The sound of a knife whacking away at a cutting board in rapid succession marked Lillia’s presence in the kitchen when Arwin arrived in the Devil’s Den. The common room was empty, everyone having vacated it in their preparations to find a way to deal with Twelve.
Arwin made his way over to the back, moving quietly as he pushed the door open and peered into the hall leading to Lillia’s room. If she was busy, he didn’t want to disturb her. He could always hunt around for Olive himself.
Lillia was, unsurprisingly, hard at work when the door opened. She held a pan full of sautéing vegetables in one hand and a metal spoon in the other. The chopping sounds made no signs of stopping, even though both of her hands were full.
It took Arwin a moment to realize that her Cursed knife, the Chef’s Kiss, was cutting things for her. That was a rather embarrassing revelation considering he had been the one to give her the blade in the first place.
“Is everything okay?” Lillia asked, setting the pan down on the stove and stirring the vegetables in it. She made no move to look in his direction — she was too concentrated on her work. The shadows stretched and warped unnaturally around her as she worked, flowing down her arms and into the food. Prickles of energy pressed into Arwin’s skin like the entire area had a faint electric charge.
“All fine,” Arwin confirmed. “Don’t let me bother you. I was just wondering if you’d seen Olive anywhere. I made something for her.”
Lillia glanced over at him. Her eyes nearly doubled in size and she drew in a sharp breath as she spotted the wooden arm cradled in his hands. She didn’t move for a moment as her eyes, enhanced by the powers she had while within the Inn, delved into the abilities of the Cursed item.
“You didn’t,” Lillia said.
“What are you doing?” Olive asked. “You’re supposed to be pressuring me! Don’t stop after you land a blow!”
“Arwin is here,” Reya replied, nodding over Olive’s shoulder, her eyes flicking to the wooden arm in his hands. “And I think he’s here for you.”
“What? Arwin? What does he…” Olive trailed off mid-sentence as she turned around, her brow furrowed in confusion, as she also spotted what Arwin was carrying. She took a small step back.
“I’ve been working on something,” Arwin replied. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything too important.”
“It’s fine. We’ve been going at it for a while,” Reya replied, wiping the sweat from her forehead with a sleeve and flapping the bottom of her shirt to try and get some airflow. “And I think this might be important.”
Olive swallowed heavily, the rest of her body practically frozen in ice as her gaze bored into the wooden limb. “I — what is that?”
“An arm,” Arwin replied. He held it out. “Your arm, if you want it.”
“You… can make something like that?” Olive asked, a faint tremor of hope entering her voice even as she tried to suppress it. She swallowed again. “You’re serious?”
“Of course I am,” Arwin said. He shifted his grip on the arm. It was surprisingly heavy to lug around. He glanced around to make sure nobody else was eavesdropping, then lowered his voice anyway. “I should be up front that this isn’t a replacement, nor is it a normal magical item. It’s Cursed. The Ashleaf Tree will try to take control when you use this thing’s full strength. It’ll give you your right arm back, maybe even stronger than it was before, but that power comes at a cost.”
Olive stared at the arm with such intensity that Arwin feared her gaze would burn a hole through it. The fingers on her hand twitched and she started to reach out, then caught herself halfway through the motion.
She didn’t move for several long seconds. A battle played itself out on her features. Olive wasn’t just taking the hand without thinking it through, even though it was clear just how much she wanted to.
The Olive that would have done anything to make her swordsmanship even just a little bit better, the Olive that had failed to tell her team about a challenge because she’d been so focused on her own abilities that she’d ignored theirs, wasn’t the one that stood before Arwin. Her hand curled into a fist and she pulled her eyes up to meet Arwin’s.
“What do you mean by try to take control?”
“I think it’ll try to steal your body from you. I highly doubt it’ll last a long time if it pulls it off, but it’s possible. It’ll be a battle of willpower whenever you draw on its strength,” Arwin said. “Don’t feel pressured into taking this. There’s always another way.”
Olive bit her lower lip. “I… don’t think I should take this. I could slip up again. I could end up hurting all of us if I lose control mid fight. That would be even worse than getting stuck in place.”
Reya walked up beside her and gave her a small nudge with her shoulder. “Arwin just said it was a battle of willpower. You won’t lose that.”
“You won’t,” Reya said firmly. “And if you warn me when you use the arm, I can keep an [Imprison] ready to use on you so the arm can’t hurt anyone. If we’re ready for it, we can deal with it.”
“It’s your choice,” Reya said, cutting Olive off. “I won’t tell you what to do. But you didn’t lose your arm as a punishment, Olive. You lost it because you made a mistake. The point of mistakes is to learn from them, not to linger on them.”
Olive looked from Reya to Arwin, then down to the arm in his hands. Her features sharpened and she swallowed before giving him a curt nod. “I — give me the arm. I want it.”
Arwin handed it to her. Olive held it by the shoulder, staring at the wooden limb in silence for several long seconds. She blinked heavily, then wiped her face on the shoulder of her shirt.
“Thank you, Arwin, Reya.”
“You haven’t tried it on yet,” Arwin pointed out. “It could suck.”