I Audited the Demon King's Castle, and He Won't Let Me Leave novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Cottage Door

Gorund hit the alarm bell with the flat of a ladle, and the whole castle came out of its doors.

By the time Nanami reached the kitchen gate, the cook was running beside her.

Behind the cook came the grooms, the laundry women and the scullery maid with her cleaver.

Nobody gave an order.

Two hundred and twelve people went down the ridge path together, in aprons and boots.

Dravan walked at the front with his bandaged hand held against his coat.

Nanami ran with her skirt in her fist and the green ledger under her arm.

The Widow's House stood in its hollow with its door open.

Eight Council guards were on the garden path.

Their captain held a writ in one hand and a pair of iron manacles in the other.

In the doorway, small and upright with her counting frame under one arm, stood Tae.

She was looking at the manacles the way she might look at a bad total.

"I have walked to Ashmere before," she said in the demon tongue. "I do not care to do it in those."

"Madam," said the captain, "you will come quietly."

Then the first of the castle people came round the pine trees, and the second, and the tenth.

They filled the path behind Nanami and the vegetable plot beside it.

They did not shout.

They stood in the cold with their breath smoking and looked at the guards.

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