Starlight Manor

When Lise returns to her room, Alois is still nowhere to be found.

Numbly, she crawls back into bed and tucks her head between her knees, pulling the covers over her head.

She fully expects to spend the entire night awake, tossing and turning, wrestling with the weight of her newly-uncovered knowledge and Alois and his terrifying family. But her complete and utter shock, her confusion, her complicated emotions, and all of her questions about what she had just learned—it’s all too much to bear, and she finds herself exhausted by it. Her own mind ends up knocking her out, and she falls into a deep, fitless sleep.

When she wakes up the next morning, Alois is next to her in bed, wide awake, staring up at the ceiling.

It’s odd—they’d fallen asleep beside each other in separate cots for the past three years. Yet here they are, in the same huge bed, and Lise has never felt farther away from him.

“You came back,” is all she says.

Alois glances across at her. He curls up on his side, resting his cheek against his elbow. “Of course.”

Lise turns to face him as well, tucking her arm under her chin.

“How was the talk with your mom?” she asks. He shrugs, and she can feel her toes curl. “You don’t want to tell me?”

He looks away and sighs. “Not really, no.”

Lise’s chest tightens. “You never tell me anything.”

Alois’s brow crinkles slightly between his eyes. “That’s not true.”

“It is true,” Lise counters. She sits up in bed, suddenly overwhelmed. “Alois?”

“What?”

“I don’t think I like it here.”

“Lise,” Alois says. His voice is gentle, reassuring. “You know I don’t, either. It’s only a week, remember?”

Lise barely even hears him over the whir of her brain, loud in her ears.

“What do you think of sorcery?” she hears herself ask.

“Sorcery,” Alois repeats.

“You were never impressed by anyone’s abilities in Wobenn.” Lise turns her eyes on her friend. “Why was that?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Just curious.”

Alois’s face is a sheet of calm. “Lise.”

Uh oh. “What?”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t—”

“You snuck out, didn’t you?” Alois demands. “Last night.”

“What?” Lise pretends to look flabbergasted at the accusation. “I would never.”

“Where did you go? Who was talking to you about sorcery?”

“Nobody told me anything! I just want to—”

Alois looks damn near ready to rip his own hair out with how hard both his hands are fisted in it. “Lise, goddamn it, this isn’t a joke!” he hisses through clenched teeth. “You have to be careful! You can’t be fooling around here!”

“I wasn’t fooling around!” Lise defends herself, her face growing hot. She’s not the one hiding or lying or keeping secrets, so why is she always the one being scolded? Alois has no right to act so high and mighty, and he has no right to tell her what to do. He isn’t her damn mother. “Listen—I went to look for you. You were gone for hours, and I was getting really worried—”

“I told you to stay in the room, no matter what.” Alois’s voice is rising, laced with anger and panic. “Why would you leave? Why would you do the one thing I asked you not to do?”

Something inside her snaps.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re from a family of murderers?” she snaps back. Alois goes stock still, almost deathly so. “Why didn’t you think to mention that, Alois? Why do I have to adhere to all your rules without question if you can keep everything about yourself a secret from me? How is that fair?”

The look on Alois’s face is absolutely terrifying. The panic, the anger, the confusion—the fear. He looks as if his world has just come crashing down around him, rendering him unable to move or speak, to even breathe.

Now Lise feels bad. She lets out a long breath. “Okay, maybe that was harsh.”

Alois opens his mouth, shuts it, then opens it again. “Lise, I—”

“Listen to me,” Lise says firmly. “I’m not mad. I’m not mad about any of it, Al. Honest. But it really hurts that you hid something that big from me. That you didn’t trust me to know. Especially since you decided to bring me here with you.” She clasps her hands together between her legs, leaning forward in her chair. “I went looking for you, but I spotted your brother instead. He was with his friend.” Alois’s jaw is tight with tension. “And I… it was stupid, I know, but I stood outside and listened to them. And I heard them talking about…” Lise swallows hard. “A mission.”

Alois is looking at Lise closely, intensely, and there’s a deep, anxious crease between his brows.

“So you… heard,” he manages. His voice is hoarse. “You know what they do.”

Lise gives him a slow, meaningful nod.

“What did they…” Alois trails off, a sickened expression coming over his face.

“I know they kill people,” Lise says simply. “For money.” Alois flinches at her bluntness. “I asked your brother. He seemed surprised that I didn’t know your family name—Starlight. That I’d never heard of you.” She attempts a smile. “Your family must be pretty good at it.”

Alois buries his face in his hands.

“I thought I told you not to ask questions,” he croaks out into his palms.

Lise leans closer.

“What’s the real reason you brought me here, Alois?” she asks softly.

Alois exhales through his nose and looks away. He doesn’t meet her eyes when he says, “I… didn’t want to come home alone.” His voice is quiet, almost shameful.

“Alois,” Lise says, frowning at him. “You’re my friend. Of course I would have gone home with you!” She braces a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t have to lie about getting me a job to take me home to meet your family. Even if I knew they were murderers, I wouldn’t have let you go alone.”

“It was selfish,” Alois mutters. He’s shaking; Lise can see his pale fingers tremble as his fingers grip his arms. “And stupid. But I had to come back. I had to, or they would have found me.”

“You’re stressed,” Lise observes, tapping her chin. Alois finally meets her gaze to give her a rather incredulous look, and she has to hold back a smile. Leave it to Alois’s complete disdain of her to break him out of his panicked stupor. She’s the greatest friend in the world. “Why don’t you show me around? Let’s go get some fresh air.” She leans forward conspiratorially and drops her voice into a whisper. “Do some sorcery, maybe? Cami told me you can.”

“Cami doesn’t know when to keep his damn mouth shut,” Alois mutters under his breath. He finally looks up at Lise, a foreign nervousness still coating his features.

“Yes?” Lise pushes.

“Does all of this not… bother you, Lise?”

“You having an assassin family?” Lise sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Of course it bothers me. It’s quite scary, the whole thing. But they’re still your family. You can’t help who family is. And you don’t want to be like them, do you, Alois?” She kicks one ankle over the other and leans back on her hands, observing him. “Is that why you left?”

Alois is silent. He stares down at his hands.

“I don’t hate you, Alois,” Lise tells him adamantly. “I could never hate you. You can be honest with me.”

Alois’s laugh is short and cold.

“You say that, Lise,” he says softly.

“Because I mean it.”

Her friend’s eyes seem far, far away. “You don’t know the me that lived here,” he says. “The part that never left.”

Lise holds a hand up to stop him.

“The gardens,” she says firmly.

She knows Alois knows what she means. In Wobenn, whenever they needed to have a serious conversation, they always did so outside. It’s much better, and easier, to speak honestly when out in the open world. To be surrounded by the flowers and trees with the fresh cool air on their faces—that was where they had to be. To let the earth feed them, soothe them, replenish their minds and souls.

Without a word they rise and set off, and Alois leads her down the stairway, out the glass doors, and into the gardens. Lise encourages him to talk as they go. To let him know that she has not been changed by this, that she is not afraid. She points and pulls his arm and doesn’t hesitate to talk his ear off, asking about what kind of spruce this is, what the name of this flower over here and that flower over there is, what season is best to grow them in. Slowly yet consistently Alois seems to blossom like a flower itself before her, successful in answering all of her questions.

Then, with a subtlety she hadn’t even known she possesses, Lise starts to ask other sorts of questions. About his family.

“What do you mean, how can you impress my family without killing anybody?” Alois demands. “You know what they are now. Why do you care about that?”

“Come on, Al. I’m sure they have a nice side.”

“They kill for money,” Alois says flatly. “Hell, Mayuri would probably kill for fun if he could.” He shakes his head. “That guy freaks me out.”

“He doesn’t seem that bad,” Lise says thoughtfully.

Alois shoots her a look. “They’re all bad, Lise.”

“I know,” Lise assures him. She avoids stepping into a large crimson puddle as her friend quickly steers her away from it, eyeing it with apprehensive intrigue. She decides not to ask now; later would be better. “But I don’t want to make a bad impression, you know? They're still your family.” She gives Alois her best winning smile. “I want them to like me.”

“They won’t,” the white-haired boy says matter-of-factly, not missing a beat.

Lise’s smile falls into a scowl. “You don’t know that.”

“Of course I do,” Alois retorts, and Lise deflates. “And if they act like they do, they’re pretending. That’s what they do.”

Silence settles between them for a while, but it’s a more comfortable silence than before. Lise stops to sit under a beautiful crabapple tree, the aroma of sweet-smelling blossoms filling her nostrils. The trunk is short and stout so that when she looks up, the flowers are right above her nose, blowing softly in the cool breeze.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glances at Alois at her side. His eyes are closed, his face expressionless and calm. Lise realizes she hasn’t seen him this content—relaxed, almost—since they’d arrived at the manor.

“You’re not a bad person, Alois,” she says to the blossoms above her head. The boy beside her doesn’t say anything, so she continues. “Whatever you did, you did to survive. And what you did doesn’t matter to me, not a bit. I still love you.”

Alois lets out a long exhale. “You’re kind,” he says. “You’re too kind for me. And you don’t get it.”

“You were young,” Lise says, touching his arm. “We’re still so young, Alois.”

“That’s not an excuse.” There’s a tremor in Alois’s voice, like he might cry. Lise really hopes he won’t cry, because then she will, too. “There’s no excuse for this life, Lise.”

“But it’s not your life anymore,” Lise says gently. She puts her hand over his, her tanned fingers circling his and holding them.

“They think it will be,” Alois says, and instead of prying, Lise waits for him to continue. She thinks she could have waited there a hundred years, if that’s what it took.

“When I left, I promised Mother I’d come back,” he says quietly. “In three years’ time.”

Lise grips his hand tighter. “Why did you tell her that?”

“Because I didn’t have anything else. And because I was afraid she might kill me if I didn’t.” He swallows hard. “When I abandoned the family, she treated it as a life lesson. As some rebellious childish act. It was a way for her to show me I couldn’t survive on my own. She told me if I was still alive in three years and I didn’t come back, she would know where to find me, and she would kill me for betraying the family. After you and Aeriel saved me and took me in, I knew immediately she would never stop at just me. She would have killed you both if I didn’t return. If I didn’t start killing for her again.”

“You were going to come back for good,” Lise realizes aloud. “To save me and Aeriel, you were prepared to do it. It was only going to be a week for me. For you, it was forever.”

Alois doesn’t deny it.

“I won’t let you,” Lise says fiercely.

“I figured,” Alois replies with a sigh. He cranes his head back, staring up at the flowers glowing in the sun. “That’s what complicates things.”

Lise crosses her arms, glaring at him. “If you expect me to just be fine with you living as a murderer against your will, you must have never met me.”

“I said it complicates things,” he says. “Not that I’m not grateful it does.” His pale blue eyes are soft. “I’m a selfish person, Lise. I think a part of me always wanted you to save me.”

Prouder than she’s ever been, Lise gives his fingers a squeeze. “What else are friends for?”

Alois’s fingers open and allow hers in, letting them intertwine.

“I won’t go back,” he swears, and Lise smiles.

“That’s it, then,” she says.

Alois lets out a short laugh. “It won’t be that easy.”

“Sure it will, Alois,” Lise says. She holds up her arm and flexes hard. “Just teach me magic.”