Chapter 4

In which reasons hold answers, and a circle is made.

Fifth Red Sister of Death? That was even more obscure than the other ones!

Francis closed his eyes. He was in his bed on the train back to Paris. It wasn't the Vargas Express this time, this was a train that was a bit faster (which he thought was ironic), and he'd be back in Paris by the next day. So really, it wasn't a bit faster, but quite a lot faster.

It helped that the tracks through Austria-Hungary had been cleared. Maybe if they stopped there, he could get off to visit Elisabeta and warn her—but no, if he did that the Rose would sic Bella on them without getting the last of the pins.

He forced his mind back to the latest clue. Fifth Red Sister of Death. Okay. What the hell did that mean?

It had to be related to the case on the train back to Paris, but the only sister on that train was Lilli, and her brother hadn't died, though she had. Oh, and Elisabeta, but Francis had a feeling she didn't count.

Who was Death? Did he really have five sisters? Did they all have colors? Maybe Death was one of the people who had died on the train. That narrowed it down to Yao, Alfred, Lilli, and Ludwig. Okay. Did any of them have five sisters?

Not likely.

But now that he thought of it, Yao did have a sister. He'd told Francis all about her when they'd first started their journey, though Francis hadn't been listening. And it was because of her and her baby that Yao had been murdered in the first place.

But what did the five and the red mean? Francis thought hard about the color. Colors could be anything, so it was easier to relate things to them. He thought about the little he knew of Mei Wang. She was Yao's sister, she'd had Arthur Kirkland's son Li when she was relatively young, and she was from China.

He focused on that. Countries usually had ambiguous meanings as well. China was strange to Francis, because he'd never been there and it was in Asia. He'd heard it was beautiful, though, but that they had things a little backwards. Like how, instead of wearing white at weddings, they'd wear red because it symbolized celebration.

Red!

There was that. But what about the "fifth" thing?

He was almost positive the clue was about Mei Wang. Mei. Mei Mei Mei. Maybe Mei? He thought about Mei in other languages. May meant "perhaps", but it was also a month in English, wasn't it? It was May. The fifth month.

The fifth month.

Mei, May, the fifth month, who'd been jilted, but instead of a white wedding dress she would have been waiting in red, and had caused her brother's death.

Francis smirked. He was so smart. But his mood quickly turned sour. How was he supposed to find Mei Wang? She lived in China, for God's sake! And even then, he'd be asking for a girl he'd never met in a country he'd never been in. It could take years to find her.

But no, the Rose wanted him to find her soon. That meant she would have had to be a little more accessible. He'd have to go to places related to her. Hell, maybe she'd be in town.

But why would she be in Paris?

Francis groaned. He'd sleep on it and start back on the case when he was back in his city.

It had been a week since he'd arrived and he had absolutely nothing.

The Rose frowned. Watching Francis pace around his apartment wasn't very fun, and Bella was extremely close to finding her fourth pin. Francis, meanwhile, was going nowhere. Maybe the clue was too difficult for him.

No, that wasn't it. He'd talked to customs officials about Mei Wang as soon as he'd entered the country. What he failed to do was ask again. He had actually been ahead of schedule and she hadn't arrived in the country yet.

But now he was annoyingly behind schedule, and the Rose was getting bored.

She glanced over at the Chinese teenager squirming in the corner of the room. Mei would have left already if her beloved son hadn't been taken one night on the way home from a cheap dinner. That would keep her in the city until the Rose's business was done.

The Rose knew what they were doing was wrong, but it wasn't all a terrible thing to do. After all, when Bella found her pin, the boy would meet his father. That wasn't so bad, was it?

Still, the issue with Francis' mental block had to be dealt with immediately. She didn't want to give him too much help, but she didn't want Elisabeta to die. At least, not yet.

The Rose wanted to hear her scream for it as she watched everything around her burn first.

Francis was currently trying to rip his own hair out. Times were desperate. Normally he wouldn't let malevolent hands anywhere near his beautiful mane, but he was so upset that there was nothing else he could do.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. He let his hands drop to his sides before stalking over to it and opening it.

There was a young boy standing there, holding a pristine white envelope. "Letter, sir."

Francis snatched the letter out of the boy's hands and slammed the door in his face. He was too stressed to be nice. Every minute he spent not finding these stupid things was a minute Bella was using to find hers and kill his best friend.

The letter was sealed with a bit of wax in the shape of a rose. Francis tore it open.

Once again, the overpowering scent of roses hit his nostrils. He opened the note and read the loopy script.

You've disappointed me. Tell me, did you ever think to look for Miss Wang? Did you ever consider that she might have entered the city after you?

Perhaps you should do some praying for an answer. I hear the church where the police bury the bodies of unclaimed victims and criminals is a good place for divine inspiration.

-The Rose

The Rose sounded frustrated, but Francis wasn't complaining. He'd practically given Francis Mei's location.

He'd just have to go there and wait.

And wait he did, until even the priest had left and extinguished all of the candles. He would have made Francis leave as well, but Francis had given him an excellent tale which included all of his cases and his long lost love looking for him because she believed him dead and buried in the cemetery. And what a surprise it would be for her to see him waiting for her, alive? The priest had allowed him to stay as long as he didn't steal anything.

Francis had nearly fallen asleep when the doors to the little church opened at three thirty in the morning and a small figure walked through timidly.

He immediately hopped up, though, when they passed by him to sit in front of the altar with their eyes closed. Francis walked up behind them slowly, careful not to make a squeak, and tapped them on the shoulder.

They shrieked, jumped up, and kicked Francis right in his male genitalia.

Francis fell to the ground and they put one small foot on his stomach and asked, in very bad French, "Who are you?"

"Mercy," Francis said. "Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy," he repeated in every language he knew.

"Who are you?" they repeated in English.

"My name is Francis Bonnefois. I'm a detective. Are you Mei Wang?" He wanted so badly to grasp himself to ease the burning pain. He was pretty sure she'd kicked him so hard something had popped.

The pressure on his stomach lessened slightly. "How do you know my name?" she asked.

"I was there when your brother died. My best friend held him in her arms and tried to help him, but he bled to death. I caught the killer and I know why it happened. Please, let me stand up."

She removed her foot from his stomach and Francis sat up slowly, mindful of the pain in his most sensitive area. "Thank you." He took a minute to grab a pew and pull himself into it. Mei lit a candle so they could get a better look at each other.

She seemed a little older than thirty, but she was still beautiful. Long, black hair framed her face and she had chocolate eyes that sparkled, though probably not as brightly as they had when she was young and not a mother. She wore a thick coat and seemed to be shivering. It certainly was cold in the church.

"Were you here looking for me?" she asked quietly. Francis nodded. "What for? Why would you need to see me?"

"First of all, to apologize for not saving your brother."

"But you said you found his killer. That is apology enough." Her eyes softened and she put a hand on his shoulder. "Even if his killer was a man I once loved."

Francis now felt uncomfortable. "No longer?"

She smiled sadly. "He made it clear what he felt about me. I met a nice young man from Japan. He has been lovely to me, but I insisted he did not come with me to France. He didn't know Yao, and I wanted it to be myself and my son only."

"Where is your son?" Unless the boy was invisible, he hadn't come into the church.

Mei took her hand from Francis' shoulder and sat down next to him in the pew. "We were walking home from dinner and…two men in masks came out of nowhere. They attacked us, and Yao taught us kung fu before he died, but we could not defend ourselves. They took Lee." She seemed to be fighting back tears now.

"I will help you find your son, Mei. I swear on it. But I have a question for you first."

"What is it? If you will help me find my son, I will do anything." She looked at him with her huge brown eyes, full of vulnerability, and Francis saw something there that reminded him of when he had been younger, training to be in the police, when he had first met her.

He pushed all that aside and replied, "Have you received an orange hairpin recently?"

She didn't respond for a moment, but then laughed. "You say you're a detective but you didn't even notice?" She pulled something out of her hair and handed it to Francis. "It's been in my hair this whole time. It's quite lovely. Do you need it for something?"

Francis looked at the pin. It was orange, but the blossoms at the end were cherry red. It was the fourth orange pin. "I'm sorry, but I must take this from you. Did it come with a note of some sort?"

"Yes." She fished around in the pockets of her coat, then finally pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "This is it. It's in French, so I don't know what it says."

"Thank you very much." He pocketed it and the pin without reading it. "That was all I needed."

"What about my son?" Mei asked. "You promised to help me find him."

"Of course I will! But it is late. Let us meet tomorrow over lunch. Now is not the right time to be discussing such things, nor is it the place." He gave her the address of a café he enjoyed, then escorted her to the street, and she told him she could find her way home. They set off in different directions.

Francis opened the note just as he was about to go to bed.

Necessity's Moribund Bride.

He let the note fall to the ground and closed his eyes. Brides again, huh? It took him back to his thoughts of Elisabeta's wedding. She had told him all about why she was getting married. Her brother and Roderich's sister were supposed to actually, but Daniel had died in a hunting accident and Maria couldn't bear to live without him and threw herself off one of the towers in the castle Elisabeta had grown up in. Her marriage had been all about necessity, really…

Francis' eyes snapped open. It was Elisabeta! She had the fifth orange pin!

He jumped out of bed and ran to the train station. Mei and Lee Wang could wait. He had a best friend to save.

"Excuse me, but are you Arthur Kirkland?" a sweet voice asked.

Arthur looked up from the floor of his cell. It was the middle of the night, but he wasn't sleeping. How could he, when he was stuck in some stupid French prison? The place was a nightmare.

Standing in the lamplight of the hall in front of his cell was a blonde girl with a knife. She smiled sweetly at him. "Unless my name has changed without my knowledge, then I am. Who is asking?"

Her smile grew wider. "The girl who will set you free."

"Set me free? That sounds delightful. What happens to be the price?"

"A black hairpin."

Arthur held out his hand and opened it. Sitting on his palm was a black hairpin and a small slip of paper. "You mean like this one?"

The blonde girl inserted a key into the lock of the cell door, and it swung open. "Exactly like that one."

She snatched it away from him and read the note. "Oh ho ho. It seems that I will be going to Austria. But first, I must take you to my friend."

"Friend?" Arthur's eyes narrowed.

"Don't worry, you know them. They just have someone for you to meet, and then they'll set you on your merry way. It shouldn't take long." She took his hand without his permission and led him out the cell and down the hall, past more prison cells with inmates angry at being woken, and past guards lying on the ground with their throats slashed.

Arthur supposed this was better than sitting on the cold floor of a prison in France. Now he could go to Sweden (or was it Finland?) and find his stupid, estranged son.

Right after he met this girl's friend, of course.

AN: Oh, skiddleywhiffers. Arthur's escaped! Francis knows where the fifth orange pin is! Lee Wang is going to meet his father! Bella is headed for Austria! And the Rose seems to have a seriously deep hatred for Elisabeta. This can only mean one thing.

The next chapter is the last chapter (before the epilogue)!

There's going to be a seriously crazy (and totally not done before in billions of other fanfictions what are you talking about well you'll see when you read it in two weeks or so) revelation about Francis in that epilogue. BE PREPARED.

And no, TaiwanxJapan probably isn't going to be that big of a thing. I really have no idea at this point, though. The future of this thing is really vague to me. All I have planned is sort of what'll happen in the next story, who the Rose is (you're welcome to guess), and an incredibly sad scene which might not even happen.

EDIT: And also, sorry it took weeks for me to update. I kinda forgot about this story. I got really into Homestuck, and, yeah. There's a Homestuck fanfic up if you want to read it! (That still doesn't mean forgiveness, does it?) And I'm going to FallCon. I hope if you're there you come and say hi! I'll be in the black wig with the horns and the red sweater and no facepaint. Yeah. Say hi if you see me.

I should stop talking now. I hope you enjoyed! :D