I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

"I’m Barbra. Lady Diana’s personal maid." She answered and kept going. "Hakimi said you wanted help looking into the rumors going around about him. I honestly didn’t even know he was secretly investigating this, considering the duke has made it very clear he’s supposed to stay inside the palace grounds. I also already know you, from what Lady Diana and Dune have said. You’re Felix, right? You look exactly how Dune described. Lady Diana said you’re a jerk, but also kind of funny, and that you’re always chasing after money. Is that also why you hurt Dune, for the money? Because honestly you just look pretty average to me. So how exactly are you planning on finding whoever’s behind all this? I mean, I—"

"How about we talk inside, sitting down?" Felix pressed two fingers against his temple.

"Yes, sure, that works." Barbra nodded quickly. "Just so you know upfront though, don’t try anything funny with me. I’m not as weak as I look."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Felix stepped aside, holding the door open. "Just get inside already. I don’t need some random girl in a maid outfit standing on my doorstep for the whole street to see."

Barbra shot him a look as she stepped past, walking straight for the dining table without waiting to be shown. Felix shut the door behind her and settled into the chair across from her.

"Now before we get started, tell me about Dune first. How’s she doing?"

Barbara held his gaze steady, giving nothing away yet. "She’s doing fine, I’d say. The moment she woke up she asked for you, wanted to know where you were, though I didn’t know who you even were at that point. She told me you were badly hurt too, could barely stand, and that you cut your own arm trying to heal her. I don’t fully understand how that’s supposed to work, honestly. Hakimi told her he wouldn’t let her see you, because of the mistake you made, made it fairly clear you needed to learn something from it, learn how to conduct yourself properly going forward." She paused, watching his reaction carefully. "Then Dune started saying some strange things, that the two of you are bound together through a marriage ritual, that she can’t be separated from you, something about a tattoo. She showed me and Lady Diana her back to prove it. There was nothing there."

"Hold on." Felix’s brow furrowed sharply.

Barbara stopped, waiting.

"She showed you her back, and you saw nothing."

"That’s what I said. There was nothing on her back at all." Her eyes narrowed slightly, testing him now. "Should there have been?"

Felix went quiet, thinking it through.

How could they not see it? Wait, Lara never questioned it either, come to think of it, never asked me a single thing about it despite how close we’ve been. Either she already knew, or she couldn’t see it at all either. This tattoo keeps getting stranger the longer I sit with it.

He nodded slowly, giving nothing away. "Keep going."

Barbara studied him a beat longer before continuing, deciding to let it go for now. "Most of her time gets split between Hakimi and Lady Diana. I couldn’t tell you exactly what she and Hakimi do together, he says he’s teaching her to control her Numen better, which I assume ties into that seal on her body you already know about. It kept her flow stable the whole time she was injured, whoever did that work knew exactly what they were doing. Though I’ll say, if you’d been the one to put it on her, you’d already understand its limitations without needing me to explain them to you." She let that sit a second, watching whether it landed. "With Lady Diana, she mostly listens. Diana tells her stories, reads to her sometimes, and Dune asks questions about all of it. She’s been eating quite a lot too." Barbara’s expression sharpened slightly. "If you’re wondering why the Duke allowed a complete stranger to stay in the palace at all, it’s because Lady Diana hasn’t told anyone the full truth about her. Dune doesn’t leave Diana’s room unless Hakimi specifically asks for her. That’s the whole of it." She folded her hands in her lap. "If you’ve still got questions about her, ask them now. I won’t be repeating myself twice."

"No. Enough about Dune." Felix leaned back in his chair. "She’s clearly enjoying herself there. Tell me about your lady and the knight now."

"Do you have a specific question?"

"I’ll sort through it myself. Just give me everything you’ve got. I’m awake enough for it."

"I can’t give you everything." Barbara’s tone stayed even. "I started serving Lady Diana when I was six, she was five. Hakimi was already assigned to her before that, even earlier than me."

She studied him for a long moment. "And I still don’t know anything about you. You don’t strike me as particularly trustworthy, for what it’s worth. You could have your own reasons for wanting all this, twisted or otherwise. Why did Hakimi even choose you for this job in the first place? And why did you agree to it?"

"You people are holding my wife hostage. I don’t exactly get a choice in the matter." Felix sighed. "As for having some hidden agenda, I couldn’t care less about either of their histories on a personal level. I just need enough of it to actually finish the job I was handed. And whether you trust me or not doesn’t really change anything, that asshole would cut me in half the second I stepped out of line. You know that better than I do."

He let out a slow breath. "So start wherever you’d like."

Barbara thought for a moment, then nodded to herself. "Hakimi was assigned to protect Lady Diana when he was five, she was two. From what I understand, it happened right after her mother’s death."

"Wait." Felix’s brow lifted. "I thought Charlotte was the one who chose him."

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