The house was quiet.

All the wailings and curses that had been shaking its windows had died down before she had returned. The Ravens she didn’t trust were in their places, guarding the mother and the son. She was tired, eyes half-shut, soul asleep. There were still roads left unexplored, one of which started at the end of the hallway. And she could feel it, couldn’t she: how the body morphed with space, soul with time? Fiona was sleeping with Thomas next to her as Diane walked back into the living room. He looked at Diane, strangely disappointed and fearfully quiet. If he spoke first, she feared, he would ask her the obvious; the only one with true bonds buried was missing. Was she proud or shattered?

“We need to talk,” the Dove told her Fool.

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

Thomas carefully pulled his hand out of his mother’s grasp and followed Diane into the small room on the other side of the hallway, the room she would sleep in no more. He closed the door behind him and, refusing to sit down, waited for her to tell him an excuse he would have, without a doubt, swallowed.

“I don’t know what it is that Isaac told you…”

“Everything,” he responded immediately.

“Well… good. Then you know.” She folded her gloves over and over again until every millimeter of the fabric was perfectly aligned. “Then I suppose you have questions.”

“I do.” What was it that made the Flamer suddenly so cold? Was it her calmness? The nonchalant posture? The black dress?

“Well, ask me then. I’m in a hurry.” She looked up from her gloves quickly; it must have been that unnatural motion that made her voice fail her slightly.

Thomas felt the inner side of his skin quiver. “Why are you acting as if nothing happened?”

“What?”

“George and Jeremy are dead. Why are you acting like everything is in order?!”

“Because I don’t have time to dwell on things I cannot change. The best I…we can do now is to move on.”

“Don’t you think that is a bit much? They were your friends!”

“People die every minute, Thomas. I am not obliged to attend every single funeral,” Diane’s reply was so fast both of them needed a minute to comprehend what she had said.

“What?!” Thomas was fixated on her fingers that squeezed her gloves.

“What do you mean, what?” she was now spelling out the words she spoke.

Thomas took a deep breath. “I asked you a question first.”

“And I gave you an answer.”

“You are insane.” Thomas ran his hand through his hair so forcefully he ripped a few hairs off. “So, you wouldn’t attend my funeral either?”

“What does that have to do with anything? And why are you so angry?” Diane asked, trembling. “It’s because I didn’t tell you, isn’t it? Your pride is hurt!”

“My pride is not hurt!”

“Yes, it is. You realize very well now that you were the only one who didn’t know anything even though you should have and now you feel like a real fool even though you didn’t want me to tell you the truth!” Diane yelled; she could not shake the feeling that something was not right, that there was a plan, a purpose, she was not aware of. There were too many questions and too few answers. What was really going on?

“I didn’t want you to tell me?! What kind of nonsense is that?! I asked you…”

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“But you didn’t mean it! If you had pushed me only slightly I would have told you! We both know that very well! You got scared! You are always scared of breaking this… this dome that your sweet mother has built for you! When you realized that I might break your peace you got terrified and backed off. But your pride wouldn’t allow you to show it, so you asked me hoping that I would refuse to tell you! You are nothing but a coward! And a horribly selfish one!” Diane screamed.

Thomas stepped back, with tears in his eyes. “And what if I am?! Am I not allowed to be human?! Are you the only one who is allowed to make mistakes? Because you are a princess?!”

“This has nothing to do with me being a princess-”

“It has everything to do with you being a princess!” Thomas yelled back and his eyes went ablaze. “Because you are a Hunster, you are oh-so-above us puny little humans, little peasants, that you are not obliged to attend our funerals! If you are so righteous and brave, then why didn’t you make me listen?! You killed them both! And who knows how many more people you have sacrificed and for what? What kind of progress have you made?!”

“How dare you!”

“How dare I?! How dare I?! How dare you make a fool out of me with a pretext of “following orders”?!”

“I was following orders!”

“Oh, and since when do you do that?! “Orders” didn’t seem to stop you from killing George’s father! And now that George is also dead, I bet you have some serious thinking to do about these orders you are “following”, Your Majesty!”

Then silence followed, long and dry. Thomas went pale when real tears besmeared Diane’s flawless black eyes. He took a few steps towards her as if his presence wouldn’t anger her more; then he stopped and buried his face in his hands. It was difficult to decide which part of his skull throbbed the most.

“I am sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I’m just… it’s so difficult!”

Diane’s rhythmical sniffing shattered the silence for some time. Thomas looked around the room in hopes of preventing his brain from forming a thought. Then Diane wiped her tears with her laced sleeve and crossed her hands, to pretend it didn’t hurt her; just like she had been taught. But something in the warmth of the room made her lips quickly curl downwards and move against her will.

“I don’t know anymore,” she said. “All this time, ever since I lost my memories, I’ve been feeling like something is off. Like I’ve been living a dream… You know, back then, it was the Judge who ordered me to stay put, not my father. That I can remember for some reason. And I can’t understand why. I tried not to think about it, to tell myself that there was a reason I can’t remember but… I wonder if my decision has changed anything. They told me that I ruined everything because I was scared of being forgotten. That is why I have been trying so hard to be obedient even if it meant going against my principles. The truth is, Thomas, I am the one who doesn’t know. I am the coward who is running away from the truth. And the truth is… the truth is that Clara Heal was the one who created Demons. It said so in her will. And it is also true that the Judge promised me she would keep those dear to me safe as long as I did as I was told,” she looked at his baffled, frightened eyes; those gray eyes in which she never failed to find salvation. The eyes that warmed her up and showed her the path to her heart. “I will find out the truth and then… then we might not be a team anymore. But I am selfish in wishing you would take the burden of knowledge, because God knows I may not be strong enough to hold it.”

Diane noticed seasons change in Thomas’s eyes and recognized that anguish too well. It was the pain of knowledge, of lies, and of death. He had wanted answers he would easily believe in, but she was not willing to give them to him because they were not true. She was not true; it was a ghost, an apparition, a product of his dreams. A perfect princess, a perfect leader who was never allowed to exist. And now he saw it clearly, her ugly disposition.

“I am truly sorry it had to come to this,” Diane said. “Believe me when I tell you that I did not want to hurt you. But now that everything is out in the open you have to come to terms with what your life is going to be like. If you attend every funeral, you will soon find yourself buried next to them. I am speaking from experience.”

“Are you happy with your life?” Thomas asked, looking aside.

“What?”

“It doesn’t get worse than this, does it?” Those eyes looked eerily familiar now. “What are you afraid of, then?”

She was about to leave for some time; he didn’t know it, but she did. He would stay a peasant, one with a hellishly strong will and unbreakable determination. A gullible, naïve peasant who believed a girl of twenty-three could change the world. A peasant who, for a moment, looked awfully like a king.

But it would soon come crumbling down, his determination and her sense of pride.

Diane tasted yesterday’s dinner in her mouth; she had to get out of that room. “It seems like I don’t have anything else to lose. I might as well run wild.”

Thomas swallowed hard. “It’s settled then.”

“Yes, thank you,” Diane replied quickly and ran out of the room. She could not tell him how the things she hadn’t said, but was planning to, drilled holes in her heart.

And when she closed the door, the smile disappeared from his face. It was days like that one, when he felt especially sleepy, that nothing made too much sense, and the words he spoke came back to him with dream-like undertones. Whatever he had said, whatever he had thought was now a distant memory. Now he was determined to live and see her become the queen. And to do that, he would have to become a worthy king.

Because I have nothing else left.