"Nonsense," she bellows. Stopping in front of me, her hand suddenly shoots out as she tears the top of my dress, revealing the marks scattered across my collarbone. "You mean to tell me you do not know what these are?"

"No, I swear I—" I put my arms up to defend myself as I take a step back.

"You don't know what this is either?" She screws up her face in disbelief, manifesting my pearl bracelet in her hand.

"Fashion jewelry?" I force a smile.

"Stop lying!"

"I am not," I protest.

"Maybe I could have overlooked those writings on your skin or this odd talisman that simmers with energy, but you broke an Elegian Sphere. You not only destroyed it, but you did something to the particles inside of it..." She grits her teeth, the red paint surrounding her eyes infiltrating her irises.

"I..." My pulse roars in my ears at the terrifying picture she strikes. Seconds go by and she looks increasingly less humanoid and more like a blood-thirsty monster—who is coincidentally out for my blood.

"What the hell, Ze? How could you send me to this crazy lady?"

"I will ask again. Who are you? Or better yet, what are you?" she demands, the ground shaking with each syllable she utters.

"You have the wrong person, lady. I really don't know about the marks on my skin. I've had them for years. And I have no idea why the bracelet would reek of demon. I have it from a mermaid," I explain, omitting some information, but still telling her the truth. "As for the Elegian Sphere or whatever, how could I break it when I'm just a human?" I end up confessing. This should be the easiest way to get rid of her. If she realizes I'm just a human—although I don't know how she didn't sense it before—maybe she will finally leave me alone.

She stares at me for a moment before she doubles over in laughter, the sound of her voice hitting the stones and causing the echo to reverberate in the entire cave-like structure.

"Human? Did you say human?" She cackles, a dry, sharp laughter that lacks any trace of amusement. "No human could bear to touch the sphere, let alone destroy it."

Her expression sobers.

"Stop. Lying. To. Me," she shrieks. Her hair breaks loose of that tight bun it was confined to, tendrils of it slithering in the air like Medusa's serpents.

"I'm not lying," I whisper meekly.

My eyes widen with shock, and my heart pounds in fear as I watch those tendrils coil around and move as if they have a life of their own. She takes a step forward. I take a step back.

I am cognizant I have nowhere to run. She has control of the exit, and at present she does not seem in the least inclined to let me go. Good Lord!