Ciel notices the wards above the door in time to glance Sebastian's way, but the butler has already bowed out with an excuse to enter with the lower servants. Ciel breathes a sigh of relief as the rest of the group traipses in and soon enough everything is set out for tea. He is sitting between Elizabeth on one side and Edward on another, the former chattering away until he feels a headache beginning to build, the latter speaking quietly, but looking his way every so often. He seems… uncertain.

It's terribly awkward here. If Ciel— he clenches his fists, breathes deeply, and tries not to burst out with a scream, right here in the middle of tea. It wouldn't do at all.

If Ciel were here, he would be talking, answering everyone's questions, and he wouldn't have to feel so exposed, so looked-at. But he is the only one left, now. There is no one to sit beside who will take his hand when he's feeling frightened. There is no one who will play games with him when there is nothing else to do. There is no one he can trust his every secret. Ciel is dead.

"Maybe, after tea, we can play!" Elizabeth says, her voice shrieking its way into his ear.

"I'd like that," Ciel says, numbly, though he would not like that at all.

He excuses himself to go to the loo. Sebastian will need to come inside eventually, and if he's obligated to play with his cousins, there is no way he'll get another chance to invite him in. He creaks open the door to the servants' wing and walks in a direction he hopes will be the right one. He runs into a maid right away, an older woman who pauses in the middle of hurrying down the corridor to look down at him.

"Lord Ciel?" she says. "What are you doing here? Is there something you need?"

Despite himself, his face colors. He feels terribly awkward. It's one thing to be caught wandering the servants' wing in your own home, where you know them and they all dote on you—quite another to be caught doing so in a house in which you are a guest. "I just… wanted to see my butler," Ciel says. "Sebastian."

"I don't know where he'd be…" the woman starts.

Ciel sniffles, his eyes filling with tears. "I just…" he worries the edge of his coat with his hands. "I was just worried, and I wanted to see him…"

"Shhh…" the woman is motherly enough, as Ciel had guessed, that instead of throwing her, this only softens any suspicion she might have. "Let's see if we can find him, all right darling?"

Ciel nods. "Thank you," he whispers.

The woman smiles. "It's no trouble."

They walk through much of the servants' wing, and he is passed off a few times to other servants who think they may know where Sebastian is, until he finally ends up at the right place. As Ciel had expected, Sebastian is loitering in the stables, entertaining a few of the servants at work on the horses, and acting as though he is not going inside for some utterly understandable reason.

"Sebastian!" Ciel cries, upon seeing him. He runs to his butler and throws his arms around him, hissing in a low voice, "play along," before continuing, "I didn't know where you were!"

Sebastian swings him up in his arms, and smiles at him mildly. "I was right here, young master, there's no need to worry."

"But I missed you," Ciel says petulantly.

Sebastian chuckles.

Ciel wraps his arms around Sebastian's neck and tugs on his hair enough so that Sebastian winces.

"You don't have to pick me up," he whispers, disgruntled.

"On the contrary," Sebastian murmurs, his mouth nearly hidden in the top of Ciel's hair. "One must always be as dramatic as possible. It is the essence of the magician's sleight of hand."

"Hmph."

The men around them are chuckling, making good-natured jokes about the display, and Ciel slips down from Sebastian's arms, tugging him toward the door. "Come with me," he says. He steps over the threshold a moment before Sebastian does. One of the horses panics, and while everyone's attention is focused on calming it, he mutters the words of the spell under his breath. The wards light up and then fade, and he holds out a hand for Sebastian's so the demon can enter.

"Thank you, young master," Sebastian says.

"Was that distraction yours?" Ciel asks, looking through the door at the horse, calming down though still spooked.

"Of course," Sebastian replies, quietly.

When they've made their way into the main part of the house, it is only in time to find Aunt Frances bearing down on them. "Where have you been?" she says. "I've been worried sick—"

"I just wanted to find Sebastian," Ciel says.

Aunt Frances gives Sebastian a glare. Sebastian smiles back at her, with a terrified kind of cheer.

"Is that so?" Aunt Frances says.

"I ought to finish seeing to it that the master's belongings are unpacked," Sebastian says quickly, and hurries off down the corridor. Bastard. Ciel looks after him dourly. Not that he can blame him… he rather wishes he also had some believable excuse to run away.

Aunt Francis finally looks back at him, and her expression softens. "Ciel," she says carefully, "…How is everything? Are you doing well?"

"Well enough," Ciel says.

There is a long silence.

"If you wanted, you know we would be happy to have you live here," Aunt Frances tries, but Ciel is shaking his head before she finishes.

"I don't think that will be necessary," he says, trying not to sound as utterly horrified as he feels by the idea. He couldn't possibly imagine living with the Midfords'.

"Madam Red told me you've been living in the townhouse since you came back," Frances says.

"Yes."

"Is there anything you need?"

"No," Ciel says. "Thank you. I have everything in hand."

"That butler of yours…"

"What about him?" Ciel snaps.

Aunt Frances seems somewhat taken aback by his harshness, and Ciel tries to explain. "I know you have a problem with his aesthetic standards, but do be assured that I hired him for other—"

"No," Aunt Frances says. "It's not that. I wouldn't dream of hiring him if it were up to me, but I know you have your reasons."

"Then what?" Ciel is aggrieved and tired, and inwardly cursing Aunt Anne—the traitor—for having been in contact with Aunt Frances, and allowing her to take him by surprise in such a way.

"THERE YOU ARE!" A screaming blur of arms, legs, and dress barrels its way into him.

"Elizabeth?" Ciel says, blinking.

"Where did you go? I've been looking for you for ages! It's not polite at all to disappear like that. You promised me we could play!"

"We…" Ciel stammers. "We can. Right now."

"Oh!" Elizabeth brightens. "That's all right then, come on, I have loads of ideas…" she drags him away, leaving her mother behind her to snap out a tired, "Slow down, Elizabeth! Give the boy some space!"

"And there are all these new toys, I can't wait to try them! Look!" She flings open the door to her rooms to what is a wash of pastel pinks, oranges, and greens; "I even decorated! Isn't it cute?"

"Uhh…" Ciel says, trying not to shrink back. Elizabeth's decorations are much like Elizabeth: too loud.

"Oh, you look adorable like this!"

"What?" Ciel reaches up to find a bow on his head. He's been hustled into the middle of the room, and there is a pile of stuffed animals around him that seem to give him rueful expressions of better you than me.

"And we can have a tea party, and—"

"Didn't we already have tea?" Ciel says.

Elizabeth pouts. "Well, yes, but not with our toys! And mother says I can't play with you outside because it's too cold and you wouldn't appreciate it!"

"How thoughtful of her," Ciel says.

"It's not thoughtful, it's utterly terrible!" Elizabeth groans. "I had so many plans, too! I thought we could go out on the sleigh! It's not that cold, what do you say? Do you want to?" She leans forward with a smile. "I can ask her. I can tell her you wanted to. I know I can get her to change her mind…"

"No, that's all right," Ciel says.

"…Oh," Elizabeth says. She looks a little put-off, then, and for a moment there is blessed silence. Ciel moves a stuffed bear out of his lap.

"You don't look happy," Elizabeth says.

"Really?" Ciel says. "Who would have thought? My parents and my brother are dead, Elizabeth, I wonder why I wouldn't be happy?"

Elizabeth flinches, and looks down. There are tears gathering at her lashes, and they make Ciel feel revulsion. Everything is too close around him—he has to get away—but he can't. It would be too rude to leave a lady crying. He feels, uncharitably, as though she is threatening to cry for that very reason.

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth says, softly. "I just thought… if we played… like we used to… you might feel better. For a little while."

"I don't," Ciel says, standing up. He takes the bow off, and checks his impulse to throw it, instead setting it crookedly on one of the nearby animals. "I'm too old for these kind of games, Lizzy. They're childish and immature." ("And so are you," he almost adds, but bites his tongue.)

Elizabeth's face has gone white, and her tears have started to fall, though she doesn't seem to notice. She is staring at him as though her whole world is crumbling apart, as though something terribly precious is being torn from her and she doesn't know what to do. The look makes him feel afraid and ashamed. He can't stay here. He rushes out of the room, leaving it behind him, and tries to find a place to hide.

"I thought you were playing with the lady Elizabeth?" Sebastian says, unpacking Ciel's folded clothes in his rooms. Ciel closes the door behind him.

"Not anymore," he says. "We had an argument. I left."

"Really?" Sebastian tsks. "Fighting already? That doesn't say good things about your married life."

"Married? What are you talking about?" Ciel says, throwing himself on the bed.

"She is your fiancée, now," Sebastian reminds him.

Ciel closes his eyes. "I wish she wasn't," he says vehemently. "I don't even like her. She's a chore."

"She's a duty," Sebastian says. "Just like any other. Now. Do you think you ought to apologize to her?"

Ciel groans, and curls up, facing away from the door. "I don't want to," he mumbles.

"That is not the correct answer, my lord."

"I'll apologize," Ciel says. "I will. Just… in a minute."

He relaxes minutely, listening to the soft, unhurried movements as Sebastian takes out and shakes open his coats and jackets to hang in the wardrobe. The quiet is nice. The calm doesn't ask anything of him. Finally, Sebastian is finished.

"It's time, my lord," he says. Ciel sits up and sighs.

The longer it takes to find Elizabeth—wherever she's hidden—the more Ciel's stomach sinks to his toes. He feels terrible about his outburst. It wasn't warranted, and Elizabeth hadn't done anything to deserve it. She was just there, and unwelcome, and someone he could easily throw his anger upon, unlike the grown-ups with their worried faces and their carefulness, where any wrong more would make them take too much note. And perhaps make a move against him. Even Aunt Frances, as good-hearted as her motives are. The thought of her taking action to keep him here makes his palms sweat and grow cold. He can't. It's too… it's too much. Even Sebastian, who seems to be on his side, whose presence is somehow, inexplicably, so unerringly comforting, is merely biding his time, waiting for this all to come to its pre-ordained end. He thinks about the other deal Sebastian had made, and his callous cruelty. He wonders if that is how Sebastian will act to him when it is all over.

"There you are, my boy!"

"Uncle Alexis! I didn't notice you there."

"I'm not surprised," Uncle Alexis chuckles, from the library where he is reading a huge old tome. "You were very lost in thought. Anything I can help you with?"

"No," Ciel says, then reconsiders. "Actually—do you know where Elizabeth is?"

"I haven't seen her," Alexis says. "I thought you two were playing together?"

"We were," Ciel says, looking at his boots. "But… I think I've… that is, we've had a fight."

"A fight? Is that so?" Uncle Alexis closes his book and looks at Ciel. There's no reprobation in his look. Nor is there pity. Just kind, gentle interest. Ciel walks further into the library to sit next to his uncle and flips through the pages of the book his uncle had been reading, a densely-worded book on law. It distracts him, for a minute or two, puzzling out complicated sentences and odd concepts.

"I was in the wrong," Ciel says at last. "She was just trying to play with me, but I snapped at her."

"Our Lizzy can be a bit overwhelming, sometimes," Uncle Alexis says, with a smile.

"But I always… liked playing with her, before," Ciel says, guiltily. His brother had never passed up an opportunity to play with their cousin. He remembers how happy the two of them had been. He's been trying to stop Elizabeth from being unhappy. Trying to let her believe that it is her own fiancé who has returned to her. Trying to make it right. But somehow he's already ruined it.

Uncle Alexis is silent for a moment. "Sometimes," he says at last, "something happens, in life, that makes us grow up all of a sudden, and then we weren't who we were before. It's not a matter of time, you see—it's a matter of experience. Usually the two of them go along side by side, quite happily, but sometimes they break apart. Elizabeth has suffered her own sorrows, but they aren't yours, nor can they be."

"I wouldn't want them to be," Ciel says, with sudden vehemence. Something in his throat feels thick and sour. He is picturing, suddenly, Elizabeth—his sweet, innocent cousin—innocent like they had been—in one of those dirty cages, crying, all alone. Punched and kicked and groped, jeered at, adrift in the everlasting dark. For a moment, it seems to swallow everything, the library around him, the future, his own safety. Anything but that. Not her, too.

Uncle Alexis looks sad. "You're a good kid, Ciel. I'm sure she'll understand that you didn't mean it. Instead of playing the way you used to, try to figure out what you wouldn't mind doing now. Whether that's just sitting by each other, or playing a different game. It doesn't matter to her what you play, she just wants to be with you."

"No," Ciel says, looking at the floor. He speaks very quietly. "Not really. She just wants to play with who she thinks I am—… the person I used to be."

He stands up and walks out of the library before he can say anything else that comes so close to giving himself away. Uncle Alexis, with his solid advice and without ever asking, has somehow managed to bring him closer to telling all his secrets than anyone. It scares him. Perhaps it was the library, the way he was sitting there that reminded him of how his own father liked to spend his time, when he had a free afternoon. His calm, measured voice that was just a little too familiar. It cut him to the quick. He feels more alone now, in this house, than he ever has since he got out of the cage and met Sebastian. Down every corridor is another memory that can speak, and recriminate him.

Elizabeth is hiding in her brother's rooms. When he knocks on the door, Edward answers with a fearsome scowl. "Go away," Edward says. "You're not welcome here. Lizzy doesn't want to see you."

"I came to apologize," Ciel says. Edward tries to shut the door in his face.

"Wait—" Elizabeth says. He can hear her running to the door and then she throws it open despite her brother, Edward still looking at him darkly. Her hair is mussed, and her eyes are red from crying, but she's not crying anymore. "Ciel, I—"

"—I'm sorry," Ciel says.

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth says, at the same time. They stare at each other for a moment.

"I didn't mean to make you angry," she continues, at last, in a small voice.

"I didn't mean to get angry at you," Ciel says. "I know you were only trying to help."

Elizabeth smiles, in a wavering sort of way. "I'm not very good at that, am I," she says, sadly.

Ciel can't say anything.

"That's all right," Elizabeth says. "We don't have to play together, if you don't want. You're right, it was childish of me."

"No!" Ciel bursts out.

Elizabeth stares at him in confusion.

"Elizabeth, I… I didn't mean it. Any of it. I'd love to play with you, just… let me try, all right? Whatever you want to do."

"What do you mean?" Elizabeth says.

"I mean it was I who was being childish," Ciel says at last, "and I blamed you so that I wouldn't have to admit it. That's why I'm sorry."

"I don't… quite understand you," Elizabeth says, at last, with a thoughtful look on her face, "but I think I know what you mean."

"Forgive me?"

"Of course!" Elizabeth says, with a smile. She flings her arms around him, then leans back, hesitantly, as he doesn't react. "Is that… all right? Hugging you?"

"Yes," Ciel says. Elizabeth takes that as an answer and hugs him again, even as he doesn't hug back. She feels so strong, and bright, and alive; her hands circle him as though afraid he's going to disappear. But he doesn't. Moments pass, and he is still here.

And at last, she leans back, and smiles at him, and takes his hand. Then she says, "Go on a sleigh ride with me?"

"I thought you said Aunt Frances said no?"

Elizabeth giggles. "Don't worry," she says. She looks up at Edward. "Edward," she says, pleadingly.

"No," Edward says.

"Please, please, please?"

Edward grumbles under his breath.

"We can all go together!" Elizabeth says.

Edward sighs. "Fine," he says at last. So they all troop down together to pester Aunt Frances into letting them go on a sleigh ride through the snow.

"It's too cold," Frances says.

"No it's not," Edward says, "I was out a few minutes ago and it's really not that bad, not with the sun out, at any rate. I'll keep an eye on them."

"And we'll wear our coats!" Elizabeth pipes up. "Right, Ciel?"

"Right," Ciel says, with what he hopes sounds something like enthusiasm.

Aunt Frances is staring at him, worry pursing the corner of her mouth. "Why don't you three do something else, like—"

"Oh please, mother, please," Elizabeth begs.

"What's all this?" Uncle Alexis says, coming into the hall. Frances looks his way with a hint of alarm.

"Now dear," Frances says.

"Fanny," Alexis says. He looks at the three children.

"Elizabeth wants to go on a sleigh ride," Edward says. "I'll go with them, it's no problem."

"Well, I don't see why not," Alexis says jovially, while Aunt Frances hisses a despairing, "Alexis!" from the background. Elizabeth is already tugging him behind her, and even Edward is grinning.

/

"I'm so excited!" Elizabeth says, spinning in circles as Ciel struggles into his mittens. "This will be the best! I absolutely can't wait! Paula, isn't it wonderful?"

"Yes, my lady," Paula says, with a fond smile. "Now hold still, you need to put on your scarf."

"I don't need a scarf, I already have a hat!" Elizabeth protests.

"A hat covers your head, silly," Edward says. "Not your neck."

"You aren't wearing a scarf," Elizabeth says.

"Now I am," Edward says grandly, wrapping a scarf hanging from a peg in the cloakroom around him and winking. Elizabeth stomps her foot.

"No fair!" she says. "You're only wearing one because I have to wear one."

Sebastian helps Ciel into the sleeves of his coat, looking at the scene with interest and chuckling very softly.

"Butler!" Elizabeth says, haughtily, turning on him. "Do you think that's funny?"

Ciel can feel every eye on him. He flushes with embarrassment, wishing that once—just once!—his stupid demon butler could learn when to keep his mouth shut.

"Yes, I do," Sebastian says, after a moment's pause. Ciel looks over at him with an expression of utter horror, but Elizabeth is already laughing.

"Well, I suppose it is!" Elizabeth says. "But for that, you'll have to wear a scarf too!"

"Anything my lady wishes," Sebastian says charmingly, and Elizabeth blushes.

"I've got one!" Paula says, ducking out of the closet door with a hideous pink feathered monstrosity in her hands.

Elizabeth's eyes light up with fanaticism. "Paula," she says, "you are the very best. That. One's. Perfect! It's sooooooo cute!" She grabs it from Paula's hands and throws it around Sebastian's neck before Ciel even registers her moving, and Sebastian looks down at the winding… thing as though not sure how to react.

"Do you like it?" Elizabeth asks.

"It's… quite stunning," Sebastian says, at last.

Elizabeth claps her hands.

They tumble out of the door in a mass of hats, gloves, scarves and coats, to find the sleigh already waiting, bells hanging from the bridles and jingling merrily. One of the men from the stables is at the front seat, and he laughs when he sees them running out to the sleigh. "I heard this was young mistress Elizabeth's idea, was it?"

"Yes it was!" Elizabeth says proudly. "Isn't it just the loveliest day for a ride?"

"It sure is," the man replies.

Elizabeth and Paula climb up first to take the forward-facing seats of the sleigh, and Ciel and Edward take the seats facing them, while Sebastian joins the driver in the front. Ciel is cold and he rubs his mittened hands together, wondering how he'd ended up in this situation. It's not until the sleigh has set off, and he's peering out from underneath his fur-lined hood at the countryside rolling by beneath the runners, that he remembers he's never been on a sleigh ride in the dead of winter, except for a few long-ago, blurred memories. His mother and father had always opted for other pursuits, fearing that being out in the cold so long would damage his fragile health.

Ciel experiences a moment of panic. I'm not going to start coughing again, he tells himself. I haven't at all since before then, and I'm not going to start now. I'm not going to get sick, either. If willing it was enough to make it true, he never would have been sick as much as he had been, but it calms him down enough to enjoy the ride. After all, he decides, there's nothing I can do about it now.

The air is crisp and clean, somehow invigorating, and the trees in the distance are a dark green the color of holly. The sleigh traverses the grounds, and finally, as the sun begins to move its way westward, turns back toward the Midford house.

"Look!" Elizabeth shouts. "Look! Ciel, it's snowing!"

"So it is," Ciel says. "Good thing we're almost back."

Elizabeth sticks out her tongue to catch a snowflake until Paula gently chides her. Elizabeth rolls her eyes, but stops, and gives Ciel a little smile. He looks back at her, not sure what he's feeling. The whole afternoon, out in the emptiness of white, feels like it has woken something up from a long sleep within him, and his face no longer feels like such a mask. Indeed, he is not even thinking of smiling back at her, but there must be something in his face that she sees, for she sighs contentedly, and her smile becomes a little softer, a little more contemplative.

As they get down from the sleigh, she whispers, "I'm glad I could spend the day with you, Ciel."

"And I'm glad I could spend the day with you, Elizabeth," Ciel says.

Elizabeth is still smiling that soft smile, an almost-sad-but-happy smile, and she reaches out to clasp his hand just once, very quickly, as they all walk back into the house.

It's a small moment, existing only between the two of them. No one notices.

.

.

.