My hand, I couldn't stop it. I almost killed her. I grip the pendant around my neck tightly.

----------

It's Sunday. Hannah came back to her room with red eyes. Neither Henry or I said anything to her. Was she here because she requested to be? Henry was probably assigned to stop her if she did anything too dangerous. I wonder how nervous she was, at one point it was all jokes, she didn't give anything away until we actually met him.

"Let's get going." Henry starts to get up from his messy bed transitioning into a stretch. His clothes are wrinkled, the blanket is rolled up against the wall, and his hair's all over the place.

"Yeah." first thing's first, I get up and stretch.

We'll take Heclan back to the city where he'll be judged. If he's lucky he won't be executed, he'll almost never see the light of day again but he'll still be alive. Who knows, maybe one of the children will visit him one day. None of them seemed to waver much when they found out about him being a killer, they really care for him.

As I expose my body to the cold air and reach the climax of my stretch my body shivers.

"Too cold? There's someone who wouldn't mind warming you up you know." Henry says grinning.

"Sorry, I don't swing that way." I put my hands up and back away.

"N-not me! I, am also a fan of the female body." he crosses his arms. "I was talking about Hannah."

I glance at the door, "She'll be fine, I hope." I return my eyes to Henry. "So, will she be okay with the choice I made?"

He nods, "Yeah. She understands."

I put on my black clothing, "The coachman should be waiting at the gate right?"

"Yes, his price was pretty reasonable." he says sarcastically. "Fucking, eight silvers for a ride to the city? Ridiculous." he mutters.

With the limited time that we had, we couldn't have walked Heclan all the way there, I have school tomorrow. Blue hair's counting on me. Lending him a horse was also out of the question, the possibility that he runs away exists but it's less likely for him to make it on foot.

The place that Henry and I visited to find a coachman wasn't the nicest of places. We couldn't get a upstanding coachman or any caravans to take us because he was a serial killer. We didn't want to involve the town either, so we went to the shady parts of town. I guess no matter where one goes, the slums are never a nice place.

Explaining it to his adopted children was hard, all of them started crying, even the one who was a year younger than me.

Henry and I leave the room, when we enter the hallway Hannah leans against the wall.

"Been waiting for you guys, let's go." she says in a somewhat cheery voice. We follow her as she descends the steps, we've woken up a bit later than yesterday, the time's nine. The inn is filled with people instead of being empty like yesterday morning.

Through a window we can see the children arguing with a man. Children?! What are they doing here? We already sent them to the orphanage.

"What are you guys doing here?" the older boy talking with them asks. It's the person who showed us to our rooms the first night. Why is he talking to them? Was Heclan something of a regular here? It doesn't make much sense that he would talk to them like that.

"Dad's going to be tried for his crimes." the eldest among the children says. She stood with her back straight and spoke to him firmly. She's fifteen.

"What?" his broom drops to the floor. I hope that he didn't come out here to sweep the dust and then the children came, because he'd have to work a lot harder.

"Those guys over there arrested him." the girl points to us.

Jack stomps over to us, "Let him go." he commands.

"No." Hannah says.

"Why? What has he done wrong?" in his voice is a little quiver. His body has a much more defensive posture than an offensive one. Did he know?

Hannah opens her mouth to respond but I interrupt, "For murdering over fifty people." I say. She gives me a somewhat surprised look.

Jack is obviously shaken by this information. Although he had a sneaking suspicion he didn't think that we actually knew.

"So you knew." I say.

He doesn't move but instead looks down, "What was I supposed to do? He's my dad."

"The information didn't mention anything about a sixth adopted child." Henry adds.

"Because I'm not adopted through the church." he shakes his head. "Please don't kill him." he gets on his knees and rubs his head into the ground.

"Not our choice." I respond. His head is pushed further into the ground. "But I'll try asking some people I know if they can get him a lifetime jail sentence." I say.

"...Really? You can do that?" he looks up with tears in the corner of his eyes, the light of the sun glistens off them.

"I can talk to someone about it, I can't and won't promise anything though." the empire has one of the only human systems where a person could be sentenced for life instead of the death sentence. It probably has to do with the fact that the elves have a close relationship with the empire. Unlike many of the human kingdoms and other empires, the elves dislike killing people and instead give them appropriate jail time for their crimes.

"Thank you... thank you."

"I'm sure he would've done that anyways." the fifteen year old says. "They're not bad people." is she trying to butter us up?

"What do you want?" Henry says, realizing that they came here for us.

The oldest girl was about to say something when the little one from yesterday stepped up.

"We wanna go with!" she declares.

---------

We went to go talk with the nun from the orphanage about the problem. She said that if the children wanted to go with, she wouldn't stop them. Of course, she was told the day before about Heclan's murders. At first she was shocked but said, "What happened in the past doesn't matter. He's no longer that person."

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Henry relented to the children, we'll be taking the along now. Looks like he was hoping to get his money's worth out of that eight silvers. Hannah looked a little disturbed by it but didn't say anything.

Before we went the nun stopped me and handed me a letter. "Please give this to Mima, she runs the orphanage in the city you're going back to. It'll also help with Heclan's trial." I put the letter into my pocket and left.

I'm riding on my horse, Hannah and Henry are also on theirs, some of the younger children don't seem to be too affected, they run around playing tag.

It's been a while since we left the town. It was a decent place, the trees planted inside was a really nice touch.

I've learned the name of the two girls, the eldest one is Alia, and the younger one is named Leah. Leah's really high spirited. Alia seemed much more like an adult than some of the ones I met, talking about my master here. During that time I talked back and forth with them and Henry. Hannah seemed a little distant.

I pull my horse closer to her's after thinking about it for thirty minutes.

"What's up?" I ask her.

"I'm okay with it." she says. Looks like I wasn't the only one observing others.

"Sorry, even though he..." I don't bother to finish the sentence.

"It's okay. I'm also sorry for trying to make you kill him." she looks away shamefully. "I-I know that you don't like killing people."

"I'm sure you don't either." I pause before adding in a joke. "Unless... do you?"

"Heh." she looks back at me. "Are you curious?"

"I don't really want to know if you like k-"

"No, not that!" she shakes her head. "I mean, my sister."

Oh, even I read the mood wrong sometimes. My master always liked to pile jokes upon jokes.

"Truthfully, a little bit. But I won't ask you to tell me." I tell her. I never ask people about their pasts unless they want to share it. It's in the hopes they won't ask for mine either. Like most people, it's... very personal.

She smiles wryly, "Thanks. But you deserve to know."

"I won't listen unless you want to tell me. If you're using that as an excuse to say that you want to tell me just say it." I crack another joke.

She hits my shoulder. "I want to tell you. Like I said, I really think that you deserve to know." I nod. "It's not anything special, she wasn't having the best time and she was depressed. She told me that she started talking to this man that made her feel really wonderful. A few days later, she died."

He didn't always kill his victims brutally, I guess some were lucky and were killed quickly. But I still got some kind of bitter feeling from Hannah, she didn't seem to let it all out yet.

"That's not all of it is it?" I ask.

"Yeah," she nods. "I was mad that she talked to some stranger on the streets rather than me, her sister." she brushes her hair out of her eyes.

Trust huh?

"You hate him because he betrayed your sister's trust that she didn't even place in you." I say it instead of asking.

"Mhm." she glances at me and lets go of a smile. "You catch on quickly don't ya."

"Course I do, why else would Carlyle ask me to join." I didn't get in because of that but I am good at it if I must say so myself.

She puts her finger to her lips like she did before, "So you could be my friend... at night." Henry bursts out laughing a few feet away from us.

We turn to him but he's looking away, whistling nothing in particular.

---------

Seeing the giant white pillar in the distance the children point to it in wonder exclaiming, "Wat's dat?"

It only took us another hour from there to reach the city. The first task at hand is to hand off the kids to the orphanage around here. The letter I got from the nun is probably for them, she also said something about it being able to help Heclan's trial.

I lead the children to the orphanage while Henry and Hannah escort Heclan away, the children are reluctant but Alia urges them away.

Walking down the streets, the children have the same reaction I had when I first came here. Their faces are filled with absolute awe at the size of this place, although that's where we differ, I didn't show any expression. I was still awe struck though.

They run around twisting in twirling, I keep an eye on them as we walk to the orphanage. I'll hand the letter over to someone there and leave. The day was getting late already. I want to get some fun in before I have to go back to school tomorrow, not that learning new magic isn't exciting.

Finally nearing the large building with intricate carvings on the walls the children stop running around. It's not even close to the size of the Adventurer's Guild or the academy it's still one that stands out. I've been here once before but that was to meet with the two little kids, Maia and Aron. I hope those two make friends with these guys here.

Noticing me, a sister rushes forward.

"What can I help you with?" she asks while looking to the children at my sides, Alia stands behind me.

"I'm here with a message from the orphanage at Rootwails." I pull out the message from my pants pocket and hand it over to her. It's a little bit crumpled but the writing should be readable. Her eyes skim over the paper, widening at the end. The place where the signature usually goes... was that nun an influential person?

"I understand. We'll take care of these children." she calls for others to come. "I'll take care of Mr. Nelson's trial."

With that I turn around. I resist the urge to go and see Aron and Maia, I can visit them later. Right now, I'm a bit hungry. I haven't been able to eat since yesterday morning. Maybe I'll get a cold treat later too.