Funnily enough, the first person you see the next morning is Kurloz. You get up early, as you've started to, to go and make breakfast, and when you pass the small hallway leading to the infirmary, a back staircase, and the storage room, you see him. He's standing there, staring into the storage room, and making some really rude-looking gestures with his hands.
"Kurloz?" you call, keeping your discussion with Roxy in the back of your mind the whole while. You don't know what he's doing there – you have absolutely no idea what he's doing, or who he's talking to – but you figure that you should try and find out.
He jumps and slams the door to the storage room shut before turning and giving you a wave and a tight smile. A tight smile that says 'if you come near me you're going to be the next murder victim', so you just keep walking. You think that you'll make French toast for everyone today. That's something you haven't made next.
Maybe tomorrow you can make an egg bake.
You contemplate cooking plans for the future while you tie the waist of your apron and cook. You keep Kurloz out of your mind. You know that Roxy probably wants you to be thinking about it, to be trying to figure out how he's the traitor – and, honestly, it really looks like it, because of his suspicious behavior this morning, and you've never really been inclined to trust a Cult Leader – but you really just want to make some French toast.
And you make some darn good French toast.
Everyone's gotten used to you cooking, it seems, because they're all waiting in the dining hall by the time you're done. You carry out two platefuls stacked high with the French toast and go back for syrup and things – they can get their own plates and silverware, and most of them already have – but eventually everyone has something to eat and you plop down between Roxy and Jake. The three of you have become a bit of a triad.
"Hey, Roxy –" you say, and she glances up. She looks exhausted again today, and you wonder if she's gotten a decent night's sleep since she got her hands on Cronus's laptop. You think not. "Remember what we were talking about yesterday?"
"Yeah, about our capricious friend," she says, and you think this is a very good way of hiding what's going on. Jake looks between the two of you, his face scrunched up in confusion. "What about it?"
"Well, this morning – I saw something that makes me think that you're right. That he is the one," you say, and her eyes widen and she grabs your wrist.
"Finish your meal quick, Janey, we need to go and talk."
"What in the blazes is going on here?" Jake asks. "I feel like I'm being left out!"
"Sorry, Jake," Roxy says. She flashes him a grin, and while normally he is quite the smiley fellow, his face stays stubbornly in a frown. "You'll get caught up eventually, I praw-miss. But for now I wanna keep this between me and my best gal, alright?"
Jake frowns at her for a while longer, but he eventually breaks. "Alright," he says. He finishes up his French toast and stands, giving you a smile. "Damn good breakfast, Jane."
You give him a nod and a smile back and then you finish your French toast faster than you probably should, if you take into consideration the fact that you shouldn't eat food so fast or it could upset your stomach, and you barely have time to throw the dishes into the sink before Roxy pushes you into the bathhouse. She looks at you expectantly.
"This morning when I went to get breakfast, I saw him talking to someone in the storeroom – I mean, talking with his hands, since we both know full well that he can't actually talk – and when I talked to him… well, I called out hello, of course, I wasn't born in a barn, and he slammed the door shut so fast you'd have thought he had the devil on the other side."
"The devil… or Caliborn," Roxy says, tapping one pink-painted fingernail against her lower lip. "We've got to check it out."
"You two are certainly getting into something," a voice – a slightly prim, cultured voice, one that sounds like it's used to launching into speeches and not stopping unless paid – says, and you turn to see Aranea Serket step out of the bathhouse and into the changing room. She's wearing nothing but a towel, and her glasses are gone, but she tips her head to the side and gives you a smile. "What do you suspect poor Kurloz of?"
Roxy stiffens, but you don't see why you shouldn't tell Aranea – no matter how much you dislike her for stealing Jake right away, she seems smart. She can probably help. So you tell her. "Roxy thinks that he's a traitor. To Caliborn. And… I think so, too."
"Fascinating," Aranea says, her eyes sparkling. She pulls her clothes out of a locker and begins to dress. "So we're going to see what is in that storeroom now, correct?"
"I don't remember inviting you along," Roxy says, and you frown at her.
"There's no reason why she shouldn't come along," you say, and Roxy eventually relents, but you feel like there's some animosity between the two of them, for some reason. And you can't help but feel like the third member of your party, if you're going to have one, should be Dirk.
But he's dead. His head was chopped up outside a fake Louvre to the chants of fake French peasants – and you can't help but think of what Caliborn said after his execution. 'The prince is dead, now your shit is wrecked.'
You can't help but wonder what he meant by 'prince.' As far as you know, Dirk was just a swordsman. He wasn't royalty. If anyone's royalty, you could say that it's you and Meenah, as the heiresses to Betty Crocker. But Prince Dirk…. That doesn't seem like it's actually true.
But you still wonder about it.
But the third member of your party isn't Dirk, it's Aranea Serket, her hair making little droplets of water run down her glasses because she didn't even ask if she could blow-dry it before they set off. You almost suggested it, because as it is now she's dripping everywhere, but apparently the thrill of the hunt is more important to her than wet hair. Which you can understand, really – or, which you could, if you weren't so wary about this.
It's Aranea who opens the door to the storage room, too, and the first thing you notice is the smell. You can't quite place it – you're sort of sheltered when it comes to drugs and things, but Roxy can.
"Reeks of pot," she says, wrinkling her nose. You glance around, and the second thing you notice is the mess. Several boxes were dragged and stacked to make room in the middle, and there are a few empty bottles of Faygo in the middle of a pile of blankets. You frown.
"Faygo?" you ask. Aranea is the one who answers.
"Kurloz drinks it. I saw him carrying a few cases back to his room – and, in fact, the Makaras own the company that produces it. They are to the soda world what Betty Crocker is to the baking world, if you will."
Aranea apparently thinks you want this, so she continues into a history of the Makara family.
"The Makara family is a bit… ill-reputed, so to speak, but they do have massive amounts of money. They are also deeply religious, but not in the God that you or I may believe in. There's a reason why Kurloz is called a cult leader – because that's, really, what their religion is. No more than a cult. They do have followers, however, if only because of the crime that they dabble in, but the majority of their money comes from Faygo. A mediocre drink at best, but if you'll remember, it was becoming quite popular shortly before we entered this school.
"Kurloz is part of what you could call the main branch of the family. This consists of him, his father, and his younger brother. Kurloz is apparently the stable one, which is quite possibly why he has taken lead of the cult. His muteness, as well, is told to have something to do with the cult – some say that it is selective muteness, others say he was born mute, and yet others say that it was a ritual that stole his voice, but most signs point back to the cult that he heads.
"Faygo is one of the calling cards of a Makara – and, as well as that, the smiley faces that Kurloz draws behind a few words – the ones with the noses? Those are also trademark Makara. Th-"
"Interesting, but it looks like someone's been living in here," Roxy interrupts. She's been poking around while Aranea was talking, and now she looks up at you. She's frowning. "And I don't think it's Kurloz."
Whenever I dip back into this fanfiction I get excited about it, agh.