Another long day, another sleepless night on holiday.

Exhausted, Saoirse rested her chin between her knees, hugging her own legs close to her chest while slowly lighting the couple of small candles on the table before her. It was late, and this impromptu holiday spearheaded by Penelope was coming to a close, but she felt no different than prior to their grand departure two days earlier.

No in fact, Saoirse thought darkly as she coiled to the back of the chair, she indeed felt different; she felt worse. No closer to making any resemblance of a certain important decision, and actually, even less equipped to do so five days ago. Because upon arrival to this beautiful home, she had discovered many unfortunate twists of fate, the two most significant being that this almost-palace belonged to Oliver Comstock, a wizard that seemed determined to confound her at every turn, and that Howell was here.

How white she had turned upon seeing her estranged inamorato there was no way to tell, but Nona had quite helpfully commented if Saoirse so desired, she would have surely encountered no problem fooling a Venetian ghost of her current undead status.

After that, Saoirse had done her very best to stay busy and away from the house at all costs, but even wizards and witches driven to continue sight-seeing and walking nonstop needed to sleep. So, for the third time in a row, Saoirse found herself restless and unable to do much else than wait for the sun to rise into a new day in the downstairs living room as everyone else she knew slept peacefully in the floors above.

She had been doing a marvelous job at staring blankly at the pile of contracts that either needed to be signed or ripped up within the next twenty-four hours when a soft creak of a door from the other side of the room caught her ears, and she looked up guiltily at the room's new occupant. There were so many faces residing within these walls it seemed, she had lost track at this but, but her luck would have no such strength here.

Brow burrowing and the hair on the back of her neck springing up, Saoirse watched as Howell, candle in hand, stopped gliding across the room upon seeing who it was that occupied the lone couch near the window. She swallowed, and blinked quickly, wishing very much that she could think of anything to say at all. When nothing came to her and the growing silence began to be too much to bear, Saoirse, without much thought or notice, suddenly asked, "Will you help me?"