Aoife stood with a robe wrapped around her body as water dripped off her skin, staring at the contents of the wardrobe. The Enchanter hadn't lied when he said there was a selection of dresses— there must have been fifteen gowns packed into the tall wardrobe, all of different colors and patterns, and none of which actually belonged to her. However, she couldn't very well stay in her traveling dress. Among other things, it didn't smell very nice after spending a day in the carriage, and it was dusty around the hem just from the walk up to the castle doors.

She reluctantly looked through the dresses until she found one that looked like it could feasibly be put on without help. It was a spring green court dress with a pattern of yellow flowers on the bodice and full skirt. The top was unfortunately sleeveless, but it was the only one with a bodice that clasped in the front.

She found a shawl in one of the wardrobe drawers to ward off the chill, wrapping it around her shoulders like armor. Her tall leather gloves hid what part of the vines twisted down and around her forearm, and the tangle of thorns and unopened flower buds at her shoulders were concealed by the soft shawl.

Looking in the mirror, Aoife could see it wasn't the most fashionable ensemble: her gloves were worn and dirty, her shawl didn't match the color of the dress at all, and her hair was a mess after the bath, but she was warm and hungry and didn't care to dwell on fashion when the only person looking at her would be a grumpy Enchanter. She took off down the hallway without too much extra thought, combing through her damp hair with her fingers as she followed the directions to the dining room.

As she retraced their steps down the hallway, Aoife had the sudden realization that it would be absolutely impossible to find her way around here, at least for a few days. The first one of the Enchanter's rules to be broken would undoubtedly be "don't get lost." The only indicators of direction or location marking the bleak stone walls were the tapestries, and there hadn't been enough time for her to study them to use them as a map yet, though her gaze lingered on them as she walked towards the dining room.

The tapestries were grand, ornate things hanging on every wall, all depicting some kind of scene. One was a snowy mountain pass with bear tracks heading through the canyon, another was a lush lagoon with a flock of mermaids sunning themselves on the shore, and yet another was a battle scene so bloody that Aoife had to turn away. She'd heard plenty of battle stories and seen her fair share of generally wounded people as a healer, but something about that particular scene gave her chills.

As she walked through the castle, Aoife could clearly tell that while the inner workings may have been built for hospitality, its chief purpose had been for defense. The walls were thick, and the windows were high. The complicated system of passages allowed one to make their way virtually anywhere by any means. It would trap any intruders who didn't know their way around. Whoever had designed the place was a genius...

Unless it was built by magic, of course.

She might have to ask about that later.

Eventually, she did find her way to the correct room. The double doors opened without a single squeak of protest, swinging out into a large dining hall. She would have entered quietly, except that she tripped on the hem of her dress and crashed to the floor with a sickening smack. The Enchanter looked over, eyebrows raised, and Aoife blushed furiously as she picked herself up from the floor. He smirked slightly, but made no comment about the fall.

"I see you had no trouble finding your way here."

"The directions you gave were straightforward." Aoife said, shrugging.

In front of her was an almost comically long dining table with two places already set, the Enchanter facing one empty chair across from him in the center of the table— the only other chair in the room. Aoife reluctantly walked forward and took a seat in front of the steaming meal already set out for them. The chairs were placed directly across from each other in the middle of the long sides, in order to have the least possible distance between conversing parties while still facing one another.

Neither of them made a move to eat. Aoife wasn't particularly hungry, and the Enchanter had an assessment to perform.

"Um, thank you... for the dress."

He waved it off as if it were nothing.

"If you're going to be my apprentice, you need to know how to walk, talk, and dress like a member of the Court."

"I thought being your apprentice was a lie for the Court's benefit."

"It is and it isn't. You need a reason to be here, and thus you're my apprentice. I don't plan to keep you on after all this has resolved, so you're not really my apprentice. However, I do need to teach you to control your powers as if you were my apprentice regardless of any other plans."

"Um... alright," Aoife said slowly, not entirely following.

"Not 'alright,'" the Enchanter said, mimicking, "When you're in the Court you say 'Yes, Sir.'"

"I'm not in Court," Aoife muttered.

"Ah, more evidence that you do possess a spine!" He set his goblet down with a dull clunk, fixing his cool gaze on her face. "I like a spine; makes things more fun. If the Court sees a spine they will do everything in their power to break it down."

Once again his eyes slid over her face, and they paused on the scar across her left cheek. He'd looked at it strangely in the carriage, too, though she didn't think he knew that she noticed. In the end, curiosity won out over anything else running through her mind. "Why do you keep looking at that scar?"

His gaze flicked back to her eyes. It took a moment for him to respond, as if he were taking time to weigh his words. "Where did you get it?"

"I..." Aoife thought for a moment, unconsciously reaching up to touch the slightly raised flesh where the scar stood out. She remembered that part, she thought. It was before that person had found her in the woods. They... threw something, and it slashed the side of her face. However, there was no way to explain how that all had happened without going into why she was chased from the village in the first place. "It's a long story."

"I'd love to hear it sometime," he said, tucking into his food. "Eat. It won't poison you."

Aoife poked at the meal on her plate, only now paying attention to what it actually was. There was some kind of meat and a pile of cooked root vegetables on her plate, a basket of bread rolls in between them, and something off to the side that looked suspiciously like spiced apples for dessert. The goblet held a dark liquid that looked like wine... and smelled like it, too, when she picked it up. Aoife would have much preferred water, but she didn't want to ask for something different. Instead, she opted not to complain and took a sip of the wine—

Only to find water filling her mouth.

Aoife coughed and spluttered, managing to swallow the water, and looked down to find her glass full of clear liquid.

"Problem?" The Enchanter let out a low laugh, glancing up briefly before going back to his own meal.

"No," she choked out, voice still waterlogged.

"There's something you should know about the house..." he said slowly, seemingly gauging her response.

"Is it really cursed?" Aoife breathed, looking around like she might be able to see the dark magic bouncing around the walls. "I thought that was just a rumor."

"Cursed, yes. Malevolent, no. In its prime, there was a full staff of servants and a family living here. The staff still cooks the food and takes care of the cleaning for me, though the family has long moved on."

"Where... are they?"

"Here. Around us," he said simply.

"They're... invisible?" She looked around the room, squinting into the darkness and blinking into the lighted sections. There was no one there.

"In a... sense?" the Enchanter said vaguely. "They've been somewhat reduced to an incorporeal form."

A horrible shudder ran down Aoife's spine.

Dead. The entire staff was dead. It was the only logical answer.

The castle was... staffed by ghosts?

"As in their souls are trapped here?" Aoife asked, wide-eyed. "You live in a cursed, haunted castle?"

"Oh, ye with power over death shying away from the spirits of the dead," he muttered, taking another sip from his wine goblet.

Aoife went cold.

She didn't have a chance to choose her magic. If she could have spurned her Touch entirely, she would. She wasn't comfortable with it, she wasn't happy with it, and she certainly didn't appreciate his sarcasm about the very thing that actively had ruined her life since the day it manifested.

Her whole body felt numb; her mind felt numb. She couldn't speak, couldn't feel, couldn't think.

Until it boiled over.

"I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS!" she shrieked, pounding her fist on the table. The dishes rattled on the table, goblets threatening to turn over with the force of the blow. The Enchanter actually put his silverware down and stared at her. She gulped in a few breaths of air, still screaming at him out of sheer fury.

"I never asked to be able to kill things! I don't want it! I don't want to stay away from people because I'm scared I might hurt them. I don't want to feel things die under my hands when I touch them! Have you ever stopped to think about how that feels? It's not pleasant!" Aoife's voice echoed around the empty dining room as she paused for breath.

"I—"

"No, you listen," she continued, pointing an accusing finger at him. "If you're going to teach me how to control my magic, then do it, but if not, tell me now because I cannot live like this anymore, and I will run myself through with one of those swords above the fireplace before I snatch one more person's life out of their hands! If you will not help me, then I suggest that if you know of a way to kill me you do it now and put me out of my misery."

She didn't know at what point she'd stood up from the table, but her chair was overturned behind her and she stood looking down at the Enchanter, heartbeat pounding in her ears and breathing hard.

"You're dead serious." It wasn't a question. The Enchanter's face was somehow even paler than it was before.

"I drank enough belladonna to kill a horse, went to sleep, and woke up the next morning with no side effects," she said, beginning to shake. "I slit my wrists open and hours later found myself on the floor in a pool of my own drying blood, with the wounds completely healed. I even tried to cut my own throat, but it just wound up making me vomit blood for days. If you can free me from whatever punishment this magic is, I would be grateful." Aoife could not stop the shaking now, staring at the Enchanter across the table and waiting for a reply.

"Dear God, who hurt you?" he whispered, seemingly more to himself than anyone else.

"No one. And everyone," she said flatly. "I just hurt enough people by mistake that it ate away at what was left to hurt."

"I..." he mumbled something that she couldn't hear.

"What?"

"I'm so sorry."

"I don't need your pity."

"Alright," he said, nodding. The Enchanter stood from his half-eaten meal and turned to leave. "Meet me in the inner courtyard in the morning."

He slowly padded towards the door, looking a little less grand than the air he'd been putting on since they left the castle.

"They're not dead, by the way," he said quietly. "Trapped, but not dead."

Aoife looked behind her to find that her chair had been mysteriously righted. How... how was that possible? How was any of this possible?

"They've been turned into living spirits, not killed," the Enchanter explained. "They're simply confined to this building and the grounds. They can interact with things in a limited capacity, but not be seen or heard."

That... was at least more comforting than the idea of an entirely ghostly castle staff.

She plopped down with a huff, looking at her meal with distaste... but she should eat something. Her body needed food to survive. She lifted the fork to her mouth slowly, mechanically chewing and swallowing, and found that the food actually quite tasty.

"Um, I don't know if you can... hear me... but this is very good," she said to the thin air.

Whatever energy or spirits trapped here might not be able to hear or even understand her, but Aoife thought that if she were trapped in a cursed house for all eternity, she'd want to know that her food was good, or at least have someone acknowledge her presence.

If she wasn't mistaken, she thought she felt a slight draft answering her.