Coax Him
Daemon dashed forward a moment too late, only managing to grasp at the thin air her arm used to be moments before. By the time he realized what had happened, Derila was already soaring out of the window with her arms outstretched.
Daemon was about to follow suit when he found to her relief that she had landed safely and was busy rummaging for missing jewelry in the snow.
Although her bedroom was only situated on the second floor, it was still forty feet above the ground. Inexplicably, it did not even seem like a superhuman feat to her.
Under the increasingly heavy snowfall, Derila brushed the snowflakes off of her shoulders impatiently. Despite being clad in only a thin gauze skirt, the cold did not seem important enough to pause her search.
Even more suspiciously, the sprightly movements with which she plodded atop the snow barefooted were most unlike that of a frail woman in convalescence.
Daemon squinted his eyes and looked at her, his eyes flickering with a spark of recognition. What a familiar looking back.
"Oh, Ms. Riri!" Norah appeared anxiously with a coat at the ready. "Aren't you a little underdressed? What are you looking for out here by yourself? Come in, you're going to catch a cold."
"I'm looking for the jewels your idiotic master has thrown out of the window, " Derila blurted aloud in her anxiety. "I couldn't find them anywhere."
Her voice rang clearly up the castle walls and reached Daemon's ears who frowned at the unflattering title.
"Come in quickly, please. I'll have someone look for it for you. We will find every single gemstone there is."
Norah draped the coat over Derila's shoulders. "It's freezing today. We must warm you up and ensure that you'll be fit enough to attend the banquet with Mr. Lierger tonight."
"What banquet? I'm not going anywhere!" Derila retorted, her mind occupied with nothing else but the lost jewelry.
The glint of a topaz caught Derila's eye. She pounced and extracted a beautiful topaz necklace from a mound of snow. Slipping it carefully into her pocket, she resumed her search.
Norah had no choice but to summon several bodyguards to join in the treasure hunt.
With the additional pairs of hands, most of the lost gems were recovered swiftly.
After the men swore that there was none left to be found, Derila counted her loot and found seven pieces. However, the total number of items that had been flung out of the window by Daemon remained unknown to her as they had been contained in two large boxes.
Cradling the jewelry as if they were fragile, she dashed back upstairs for another tally.
After ordering the bodyguards to resume their search in the snow, Norah escorted Derila back to the castle.
Two maids immediately came over with more coats and blankets to drape over her cold body.
Derila was about to head up the stairs when Daemon descended gracefully. "Why did you throw them out, you Lolatic?" she asked angrily.
"I told you that you're free to throw it out if you don't like them."
Daemon could not be indifferent, as if it was not something worth mentioning.
"It was through my efforts to have recovered them, " Derila said quickly as she clutched the jewelry against her chest, for fear of being robbed by him again. "They're mine now."
Daemon nodded. "Sure."
Derila threw one last suspicious glare at him before disappearing upstairs to count her loot and found everything else accounted for except for a ruby ring.
In her panic, Derila was about to dive out of the window again when Norah hurriedly grabbed her. "The walls are exceptionally high, Ms. Riri. You'll hurt yourself."
"I won't! I did it earli-"
Derila stopped herself just in time. She was just beginning to realize how reckless she had been by defying all expectations of a frail woman with a gunshot wound by leaping out of the window without a second thought.
Daemon might have noticed something amiss.
"Please, Ms. Riri, " bleated Norah earnestly. Change out of these wet clothes and go have breakfast with Mr. Lierger. Leave the ruby ring to me."
"I think Mr. Lierger seems a little angry, " she added with a wink. "You should coax him."
Derila was speechless with indignation. "On what grounds? He threw the things, didn't he?"
"I-"
"Forget it, Norah, " Derila cut across flatly. "I'm going back out for the ring.
Derila stowed the jewelry away safely, put on her boots and coat, and went back out to the cold for the remainder.
Finders, keepers.
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