"It's fine. Don't worry, okay?" Eli strokes my head gently. "Don't panic. They are here to ask you questions because you are married to a ghoul. Once they are satisfied that there's nothing wrong, they will leave."
"Is that all?" I frown at him. The man is watching him as if he's a criminal. I don't like him. He reminds me of an old, ugly, grumpy, and vexatious beast.
"Yes, Miss Solomon, we are here because someone reported that Mr Sanguine is keeping you against your wishes. It seems that you already know what he is." The girl says to me while wiping the blood on her calf. She's calling me a miss when she knows that I am married. The wound on her calf is already healed. "I apologize for our behaviour earlier. We are from the Council who oversees these matters. My name is Riya Saryu. I will speak to Mr Sanguine a few questions. Please cooperate with my Junior, Valentin Krauss until I am done speaking with Mr Sanguine."
Yeah, I will cooperate with this man. I will cooperate with him a lot.
"I hope that he won't try to do anything her while I speak to you." Eli gives her a cold smile. "It's against the law to use magic on someone who has unstable magic inside her."
I have magic?
"We aren't stupid," Valentin Krauss growls at him. "I am going to question her a few things. Her magic will be tested later. You still have a lot to answer, Mr Sanguine. If I find out that you have done something to her--"
The Devil growls at Krauss. "Stop threatening him, you filthy man."
The man raises his brow at me.
"My cat is a little rude." I say to him, "Since you didn't apologize, don't expect him to apologize to you."
"Nell, don't fight, okay?" Eli comes to me and places his hand on my cheek. "If you don't want to answer, they can't force you. I should have explained everything to you in detail, but things have turned out like this before I could. Take things calmly. They aren't as bad as they seem."
"Thanks for putting nice words for us, Mr Sanguine." Saryu grins at him. I don't like this girl who can still smile after hurting someone. The Devil should have bitten her leg.
The Devil glares at me. "Why don't you do it yourself?"
I am considering the idea.
"It's nice to see this side of you." Eli chuckles and pecks my forehead. "I will be fine."
"Alright," I murmur. I watch him follow her to the study room. I am not comfortable with her being alone with him. She did something to him when she touched his chest earlier. What if she tries to do something again?
Go to Eli.
The Devil glances at me once. Then, he goes to the study room quietly. Valentin Krauss purses his lips and then, says nothing. I sit on the couch and leans back. He takes a seat opposite me. He brings out a small notebook and a pen from his blazer's pocket. He studies me with a poker face, playing with his pen absentmindedly.
I meet his eyes, waiting for him to speak. I don't usually get mad at people like this. However, I feel only hate for this man and the girl.
"When did you find out that he's a ghoul?" He asks me with a straightforward voice. So, he's acting like a professional man now. What about earlier? He should have acted like this at that time.
"Does it matter?" I raise my brow. "I married him because I saw that he was in love with me. It was enough. I am happy with him. You can leave now."
He places the notebook and pen on the table and eyes me with emotionless eyes. "Miss Solomon, you are not married to him."
What the hell is he saying? I point at the framed marriage certificate on the wall. "Did you not see that?"
"Paper marriage is valid only between humans." He jeers at me with a familiar look in his eyes.
Judgment.
Disgust.
Contempt.
I could see them all in his emerald eyes.
"Marriage between a ghoul and a human require special customs. Either you go to his world to get married or a dark priest would come from his world to this world for the wedding ceremony." He pauses for a moment. "Whatever you choose, you need permission from the council. In either case, you need to prove that you are mentally capable of making decisions. Marriages between two 'species' are taken seriously these days since a lot of human females are targets of otherworldly creatures for various reasons. Right now, I am evaluating whether you are mentally capable of making decisions."
That's why Eli was desperate about the wedding ceremony. I don't know what to say.
"Did you know that he was a ghoul when you married him according to human laws?" Krauss tilts his head to his and narrows his eyes.
I purse my lips. I had no idea back then. I know that he married me because he wanted me to stop hurting myself. "I already knew that he was a ghoul back then. It was me who told him that we should have a paper marriage first. I wanted to move in with him, but he was against it because we were not married yet. In fact, we are already planning our wedding ceremony. We even booked the catering service for our wedding reception."
He returns to his emotionless facade. "Can you tell me the name of the catering service?"
"It's my friend, Michael. The name of his restaurant is Daily Delicacies."
He scribbles down the name. "When did you create that familiar spirit?"
I have no idea what a familiar spirit is. So, I keep my mouth shut. Eli told me that I didn't have to answer if I didn't want.
"You are already twenty-seven, aren't you?" He stares at me. "You look like you didn't know anything until this moment."
It's better not to confirm his assumptions. "It's unrelated to the matter you are here for."
He shakes his head and smiles. "Miss Solomon, did you forget what I said? You are going through a test right now. From what I have observed, I can say that your familiar is highly affected by your unstable moods. It even attacked an official. Besides, we can't be sure about Eli Sanguine's intentions either. My partner must be questioning him regarding this matter. Until it's clear that you have a stable mind and he has a clear intention, we cannot approve of the wedding ceremony."
I am sure that Eli can prove that he had a clear intention. I curl my fingers, feeling my nails piercing the flesh of my palms. I have to pretend that I am sane.
He glances at the bandage on my wrist. "I am curious how you got that wound."
I put my hand on the bandage. "I accidentally hurt myself when I was cooking."
"I wonder if the hospital would say the same." He writes something down. He tells me with a sympathetic voice, "It's not strange for someone with strong unstable magic. My magic appeared when I was a teenager."
What does this have to do with me?
"You are territorial." He puts the notebook back inside the inner pocket of his blazer. "You reminds me of the time when I was younger. I have done worse things than scratching a woman's calf or…" He gives me a small smile filled with longing and sadness, leaving the words hanging in the air.
Be a bad cop. Be a good cop. He's speaking about himself to make me talk. I need to talk to Eli. It's better if I don't reveal anything more. This man is going to find out in the hospital that I tried to kill myself. "Are you going to annul my marriage with him?"
"I already told you that you are not married to him. Your paper marriage isn't recognized in our world," He replies to me lazily. "How did you get that cat spirit?"
I don't know either. It popped up in my head. As far as I could remember, it began with a faint whisper in my head after I woke up. I couldn't always hear the Devil. Slowly, it grew to the point that we had long conversations in my head. Then, it appeared in the form of a cat.
"You don't know." Krauss looks at me with concerns. "It's clear that you and the spirit are bonded."
"You are changing the topic." This guy is more interested in a cat than the wedding ceremony between a ghoul and a human. "Does it mean that you don't have any more questions?"
He lets out a chuckle. "I have plenty of questions, but I don't think that you want to answer them."
"If you know that well, then when are you leaving?" I have a feeling that he's not going to report nice things about me. The man gives off this aura of doucheness. I smirk at him, "Honestly, wedding ceremonies or paper marriages don't concern me much. We are all adults here. Can anyone stop me from being with him if I want to be with him? With or without a formal marriage, I find it meaningless to be with someone I don't love. Even if you annul the paper marriage and cause problems in getting the approval for the wedding ceremony, I doubt that you can stop me from being with him."
He watches me for a long time before he breaks his silence. "We can stop you."
"You can?" I laugh. Why is this man so interfering? It seems like he is against this marriage the most.
"If we find out that he broke the law, he won't be able to stay in the human world." He raises his chin with a hint of pride. "Creatures like him don't belong to this world anyway. I don't know why the council is allowing a vile dark creature like him to live in this world. In the past, he would have been hunted down and killed."
I stand up and walk to the wall where the marriage certificate is hung. I take it off the wall. I come back to him. He looks up at him with a confused expression. I raise my arm and aim for his head. I want to crack open his head and see if his head is full of crap as per my expectations.