Free Web NovelChapter 95: Dead Ants
"However, Frugeon, if I may, I have just one more question," said Victor.
"Humph! What is it?"
"I didn’t pay much attention to the route I took to get here. Do you know which way my room is?"
Frugeon let out an exasperated sigh, as if the mere thought of guiding Victor back to his room was an unwelcome burden. However, he restrained himself and replied in a calm, albeit impatient, voice:
"Yes, I know where your room is. Follow me."
On the way to his room, Victor continued to feel watched, as if invisible eyes were following him at every step. It was an unsettling feeling, but he remained calm. Luckily, Victor paid attention to detail even in the midst of the chase and didn’t use too much force on his feet, so the walls of the corridors remained intact.
"Have you got used to these corridors?" asked Victor, trying to dispel the uncomfortable silence between him and Frugeon.
Frugeon gave him a sidelong glance before replying briefly: "I’ve been working for the family for a few years now. I know this house well, although Luísa is always changing the order of the rooms."
"That explains why the mansion looks so different from when I last visited." Victor answered without questioning the fact that the rooms changed places, after all Luísa Selvarum was a great magician and all magicians have their peculiarities.
"And you? How long have you known Madame Selvarum?"
"She hasn’t told you yet?" Victor asked.
"No, she... didn’t want to tell me."
"And yet you’re trying to get that answer out of me, right? Fine, I’ll tell you as a thank you. Luísa and I met twenty-five years ago at a ball on Edolens Island. She had been invited by local nobles and I was guarding a market that wanted to do business at the ball. By chance, Luísa did business with the market I was guarding and after that Luísa hired me for some of her services. From then on, a relationship was built."
"I see. Now things are clearer, because before I was imagining that you had been lovers or something."
"Oh, no. Never. Although the opportunities weren’t lacking." Victor replied. ƒreewebɳovel.com
Frugeon massaged his temples. "Yeah, I think I’ve heard enough of your story."
Frugeon’s answer was clear, so Victor chose not to pursue the subject any further. Besides, they had finally reached the corridor to the guest rooms.
Frugeon approached the bedroom door and just as he was about to touch the handle to open the door, he saw something shiny near his feet. He stopped immediately, crouched down and picked up the silver key that was lying there.
"I wonder what that’s doing here?"
Victor saw that the key was the same one he had found the other time. So it didn’t take him long to ask:
"Where’s this key from?"
Frugeon put the silver key in his right trouser pocket. "From the symbol engraved on it, I can tell it’s a kitchen key. Has the maid called Margaret brought you dinner today?" freēwēbnovel.com
"The one with the brown hair?"
Frugeon nodded in agreement.
"Yes, she brought my dinner a few minutes ago."
"Good, so that means this is her key. She probably dropped it and didn’t notice." Frugeon said. "I’ll alert her to this immediately. Anyway, sir, please stay in your room and don’t wander around the corridors, it’s not very polite to go exploring a residence you don’t know." He continued, ending with something that sounded a lot like what Gracela had said and also a veiled warning with a threatening tone.
Frugeon clearly didn’t like Victor. Even so, Victor thanked Frugeon with a nod, and with a nod, Frugeon also left.
Upon entering the room, Victor found it as impeccably tidy as before. The white velvet curtains were drawn, leaving only a faint glow filtering through the window.
The silver plate of food was on the floor, just as he had left it before leaving in pursuit, so he picked it up and placed it on the table next to the bed. The food still exuded the delicious aroma of beef stew with fine herbs, but Victor wasn’t hungry enough to eat it. His mind was occupied with everything that was happening.
Could that key really just be the kitchen key that Margaret had dropped? Or was Frugeon lying about it?
Victor approached the window and gazed out over the manicured gardens in the center of the mansion.
If it was just the kitchen key, why had the figure he saw knocked on his door and then run out so eagerly?
Victor’s mind was racing, recalling the details of his conversation with Frugeon and everything that had happened. However, tiredness eventually caught up with him. The flames in the fireplace slowly faded, and Victor felt his eyelids grow heavy. Lying on the soft bed, Victor watched the ceiling as his thoughts wandered.
Sleep finally enveloped him, and Victor drifted into a deep slumber. When he woke up, soft morning light flooded into the room through the ajar curtains.
Victor slowly got out of bed and instinctively stretched as his thoughts adjusted to reality.
However, Victor suddenly remembered something: shouldn’t he have gone back in time when he fell asleep?
Victor looked around him in the bedroom and didn’t see anything very different. So what had changed? Why hadn’t he come back this time?
As he stood up, Victor’s eyes landed on the table next to the bed, where the silver plate of food still rested. The aroma of the beef stew was subtle and the food was intact. However, a strange fact caught Victor’s eye. Next to the plate, where before there had been nothing but a polished wooden surface, there was now a small group of ants, which would be normal, after all, they are normally attracted to food, but several of the ants were dead on the table.
Victor crouched down and also found dead ants on the floor next to the table, as if they had gotten dizzy and fallen off the table and died right there.
He stood up, looked closely at his plate and his neurons worked like the gears of an old clock. The meal, going back in time, the ants... a shocking truth began to form in his mind, and Victor soon concluded that he didn’t go back in time by luck or chance; he was poisoned, that is, he died in his sleep, so someone inside Selvarum Manor wanted Victor dead.
