Zaffiro was still on edge the next morning, startling at sudden movements and glancing out windows, but after breakfast he donned his shoes and coat and waited quietly by the door. "He must really like violin practice," Nero murmured to Kyrie as he pulled on his own jacket. "He's willing to brave whatever he's afraid of out there to go to the shop."

Kyrie nodded thoughtfully. "You know, after I lost my parents, I was devastated, but I couldn't bring myself to talk to anyone about it. I could never find the words to describe what I was feeling. Singing was the only thing that gave me the means to express myself."

"I remember. That's when you started training for the opera." Nero glanced toward the door. "You think playing violin will help him get over his issues?"

"I think we should let him try. He hasn't been able to tell us what's wrong in words, but perhaps music could be an outlet for him, like it was for me."

"I just wish he'd picked a cheaper drug," Nero sighed. "I feel awful every time he has to give the violin back, but there's no way we could afford it."

"Let's just be grateful that the owner of the shop is kind enough to let him play for free." Kyrie stretched up for the obligatory kiss. "You'd better start out if you're going to be back in time for lunch."

"Right." Nero looked over at the sofa, where Rosso was working on yet another puzzle. "Rosso, you coming to the shop with us?"

Rosso looked up from his activity book, and his eyes slid from Nero to his brother. A near-imperceptible frown flitted across his brow. "No, I'll stay here."

Nero almost insisted that he accompany them, but Zaffiro was beginning to fidget at the door, and Nero decided it was better to keep the outing as smooth as possible for Zaffiro's sake. There wasn't much for Rosso to do at the shop, and he could be difficult to manage when he was bored. "Fine. Stay out of trouble."

A cold wind was blowing in from the port side of the island, and Nero used his free hand to turn his coat collar up as they made their way down the street. Through their linked hands, he could feel Zaffiro shiver occasionally, though it was impossible to tell whether that was from cold or anxiety. From time to time, the boy would hesitate and glance in one direction or another. Nero stretched out with his limited devil sense to see if he could detect whatever Zaffiro was reacting to, but either he lacked the sensitivity, or he was so inured to the island's background noise that he couldn't distinguish actual demonic presence from the detritus of the Order's meddling.

The shop owner was waiting for them, violin already laid out on the counter, and beamed at Zaffiro as he entered. "I have a surprise for you, young man!" With a flourish, he presented the boy with a bow. Nero could tell it was different than the one he'd played with before, only because there were fewer loose strands trailing from it, but he couldn't see anything particularly unique about it. "I managed to find a size down for you!"

Zaffiro thanked the proprietor in a subdued voice and picked up the instrument. Now Nero could see that this bow was a bit shorter than the previous one, and no doubt a better fit for a child's arms. "Thanks," he murmured to the shopkeeper once Zaffiro began playing, mindful of Kyrie's prompt to be grateful. "It's really kind of you to go out of your way for us."

"It's really no trouble," the man demurred. "Business has been slow, anyway. Plus, I get the benefit of a concert whenever you come by!"

They settled back to listen. The music Zaffiro played was low and undulating—somewhere between mournful and sinister, Nero thought. The boy focused on the instrument with chilling intensity, face rigid, eyes distant. It was a dramatic change from the exploratory melodies he'd played the first few times they had come.

"He seems…" The proprietor hesitated. "I know it's not really my place to say anything, but…"

It was no use denying that something was wrong. "He's had a rough week. There was a… a death in the family." It wasn't entirely inaccurate, he reasoned.

"Oh, no! I'm terribly sorry."

Nero nodded to acknowledge the sentiment. "I was hoping this might cheer him up, but so far it's not sounding too cheerful."

"You never know. Considering how much of humanity's greatest art has come out of times of personal darkness, there must be something healing about the act of creating."

"I hope you're right," Nero murmured. Because this child needs a lot of healing.


When they returned to the house shortly before lunchtime, Lady and Rosso were seated at opposite ends of the couch in the living room. They both looked up as Nero and Zaffiro entered. Rosso's eyes tracked his brother only until Zaffiro glanced toward him, at which point his gaze flicked quickly to the window.

Nero sent Zaffiro ahead to wash up. "Hey." He dropped into the armchair and reached over to prod Rosso's leg. "You wanna tell me what's going on between you two?"

"Nothing." The answer came too quickly.

"Up until a week ago, the two of you were practically joined at the hip. Now you aren't even speaking to each other. That's not nothing."

Rosso just shrugged and stared out the window.

Lady caught Nero's eye and gestured for him to back off. Nero raised his hands and went to hang his coat in the front closet. Behind him, he heard Lady rearrange herself on the couch. "Hey, Rosso."

"Tony," the boy corrected.

"Okay. Tony, if you prefer that. Can I tell you about something that happened when I was a kid?"

Nero sneaked a glance back into the room. Rosso/Tony was giving Lady a curious look. "Sure."

Lady had drawn her knees up to her chest and was leaning deep into the cushions. "When I was a few years older than you are now, I lost my mother. I'd been away at gymnastics camp, and when I got back, I found out she had been… that she had died. While I was gone." Lady paused for a steadying breath. "After that happened, my whole life changed. I was upset, and I was angry. I stopped doing all the things that had been important to me before. School, gymnastics, seeing my friends… I gave it all up. I couldn't go on with my life as though nothing had changed, because for me, it felt like everything had changed. So if something like that has happened with you and your brother, I think I can understand, a little bit. Sometimes going through something painful or scary can make you feel like you have to change things. Change the way you act, who you spend time with. Maybe even change your name. Is that how you're feeling now?"

The boy shook his head.

"I hope not. Because I realized, years later, that I missed some of those things I'd given up. But by then, it was too late to do anything about it. I don't want you to give up something you'll miss later."

Rosso chewed his lower lip. "I miss my brother." The words were nearly inaudible.

"He probably misses you, too. Maybe you can make up with him this afternoon."

He shook his head again. "I mean I miss him being with me."

Lady hesitated. "Did he push you away?"

"No. He's not there anymore." The boy drew his limbs in tighter, hugging himself. "He's always been with me, but now he's gone."

Lady shot a look of confusion at Nero, who had slipped back into the room. "What do you mean, gone?" Nero eased himself into the chair again. "He's been here the whole time."

"Not here. In the other place." Rosso had shed his attitude of indifference and now looked to be on the verge of tears. "He was always with me in the house, but he's not there anymore. He went away and left me alone. I can't find him. I can't feel him anywhere."

"In… the house?" Nero's eyes flicked involuntarily toward the kitchen, where he recalled a crayon drawing of Dante and Vergil's childhood home stuck to the refrigerator door. "Oh. I see." Suddenly Rosso's change in behavior made sense: All the time the twins had spent in close proximity, staying in the same room during the day and curling up together at night, must have mirrored the second life they'd lived in their dreams. Until recently, they had always been together in their childhood memories. Only when they recalled the events that had torn them apart, and their own feelings of isolation in the aftermath, had they begun to distance themselves physically.

Dante had once mentioned that they had shared a bedroom, growing up. Zaffiro had said they'd never been to school, so sleepovers or class trips were unlikely. It was entirely possible that until their mother died, the brothers had never spent a single night apart. No wonder Rosso was taking it hard.

Nero chose his words carefully. "You can… feel where your brother is right now, can't you?"

Rosso nodded. "Down the hall."

"Could you feel where he was an hour ago? When we were at the antique shop?"

"No. He was too far away."

"Well, maybe, in that other place you dream about, you and your brother are just far enough apart that you can't feel each other. I don't think he went away on purpose. I think he… got lost. He's probably just as upset that he doesn't know where to find you. Have you talked to him about it?"

Rosso shook his head. "I don't want to talk to him about the other place. It's all different, now."

If Dante had already reinvented himself as Tony Redgrave by this point in his life, Nero could only imagine just how different. "Okay. But just because you got separated in the other place doesn't mean you have to stay away from each other here, does it?"

Rosso studied the arm of the couch. "I guess not," he mumbled.

"Wouldn't it be better if you tried to go back to the way things were? It would give you somebody to play with during the day, when the other kids are at school. I think your brother might be feeling a little lonely since you've been avoiding him. Besides, maybe if you're friends again when you're awake, you won't miss him so much when you're asleep. You think it's worth a shot?"

Rosso said nothing, but nodded slightly.

"All right. It's almost time to eat, so why don't you go wash up, and maybe you two can do something fun together after lunch, okay?"

The boy obediently departed for the bathroom. When he'd gone, Nero slumped back in the armchair.

"I'm impressed," Lady said. "I'm exhausted just from watching you do it, but I am impressed that you managed to work out what was going on and fix it."

"Save your praise until we see how long it stays fixed." Nero shook his head. "Man, this whole situation is crazy. I don't know what the hell I'm doing half the time with human kids. Throw weird demonic superpowers and a whole set of bonus memories into the mix, and I'm way out of my depth."

"If so, your dog paddle is a far sight better than mine. You saw how well my attempt at establishing rapport went."

"It went pretty well, from where I'm sitting. You got him to open up and talk about how he was feeling, which is more than I'd gotten out of him in the last week." Nero threw a surreptitious glance at her before adding, "I didn't know about your mom. I'm sorry."

Lady smiled tightly. "Trish was right. We've all lost somebody."

Nero pitched his voice low, so there was no chance of the boys overhearing. "She was killed by demons?"

"In a manner of speaking." Lady stared hard at the opposite wall. "The man who murdered her used her as a sacrifice so he could gain demonic power."

Nero swore under his breath. "What the hell is wrong with people?"

Her lip curled. "Someone always wants to rule the world."

"But becoming a demon? That's the kind of jacked-up shit the Order was doing. I'll never understand why anyone would willingly give up their humanity to become some kind of monster."

"Maybe because all the ones who do were monsters to begin with, even when they were human."

"Not all of them." Nero swallowed the bitterness at the back of his tongue. "Credo wasn't. Not before the Order got into his head. I'd known him my whole life."

"Right. I'm sorry, I forgot he…" Lady shook her head. "The Order misled a lot of people, and Credo just gave his loyalty to the wrong cause. But that's different from someone like… like Arkham—" She flinched at the name. "—who was only after personal gain. He wanted to use Sparda's power to become a god, and he didn't care who or what he sacrificed to do it."

"Sparda's—" Nero's jaw dropped. "He was after Sparda's power? That takes a special combination of enormous balls and minuscule brain. How many pieces did Dante chop him into?"

"He survived his encounter with Dante, actually. And with Vergil."

Nero blinked. "Wow. That's… surprising. Who the hell was this guy?"

"Ah. Now that's the twisted part." Lady's lips contorted in a wry smile. "Arkham was my father."

Ice raced down Nero's spine. "Shit."

"As in 'a real piece of,' yes."

"No wonder you—" He wondered if it would be rude to say killed him when he'd only learned that much from Morrison's letter. "—wanted him dead."

Lady huffed a laugh. "That's putting it mildly. I've never met anyone more deserving of four rounds between the eyes. He murdered his own wife, butchered innocent people in arcane rituals, destroyed part of a city, very nearly unleashed hell on earth, and left me with this." She traced her index finger over the scar that ran half the length of her thigh. "I think he intended to bleed me out completely, but he missed the femoral artery by a centimeter. I was never anything more than another blood sacrifice to him."

"Huh."

Lady stared at him. "Huh?" she echoed. "I'd expected something a little more sympathetic."

"No—sorry, didn't mean to sound like I'd checked out or anything. You're absolutely right, he sounds like an utter sack of shit who deserved worse than the clean death you probably gave him."

"So why the 'huh'?"

Nero shook his head. "I was just struck by how familiar a lot of that sounded. You know, destroying a city, hell on earth, inflicting life-threatening physical trauma on his kid. It's like history repeats, or something."

She shrugged. "Not terribly surprising, considering Vergil was working for Arkham when I first met him. He might have taken a few notes."

Nero jerked upright. "He was what?"

"Well, he'd probably call it a partnership, but it's pretty clear he was just being used. He dragged Dante into it, too. We all got our hides handed to us before we realized what was really going on." Lady laughed softly. "You know, I suppose that's the one good thing that piece of filth ever did. If not for him, I might never have met Dante." She drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the arm of the sofa. "Which means you might never have met Dante, considering I was the one who insisted he come to Fortuna. He was going to leave the Order alone until I pushed him."

"That would have been a disaster. Without Dante kicking things off, I never would have found out what the Order was up to until it was too late. And Kyrie…" Nero glanced toward the kitchen, where he could hear Kyrie humming. If the Order's plans had come to fruition, would she, like her brother, have been pressured into undergoing the Ascension Ceremony? He couldn't bear to think of her mutated into something less than human. "It's weird how stuff works out. I mean, I get that you don't want to be grateful to your 'asshole daddy,' as Nico would say, but if you line up all the dominoes he set in motion, his actions ultimately may have led to thousands of lives being saved."

"That doesn't just balance out all the lives he took."

"Didn't say it did. Just that you guys turned it around, eventually."

She nodded slowly. "You never know which way the dominoes are going to fall from any given action. But I suppose it is important to remember that some good can always come out of a tragedy."

"Any ripple effect that lets me end up with Kyrie is a win, in my book. So far, so good."

"Meanwhile I'm scraping out a dangerous living as a devil hunter instead of touring the world as a competitive gymnast." Lady smiled, rueful. "Though there's a lot less metallic Spandex in this line of work, so that might actually be a plus."

"You'd have found another job by now, anyway. Don't gymnasts retire by about age twenty?"

"The good ones don't. Though by my age I'd probably be coaching, and after spending a few weeks with your kids, I'm convinced I'd rather throw myself into a volcano than work with children full time. I mean, don't get me wrong—they're really good kids, and I like them a lot, but trying to keep their attention is far more exhausting than killing demons."

"You are not wrong." Nero scrubbed his palms over his face. "Some days, hunting is pure stress relief for me. But don't tell Kyrie I said that."

"Don't tell Kyrie what?"

Nero's head whipped toward the doorway, where Kyrie was wiping her hands on her apron. "Kyrie! You know, you can be very quiet when you want to."

"Don't dodge the question." Her tone of mock severity was undermined by the smile pulling at her mouth. "What schemes are you two concocting in here?"

"We're comparing family angst," Lady said. "We're thinking of starting a club for the children of homicidal psychopaths obsessed with gaining demonic power. We've got two members already."

"Three, once Nico finds out," Nero added. "Agnus definitely fits the criteria."

"Oh, good point. We'll extend her an invitation."

"I see." Kyrie's gaze swung between them. "For once, I think I'm grateful to be excluded."

"You should be. Seems like you got the only nice dad in the whole bunch." Nero stood and stretched. "Anyway, our gripe session is over. You need help in the kitchen?"

"If you define 'help' as 'people to eat the food I've finished preparing before it gets cold,' then yes." She smiled and tipped her head toward the kitchen. "The boys are already seated. We're just waiting on you."