It must have been handed to him by someone close to him. But who?

Sky was lying on her bed, looking up at the note in her hands as she analysed it; it wasn't handwriting that she recognised.

Someone close to Mason... Rhys? Lisette?

... Lily?

Sky shook her head; she was sure even after the recent events that they weren't all that close. She needed to stop overthinking.

But Lisette... Those two were close, undeniably so; it still gave her an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach when she thought of it. Sky then realised that despite all the years of Lisette working here, she'd never actually seen Lisette's handwriting – that had to change.

Sky got up and made her way towards her desk, trying to figure out if there was anything that could convince Lisette to write. Was there any specific subject that she could remember Lisette talking about? She couldn't think of anything. But then something else came to mind.

She threw the note from Mason onto the table and instead grabbed a piece of lined paper and a pen before she made her way out of her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

"Do you know where Lisette is?" she asked a maid who happened to be walking past.

"Lisette? I can't say I've seen her recently but I did see her in the kitchen about half an hour ago," the maid said. Sky nodded to let the maid know she understood and the maid bowed before hurrying off to continue her chores. The kitchen was as good a place to start as any so that's where Sky headed.

Unfortunately for her, the kitchen was empty when she arrived, though it wasn't necessarily unsurprising since it wasn't yet time for dinner. Sky made her way towards the back door in hopes of finding anyone who might be able to aid her in her search, but she ended up with something better.

Instead of walking straight out of the door, Sky attempted to keep the warmth inside and only opened it wide enough to poke her head through. She first looked left to find nothing, but as she turned her head right, she found a very interesting sight.

Although Michael's back was blocking most of what seemed to be going on, she saw that Lisette was handing him something and Sky's interest immediately peaked. However, she hadn't been aware that the back door squeaked when opened wide enough, so she caught the attention of them both without meaning to.

"Sk—Miss Sky! What are you doing out here?" Lisette said, clearly not wanting to get reprimanded for not calling her mistress appropriately and also embarrassed to have been caught.

Sky was just as embarrassed. "I, uh... I was actually looking for you. Could you come and help me?"

"Of course! I'll be right there," Lisette responded, but not before shooting Michael a look before she headed towards her mistress. Michael looked after the young maid with a hint of amusement in his eyes at the reactions of the two young women.

"What is it that I can do for you?" Lisette asked once she and Sky were together inside the kitchen. Sky thrust the pen and paper out towards Lisette, who took them with a perplexed expression on her face.

"You know that spa you told me about that you go to sometimes? I want you to give me directions to the place."

Surprise was evident in Lisette's features but she nodded in understanding as she placed the paper down and began to write it down; Sky watched curiously over Lisette's shoulder. "Any particular reason you suddenly fancy a spa visit?"

"Not at all," Sky said hurriedly. "I just thought I'd give it a go, that's all."

Lisette nodded as she finished and straightened up and handed Sky's pen and paper back to her. "Well, here you have it. Let me know what you think of it when you've been?"

Sky nodded. "Will do."

Lisette smiled. "Anyway, I'd better continue with my chores."

Sky couldn't help the teasing smile that slipped on her face. "Try not to get distracted." She was rather surprised to see Lisette's disgruntled look before she left which totally didn't match her reddened cheeks.

Sky smiled to herself before she looked down at what Lisette had written down, and her smile quickly disappeared; even before comparing it to the mysterious note in her room, she could tell that there was no way Lisette was the reason behind all of this. She should have expected Lisette to have graceful handwriting, very unlike the handwriting in the note.

Deciding to make sure, she headed back up to her room anyway and compared the two pieces of writing in her room, and her suspicions were indeed correct. Sky sighed, but whether it was a sigh of relief or sigh of disappointment, she wasn't sure. Though as she thought about it, she was relieved that it wasn't Lisette – Rhys on the other hand...

Sky left her room and headed towards Mason's.

Sky cringed as the sound of her knocking on Mason's door seemed too loud for the quiet house. "Mason?" she asked quietly through the door. She waited a few seconds but there was no response so she knocked again. "Mason?"

When there was still no response, she assumed he wasn't in his room so she cracked it open ever so slightly to check.

He wasn't.

She checked around for anyone else who might be around and upon seeing no one, she quickly slipped into his room and closed the door shut quietly behind her. She took a small breath to calm herself, knowing that she had to be quick because she didn't know when Mason would return.

She held up the note in front of her face and tried to memorise the style again. Someone who knew Mason must have handed it to him and she was hoping she would find out who it was in his room. She had her suspicions about Rhys but she kind of hoped it wasn't him for the sake of sparing Mason the pain of betrayal.

So her first port of call to find evidence? Mason's desk.

She made her way over on her tip-toes, all too aware of anyone who might be able to hear her from below and she stopped right next to his chair. For a moment all she did was marvel at how organised everything on there was for a guy, but then she grimaced as she recalled her own room; not even all females were good at keeping everything neat.

Once she got past her initial stage of being impressed, she quickly forced her mind back onto the matter at hand and placed the note on the desk. She sifted through his papers to look for any handwriting that it might be but began to grow increasingly frustrated.

Nothing in the first pile. Nothing in the second pile. Not even the third pile.

She threw down the last pile in defeat when she couldn't find anything. Then she quickly straightened the edges and put it back as it had been before. She couldn't help but scoff at her behaviour as she picked up the note, hardly believing that she actually cared about stuff like that now.

Sky shook the sheet impatiently in her hand as she looked around the room for anything else that may aid her search. Was his backpack lying around anywhere? She couldn't see it. She started wondering if he'd ever come home before heading out to wherever he was doing whatever meant they couldn't walk back together.

It was then that she noticed a piece of paper sticking out from a lump in the bed – a bed which was surprisingly unmade in this otherwise organised room – and she made her way over.

It was just a school trip form. Of course.

Sky started to let out a sigh of annoyance which quickly turned into a surprised intake of air at the sound of the door opening. She automatically folded up the note and stuck it in her back pocket before Mason looked up from the sheet in his hand and noticed her presence in his room.

"Sky?" His clueless expression told her that she'd caught him completely off-guard.

"Who else?" Sky said, playing on her uncaring attitude. "Would any other girl in this house enter your room? Especially when you so often come back these days all... Sweaty." Sky couldn't help but wrinkle her nose ever so slightly at the sight.

"I just—" Mason started, but he just gave up and shook his head. "Never mind. What are you doing in my room anyway?"

Sky, prepared for this situation, was proud of herself as she gave him her answer. "I wasn't paying attention in class so I was hoping I could borrow your notes to copy."

Mason was quiet for a moment and just regarded her for a moment from the doorway, leaving her uncomfortable under his gaze. "Have you learned nothing? That's not something to be proud of," Mason said as he finally made his way into his room, dumping his bag on the bed beside Sky. "Besides, couldn't you have waited for me to come back before just entering my room?"

"Why?" she asked teasingly. "Have you got secrets to hide?"

Mason shook his head in defeat. "As you've so kindly pointed out yourself, I need a shower first anyway before I do anything else, so can we do this after?"

But Sky was no longer paying attention to what Mason was saying as the sheet in his hand caught her interest. "What's that?"

Mason shot her an agitated look. "Did you not hear what I just said?"

"I... Did. Just... Answer me that first," Sky said, her voice less confident this time.

Mason sighed as he threw the said sheet onto the bed and moved to get his shower things. "It's some notes I borrowed from Rhys since I missed the class."

"You missed class? That's so unlike you," Sky said, distracted by the sheet which she now held in her own hands. "I'll just take this for now then. See you later."

"But you—" Mason was cut off by his bedroom door slamming shut with Sky now on the other side of it. "You don't even have that class," he finished, not wanting to leave the sentence unfinished.

Sky's behaviour baffled him lately and he really wasn't sure what to make of it. Why on earth did she feel the need to take notes for a class that she didn't even take?

Not sure if should leave it as above or add this bit below for the end.

He stopped gathering his things for a brief moment as he made a realisation – he'd mentioned Rhys. Was he the reason?

________________________________________________________________

So I have some exciting news - I'm taking part in Wattpad's Open Novella contest! And I am absolutely in love with the story that I've created for it. I ended up mixing three prompts into a single story and I think I've got something good here (: I hope you won't be too mad that I'll be changing the upload schedule to once every two weeks while I work on this though; it's a lot of writing I need to get done! And there is no way I will be ditching this story since I have it all planned to the end of this book. So don't worry!

Anyway, for any of you who might be interested, it is a fantasy story so a little bit different to this, but I will be adding romance to it! And it is only light fantasy with humanoid fantastical creatures like witches and reapers. For any who might be interested, I'll leave the blurb here - otherwise, thank you for reading (as usual :D ) and I will talk to you soon! Thank you for your continued support <3 

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ROBIN SOULS

A reaper. A red scythe. A cauldron of souls.

Elise Amor is a tarot card reader and has seen this tarot card in her dreams for months - the only problem? The card doesn't exist. The real question is why she then finds the card tattooed on a man she has never seen before.

This so-called man goes by the name of Damien, who is in fact a deviant reaper and harvests the souls of the rich for his own intentions. He approaches Elise for a reading to find out if he will succeed in his endeavours, and although she confirms that he will succeed in his venture, the cards also give a warning.

But Damien refuses to listen.

It isn't long before the dangers that the cards foretold pull Elise into Damien's troubles.