Act II. Scene XVI

CALE

Bold.

That damn lady who seemed old enough to be a grandmother to both of them - she was outrageously bold.

Bold enough to ask a ducal princess and future archduchess to become nothing more and nothing less than bait to lure a maniac who had been stalking her for so long.

"Control yourself," the archduke thought, both hands clenched into fists; he couldn't simply let himself go, he couldn't simply decapitate that lady - as he had done to his son.

"If only I hadn't been so impulsive... if only I hadn't acted as I always end up acting..." the boy blamed himself; but how else could he react? How else should he behave when that worm not only crawled through his mansion, stepped on his carpets, and invaded a private room where he knew Ágape was - apparently alone?

The intentions of that vile creature were obvious. Too obvious for Cale to not want to eradicate that soul from the face of the earth, too obvious for him to bear the thought of those vi