Chapter 18: The Look in His Eyes
"I’m telling you—I don’t know anything!" the bakery owner said, wringing his flour-dusted hands as he stood behind the counter. "She just bought a few loaves of bread and left. That’s all. I swear on my oven."
Elize narrowed her eyes slightly. Her voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it. "What time did she come in?"
The man scratched the back of his neck, leaving a smear of flour on his skin. "Uh... around 7:30, I think. She browsed for a bit, maybe ten minutes. Chose a few rye loaves and left."
Elize jotted something down in her notebook. "Did you see which direction she went?"
He shook his head apologetically. "It was early morning—rush hour for us. People come in waves, you know? I didn’t catch where she went. Sorry."
"I see..." Elize sighed, glancing around the cozy bakery. The warm scent of fresh bread and cinnamon did little to ease her frustration. "No witnesses. No trace. Not a single damn clue."
As she closed her notebook, her eyes drifted across the room—and paused.
Across the bakery, Lucien was slumped against her lord, Silas, fast asleep. His black hair spilled over Silas’s shoulder like night sky, and his lips were parted just slightly in soft, even breaths. Silas, on the other hand, sat unnaturally still—eyes fixed on Lucien’s face with an expression far too intense for a King’s blade.
Elize blinked.
A voice murmured beside her, low and amused. "Do you think our lord has fallen in love?"
She turned to see Damon, another knight in plain clothes, casually munching on a buttered croissant. He raised an eyebrow at the scene with the air of a man watching a drama unfold.