Silver Spoons

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…

Cole opened his eyes to the sounds of wailing and distant screams.

With dreary eyes, he looked out the large windows to the right of his massive bed. Dawn hadn't broken and the sky was still black and speckled with stars.

'What's going on so early in the morning?'

He grumbled to himself and sighed. He should probably go and investigate what was happening, but his legs refused to move. He realized he was going to have to commit to leaving his comfy bed.

So, with a heavy heart, he managed to throw the blankets off and get one of his legs over the side of the bed.

-BANG-

That was when a maid, Jasmine to be exact, opened the large doors to his room. She had apparently put a lot of force into the action and caused a loud bang to echo through his room.

"What… Jasmine? What's going on?"

"Young master, its not safe here anymore… the Countess… She…"

Jasmine seemed to have a frog stuck in her throat, she couldn't get the words out of her mouth and stuttered over each point.

Cole knew something was wrong and his earlier drowsiness was washed away by a cold bucket of reality. Something had happened to his mom, and it apparently wasn't good. He peeked around Jasmine and saw that she was the only one at the door. Thin beads of sweat trickled down her forehead and she was panting.

All emotion washed away from his face. A blank slate of indifference appeared, no distinct show of emotion showed. At least, that was what he wanted. But he couldn't help himself when his brows furrowed ever so slightly.

"Come on, get up!"

He yelled to Jasmine as she started to slump down onto the floor. He rushed out of his massive bed and gave the maid a slap to the head, not hard but enough to let her know he wasn't joking around here.

He didn't have time to clean up or make himself presentable.

Cole was wearing a white nightgown that matched his porcelain skin. His hair was a mess and his brows expressed a hint of worry and concern.

He ignored everyone around him and rushed through the mansions corridors and long hallways. Each turn he made he refused to slow down or stop, his constant running made the soles of his feet turn red each time they slapped the cold marble floor.

His breathing got heavier and his vision swayed, but he ignored everything until he arrived at his mom's office.

Maids and manservants were rushing to and fro, entering and exiting the office with a mixture of emotions. Some looked sad, others looked disturbed, while some simple shook their heads in disapproval.

'Okay, there's definitely something wrong… What happened to mom? Is she okay? What happened?'

His eyes darted around the room, looking for signs of his mom or father. His bare feet made little to no sound as he stepped into the room.

The other observers were too busy with the scene inside the room to even pay a single fraction of attention to the little boy. He walked into the room with grace, seemingly a ghost.

His heart started to beat faster and faster as he took each step. As he neared his mom's desk, the faces of those observing became more and more disturbed. Some even threw up.

"M… mom?"

He asked no one in particular, nor did he expect a response. But somewhere, deep down inside of him, Cole wanted to be consoled. Someone to pat him on the shoulder and say everything was going to be alright.

He turned and stopped in front of his mom's desk. There, he looked down on the floor and saw her.

Adelaide's peaceful and serene eyes, her beautiful onyx hair draped gracefully down her shoulders and cascading down the sides of her face. Her sharp and intelligent facial features displayed a look of pure sadness, outlined by a single tear streak.

Blood and vomit decorated her body and mouth. A forest of green and red dancing together with a peaceful kind of beauty. When he looked closer, he swore he could spot outlines of red lilies and lush green tree leaves intertwined in the pools of blood and vomit.

His heart stopped for a mere second. His breathing ceased in a moment. Everything slowed down for a bare moment. The loud voices of the servants ceased and the shuffling of many feet went quite.

All Cole could see was the look of sadness and regret in his mom's eyes. Each time he gazed into them he would feel a kind of warmth and love he never felt before, but now those same eyes were cold and lifeless. Each second he looked into them, he could feel himself being pulled into the same abyss he spent so long in.

Silently, he walked around the desk and stood above his moms body.

There, he bent down and gently touched his mom's eyelids. He slowly pulled them down over her lifeless and dull eyes, closing them shut forever.

'I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me the most. I won't forget your life. I swear I will figure out what happened and bring you a peaceful rest. Thanks for being so kind to me when I arrived in this world, you could have abandoned me. Left me. But you didn't, and for that I will forever remember your eyes.'

She will never look at him with love and warmth again. He will never be able to hold her cold hands. For the second time, Cole had lost a mother.

With a new fire in his eyes, Cole pulled back his fingers and looked around the room.

The people around Cole still hadn't noticed him or his actions. However, he suddenly stood up and started to walk around his mom's desk. Looking for something out of the ordinary.

The desk was full of paperwork and ink, but other than that it was very minimalistic. No fancy jewelry, flowers, gifts, or magic devices were on her desk and no unnecessary decorations were seen.

The only thing out of place was a cup of unfinished tea. Half of it had been spilled onto the desk, while the other half rested in the chipped tea cup.

Cole picked up the glass cup and smelled the inside of it. Bitter.

"You there," Cole pointed to a random maid who looked the least likely to throw up, "What kind of tea does my… mom usually drink?"

"She… um, I believe she loved Lavender and mint tea."

"Do we happen to have a silver spoon? Preferably a pure silver spoon, no silver alloys and extra minerals."

"I don't believe so…"

The maid scratched her head and looked around at the other maids, the silent question in her eyes.

"I think the master might have something similar to that. He liked elegantly decorated dinner wear."

"Go fetch me that spoon, be quick about it."

He waved away the maid who said she knew of such a spoon. As she left the room, running down the halls, Cole turned his attention back to the cup of tea.

'If it's anything like common poisons back on Earth, then using a silver spoon will expose an arsenic sulfide base inside the tea. The spoon should turn black and expose the poison in the tea, but arsenic sulfide is insoluble… so how would they have been able to use it in tea? If the spoon doesn't expose arsenic sulfide as a base then lemon juice could also expose a different base poison. However, this is unlikely the case. Other poisons are difficult to come across without arsenic sulfide, so unless they were experienced in poisons then the silver spoon should be enough to see the poison.'

He thought deeply about his poison knowledge, scraping the basics of the subject from caverns deep in his brain. He unknowingly was swirling the tea around in the cup as he thought.

'I just hope it's not cyanide based… that's difficult to expose without the uses of modern technology. I guess I could use a live sample if arsenic sulfide isn't the base poison. Oh shit if it's cyanide then putting it in tea is useless, the poison is gas based. Oh fuck and I smelt it!'

His heartbeat spiked again and he nervously checked his body. However, by the time he was done doing a self examination, he heard the maid returning.

"I got it! But, uh, what do we need it for?"

"Perfect! Well, I am going to use it to check the tea. WE aren't going to anything, or you aren't going to anything. Really, what have you people been doing? My mom's corpse is laying on the floor and none of you single minded people thought of carrying it away and preparing for the funeral? Seriously, what the hell-"

Cole stopped himself. The room around him had gone quiet and all the maids had turned to look at the door.

There, standing silently in the doorway, was the man Cole wanted to see the least right now.

'Fucking damnit. Of course that bastard had to arrive just when I was getting started.'

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