Chapter 819

It was a good ten minute later when Kat’s straining ears picked up the sound of approaching footsteps. She grabbed Lily up off her lap and placed her back in an upright position. Lily opened her mouth to complain about the change, only to blush when she realised what it meant. She quickly grabbed her cup of tea, cold by this point, and chugged the whole thing just to distract herself enough to supress her blush. It... it was barely successful.

Zuhra opened the door and Jara stepped through, taking a quick glance at them both before reaching to the satchel she had on her side, digging around in it for a few moments before saying, “Zuhra can you grab me a fresh notebook for this? I don’t seem to have one on me,”

Zuhra bowed and said, “Of course mistress,” before turning and leaving the room. It was unclear if she had a good poker face or if she truly didn’t see anything strange about the request to leave Jara alone so soon after entering the room. Perhaps it was because this was Jara’s house, and she was in no danger here?

Jara waited a few moments for Zuhra to well and truly be gone, something Kat did listen out for. Twenty seconds had passed and as soon as the time was up Jara whipped her head back around and said, “What are you both doing here? It’s not so easy to keep Zuhra busy. She might like busywork but she does know her main job is to follow me around. The fact she left so easily isn’t a surprise but it won’t work again!”

Kat wanted to drag things out a bit, maybe explain properly... but if they were limited on time there was only one answer. “We’ve just found out about Gaston’s death and at this point we feel like Zuhra should really be involved. We’re talking about letting her in on the whole thing. Well that and we want to figure out some things before our contract is technically complete. We want your opinion on letting her know,”

Jara groaned, “Of course it’s something like this dammit. Ok... I want to give my tentative approval for telling her. I don’t necessarily like doing all this behind her back either and if you think it’s time to speak up... that’s fine. The issue is... no I think Apep would forgive basically anything as long as it was for Zuhra benefit. Hmm... on top of that... with you telling Zuhra on his behalf the family doesn’t have to get involved yet... ok. I like this plan,”

*You know. I was expecting this to be a bit harder. Maybe explain how we’re betraying Apep’s trust or something but... I guess it’s nice to know she agrees with us.* “Right so... how do we want to break this to her?” asked Kat.

.....

“Hmm,” Jara hummed. “Good question,”

“Well we probably shouldn’t lead with ‘we were just talking to Belle,'” seeing Jara’s confusion Kat explained, “Belle is Gaston’s mother and Gaston is her old fiancé,”

“Yes. Do NOT lead with that. Probably just... start from the beginning. It’ll still be a lot but...” Jara paused when Kat held up a hand. She could already here Zuhra coming back. Jara nodded, quickly grabbing a chair for herself and setting it up when Zuhra stepped in. “Sit down Zuhra,”

Zuhra paused with the book in hand. She looked around slowly at the group with a frown, seemingly understanding now that the book was just an excuse to get her out of the room for a moment. “Of course, mistress,” said Zuhra her voice showing only the barest signs of strain. “How can I help you,”

The other three in the room all looked at each other, as if trying to figure out how to start... until Jara and Lily settled their eyes onto Kat’ with a nod. *Ah gee thanks for volunteering me guys.* Lily could still feel Kat’s amusement so just quirked the corner of her mouth up slightly. With an exaggerated sigh Kat turned to Zuhra and said, “Hello Zuhra, my name is Kat and the person beside me is my girlfriend Lily. We were hired for a specific job, and now we are... broadening the scope of it I suppose,”

Zuhra looked confused and hesitant but Kat continued, “Now, it in part involves you... and I’m currently trying to determine how best to say it. A bit of further delaying but useful information is that I am a demon. This, amongst other things, means that I am incapable of lying. So know that everything I tell you is the truth, because it HAS to be,” Zuhra nodded, “Ok. Good. Now... the thing I suppose is on your mind...

“What is all this about. Well, the core of it is that Lily and I were hired to look into you-” Kat was cut off by Zuhra hopping up from her chair and pulling a knife out of her front pocket and pointing it towards Kat. “Put that away. It’s not like you can hurt me with it. We mean you no harm,”

“No harm she says,” spat Zuhra, “You just said you were hired to look into me! I’d ask what set you off but frankly I don’t feel like incriminating myself for something else,”

“Do you really think Jara would be here with us if we were looking into something bad?” asked Kat. Zuhra glanced over at her employer who waved back with a bright smile on her face, completely ignoring the tense atmosphere, Zuhra took one more step back but didn’t lower the knife.

“Ok are you willing to here us out now?” asked Kat. Zuhra gave a hesitant nod in response, “Good. In that case the reason you’re looking into you is because Apep-”

Despite agreeing to here Kat out Zuhra apparently couldn’t hold her tongue, “APEP! I can’t believe he’d do something like that. I thought we were at least friends, but NO apparently I can’t even have that,”

Kat just stared back at Zuhra. “Jara... is she... is she intentionally trying to take this the wrong way?”

Jara sighed, “I don’t really know why Zuhra is reacting so badly to this...”

“DON’T talk about me like I’m not here! I can hear you both perfectly well!” growled Zuhra.

“Apparently not because you aren’t really listening,” snipped Lily, “You’re just making assumptions based on half of a conversation. We aren’t your enemies Zuhra. We are trying to bring you into this gently but you’re apparently trying to be difficult”

Zuhra took in a deep breath and then glanced over at the tea set. Kat and Lily gave matching nods and Zuhra pulled a mug from her pocket and poured herself a glass and sipped on it for a few moments. “Ok I’m calm,”

“Right...” said Kat uncertainly, “So, Apep has a crush on you and wanted some information. What he tried to do was summon a demon to answer his questions but that failed and he got me and Lily instead. His goal, was to find out if he had any chance with you. He knew you had a fiancé before, and didn’t want to pressure you by asking and having his family find out. They’re apparently very invested in finding him a wife.

“That’s on top of the fact Jara’s family is also interested in pairing her with Apep because they don’t think she’d bother to find a husband otherwise. They seem to really want kids. So Apep wanted to find out if he had a chance before mentioning it. In the end, that didn’t work out and Lily and I started to check your background a bit...

“Which... would have been fine if you just broke up with your fiancé but we now know about Gaston and the fact that he’s dead... and it just sort of felt wrong to keep going,” Zuhra sucked in a deep breath and took another drink.

“I’m not interested,” said Zuhra.

Jara growled, “Zuhra, you’re my friend as well as my maid and that is frankly, ridiculous. I’ve seen you get along really well with Apep so far and I already know that you aren’t a lesbian or asexual like myself, so why not give it a chance,”

“He thought it was appropriate to investigate my personal life! I don’t know about you but I feel pretty pressured by that!” snarled Zuhra.

“It wasn’t his intent though,” pointed out Lily, “he wasn’t even sure if you were going to be married to a guy or not. If it was a women he would have... well I’m not quite sure what but he didn’t want to ruin what small friendship you have,”

“Well he’s doing a pretty good job of it you know. He could have just asked me!” said Zuhra.

“Yeah right,” said Jara, “I didn’t even know the guy’s NAME Zuhra and you think you’d have told Apep? You’re dreaming!”