Of red samite the cloak was made, each hem invisibly stitched. His aunt spent long hours on the silken marvel, her titian hair cast into brightness from the windowpanes, the gold-shining folds shimmering like wings across her lap. When she had finished, and she tucked it across his shoulders and pulled the hood over his night-black hair, he saw how distant and strange her expression had become, and he did not have the heart to tell her he had always preferred blue.
"What a splendid riding-hood it is," the butler murmured, meekly, from the table where he poured the morning tea.
"Is it?" Aunt Angelina asked, quiet. "Do you know what the color red is, Ciel?"
Ciel frowned. "Red is an illusion, aunty. Just like any color—a refraction of white light; it is the only way our brains know to perceive the different wavelengths. And a limited one at that."
In the background, the butler laughed, quietly, and spilled the tea onto the table, staining the white cloth. Neither Ciel nor Madam Red reacted, save for a small, inaudible sigh from the mistress; Sutcliff was quite adept with javelle-water, with such frequent incidents as these.
"Red is a signal," his aunt replied. "A warning, of poison; a ward against the predator."
"So," Ciel asked, cockily, "this cloak means I'm not good to eat?"
Madam Red sighed. "Very smart, Ciel." She stood up to hand him the basket that Sutcliff brought forward, and continued with a businesslike tone. "Be quick on your way to the Middlefords'; don't let Finnian become distracted. You know how much I worry…"
"They say the streets aren't safe, these nights," the butler added, with a strange hint of a smile on his half-turned face. "With all the murders going on."
Madam Red turned to him and spoke, acerbic. "I should hardly think my nephew would be at risk from that; you know 'he' only goes after the fallen, lowest creatures…" her composure crumbling, she stood with her hands clenched. "Vile, despicable things, giving up their own children…"
"Of course," the butler said, placatingly. "I only meant to remind the boy." But remind him of what, Grell did not say.
"I'll be going then," Ciel said, although the adults were no longer listening—his aunt still angry; although as he made his way back to the morning room doors, the butler met his eyes with his own peculiar, acid-green ones, blurred behind his full-moon spectacles.
"Red is a signal of danger," Grell continued, "but also of passion. Some even use it to attract a mate." He spoke quietly, as though to himself, but his eyes did not waver until Ciel had slipped through the door and away.
It was beautiful out. The sun was high with bright morning light as Ciel met the coachman, who greeted him with a merry smile, the clips in his blond hair glinting.
"Off to visit the Lady Elizabeth, I see?" he asked.
"Yes," Ciel answered shortly. "Madam Red says we are not to dawdle," he added, with some irony, and took Finnian's help into the carriage.
The curtains in the carriage were vermilion. The sun reached its way with admirable persistence into the dark contraption, but trembled at the look in Ciel's eyes and fled before it had more than touched the dark scrap of cloth covering the goodies in the basket.
"I musn't touch it," Ciel said to himself. But oh, the sweets were so very tempting, and he was rather hungry… still. It would not be proper to arrive at his cousin and fiancée's house having devoured the gifts. He folded his hands atop each other and stared out, out the red drapes with the red cloak lying coiled around him.
Red is a signal, Ciel thought. A signal of injury and harm, death and blood, blood.
.
.
.