The skeleton returned swiftly with a tray of food — and somehow managed to make that deeply unsettling. Not because of the food. Because of him.

  The way he stood was… wrong. Uncomfortably romantic. Like a knight sworn to protect his princess.

  The skeleton returned quickly with a tray of food, but that wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was his entire demeanour — more precisely, the way he carried himself. It was somehow… romantically clingy. Like a knight guarding his princess.

  He held the tray level with his skull, as if presenting a royal feast. His eye sockets glowed with an enthusiastic green light, and I could have sworn he tried to smile — as much as that’s possible without lips.

  “My dearest,” he creaked, bowing solemnly as he set the tray beside my bed. “Please allow me to present this humble offering.”

  I blinked, deeply confused, and cautiously picked up the spoon. The skeleton immediately leaned in, hovering attentively, watching my every movement as if I’d already committed to eternity together.

  “You are breathtaking when you hold a spoon,” he murmured reverently. “I could serve you… indefinitely.”

  I looked up at Finn and Elvira, who stood frozen by the door, staring in mute disbelief.

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  “Malinka,” Elvira whispered, eyeing the skeleton with genuine alarm, “did you… lure him?”

  “What?” I whispered, feeling my blood pressure exit the building.

  I froze, spoon mid-air. Lure him. A skeleton.

  This wasn’t funny. This was deeply wrong.

  Questions flooded my mind in a panicked stampede, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

  I glanced at the skeleton, who was gazing at me like I was the last miracle this world had to offer. His bony fingers nervously fussed with the tray, adjusting something that was already perfectly straight, and suddenly I felt profoundly uncomfortable.

  No — uncomfortable didn’t even begin to cover it.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” I asked weakly, looking at Finn and Elvira, desperately hoping this was an elaborate prank. “I mean… I assumed people usually lure, say… the living?”

  Finn just shrugged helplessly, having clearly opted out of this conversation. Elvira frowned, as if mentally flipping through a very alarming lecture.

  “Malinka, if this isn’t a joke,” she said slowly, “then you may have abilities you’re completely unaware of. A talent for… dark luring. Magic that draws in the undead. I don’t know all the details — necromancy is more my field — but it’s… vaguely succubus-adjacent. ”

  Dark luring. Enchanting the undead.

  That sounded less like a gift and more like a lifelong problem.

  Meanwhile, the skeleton bowed even lower, gazing at me with the full intensity of posthumous devotion.

  “I am ready to serve you forever,” he declared, and that was the exact moment my appetite officially died.

  I took a deep breath, attempting to survive the cocktail of horror and embarrassment.

  “Brilliant,” I muttered, looking from Elvira to Finn, then back at the skeleton, who was still gazing at me like I was the light at the end of a very long, very undead tunnel. “So let me get this straight. I’m a Dark Lurer now. A magical magnet for… whatever that is.”

  I gestured weakly toward Yarson, who immediately attempted to kiss the tip of my finger with gallant enthusiasm.

  Finn finally lost the battle with his face and had to turn away laughing lungs out. Elvira, however, leaned in, studying me with unfiltered curiosity.

  “Well, Malinka, you don’t have to lure them,” she said carefully. “If you learn to control the magic.”

  I sighed. “Of course. Easy to say. But I’ll try.”