbs on his plate. “Okay, I’m all doneand ready to listen. What happened with your wife?”
“She’s not my wife.” I groaned and left the kitchen, trying to put as much distance between his nonsense and me. “Just go back to the humans already. I don’t need you here.”
“Too bad, because I’m not leaving.” He followed me down this hallway and that like that annoying three-headed puppy back at the library.
Maybe if I threw the hero a ball, he’d run off to fetch it and I could lock the door behind him. I could see his tail wagging now and that big goofy grin of his as he chased after it. I chuckled, wishing I actually had a ball to test it out. At least he’d be gone then, and I could go back to how things were before. Just me and this castle.
This game of follow-the-leader got very old quickly though. I spun around and stopped so fast that he ran into me. I pushed him back with my best glare. “You need to leave.”
“But you’re my friend and you’re in pain.” Leo rubbed his nose like he’d injured it crashing into me. “Well, now I’m in pain too, but that’s not the point. I saw how much you cared about Willow and if she really did leave, then you must be devastated. Let me help you. I can make dinner or go get more pie at least since I polished the last one off.” He gave me a sheepish look. “What? It was tasty and you shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“I shouldn’t be alone, huh? I’m the villain, of course I should be alone.”
I pushed past him again as we walked by the room that had been the warmest and most full of life. The library. My stomach sank and I couldn’t get myself to walk inside to see if her notes were still there or if the board of suspects had crumbled into ash. The rest of the castle had gone back to the way it was before she came, so I assumed that room would too. Memories flooded my mind: Willow lying beside the fire resting, her brow furrowed with frustration as she glared at a blank page, and the sheer joyin her eyes when she came up with a good idea.
I’d miss that joy the most. For somebody who’d experienced so much pain, she still found happiness in little things like a beautiful plant, soft dirt, or a good idea.
“You know, I’ve seen a lot of bad guys,” Leo said softly, “but none of them acted like you. You could have tortured the answers out of me or kept me locked away in a room somewhere, but instead, you fed me, helped me through my issues with being part demon and my world crumbling around me, and now you’ve got a broken heart. It’s all so very...”
“Don’t say it.”
“Human,” he finished, smiling as I groaned. “You’re a nice guy, what can I say? Seeing you act like this is depressing.”
My shadows flickered, snapping at him with barely any oomph. I couldn’t even muster up a glare, not while I was so close to this library of hers. All I felt was overwhelming sadness and I really didn’t want Leo to be right about that.
“Just go,” I repeated. “Leave me alone. We are not friends, you fool, we’re enemies!”
He stood in my path so I couldn’t storm off again. “If you really mean that, then I’ll go, because I’ve had enough friends shunning me as it is. So if you’re just doing your whole grumpy demon thing, then stop, because once you truly push somebody away, there’s no going back.”
His words cut deeper than any blade and the anguish on his face was real. Dain said he’d lost Leo shortly after bringing him back to his people and Leo had mentioned something about them not needing a half-demon like him screwing things up. Had they shunned him because of who he was? No, he was the hero, that didn’t happen to people like him.
At least, it wouldn’t have before I started messing with the story. Maybe it was time to finally tell him what was really going on.
“You and I are characters in a story.” I took a deep breath, hoping he didn’t run off and scream this to the world. “Those books Willow said she wrote as a biography are actually what created us. Another author wrote them, and a magical library brought them to life. We’re not real and I can’t just be a good guy, not when the author wrote me as the villain. Sure, I thought Willow might be able to write me as something else, but that was foolish. I am what I am, and you are what you are. Accept it and be the amazing hero you were always meant to be.”
Leo stared at me and then started laughing. “Right, sure, we’re just fictional characters in a made-up world. Wow, you really went off the deep-end, huh?”
I stomped into the library and picked up one of the books in our series, showing it to him. “Do you really believe Willow guessed all these things about you? That she knew what you ate for breakfast every single day and exactly what every person said to you and how you fought each enemy blow for blow? You read it, was there anything she got wrong?”
“Well, no, it was pretty perfect actually.” He took the book from me, his face scrunched up in confusion. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not real. It just means she has good spies.”
