The townhouse Laura and August had inherited from their parents was a patchwork of aging things. The photographs on the walls of close and distant family hung like judgemental spectators, the carpets and rugs lay flat and well-trod, the stairs creaked conspiratorially ever other stair, and while they'd considered redecorating a few times the substantial weight of the old wooden furniture had opposed that decision with sheer impracticality. It felt like they were living modern lives against the backdrop of the past. It had been a second home at one point, supplemental to their lavish estate up north, but had since become their full-time home.

Upon their parents' passing, the Ecclesiastical had offered them residence at the Steeple in a gesture meant to help them manage their rapidly encroaching debts but Laura had refused. August was glad for it. There was no way he could tolerate living there, not with its red-velvet prayer rooms and mausoleum-like refectory. The chapel's main steeple stuck out resolutely like a sword against the sky, and August was reminded constantly of what their few trips there had cost him and Sairne both.

As he washed up and readied for bed, he found himself staring for too long as his exhausted reflection and the deepening of dark bags under his eyes.

Was he truly chasing nothing? Worse, was he making Sairne chase it with him? Weeks of planning, scheming behind the scenes to find out the venue, and nothing to show for it but a potential suspension. August seemed to be the only one naive enough to believe that the Mad was going to ever be detained. Ruckus considered her a threat, but most everyone else had demoted her to nuisance.

The worst was that August wondered if they were right about Bell himself. What if he had attended a Grand, fallen foul of its organizers, and found his way into an overcoat at the bottom of the river? His attendance to such an event was irreconcilable with who August had always known him to be: pursuant of more base desires, yes, but all around a fairly right-handed man. They'd often had conversations regarding the wardless and Bell had placed himself firmly in the camp that held them up as citizens with their own rights and equanimities. Would he have lied? And what for—to August of all people?

The two detectives who'd handled Bell's case had pointed out the countless confiscated papers that bore Bell's writing and calculations and August, his reading glasses slipping down his nose, had confidently stated that this was a false lead, to which he'd earned himself a reputation for being somewhat guileless.

He'd had little else to go on but brute faith in his friend which was, in the end, a naivety he was wasn't sure he could afford anymore. With a sigh, August ran a hand down his face and stood for a moment to gather his thoughts before stepping into the unlit hall. Light played softly against the shadows in its corners, giving it a brooding, off-kilter appearance. Light spilled singularly from the room he shared with Sairne.

The second floor hall of the townhouse had been built slightly crooked, enough so that during the months that August and Laura has spent here as young children they might on occasion stand at one end of the hall and cock their heads to and fro to see if they couldn't straighten it out. The townhouse was packed so tightly with memories that sometimes August fell into them as one might a mire, moments of reverie opening at his feet like sinkholes. A scuffle with Laura there, an incident with a broken tea pot here...

Their home up north had been the real retainer of his childhood, but after the death of his parents he didn't relish the idea of having to prowl its ancient, creaking halls at night, lighting candles, with only the four of them to keep the house sane. The help had all been dismissed, and eventually Laura had given it up as a lost cause and sold it. He didn't mourn the loss as much as he mourned the idea of its passing-on, of having to finally relinquish a stability he'd always had. The townhouse, for all its urban practicality, still played host to their parents decorative eccentricities enough that it was a softer fall from grace than most.

His room in the townhouse was one of four bedrooms, one of which was Laura's with the second occupied now by Darin. Their parents' bedroom was untouched. Not for sentimentality but for the fact that it frightened them—the room had been empty for so long that the thought of sleeping in it now was unsound, given it had had years to manifest its ghosts. The few times Sairne had drunkenly decided to face-plant onto its unmade bedding she'd quickly regretted, citing the fact that she had sensed a 'presence' in the room with her. So as to not be frightened to sleep every night, she insisted on curling up on the top bunk of the room she and August had shared since adolescence. Somehow, the haunting didn't manifest in the rest of the house, leaving their parents' room alone to sit like an ugly, dark sore, its door firmly shut.

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When he entered their shared room he found Sairne lounging in her familiar place on the divan beside the window, a book in hand. The small light on the table beside it burned dimly. August leaned against the doorframe and looked out at the purpling sky.

"It feels odd going to bed in the morning."

"Haven't done it since the Academy." Sairne did not look up. She turned a page and August waited for her to say something more. She didn't. So he fixed his gaze outside. Rooftops as far as the eye could see, smoke rising from chimneys, clothes strung along the tenements like tinsel. A cityscape so familiar he count paint it from memory.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked into the silence.

"My book."

"I figure we should at least try and talk about it."

His guardian placed a thumb to hold her place as she set the book in her lap. "What do you want me to say that hasn't already been said?"

"I didn't anticipate having to fight her."

"I hardly think it matters now what I think about that."

He scoffed. "It always matters." She sighed and shut her eyes, quiet too long. "You're angry."

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

In defiance, Sairne brought the book back up to read, curling up with a resilient frustration he knew would cling to her like dew until they trudged out the door in a couple of hours. "The only anger I'm feeling right now is over the fact that in trying to read I'm being interrogated." August held his hands up in surrender and sat heavily on the bottom bunk.

He ran his hands over his face and, giving a sigh of exasperation, plopped his back onto the mattress. After a moment he heard Sairne shift to let her hang off the divan's low back. He could see the thin wire of gold glimmering around her exposed neck. She pressed two fingers to the space between her eyes. "It wasn't worth it."

"It wasn't entirely bad..."

"Let me rephrase that—I always thought it was a terrible idea."

"You didn't really try and stop me."

"I relented." She sighed. "Like I always do."

"You act like I make the final decisions."

"Don't you?"

He sat up. "That's a fat hunk of baloney and you know it." Admittedly, he'd been able to goad her into an agreement on tonight's plan, but only because invoking Bell's name often resulted in her clamping up and acquiescing. Then again, she never fought much for her opinions, and August considered it a tad unfair to be blamed when she didn't give much energy into defending her case. "Whatever you're thinking you might as well spit it out."

"I think we might have taken this too far."

"You mean with Bell?"

"Not him." Her voice was soft and conciliatory.

August held himself up with a hand pressed into the soft bedding, looking at the slats overhead he had stared at for years. He wasn't sure what to say. "You don't want to tell me what, though."

"I was hoping you might infer."

"Unfortunately, I'm awful stupid, Sairne."

"I disagree." He waited for her to continue. "We can't change anything like this."

"I disagree. We've gotta try at least." He paused, watching her rub at her eyes. "I'm real sorry I—"

“You’re always too quick to apologize.” Her eyes were muted in their yellow haze when they found his, somber. “I don’t need it. We’re very lucky Jonas bailed us out. If anything, you owe him an apology. And, to be honest, I don’t think he did it on his own.”

“You think the High Bishop would have defended us?” He drawled.

“I think they want us to behave, and sometimes you catch more flies with honey.”

“Now they want to play nice?”

August could still sometimes feel the prickle across his back where the Ecclesiastical had carved runes onto his skin, the same ones that they’d put on Sairne: wardings meant to keep her Creed in check.

She turned away. “Get some shut eye.”

August knew an argument, with them both in such a state, was futile. He doubted he’d get any sleep before they had to be up, with them ending their talk on such a note. After arguing with every other party tonight, he had been hoping to at least maintain a unified front with Sairne.

He tucked his hands behind his head and wondered on fallen theaters, wrists stained with black runes, and the quiet, unbearable secrecy of unsaid words.