There was a loud knock at the door of the Gloucester townhouse.
A week ago his father had left in the night with no warning, the very night that Lorenz's mother had spoken to him, after their last argument between father and son. Lorenz wasn't surprised. His father was the sort to lick his wounded pride in the privacy of their estate and his father only had the one, lone driver and no need for a guard. This meant the old townhome was Lorenz's again, and he was happy to have it. Even his mother now stayed there, though he was rather taken aback by how more spacious quarters meant that she kept her distance. This very week, they had barely spoken but for dinners and morning tea, the both of them were so busy. He could not discern what could be so important that his mother was doing, but he supposed that she had her secrets just as he had his.
And, he would admit his secrets were not secrets, so much as portioned, metered reserve. He visited Claude regularly. Tea on Thursday went pleasantly with barely a mention of their missing teacher or the Edelgard problem (as Lorenz had taken to referring to it mentally). He talked about his mother and parents, which Claude listened to intently, before giving the final advice of 'there is only so much he could do,' and 'what's done is done' on the matter– which Lorenz knew well. He talked tea and gardens, both matters well placed in springtime. And he eased Claude through the time lapse of mourning rituals; Claude was still publicly expected to wear black, and the entire estate's furniture stayed draped for another few weeks. Claude reflected that this did very little to help with true grief, and Lorenz could do naught but shrug.
In his time not spent socializing, Lorenz spent sulking at the waste of months of research. It was a net loss. He could not help but feel foolish at even trying. And part of it was that he could no longer fault his father for the choice. He thought of Lysithea, and understood the sort of friendship that would make a man do anything. Ordelias, he thought in exasperation, walking down the street looking for anything at all that he could manage, before admitting that this was one of his rare long holidays, and there was not a thing for him to do. This progressed, then, to scouring bookshops and listlessly perusing specialty shops. It was the rainy season; the cobblestones shined with the damp at all hours, and it was always too humid for anything to fully dry. In spite of this, Lorenz was still set on being out. If he was out, he could forget the marvelous boredom of waiting on the edge of things to blow over.
He was putting on his jacket to head out when he heard the knock.
"Have you got it?" called his mother from upstairs: today her adventure was in going through old painted silk in the house.
"Yes, mama," called Lorenz, opening the door, and finding that the Duke of Riegan stood on his doorstep, wearing an unpressed black shirt, a black jacket, and dark brown pants.
"Claude," said Lorenz diplomatically. "I wasn't expecting you, let alone so early. Would you like to come in?"
"Actually, that would be great." Claude smiled and hung up his coat, and Lorenz returned his to the closet he had pulled it out of.
"I'll put on some tea. Mother," he called up the stairs, "Duke Riegan is here!"
"Claude?" she called. "I'll be down in a moment!"
"Don't worry about it," called Claude back. "I'm only going to be here a minute."
"So– tea, or–"
"Tea's fine." Claude walked back to the kitchen with Lorenz. "This place is pretty fancy, actually." He looked around. "Dagdan painted tile?"
"My mother had them brought in," said Lorenz simply, setting a kettle onto the kitchen woodstove. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"
"Well, I mean to make someone else owe us the pleasure of our company, quite shortly." Claude began preparing the pot of tea, and did not ask Lorenz for his preference in which tea was used– rather, he rummaged through the cabinets and found one he liked, and Lorenz had a feeling Claude had no interest in asking for Lorenz's opinion on this.
"Elaborate, please," said Lorenz, as the kettle whistled and he lifted it with a potholder.
"We're going to visit Lysithea," said Claude with a smile as Lorenz poured the hot water into the pot. "While it steeps, here." Lorenz could smell the fragrance of the tea as the leaves opened. Claude had picked rose petal and licorice root over a black tea. A bit more high energy than Lorenz would have gone for, but divine nonetheless. Claude handed him from his pocket a letter.
Duke Riegan.
Congratulations on your new position. I'm sorry for the circumstance but I have confidence in you. More to the point, I talked to my mother last week about your pending proposal with southern Leicester's trade with the Empire. I don't think Ordelia territory can afford not to supply the Empire, and she was very insistent in not wanting to threaten our neighbors. I recommend reinforcing the Gloucester border with us as a precaution. My mother intends to cede rather than fight and I do think it is wise.
I am, in fact, here in Derdriu, but I haven't come to call. My health is not up to par, I'm only staying with my mother until we can get home. I have been keeping up with my readings on history and may be able to provide for some enlightenment on matters regarding the question you had during finals week about the Church, in spite of my parents trying to get me to rest and get fresh air rather than read. Last week, Marianne came to spend time with me. I assume you met with her father, rather than her, and I am sorry for that. Marianne asked about you! She has already written to Leonie a few times in the last months. But you know how I am about letters. They are too sentimental for me and I do not have time for them.
When I have time I shall come to call at the Riegan estate.
Lysithea von Ordelia
Claude poured the tea as Lorenz read, and Lorenz nodded gratefully, taking a sip of the tea.
"This isn't her handwriting." Lorenz squinted at it.
"You've been around Ignatz too much."
"No, I just studied with her for months. This is her mother's, likely."
"Well, she writes like Lysithea talks," said Claude wryly. "And seems to care about the same things as Lysithea."
"I imagine Lysithea orated this to her mother," said Lorenz calmly. "Claude, she said not to visit her."
"I can only imagine that she's bored and lonely," said Claude with a smile. "She's surely being Lysithea about it, and would never stoop so low as to invite us over–"
"You are going to one day, push that young lady too far, and she's going to have no choice but to eradicate you once and for all. They're going to call you the late Duke Riegan by the time Lysithea is finished with you, Claude."
"And of course, you're coming with me?" asked Claude, taking a sip of tea.
"Well, what choice do I have?" replied Lorenz smarmily.
"Oh, you don't have to come, of course," said Claude, leaning back against the table, a wry smirk stretching at the corners of his mouth. A stray dark brown curl had drifted into his face and it added a certain warmth to his appearance. "If you'd rather not–"
"I would never object to time spent with so dear a friend," said Lorenz, exasperated and defeated.
And once the tea was gone, and the dishes rinsed, Lorenz called a goodbye to his mother, and walked side by side with Claude, to the Ordelia townhome. Claude stopped along the way at one of the street vendors to buy a bag of candies, and Lorenz reprimanded him briefly– Lysithea had no need of candy, and there was no nourishing property that sweets possessed.
The Ordelia house sat peacefully on the seaward side of the hill, where the windows and garden overlooked the ocean to the north. When he had been there the week prior, he had marveled at the way the sun streamed in, but now, he thought of the rain on the thick panes of wavy glass and the dim, soft cloud-glow illuminating the sunny orange and coral rooms.
Helene answered the door. She looked tired, thought Lorenz, her ringlets of hair wrapped in a scarf and a dressing robe over her shoulders.
"Ah." There was a smile at her lips. "Lorenz. And Duke Riegan. Would you like to come in?"
"That's why we're here." Claude offered out the bag of sweets. "If I remember, Helene, you're partial to– strawberry?"
She quirked a brow, and took a piece of candy. "What are you up to?"
"I thought Lysithea would like company and just in case she decided to commit violent acts against me for this sin, I thought Lorenz would be a perfectly acceptable witness." Claude withdrew the bag back to his coat pocket casually, and Helene laughed.
"Well, she very well may. She's been temperamental these last days." Helene held open the door for them. "I think it's the weather. It's never agreed with her, springtime." She glanced at Lorenz, who had no particular opinion on springtime, other than a marked relief that winter, his worst season, was over when it began. He shrugged, a rather rude gesture, and followed Helene through to the parlor.
Lysithea was seated on the very same velvet sofa her mother had been on the week before, a heap of books and papers beside her dwarfing the already-petite girl. Her white hair looked limp and dry, and she barely glanced up before Lorenz noticed the rash on her cheeks. Beneath the blankets and a blue lace shawl he swore he had once seen on Marianne, she wore a flannel nightgown.
"Lysithea," opened Claude, "thoughts on strawberry candy?"
"If you think it'll placate me," said Lysithea, whose voice was scratchy and congested, "then you've got another thing coming. And if you thought bringing Lorenz would protect you, then you were also wrong about that."
"I came to make sure he said nothing too foolish, Lysithea," Lorenz assured her.
"If you cared about foolishness you wouldn't have come," she snapped, pinching the bridge of her nose. Lorenz sat down beside her, and she sighed, setting aside the heavy tome that was on her lap.
"We just thought you'd appreciate company," said Claude, sitting across from her and resting his elbows on his knees, leaning in a bit close. "I know you're probably bored, right?"
Lysithea squinted at him with a hostile look that barely concealed the vulnerability beneath it. Lorenz held out a hand for her, and she took it, lightly squeezing it, before leaning over onto his shoulder.
"Yes," she admitted.
"Can I scooch over and sit with you two?" asked Claude, and Lysithea nodded.
"She's a gentle thing," mouthed Lorenz at Claude, and something melted a little behind Claude's stiff, perky demeanor as he sat beside Lysithea– her between the both of them, Lorenz and Claude making eye contact over the top of her head.
"You're still wearing black?" asked Lysithea, putting a hand on Claude's arm.
"There's a few more months to go before I can go back to wearing black, but for fun instead of social necessity," said Claude calmly.
"I'm sorry I didn't make it to the funeral." Lysithea curled tighter into herself, and Lorenz did not even need to ask. She was in pain. He put an arm over her and gently rubbed her shoulder.
"Eh, don't worry about it. Funerals are drags anyway. I'm sure you would've been miserable." Claude leaned back and rested his elbow on the back of the sofa, meeting Lorenz's gaze as the veil of sarcastic wit and lackadaisical casualness crept back up. "Besides, there's better things to do in Derdriu. Like staying in on a rainy day."
Lysithea sighed. "Hand me the book below your hand– ah, um, Struggles in Practical Applied Arcane Magic."
"Are you really going to study?" asked Claude.
"Yes," mouthed Lorenz above the top of Lysithea's head.
"Yes," said Lysithea. "I don't get the luxury of waiting to feel better. I can't waste time. I have to keep improving." She reached for the book out of Claude's hand and cracked it open where she had left a marker. Ink filled the margins, notes of Lysithea's, scrawled in shaky handwriting.
"Lorenz, the ballpoint pen?" she asked, holding out her trembling hand with all the stubbornness of a bull. He knew better than to argue, and handed it to her calmly.
"I guess we're little more than heaters," said Claude with a light smile.
"You're potential assistants in my research," said Lysithea calmly. "I'm not doing my practices indoors, but I've been meaning to work on my magic more."
"Not today," urged Lorenz, who knew better than she did the sort of toll magic took on a person. "What if today we keep it theoretical?"
Lysithea groaned. "Lorenz, how am I to improve if I only practice in the theoretical?"
"You certainly won't improve by fatiguing yourself senselessly," he reprimanded her. "If you try to practice now you'll only feel worse."
"It's alright to take breaks, Lys," said Claude, and she sighed, closing the book.
"Alright." She stretched. "I would say we should go to the garden, but it's raining… Lorenz, do you still play piano? We could do a duet."
"I never stopped playing," said Lorenz with a delicate air. "Are you truly so bored that you would ask to play piano?"
"It's just easy and mindless for me," said Lysithea. "The piano is in the other sitting room." She stood, pulling the blanket around her like a cape, and Lorenz kept an arm around her.
"Like a doting older brother," Claude whispered in Lorenz's ear as he passed, and Lorenz gave him a steely glare.
"Have you practiced?" he asked Lysithea casually as Claude held the door.
"Not in a few weeks," said Lysithea, "but I've always just been good at piano. It's very formulaic and scientific, so once you understand the fundamentals, there's barely even any need to practice."
"Practicing instruments is not for perfection," said Lorenz, helping her onto the bench and smoothing the blankets down over her shoulders. "Practicing is for the joy of making music."
"Maybe for you," said Lysithea with a smile. "I like getting things just right."
"I never took piano lessons," said Claude from the sofa behind them. The piano in this sitting room was upright, with a silk embroidery piece over its lid, and the light streamed into the room from the window into the garden. "My mom apparently did when she was a kid, and said she never wanted her children to endure something so agonizing."
"I suppose it isn't for everyone," said Lorenz with a smile. "My mother played the harp, and could not find a proper Dagdan one here, so she settled on the piano for me."
"My mother just thought the piano shouldn't gather dust," said Lysithea. "She taught me herself. When I was little, it was the only time I got with my mother sometimes because she was so busy with the Round Table. But she always made time for piano lessons." Lysithea put her hands on the ivory keys, and Lorenz let her start. The pace was slow, but he recognized the song. It was just a simple minuet. He started playing the lower notes of the accompaniment, a little chord progression that went easily with the breeziness with which Lysithea hit the melody.
"Show-off," she mumbled to him, elbowing him with a plunked note, and Lorenz laughed.
"I warned you that I practice," he said, nudging her back, and he saw, for the first time that day, Lysithea's smile. "A-ha! There it is!"
"What?" she asked, continuing to play.
"That smile of yours." Lorenz tousled her hair with his right hand. "It is very dear to me, you know."
"You're so embarrassing," Lysithea groaned.
"The two of you could be siblings," said Claude with sarcastic adoration that Lorenz could tell concealed something like real affection. "How sweet–"
He was cut off by Lysithea chucking a folder of sheet music at him, his laughs drowning whatever he was going to end the sentence with as Lysithea stood and marched over to Claude.
"Don't you dare," she said fiercely, "call me sweet."
"I was calling Lorenz sweet. You're anything but sweet, I swear, Lysithea," said Claude innocently, and Lorenz snorted.
"And surely you are not saving your own hide, Duke Riegan," said Lorenz.
"No! Of course not! Look at Lorenz. He's so–"
"Obnoxious?" finished Lysithea.
"Indulgent, of you and I both. We sit here, Lysithea, and torment the man," said Claude with theatrical, sarcastic pomp, "yet behind those violet eyes, does a heart not beat? Is there not a man beneath the kindly nature? Is there, beneath the candied exterior, more than you or I could fathom?"
"I think he's dumb," said Lysithea, with a snort of laughter that dissolved into giggles as she sat on the couch beside Claude. She sniffled and leaned back, while Lorenz stayed at the piano bench, watching them both as Lysithea delighted for once in someone who matched her rancor.
"So uncivil to him," said Claude scornfully. "Lorenz, any opinions?"
"Oh, no, I'm just the marble statue in the exhibition," he said, holding his chin higher. "Are we through with the piano?"
Claude nodded. Lysithea was already dozing off, leaning against Claude's shoulder, and he helped tuck the blankets around her.
"I'll make us some tea," whispered Lorenz, tiptoeing out. He closed the door nearly silently behind him and tiptoed to the kitchen. The Ordelia home was staffed, which he was not used to, and when he opened the kitchen to a young women at the hearth stirring something, he was rather taken aback. "Ah, the, um, tea set," he requested calmly, clearing his throat, "and a chamomile and lemon balm blend, if you have it."
The young lady nodded, and Lorenz sat at the window seat beside the door, waiting.
Helene approached quietly and sat down beside him. She was now properly dressed, though her hair was still pulled up, the bouncy ringlets kept off of her neck. "She's not well," said Helene calmly.
"I can tell," replied Lorenz.
"I worry so often that the next spring will be her last, or that she will never recover from each downturn. What if the rest of Lysithea's life is spent like this? And a mother worries."
Lorenz stayed quiet at this. He wondered if the thought had ever once occurred to his own father, when he had been at his sickest. On one hand, his father had nearly never been at his side. His only companion, many times, had been Evras and whatever healers his father had sent for. Yet, he also knew that his father never spoke of those things which most deeply affected him, a constant barrier around his heart. It was not a coincidence that even uttering the name of Lorenz's mother in his presence was enough to end a conversation for many years. It mattered little to Lorenz now. The damage was done.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm sure this is on your mind often."
"Helene, please don't fret on my behalf. Yes, I often worry about my own health, but there is no reason to be ashamed of concern for your daughter. She is often in my thoughts."
"I am glad, in some sick way," admitted Helene, "that she at least has you, like her, so she isn't fully alone."
Lorenz stared at her, and wondered what it was that Helene thought about in that head of hers. But he realized then what she meant. That pain was best alleviated not by soothing or assuaging hurts, but by companionship– and that companionship was often founded on shared suffering. Were they not all fumbling alone in a sharp and dark world?
"I am glad I have her," he said finally, as the kitchen maid brought out the tea, and he thanked her and carried it back to the sitting room. He quietly opened the door with a click.
Lysithea was asleep on Claude's shoulder, and Claude was beginning to drift off, eyes closed and only flickering ever so faintly when Lorenz opened the door. He set down the tea, and Claude clearly was trying to calculate how to get himself a cup without disturbing her rest.
"Sh," said Lorenz, pouring Claude a cup and handing it to him so he didn't have to move, then sitting down himself beside them. "How long has she been asleep?"
"About since the second you shut the door," said Claude quietly.
"I see," said Lorenz, taking a sip of the tea. "I'm glad we came."
"Me too." Claude nodded softly. "I needed to get out of there."
"Hm?" said Lorenz.
"The estate." He glanced at Lysithea. "It isn't my sort of place. Too stuffy. Claustrophobic. And empty, besides. I haven't had time to do anything but work in weeks."
Lorenz stayed quiet for a few moments.
"Of course I know that eventually, I will understand the feeling. Likely sooner rather than later, since I'll soon be returning to my old obligations from before Garreg Mach."
"You'll return home, then?"
"Where else would I go?" Lorenz shrugged. "My father and I have certain things to either resolve, or decide to leave unresolved permanently. The estate, at the very least, is my responsibility, regardless of my thoughts on my father."
"And you'll likely gain a new set of men under your control," added Claude. "I'm taking Helene's advice and reinforcing the southern borders."
Lorenz nodded quietly. "It's wise, but is that what you mean to talk about?"
"No," said Claude. "No, of course not." There were a few moments of lulled, hushed afternoon quiet between them. The rain spat against the windowpane and the roof. Lysithea began snoring. Lorenz studied the flowers painted onto the lacquered wood table. And finally, Claude broke the quiet.
"I've never seen you unwell like this," he said, glancing at Lysithea. "Does it ever–"
"Yes." He nodded. "After the ball, actually, was the last time I experienced a– a lapse in my condition. I believe it was brought on by stress. Though, it lasted only a matter of days." He hesitated. "Before that, the month before the start of school, and before that– I had months where I marked the calendar days where I was not ill, rather than when I was, for nearly a year at fifteen." He paused. "Lysithea and I are alike in symptom and progression, but I admit I fear little for my mortality the way that she does."
He had worded that very deliberately. Lysithea was afraid. He was not.
"Hm." That was all he said. No apologies or sympathy. Just hm. "Mind grabbing her another blanket? She's starting to shake."
Lorenz nodded and reached for the basket where they were kept at the end of the sofa, grabbing a pink and coral quilt and draping it over Claude and Lysithea. "There," he said, fixing it gently. Lysithea stirred a bit, waking gently.
"What time is it," she mumbled blearily.
"Time for you to rest," said Lorenz.
"You're going to freeze," she muttered. "Get under here."
"I'm alright," Lorenz said quietly, taking off his jacket and going through the basket for an appropriate blanket.
"One of us, one of us," chanted Claude with a smile. Lorenz sighed.
"Alright." He scooted closer to Lysithea, who was now using both boys as space heaters, and pulled the blanket over himself as well. "Doting older brother, Claude calls me, and then he behaves like this."
Claude stuck his tongue out at Lorenz.
"If you behave like a child, Claude, then it's really only sensible that you need a nap like one."
"Maybe I'm more of a cat." Claude stretched and Lysithea crashed against him, and Lorenz curled inwards gawkily. "You should sleep more, Lorenz."
"You are truly one to talk," said Lorenz. "I always heard you up at odd hours of the night back during school. You never slept."
Claude shrugged, his eyes closed. "I do now," he said softly.