The falling night cast a chill over the picturesque countryside, making the tiles of the roof Lydia was currently sitting on cool to the touch. Weston's old administrative building was not used for much besides storage nowadays, but it had vaunted rooftops that offered many hiding places, and it was the closest structure to the gates. The young girl breathed softly, eyeing the deserted road outside which led visitors to the locked entrance of the college. She had been watching this area in the evenings over the last several days, waiting for the red-haired man to come again. At first she had been sure he would come, so sure that she had asked Sebastian to arrange to keep watch with her, so he could assist her in capturing her assailant when he made his appearance. However, for three days the man had not shown up, and Lydia was aware that it was beginning to look suspicious for Sebastian to be repeatedly absent from his quarters just before lights out. On the fourth day she had instructed him to return to his regular schedule, and kept watch by herself without incident. Tonight was the fifth night, and the bell for lights out had just tolled. Soon it would be too dark for her to see past the gates, and there would be no point in watching anymore.

Lydia sighed and drew a vague circle with her finger upon the smooth tile. The case had once again lapsed into stagnant inactivity, and it was frustrating both Ciel and herself. According to her brother, the P4 were consistently evasive about any subjects related to Derrick Arden and his friends, their transfer, or their current whereabouts. Ciel had tried sounding out the regular students concerning their recollections of the former Red House fag, and he had gotten a confusing array of answers. According to them, Derrick Arden had been a brilliant poet, a prize-winning painter, an expert in dance, an amazing athlete, and a genius intellectual, along with a bevy of other desirable qualities and skills. The young man apparently had not a single area of weakness. However, oddly enough, when asked about him, a few students merely shook their heads and hurried away looking upset. Neither of the Phantomhive siblings knew what to make of this incoherent array of reactions. The lack of progress in the case had taken its toll on Ciel especially. He was extremely nervous about Lydia's safety, probably more nervous than even Lydia herself. He did not show his concern emotionally like most people did, but Lydia could decipher it in his actions. Every day he managed to track her down within the school and surreptitiously question whether she had seen the shadow-specter again and if it had come near her. And every night after lights out, he pretended to leave his room to go to the lavatory and instead hurried down the hall to Sebastian's quarters to check that she had made it back from her rooftop surveillance of the gates.

Despite frequent frustrations, the siblings had managed to learn at least one thing of help to them, courtesy of Edward. The Green House fag had informed them about a tradition called the midnight tea party which all the prefects and their fags took part in annually, along with the Headmaster and Vice-Headmaster, on the night of June fourth. Such an event would provide the perfect opportunity for Ciel to get close to the school's head and confront him directly about Derrick Arden. Even though Ciel was only the fag of a prefect's fag, he still had the chance to be invited if he was selected as the 'Most Valuable Player' in the upcoming cricket tournament. However, in order to have a chance at that, he first had to be chosen for Blue House's cricket team. Fortunately, they could leave this matter in Sebastian's hands, as it was within his power as housemaster to recommend students to his house team. Even with this decided, Lydia could not help worrying about how exactly Ciel was going to hold his own on the field. Her brother was small and slender, he had no muscle build, and he suffered from chronic asthma. If Lydia had not been doggedly trying to keep herself undercover, the more sensible option might have been to fandangle her onto the house team instead. She was tall and healthy, she had built up hardened muscle due to the physical rigor of her work, and the speed and strength of her right arm could probably carry even athletically weak Blue House to victory. It was an option they were keeping in the closet in case something went wrong with their original plan. Right now, the most important thing was to keep calm, carry on, and stay alert for any changes in the wind. They were British, after all, Lydia mused as she flicked her eyes languidly over the lawn. Having a stiff upper lip was important, even at times when it was simply- good god.

Lydia's eyes widened as she spied something moving through the dusk on the road outside the gates. It was a big animal- a horse. And sitting atop it was a lone, cloaked rider.

For several moments, she forgot what she should do next. Then she realized that if she could see him, there was still a chance he would see her if he looked up. Moving like a hunter in the undergrowth, she flattened herself against the roof and belly-crawled behind the sharp vantage of the roof's curve, out of plain sight. Her uniform dragged across the tile as she rolled over and peeked carefully above the meridian. The rider had halted his horse to the right of the gates. Heart hammering, Lydia watched him remove his hood. Even in the falling darkness, there was no mistaking the ginger brightness of that hair. This was it!

Trembling in anxiety and anticipation, Lydia reached across her body and gripped the bandages upon her right arm. She was not enough of a fool to instigate a confrontation with him alone- these people used revolvers, and if she was hit anywhere on her torso or head, she could be killed immediately. Now that he had come, though, she had a bit of time- according to Harcourt's report, he would stand outside the gates and watch the school for at least half an hour. She would leap back to the entrance of Blue House and seek out Sebastian to come and help her capture him. She was not going to miss this chance. Afterward they would find a place to hold him while they contacted Aberlaine. At any rate, they would surely find out who had sent him, and then they would be-

Lydia's thoughts stuttered to a halt as the tall shape unexpectedly began to move. What was he doing? Was he leaving? No, no-! After a brief moment of confused squinting, she realized he was actually drawing nearer to the bars of the fence. She tilted her head in curiosity and watched him stare through them. She wished she could see his face, but at the same time, she knew that if she could see his face she would be in a lot more trouble than she was now. Suddenly the figure moved in a strange way, bending sideways and leaving the ground. Tasting shock upon her tongue, Lydia watched as he scaled the iron bars like an acrobat. At the top he paused for a moment, contracted his body, and performed a flawless backward flip that carried him over the iron spikes. The red-haired man touched down upon the lawn and immediately began to stride toward the school as his horse munched grass unconcernedly on the other side of the fence.

Lydia's heart began to rattle like a tambourine. This was bad- this was wrong. This was not supposed to happen. "No, no, no, no, no," she muttered under her breath as she watched him stalk across the lawn. What the bloody hell was he doing? He kept his gaze fixed forward and walked straight past the old administrative building. He was not looking at her. He did not know she was on the roof. Was he going into the school to try to find her? Or perhaps- perhaps he was coming to kidnap Ciel? Lydia's fingers trembled against the curve of the tile. Son of a gun, this was awful. She did not have time to leap away and track down Sebastian. She knew from past experience that this man was very volatile. Who knew what he had in his head? Lydia had no idea if he was trying to sneak into the school unnoticed, or if he was planning to confront the first person he met about her whereabouts and shoot them if he did not receive the answer he desired. She could not allow that to happen. He had almost reached the lawn of Green House, and Lydia knew the entrance doors were not locked….

Edward….

Out of habit, Lydia whispered the Lord's Prayer as she reached across her body again, the only sequence of words that could possibly give her courage at a time like this. She wondered how fast the man could draw a gun. She would just have to hit him faster. She curved her fingers underneath the handkerchief she had tied over her arm. The piece of fabric was from Weston College, and like almost everything else at the school, it had one of its primary rules embroidered around the edges. This one read, A true student of Weston always acts selflessly in the interest of others. Lydia closed her eyes and focused her mind on the patch of grass two feet behind the striding shadow. She felt the sting of fear and bitter irony in her heart, and hoped it would not be the last sensation she ever knew.

She lifted off the roof in a whirl of light, and a moment later felt grass underneath her feet. She raised her head to see the grey back of the figure she had been running from all this time. She would do it. She had to do it. She lunged as he whirled around with an alarmed shout. Now she could see his face, the teardrop tattoo, gleaming piercings in the ears. A moment later she collided with him and dragged him back from Green House, taking advantage of his shock to rip the cover off her arm once again. Both bodies vanished in a sudden pulse of light.

They reappeared outside the gates, three feet off the ground and sideways. The man's weight crushed into Lydia's chest as they collided with the dirt road. She could feel his hands grappling with hers amidst a barrage of profane language. Lydia kept a vice-like hold on him and deliberately refrained from re-covering her bandaged arm, allowing them to flicker in and out of the world like lightning, knowing it would disorient him more than it would her. Finally she clapped a palm over the gap in her bandages and the two bodies fell apart onto the grass. Lydia heard a frantic whinny and the sound of racing hooves, and looked up to see the spooked horse racing away down the road. She shoved a layer of gauze over the gap and leaped to her feet as the red-haired man staggered. His eyes were wide and his body trembled. He held his wavering hands in front of his face as if trying to make sure they were really there. His gaze leaped past them into her eyes, and the malevolence returned. "Ye tricky wretch! I knew it-!"

Lydia did not allow him to get his bearings. She tackled him again with a furious war cry as his left hand dove for his waistbelt. For several long minutes, everything was pain and confusion and stabbing fear within the darkness. He went for the heart; she went for the throat. By threatening each other's vital points, they managed to keep an equilibrium as each struggled to get the upper hand by battering the other. Lydia punched him in the face, stunning him momentarily and using those precious seconds to wrest a heavy pistol from his fingers and throw it far away into the grass. He retaliated by whipping out a knife from god knew where, and she could not stop him before the blade speared the fabric of her trousers and sliced into her right leg's calf. Lydia screamed hysterically and panicked as her vision sparked in different colors. If she lost consciousness, she was dead….She reached out blindly and grabbed him by the hair, preventing him from leaping up. As long as she could keep him locked in close combat, her strength would give her the upper hand…. He hacked at her arm with the knife, but it slammed and blunted against the bandages. Her vision returned as the blade veered toward her face, and her hand moved instantaneously, catching it and crumpling it in half. The redhead swore in disbelief as she threw it aside, and he used the opportunity to lunge for her jugular.

They seized each other and fell into a twisting heap, no language needed to communicate the overwhelming instinct to eradicate the threat before them. Lydia gasped and felt hot tears running down her face as she fought for her life- whether they were born from pain or fear, she did not know- and then the strange texture of his right arm slipped for a moment, and she drove her own arm up into his abdomen. He choked and fell off her as his organs were slammed together, and Lydia scrambled to the side and tackled him one last time, clamping her bandaged arm around his throat and wrestling him into a headlock. His body convulsed as he tried to kick her, but he could not see where he was aiming as his hands clawed at her unbreakable arm. Lydia lifted him by the throat and slammed him back into the ground, slinging a knee across his ankles so he couldn't use his legs to fight her. They were both gasping as though the world were running out of oxygen. Finally given a moment of stillness, Lydia looked down and nearly leaped backward as she realized that one of the hands clawing at her arm was a fleshless skeleton hand. She managed to fight her natural instinct just in time. It obviously wasn't real, but why did all these people have prosthetic limbs?! "I'm not falling for that again," she hissed, using her other arm to capture his elbows behind his back. After what felt like hours of dauntless struggle, she finally had him immobilized. The man wheezed painfully, trembling and squirming underneath her grasp, but to no avail. It had nearly cost her life to get him down, and she was not letting him get up again. Lydia figured this was as good a time as any to start asking questions.

"Who are you? Who sent you? What are you doing here?!" she barked, tightening her grip on his elbows as his fingers scraped uselessly against her calf. She forced herself to ignore the burning pain his knife had left there, and gave his body a sharp shake when he did not reply. "Answer me!"

"Kuh-! Uh, uuuuuh!" The man twisted his head as guttural sounds forced their way out of his throat. "Uuuunnnnhh, hhhhnnnnhh…..L- Le- Lemme breathe-!"

Lydia checked the force of her arm and loosened it slightly against his vulnerable neck. It occurred to her that he might have been struggling so manically because he thought she was trying to strangle him. She felt the pulse of his body as he sucked in greedy gasps of air. His clothes smelled of gunpowder. "All right, now use that breath to tell me why you're doing this. Who sent you to murder me?"

He groaned in frustration as his limbs strained to overcome the trap they were caught in. "I- I can't-"

"Do not mock me!" Lydia roared, feeling the dark beast of fury rearing in her chest. "You and your lot have been trying to kill me for months! I am not in a mood to be tested!"

"I can't!" he shouted back, struggling madly again for several futile moments. "If he 'ears I said anythin', he'll take in out on-!"

"Who is he? Is 'he' the man you called Father back at the manor? Is he your father?" Lydia ground her teeth at the redhead's reluctance to answer. "Is 'Father' what you call Baron Kelvin?"

Her captive suddenly pitched forward, and it was all Lydia could do to keep him from getting his arms loose as he wrestled frantically with her. She squeezed her arm around his neck until he ran out of the air needed to fight. "Answer me! Is Baron Kelvin the one who sent you? Where is he?"

"Guh! Uuuunnnhh-! Please-! Please don't kill me…. I can't….breathe-!"

Lydia growled at the hypocrisy in his plea. She was not going to kill him, but perhaps if he thought she might, he would talk….? "Is that really something you ought to say to someone you've been trying to kill for at least a fortnight?"

"Please don't! Please-! Ye dinna understand- it ain't fer me I wanna live! All of us- we can't but do what Father says. If we ain't around to put in work fer 'im, he'll throw our lil' siblings outta the workhouse, an' then 'ow'll they live-? Ye got a lil' brother yerself, don't ye? Ye'd do anythin' fer him, wouldn't ye?" The redhead panted and swallowed thickly as she loosened her chokehold on him. "Please, I've never been anythin' but sorry that it's gotta be this way. I dunno why Father wants ye dead, he says it ain't fer us to know. But if we don't do it, he'll put out our brothers an' sisters, an' we can't let that 'appen-!"

Lydia blinked in silence. From that disjointed mess of syllables came a word that stirred a memory in her frightened mind. "The workhouse-? What workhouse is this? You're not talking about Renbourn Workhouse, are you?"

It was clear from the way his whole body froze that he had not expected her to know this name. A moment later, Lydia was weathering another round of thrashing and squirming. She could not keep this hold on him forever. Her right arm could restrain him until judgment day if need be, but the rest of her body was growing tired and weak with the lasting pain of their battle. She gave him an aggressive shake and he fell limp against her chest. For several moments the pair of them panted in silence. She wished once again that she could see his face to gauge what he was thinking. After a minute, he turned his head and murmured in an unexpectedly quiet voice, "Now look 'ere, lass. I dunno 'ow ye found out about the workhouse, but please, please leave it alone. The kids there is jus' kids. They dunno nothin' about….any of this. They're innocents, an' the workhouse is their only chance to survive in this world, like t'was fer us when we were small an' helpless. So please-"

"Now stop. Wait. Wait just a second," Lydia interrupted, a rush of confusion flooding her mind. "I don't understand what you're talking about. Renbourn Workhouse is….abandoned. There's nobody living there. It's just a bunch of overgrown ruins on top of a hill."

The redhead coughed derisively. "Ye ain't gonna git me to talk by foolin' with my 'ead, lass."

"I am not being false with you!" Lydia insisted strongly. "I was there barely two weeks ago, looking for you-! Or Baron Kelvin, or any sort of documentation that could lead me to him, but I found nothing because there is nothing there. That place has been deserted for a good amount of time. I assumed the children had been dispatched to another charitable institution after Baron Kelvin stopped funding the workhouse."

The tall man twisted his back and tried to shake his head. "I don't….understand…."

"Where have you been living, under a rock?!" Lydia demanded indignantly. She did not know how this conversation had gone from her demanding information from him to her divulging information to him. "I have no idea what sort of thing is going on with the workhouse or with your siblings. I only know that Renbourn is no longer a functioning organization. If you have questions about that, perhaps you should have asked your bloody father."

"You're lying!" he roared, so loudly and angrily that it made her jump. "Ye think ye can wheedle me into givin' away my people by actin' like ye know every damn thing-"

"Shut up!" Lydia roared back, suddenly reminded of the way this man had stopped at nothing to terrorize herself and her brother. "I am not going to waste time arguing with you about something I viewed with my own eyes! I told you where I went! I told you what I saw! I can even tell you the names of some of the children who once lived there-" Lydia closed her eyes and pictured the small, heart-shaped carving in her mind. "Josiah, Charlotte, and Laura. And god dammit, this is not about Renbourn Workhouse, anyway! I want to know where Baron Kelvin is living now!"

To her great chagrin, she realized he seemed to have stopped listening to her. She felt the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed hard and arched his back, tilting his body in a way that finally allowed them to see each other eye-to-eye. "L-Laura….?" he whispered roughly. "Ye know 'er….my lil' sister?"

"I know her name," Lydia clarified, "because I found it carved onto a piece of wood in the ruins of the workhouse. I have not personally met anyone who used to reside there because, as I've said countless times, there is no Renbourn Workhouse anymore."

The young man blanched at these words and stared blankly into the atmosphere. "I don't….understand. 'Ow….'ow could that be-?" He began breathing heavily as a sort of panic seemed to overtake him. "No-!" Lydia bit her lip and tightened her protesting limbs around his body in case he started to struggle again. This was not working out at all. Whatever he had been led to believe about Renbourn Workhouse, it was apparent that he was incapable of focusing on anything else at the moment. She would have to take him somewhere he could be contained, and then they would have the time and freedom necessary to interrogate him. Her mind ran over a list of possible secure locations. The tower? Too unstable. The townhouse? Too close to the civilian population. Scotland Yard? She could not leap there directly with him, as someone would surely see them, but if she appeared in her house on Camden Street, she could enlist her father's and Thoms' help to get him to headquarters. These people already knew where she lived, most likely, so she would not be giving anything away….Lydia glanced over her body, wondering how she would get her bandages off without releasing him. Maybe she could just tear into them with her teeth-? And she would have to focus perfectly…. She pressed her arm against his shoulder, slowly loosening the gauze. His body stiffened once again. "What're ye- don't-!"

"You are coming with me," she declared in a voice which left no room for argument. He objected anyway, both physically and vocally, her words seeming to have touched off the tinder of whatever fight he had left. The redhead struggled like a madman as Lydia held on and waited for a lapse in his efforts so she could strike for her bandages. At one point he managed to wrest one of his legs free and flailed desperately with it, kicking her in the torso before she pushed him facedown onto the road.

He screamed in tempered rage and terror. "Lemme go, goddammit, lemme go! I gotta see it fer myself, I gotta find my sister-!"

"You should have made sure Kelvin was keeping up his end of the bargain before you tried to kill me!" Lydia growled, pressing down on him relentlessly. A small, observant part of her mind could not help but sympathize with his fear and confusion, but it did not change the reality of the situation. She could not let him free when he might very well return again to kill her and capture her brother.

The redhead startled her with a broken sob. "We couldn'- we couldn' leave- It was- forbidden-" He panted frantically and shuddered once again. "T-This can't….be happening….'ow could he….Father….?" He lifted up his head, and suddenly his sundry eyes sparked and blazed with an unnatural glow that seemed to come from out of nowhere. "What the-?"

Lydia gasped in alarm at the sudden wild light. Squinting, she gazed in the direction he was staring and realized his eyes were reflecting a strange luminance which seemed to be manifesting out of nowhere in the cold night air. She watched as the light grew brighter and more violent, until it suddenly began to reveal lines, roofs, windows…. From far across the campus, she heard the eerie sound of many panicked cries at once. One of the main buildings was on fire.

The young girl exclaimed in disbelief, her heart clenching with an intense fear that nearly left her writhing in agony. What was this-? Could she have been mistaken to assume he had come alone tonight? "What is happening? Is this your henchmen's doing? Is it?!"

Lydia wrenched painfully on his neck, and the redhead sputtered in protestation. "We ain't got nothin' to do with it, I swear to god-! I dunno nothin' about anythin' bein' on fire!"

"Son of a-!" Lydia felt like throwing her hands in the air in thoughtless panic. Nothing, absolutely nothing, not one single thing was going as planned tonight. She could not tell from this distance which of the buildings was in flames, but judging by the shouts and screams carrying along the wind, it was one that was currently inhabited by many students….which meant….one of the four houses. A thousand icicles of terror suddenly crystallized in Lydia's veins.

Ciel….!

The young man's forehead collided with the ground as Lydia pushed herself off him. Her body seized up, feeling lighter than air as she finally released the stringent grip she had struggled to maintain for so long. She took several hurried steps backward and fell into the grass with a cry of pain. Her injured leg protested wickedly against the demands of supporting her body. Lydia scrambled away on her bottom and managed to get to her feet again as the redhead rolled over and weakly pulled himself to his knees. They stared at each other in the growing luminance of the fire, both pairs of eyes speaking to the inferno within. Lydia moved her left hand near to her bandaged arm. "I'm going," she said, glancing hurriedly toward the school. "I've got to make sure my brother is safe. But this isn't over. We'll settle this another time."

The redhead nodded, climbing to his feet and clutching his neck, seeming fearfully relieved to find it unbroken. "Be on yer way, then. I won't trouble ye more tonight. But know this-" the man closed his eyes and shuddered. "If I find out ye lied about Renbourn, I'll be at yer back jus' like before."

Lydia nodded too. "Go there," she challenged him, shifting her focus to the center of Weston's campus. "See what a liar I really am." A second later she was gone.

She felt her feet collide with pavement and her right leg buckled under her. Moaning in exhaustion, Lydia swiveled her head to make sure she was alone before stooping low and ripping a length of fabric off of her already-torn trousers. She tied it over the main source of blood on her tender calf and stood up, feeling the makeshift bandage keeping pressure on the wound. She knew immediately which direction to go. The sky to the east was bright as day, as if the sunrise had come before midnight. Testing out her gait, Lydia began to jog on trembling legs, progressing to a run and then a sprint as pure adrenaline set in and swept away all thoughts of pain. She felt her body harden as she raced once again toward the jagged form of certain peril, praying only that her little brother was stationed far away from it.