The Case of the Gun in the Study

by Mnemosyne's Elegy

Van Zieks is quietly falling apart after the truth of the Professor case is leaked to the press. When he is banished from the office to recover, he is quickly discovered shot in his own home—the most brazen attack to date. The problem is, he has many enemies, and it could be anyone. Kazuma is determined to crack the case, even if van Zieks does not seem to want it solved.

4. Part 4

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Part 4

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Barok wished he had not reached for that file. He wished he had not come into the office today. He wished he had not gotten drunk and found his old gun and shot himself.

But there was little point dwelling on it, so he merely gritted his teeth and carried on.

Everything hurt. His chest throbbed, sharp pains lancing through him like lightning at even the smallest movement. The blood loss left him feeling lightheaded and vaguely nauseous, spots prickling at the corners of his vision that kept creeping inwards if he didn't blink them away. Overall, he felt miserable, and it was his own fault. He had thought, this morning, that he would be able to push through and work as usual, but his discomfort had grown steadily throughout the day, and now he was forced to admit that perhaps everyone was right and he should have stayed in bed.

He wouldn't have, though. There was nothing to do in bed besides curl up against the pain and think too much. Besides, he knew better than to show weakness.

He maintained a brisk, clipped pace and looked straight ahead as he strode down the halls, head held high at a haughty angle. People watched as he passed and whispered behind their hands, but he paid them no mind. Reacting was its own form of weakness, and right now he was having enough trouble just keeping his feet under him. The muffled pounding in his ears made it hard enough to focus on what Iris and Sholmes were chatting about, much less muttered speculation.

But something evidently caught the others' attention. All three heads swiveled in tandem towards a middle-aged prosecutor lingering in the doorway of a colleague, mouth still twisted in a mocking half-smile. Even the younger prosecutor peeking out from his office looked taken aback. Iris put her hands over her mouth, eyes wide, and Sholmes's smile faltered.

And Asogi, hotheaded fool that he was, turned and stepped towards the other man. "What did you–?"

Barok clamped a hand down on his shoulder and dragged him to a stop. "That's enough," he said sharply, keeping his voice low.

"But he said–!"

"I don't care. I didn't hear it, and it doesn't matter. Do not cause a scene."

"But–"

"Have you learned nothing? Stop being rash. I don't see why you should feel the need to intervene at all, but if you do decide to engage the judiciary, at least do it with a little more subtlety."

Asogi glowered at him mulishly, and Barok wondered vaguely what could have been so bad that it roused him to action.

"How?"

A lesson, then, if he was well enough to teach it.

Barok looked across the hall at the other prosecutor, whose smirk had faded as he realized he'd been caught out. If he was smart, he hadn't intended to speak loudly enough to be overheard. Barok still had a fearsome reputation, after all, and most people found it wiser to direct their attacks from the shadows rather than face him head on.

"Mr. Kiligrew," Barok greeted, voice flat. "I've been following the Wickersham case closely, and I must say that I'm impressed. Taking the angle that the defendant had a co-conspirator deliver the victim's gun to him rather than the much more obvious angle that the defendant broke in for the purposes of robbery and took the gun from the prominently displayed collection of firearms the victim kept is a very bold move. I look forward to seeing how you pursue this claim. Very few prosecutors would be quite so daring."

He inclined his head ever so slightly in a gesture more mocking than polite and continued on his way, leaving the other prosecutor flushed and wide-eyed behind him.

"What does that even mean?" Asogi asked, hurrying after him.

"It means that he is a second-rate prosecutor who is currently making an enormous mess of what should be a straightforward case. But if he were to accuse me of saying such, I can say that he merely misinterpreted a compliment. So he won't make a fuss about it."

"…That sounds like more complicated social intrigue."

"Yes, it's the worst part of our job."

"I don't see why you bother. You are quite bluntly insulting on a frequent basis."

Barok took a moment to catch his breath as another sharp pain lanced through his chest. He kept his face blank and strides steady regardless. Let his colleagues think he was still half invincible, even without the Reaper's mantle. He would not falter here, in the midst of people who watched his every move waiting for him to stumble.

"I can get away with it because people fear me," he said when he could find his words again. "I have an established reputation to back me, enough to make people think twice about challenging me. Still, sometimes it's more expedient to use finesse. And you are in an entirely different position. You are young and inexperienced and foreign, and you do not command the same fear or respect. People will be more willing to call out your discourtesies. And as your position here is still precarious, you should not go looking to make enemies. Certainly not by doing something as foolish as defending me from the muttered insults of small-minded men. Kindly exercise more prudence."

Then he noticed Iris watching him with interest and added, "Not you, Miss Wilson. Do not do that. This is not a lesson you should learn from me…unless you want to practice on Mr. Sholmes, of course."

"My dear fellow," Sholmes said, "I find it rather insulting that you think the only one Iris should be rude to is me."

"I only meant that if she were to practice such distasteful tactics, it would be best to do so under the supervision of her guardian," Barok said gravely.

Sholmes frowned at him.

Iris laughed and clapped her hands together. "I see! You're right: some situations call for more finesse."

Asogi snorted, but when he spoke, he didn't comment on the exchange. "Lord Ashbourne was right, then," he said instead, sounding inordinately pleased.

"Right about what?" Barok asked.

"You have been trying to keep me out of the line of fire. That's why you didn't want me to advertise I was taking on the Hanscombe case or assist with your investigations, isn't it?"

Barok scowled. "Lord Ashbourne seems to have a lot to say. I have been trying to teach you caution, Mr. Asogi, as it is the skill you most lack. You are on foreign soil with limited support. It is not wise to go carelessly making enemies. So exercise caution when taking on cases with powerful defendants, don't mix yourself up in investigations that could turn the entire judiciary against you, and certainly don't waste your time stirring up a fuss about every trivial slight you might hear."

The rebuke didn't seem to sting. Asogi still wore a look of immense satisfaction, and Barok didn't know why he should seem so pleased with himself.

Iris laughed at something Sholmes had said, but the muffled static was returning to Barok's ears as his vision wavered again, and he missed it. He looked straight ahead and did his best to keep his stride clipped and steady, and if anyone said anything to him, he did not notice or respond.

Asogi hailed a carriage, and between one blink and the next, everyone had clambered inside, leaving Barok staring vacantly after them. The step up seemed suddenly very high, and he feared that if he reached up to grip the handles in order to aid his balance, it would pull at his injury again. He hesitated in the street, knowing he had no choice but paralyzed all the same.

"Are you alright?" Asogi asked, popping his head out the door.

"Oh," Barok said, his voice sounding tinny and distant in his ears. "Yes, of course."

He could hardly stand around like a frightened hare forever. That was a weakness he shouldn't be showing.

He stepped up, grasping for the side of the frame, and the movement tugged at something in his chest. Pain crashed over him like a wave, and he stumbled as his vision grayed out and went black.

"…van Zieks? Lord van Zieks, can you hear me?"

Barok forced his eyes open to find himself slumped on the bench, Asogi's arm tight around him. His vision wavered and then solidified again. Asogi's eyes were wide and round with what might have been worry.

Barok shifted away from him, but he didn't have the energy to sit up straight and stayed slumped back against the seat. He noticed a rusty red handprint on Asogi's shoulder, where he had gripped it earlier, and now an uneven smear of blood ran down the front of his jacket as well.

"If I might offer some advice," he rasped, his tongue feeling thick and heavy in his mouth, "white is a very impractical color for formal outerwear."

Asogi stared at him as if he'd lost his mind, and then looked down at himself. "Oh. Never mind that. I think you might have blacked out for a moment."

"How do you feel?" Iris asked. "Should I take a look at your wound?"

"No," Barok said more sharply than he intended, angling away from her and hunching his shoulder up around his chest like a shield.

He did not want her to see this wound he had inflicted on himself, whether she knew the truth of it or not. And he did not want her to see his other scars either. He was not ashamed of those, but no child needed to see that and consider the implications. Especially not Klint's child. These were ugly injuries of his own making, by his own hand or by his silent complicity in accepting the name of the Reaper. There was already enough ugliness and cruelty in the world that he did not want to show her any of it, even if he couldn't protect her from the rest.

"Oh," Iris said, drawing back. "I'm sorry."

"It's not…" He closed his eyes. "My apologies, but I do not think it needs to be tended again just yet."

Unfortunately, he had spent too many years in isolation to be any good at making friends, especially with bright, overly cheerful children. He could never think of the right thing to say, and it always came out wrong: too brusque, too awkward, too cold. He would need to do better if he wanted to salvage this chance at establishing some kind of relationship with his niece, but he was too out of sorts to make a valiant attempt at something so draining right now.

"It's alright," Iris said kindly. "As long as you're taking care of it. Do you have any of your painkillers with you? Maybe that would help."

"Painkillers?"

"Well, whatever the doctors gave you before sending you home. Laudanum, perhaps? Or something stronger?"

"I'm afraid that in my haste to check myself out of the hospital, I did not fill the prescription."

Sholmes laughed. "Are you truly running on only stubbornness and spite?"

"How did you even make it to the office at all?" Asogi asked with a sigh. "You look awful."

"It wasn't as bad this morning," Barok said. He thought that was true, although he was having a hard time remembering. It couldn't have been this bad, or he wouldn't have made it in. "Besides, it's no good drugging yourself before going to the office. You need to keep a clear head when going into a nest of vipers."

He closed his eyes, trying to breathe past the pain. He hadn't wanted to dabble in opiates because he knew he needed to keep his wits about him, but it seemed that his mind had grown rather fuzzy anyway.

"Sorry," Asogi said, his voice sounding funny, "but you're running around with a gunshot wound refusing to take anything to dull the pain because you don't trust anyone in the Prosecutor's Office?"

"You mustn't ever show weakness in front of people who sniff it out and pounce on it. It's foolish to bare your neck when vultures are circling."

"Then perhaps it might have been wiser to stay in the hospital rather than insisting on coming to the office."

"That is its own weakness. Besides, I needed to sort out my cases before Lord Ashbourne found out…"

Asogi groaned in frustration. "I suppose the next lesson you'll teach me is how not to trust anyone?"

"Paranoia is not a virtue. It is a means of survival. If you do not need it, then I do not recommend engaging in it, as it is a most unpleasant way of life. That said, I would advise being discriminating in who you choose to place your trust in. You may need help from time to time, but in the end, you should rely on yourself above all."

The swaying and rumbling of the carriage lulled Barok back into his torpor, and he wished everyone would be quiet and leave him alone. His head felt heavy and the pain was still making him nauseous, and he didn't particularly enjoy conversation at the best of times already.

"You…" Asogi trailed off, searching for the words.

Barok stepped in before he could find them and prolong the exchange. "Perhaps you could entertain yourselves for a few minutes and leave me in peace."

Asogi muttered something under his breath, but, miraculously, did as he was told for once and began talking to Sholmes and Iris in hushed tones instead. Tension held Barok upright for a few moments more, but when it became obvious that he was actually going to be left alone after all, he relaxed and drifted off in a haze.

When the carriage lurched to a stop some indeterminate amount of time later, he jolted back to his senses. He let the others disembark first, steeling himself. The step down shouldn't be as bad, but he was still wary of it.

When he ducked through the doorway, Asogi looked over and reached up a hand in silent offer. Barok regarded it with distaste. He did not invite touching of any sort, and accepting the assistance seemed like admitting yet another weakness. But it would be rude to brush off the gesture, and although he did not generally care what people thought about his discourtesies… Asogi had tried to be kind, in his own way, even though he had no reason to be. He had worried and ferreted out the truth and played caretaker and, most meaningfully, hidden the truths he had uncovered. He had, for some unfathomable reason, reached out and offered an olive branch, and persisted even when he was rebuffed. Barok owed him something for that.

He laid his hand delicately across Asogi's palm, and his apprentice held on firmly and helped him navigate the step down. The feeling of warm, callused skin against his was strange. It had been years since he had touched anyone without a protective layer between him and the world, and he felt exposed without his gloves. He needed to obtain a new pair at once.

He let go as soon as his boots hit the ground and took what he hoped was a casual step away. If Asogi felt any of the same unease, he didn't show it. Then again, perhaps he was more accustomed to the feeling of touch.

Barok tucked his hands close by his sides, under his cloak and safely out of reach. As the carriage trundled off, he straightened himself up and set his face in blank lines again.

"What, you don't trust the staff either?" Asogi asked, evidently noticing how carefully he'd collected himself.

"They worry. Come along, then. You might as well come in."

Barok strode up the walk with purpose and let himself inside the manor, holding the door open for the others to follow.

"Wow!" Iris said in delight. "It's so big!"

"Don't get too excited," Sholmes cautioned. "The greatest problem known to man would be a thousand times worse in a place this size. We have quite enough space at the flat."

"Oh, Hurley. Are you behind on the rent again?"

The housekeeper was nowhere to be seen, even though she usually had a sixth sense for visitors and homecomings. Instead, it was the manservant who heard the creaking of the door and came hurrying into the entrance hall. He stopped short when he saw the small crowd gathered there.

"Mr. Bates," Barok greeted briskly. "We have company. Would you show them to the sitting room?"

"Oh!" Bates said, recovering himself and trotting over with a quick bow. "Of course, My Lord. Shall I take your coat?"

Barok shrugged off his cloak and handed it over, but waved the man off when he shot an enquiring look at his suit jacket. Bates turned away to take Sholmes's coat instead.

"Mr. Asogi, would you like to give me your coat?" Barok asked, holding out a hand. He felt exposed again, and wished he had gloves. "My staff is adept at removing bloodstains from clothing."

Asogi hesitated, but then handed over his jacket. "If you think that's best. Thank you."

Bates cast a sharp look their way, unsubtly checking them over for signs of injury. "Everything is alright, My Lord?"

"Perfectly," said Barok. "Where is Mrs. Cooke?"

"…I believe she is in your brother's office."

"What on earth would she be doing in there?"

"She was going to tidy up. We removed the settee and rug as you requested, and the glazier will be here later this week to replace the window."

"Scotland Yard released the scene already?"

"Yes. Word came through just a couple of hours ago that the investigation was closed." Bates eyed him, the unspoken question of why lingering on the tip of his tongue.

Barok closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. "Very good. And is she still…upset?"

This morning, when he had stopped by after escaping the hospital to make himself presentable before going to the office, the housekeeper had seemed quite shaken. He felt responsible for her distress, given that the entire affair had, after all, been his fault.

Bates shifted uncomfortably. "I reckon she'll feel better once everything is cleaned up. Shall I fetch her?"

"No, I'll do it myself. Would you show our guests to the sitting room? Miss Wilson has been kind enough to bring tea. Please ensure she has full access to the kitchen." Barok bowed stiffly to his waiting guests. "Pray forgive me if I excuse myself for a moment. I will join you shortly. Miss Wilson, I will send the housekeeper to show you around the kitchen if you wish to make any preparations."

"That's very kind," Iris said.

"Hurry along, then, old chap!" Sholmes said brightly. "Pretty yourself up so you don't look half dead. Wouldn't want to ruin our appetites!"

Barok cast him a withering look before turning on his heel and striding off down the corridor. When he pushed open the door to Klint's study, his breath caught in his throat and the world seemed to tilt slightly under his feet, just enough to make him feel unbalanced. Hazy, fragmented pieces of memory teased the edges of his mind, but he pushed them back. He would not indulge such things, not now.

The blood-covered settee and rug were gone, leaving an empty stretch of floor. Just as well. He didn't want to see those reminders anyway.

The housekeeper knelt on the hardwood floor beside a bucket of pink, soapy water, scrubbing furiously at the stains soaking into the boards.

"Stop," Barok said. "I will do that myself."

She startled, looked up at him, frowned. "This is my job, My Lord."

"It's my mess, and I can clean it up. I would rather you spent your energy elsewhere."

She had been the one to find him, broken and bleeding out on the couch, and she still wore a haunted look in her eyes. Besides, Barok didn't think it fair to make the staff clean up such a disgraceful mess that he had created of his own foolishness.

She pressed her lips into a thin line. "That's hardly your fault. The Yard said we could clean things up now that they've closed their investigation, but…"

She didn't have to finish her sentence. Barok saw the wariness in her eyes, the doubt that Scotland Yard had done a proper investigation at all. She wanted answers that they couldn't give and he wouldn't.

"We have guests," he said abruptly. "I believe you've met my apprentice and the so-called great detective. Mr. Sholmes's ward, Miss Wilson, has brought tea. Mr. Bates is showing her to the kitchen. I would like you to assist her in whatever she needs."

Mrs. Cooke looked startled at the news—as well she might, with how little company he ever brought over these days—and then rose to her feet, the edge of a tentative smile curling one side of her mouth.

"Guests?" she said. "How lovely. And what is that?"

Barok surrendered Asogi's coat to her. "Once Miss Wilson is settled, wash this out for Mr. Asogi so that it is ready for him when he leaves. Mine as well, although it is not so pressing."

He shrugged off his coat and passed it over, careful to fold it over itself to sandwich the bloody parts in the middle. Mrs. Cooke's eyes widened at the large bloody patch staining the front of his shirt.

"My Lord!"

He waved a hand dismissively. "It looks worse than it is. It has already been tended."

She fussed a minute more before reluctantly retreating. Barok needed to check his wound and change his shirt, but instead he stood there in the empty office, examining Klint's portrait as if he hadn't seen it a thousand times before and sweeping his gaze across the dusty room. He felt strangely small, here in the rubble of his brother's legacy that had very nearly become his own tomb.

He crossed the room to the desk. His gaze skated over the photograph and lit upon the letter. Although he vaguely recalled setting aside the part about him, he didn't remember any of the words. He read it over slowly, once, twice.

Then, letting out his breath in a long, lingering sigh, he closed his eyes to shut it back out. Had Klint wondered, even as all of London did now, if Barok might have followed in his footsteps if he'd known the truth? Had he worried that Barok would fall too and take up the Professor's mantle? Or had he merely worried that facing the disappointments of the justice system would make Barok what he had, in fact, become: bitter, disillusioned, isolated, angry?

Did you think I would follow you into hell just because I followed you everywhere else? he wondered. Or did you only know that trying to live up to the shining legacy you left behind would break me?

He wasn't sure which was worse.

"There are more comfortable places to take a nap, you know," Sholmes said from the doorway. "Like the hospital, perhaps."

Surprise jolted through Barok, but he only opened his eyes and leveled Sholmes with a flat look. He had enough experience suppressing his reactions to pretend, as usual, that he felt nothing at all.

"Mr. Sholmes," he said evenly, as if he'd known the man was there all along. "It's rude to wander."

Sholmes shrugged, watching him. His younger companions might sometimes be fooled by his ridiculous and seemingly oblivious affectations, but he had the eyes of a hunting cat. It was one of the reasons Barok had always been wary of him.

"Given your state, it seemed like a good idea to check in. Make sure you hadn't keeled over in a faint, as it were. Iris would be terribly disappointed if something happened to you. She's become rather fond of you for some reason. There's no accounting for taste."

Barok felt his hackles rise. He wasn't fooled. Sholmes had come because he didn't trust Barok to be in here without falling apart and shooting himself. He was trying to lay on the guilt that Iris would be hurt if he did.

"There's no need for concern," Barok said shortly. "Last time was an unfortunate accident. Let's not involve Miss Wilson."

Sholmes regarded him speculatively. "Are you still angry with me? For hiding her from you?"

As if on cue, that familiar wave of resentment choked Barok again, filling up his lungs and coiling tight around his ribs. Of course he was angry. He wondered how things might have been different, if his niece hadn't been kept from him. He would have loved and protected her, the same way Klint had done for him. With something left to hold on to, something besides his anger and grief and endless work in the Prosecutor's Office, might he have turned out differently? He had been softer then, without all the sharp edges he had now. Maybe he wouldn't have been the perfect guardian, but he could have fit himself into the mold. Iris was such a sunny girl. She would have brought so much light back into his life. He might have been happier, had she been in his care.

But still… He had been drowning then. Perhaps he hadn't been as hard and cold and set in his ways as he was now, but he had been grieving and angry still, and what did he know about raising a child? He had barely been able to keep himself above water, much less a child totally reliant on him. He wondered if Iris's light would have been snuffed out, slowly suffocated by him and the empty manor full of ghosts. And with the Reaper's shadow hanging over him… That was no life for a child.

Iris was the bright and cheerful girl she was now because of her upbringing. Maybe she would still have been happy with him too, or maybe not. But she had turned out just fine without him, and he knew that it was better she hadn't suffered under the same burdens he had.

"It's better this way," he said finally, bitterly. "She is happy with you, so I suppose you must have done something right. My life would have been better for having her in it, but hers would have been worse. It's for the best that she is separated from my reputation and that of my family. She was safer with you."

"Hm… Are you going to tell her?"

"That's not my place. That's a decision for a parent to make."

"She has no parents left."

"She has you, doesn't she? You are the closest thing she has. You raised her and know her better than I ever will. You will have to decide what's in her best interest."

The best Barok could hope for now was the opportunity to get to know his niece, a little at a time, and hope he didn't make too much of a mess of it. He wasn't in a position to assert familial privilege and make decisions for her welfare. It would do no good to overstep himself and lose the opportunity to interact with her at all. And while he did not particularly trust Sholmes in most things, Iris adored him and he had taken care of her. That was worth something.

Sholmes looked briefly startled, before averting his gaze. "I never intended to tell her the truth," he admitted. "I thought it for the best that she never knew. But it seems to me that truths have a way of working their way to the surface sooner or later, whether we want them to or not."

"She won't hear it from me."

"I think that perhaps I shall tell her someday. Or maybe she will figure it out herself. She's a clever girl, and I've wondered at her sudden interest in you… It could just be, as she says, that she feels badly about how things have gone for you and thinks you need a friend, or maybe she is beginning to suspect some deeper connection. I don't want to burden her with the ugly side of the truth, but maybe she does deserve to know. I'm not sure it's fair to keep her away from the good as well just to protect her from the rest, and she has always wanted to know very, very badly."

So she had inherited the van Zieks' driving need to uncover the truth. For a girl who loved to solve mysteries, the one at the center of her own life might prove too strong a temptation to ignore. Barok could appreciate the burning need to understand, and sometimes it felt necessary to understand where one came from in order to feel as if one truly understood oneself. That was something Sholmes and Mikotoba and Klint had robbed her of, even if it had been for her own good.

Barok looked around the room, at the boxes spilling keepsakes onto the ground, and sighed. "I shall have to sort through Klint's possessions soon. Perhaps I will set aside a few appropriate mementos that I might give her if she ever asks."

Sholmes raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"No, but as I said, I will defer to your judgment. She will hear nothing from me until she hears it from you or comes asking questions. But if you do tell her and she comes looking for answers, I should have something to give her from her parents."

"No, I think that's a splendid idea. I meant if it was really a good idea to go sifting through all of this when it seems to have had deleterious effects last time."

Barok grimaced. "I think it's a poor idea, but it needs to be done. For my own closure as much as anything, I think. It will be unpleasant, but there shouldn't be any other dangerous items hidden away to stumble across, and I will try to do it sober."

"Hidden away?" Sholmes echoed.

"Ah, so you have not deduced everything after all. I hid the gun away in here many years ago, and it seems I accidentally rediscovered it whilst rifling through the boxes. It might not have been so bad had I been sober. Just an unfortunate series of missteps culminating in a mistake I don't even remember making."

Sholmes stared at Barok for a long moment, eyes searching, and then said, "I'm pleased to hear it was not premeditated, at least. I had been hoping you wouldn't make such a choice if you weren't several bottles deep. And what did you tell Scotland Yard to convince them to drop the investigation?"

"Nothing. It appears Mr. Asogi engaged in a bit of creative truth-telling to convince the Lord Chief Justice it was merely an accident. Even if he seems to have implicated my poor, long-suffering staff in it."

Sholmes huffed out a sound that was half a sigh and half a laugh. "Probably just as well. I won't be spreading any speculation. Iris would be very sad. Speaking of which, shouldn't you be making yourself decent so you can join us again?"

Barok fixed him with a flat look. "I would have done so already had you not barged in to pester me with your inane questions."

Sholmes threw his head back and laughed, all signs of his previous seriousness gone. "I can't help it, my dear fellow. You are so easily distracted. We'll expect to see you shortly."

He turned and disappeared out the door at a jaunty pace. Barok wasn't sure he liked the thought of the detective roaming unattended about the manor, but he was in too much pain to go chasing after him.

He read over his brother's letter one last time, imagining what might have been going through his head, and then left the room, closing the door firmly behind him. Without so many eyes on him, he allowed himself a slower, more shambling pace as he went to his room. When he shed his shirt, he found red blotches already bleeding through the bandages.

He kept a medical kit for situations like these, and he unwound the bandages with practiced efficiency and cleaned the wound quickly and brusquely. But he was rougher than he meant to be in his impatience, and a jolt of pain shot through him like lightning when his fingers pressed too hard against his bruised and broken ribs. He collapsed onto the end of the bed, trying to catch his breath. Black dots were encroaching on his vision again, and he shut his eyes and pressed his hand to his face as he waited for the dizziness to pass. He felt disoriented and untethered, floating somewhere just outside his body.

But he was no novice to pain and its side effects. He took deep breaths until his senses settled, and then finished cleaning the wound—more gently, this time—and wrapped it up again.

If he hadn't brought the others here, he might have settled for just a shirt so that he could relax more comfortably, but he preferred to maintain a certain formality. He pulled on another stiff jacket and pair of gloves and immediately felt more secure, ready to face the world again. Silly though it might be, he preferred having layers to hide behind in public. At least it would give him the appearance of being put-together, whether he was or not.

He drifted through the halls at a leisurely pace, but squared his shoulders and sped up to a quicker clip as he approached the sitting room.

Sholmes and Iris had claimed the couch, while Asogi slouched in one of the armchairs. Barok claimed the one across from him, on the other side of the loose circle. Several porcelain plates had been laid out on the low table in the center, covered in an assortment of tea sandwiches, biscuits, and scones.

Iris beamed when he took his seat and hopped to her feet. "There you are! Let me get you some tea. And you must try everything and tell me what you think. I'm experimenting with some new recipes, and I need another opinion besides Hurley's. He scarfs his food so fast that he can't tell me what it tastes like at all. He thinks everything is good."

"There's no need to be so dismissive," Sholmes said. "It's just that everything you make is delicious."

"Sometimes I think you only say that because you don't want to cook."

"You wound me."

Barok watched in bemusement as Iris poured a cup of tea and brought it to him on a saucer, then put together a plate containing one of each treat.

"Thank you," he said, putting the plate on the side table and holding the tea in his hands.

"You're welcome! I'm glad I was able to save something before Hurley ate it all. If you want seconds, you had better get them fast!"

Asogi smirked over at them, so Barok feared his trepidation must have shown on his face. No matter what he did, he always felt awkward and a step behind when trying to figure out how to interact with his niece. He arranged his features back into impassive lines, if only to thwart Asogi's enjoyment of his discomfort.

"It's very good," he said, taking a sip of his tea. "As always."

Iris's smile widened as she settled beside Sholmes again. "I'm pleased to hear you think so."

Asogi and Sholmes turned back to their interrupted conversation about a particularly mysterious burglary that would make it to trial after the Hanscombe case. It was one of the smaller cases that had been assigned to Asogi to give him practice back in the courtroom, but it was a puzzle in its own right. Although Barok would not normally seek out Sholmes's help, this was Asogi's case and he could do as he wished.

Iris listened with fascination and peppered them with questions, declaring that they must solve the mystery because it sounded like an interesting premise for a story. Occasionally, someone solicited Barok's opinion, but for the most part they left him alone and he was content to slump back in his chair and listen with half an ear.

He didn't touch the snacks. Just the thought of them made his stomach twist unpleasantly. He didn't much want the tea either, but at least the warmth was pleasant and it had a soothing flavor, so he sipped at it slowly.

When the pain flared again, his hand shook and the cup rattled against the saucer. Everyone looked at him, and he carefully set the cup down before anyone got it in their head to ask if he was alright.

"You haven't touched your food at all!" Iris said with a pout. "You don't like it? Oh! If you tell me what you like, maybe I can make something from what's in your kitchen!"

He supposed it had been futile to hope she wouldn't notice.

"No, it all looks delicious," he assured her. "I do apologize for my rudeness, but… I fear that I have been feeling rather nauseated, and it seems unwise to partake at this time."

Iris's eyes widened, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh! I should have thought of that. Pain can do that, and blood loss too. But don't worry! I can make a special blend to help with nausea. I'll be right back!"

"You really don't have to…"

But she had already snatched up his cup and the teapot and was rushing off to the kitchen in a flying tangle of skirts and pink curls. Barok blinked after her, taken aback by the speed and abruptness of her attack and subsequent departure.

"There's no use trying to stop her when she's got it in her head to try a special blend," Sholmes said cheerfully. "Don't worry, they're quite effective. Just last week, I was downed with a most debilitating case of the flu, and her tea fixed me right up."

"I thought it was a head cold," Asogi said.

"Well, a bad one. And it would have turned into a most gruesome case if she hadn't taken such good care of me."

"Yes, that sounds of nearly the same severity as a gunshot wound."

"Exactly!"

Barok sighed and closed his eyes. He had half a mind to kick them all out, already reaching the limitations of his patience for chitchat, but he knew he was cornered. He would have to throw out Iris too, and he wouldn't do that.

"How are you holding up?" Asogi asked.

"I'm fine."

"You should try to eat something. Iris will be disappointed if you don't."

"I realize that."

"And you've already barely been eating for days, so none of that nausea excuse."

Barok peeled his eyes back open to glare at Asogi, who did not have the grace to look cowed.

"Don't strain yourself," Sholmes said quickly. "If you aren't hungry, I'm sure we could sacrifice and eat your share."

Barok thought this must be his punishment, some kind of divine retribution. "I wish the shot had been a little higher," he muttered.

The amusement vanished from Asogi's face at once. "Don't you dare," he said severely. "That's not funny."

"Then stop fussing. I don't need a nursemaid."

Asogi glowered, and Barok took a thin satisfaction in the shift away from smug amusement and overbearing solicitousness. Asogi's irritation was more familiar territory.

"Truly," Sholmes said, "I'm so proud of you both for making it this far without killing each other. I had expected to be called out for a homicide months ago."

"Mr. Asogi sent his honored family blade back to his homeland with Mr. Naruhodo, and he lacks the same degree of skill with the saber."

Asogi squinted at Barok in something approaching disbelief. "Was that…a joke? Did you just make a joke?"

Barok stared back expressionlessly. "I am not the joking type."

"Well, would you stop making such flippant comments about dying? I don't think it's appropriate."

"Pray forgive my discourtesy if I have offended your delicate sensibilities."

A sound of abject exasperation worked its way out of the back of Asogi's throat. Perhaps unfairly, Barok found his frustration gratifying.

Fortunately, Iris appeared with her doctored tea before things could get any more out of hand.

"Try this," she said, passing over the cup. "I hope it helps."

A bitter note sharpened the edge of the herbal aroma this time. Barok steeled himself before taking a sip, but although the flavor was sharper, it was not unpleasant.

"It's very good, thank you," he said. Iris started to smile, but then her brows knitted together in concern as she noticed the cup still trembling in his hand, the tea shivering against the sides. Barok searched for something to distract her, but he had never been good with small talk. "I trust you were able to find everything you needed in the kitchen?"

"Oh, yes! It's a lovely kitchen, and your staff is very kind. The whole house is very grand."

"I suppose I could give you a tour if you'd like, but another day."

Her entire face lit up. "I could come back?"

He blinked at her, caught off guard, with the faint sense that he had somehow backed himself into a corner. "…If you wanted to, I suppose. There's really not much to it, though."

"It's so big. I bet you could fit a lot of people in here."

"Yes. There was a time when a great deal many more people lived here."

Iris's enthusiasm waned abruptly. "But not anymore," she said softly.

"No. Just me and what little remains of the staff."

"That sounds…lonely."

Barok frowned, not liking the direction her thoughts were taking. Her words conjured up that sense of yawning emptiness again, the stifling silence hanging over the halls where there had once been laughter. He caught his fingers tapping out an agitated rhythm on the arm of the chair and lifted his hand to cup it around his tea and take a measured sip.

"I spend most of my waking hours in the Prosecutor's Office. There are plenty of people there. Quite a few too many, I'd say."

Iris was not deterred. Her unwavering determination to follow her chosen path until she was satisfied reminded him not a little of his brother.

"But you grew up with lots of people?" she pressed.

Barok was not sure what his childhood had to do with anything. "I was not close to many of them, but they were around."

"What was it like growing up here? Did you have lots of fun?"

He held his tea in both hands and regarded her overtop the rim. A sudden tension had descended over the room. He could almost hear Asogi and Sholmes holding their breath, waiting to see if he would snap at Iris for her prying, overfamiliar questions.

Truthfully, he did not understand her fascination. The dreary mansion was not enough to inspire such curiosity, no matter how grand it might seem. But then, perhaps it didn't have to do with the house at all, not really. Perhaps she was merely interested in him, for some reason beyond his ken.

She was asking about his childhood because she was still a child. She was looking for common ground with him, something they could both understand. She was reaching out to him as surely as Asogi had reached out his hand to offer physical assistance, and although Barok did not understand her motivations, he thought it would be a terrible thing to reject her.

He took a sip of his tea, considering. His own childhood seemed far away, happy memories long since faded and tarnished with age, half forgotten and replaced by bleaker ones.

But he watched Iris's hopeful face across the gulf yawning between them and knew that he had to at least try.

"I used to slide down the railing," he said when the silence had stretched just a little too long. It was a ridiculous thing to say, but she had put him on the spot and his mind had gone blank.

Iris tilted her head. "The railing?"

"You might have noticed the grand staircase when you came in? It has the best railing for sliding down."

She stared at him, mouth ajar, and then laughed, clapping her hands together in delight. "How wonderful! And was it very fun?"

"Yes," he said gravely. "Although my parents found it less entertaining."

Sholmes burst into raucous laughter, and Barok shot him an aggrieved look.

"I can't imagine," Asogi said, vainly fighting back the smile that kept pulling the corners of his mouth upwards.

"All men were children once, Mr. Asogi."

"Still, it seems very undignified. And I saw that staircase—you're lucky to have survived to adulthood if you played on that."

"It's actually a very smooth ride, although the fall is steep if you lose your balance. I only broke my arm once, and in my defense, Klint had dared me to go down backwards."

"Backwards?" Iris said, eyes sparkling. "How brave!"

"How foolish," Asogi muttered.

"Maybe." Barok shrugged, swirling the tea around in its cup and staring down at it sightlessly. "I did get a good scolding. Klint got into more trouble, though, because he was older and should have known better. He was always scolded if I got myself into predicaments, because it was assumed I was just following after him. But if he did get me into trouble, he most always got me out of it again."

"He sounds like a fun playmate," Iris said gently.

Barok startled out of his thoughts, hand tightening around the teacup. He did not want to talk about Klint, especially with Asogi sitting just a few feet away. And while he was willing to offer Iris something small, he did not wish to discuss his childhood in front of anyone else. The fearsome Reaper of the Bailey could not have been a child getting into mischief sliding down stair rails.

"Well, he was a decade older than me," he said curtly, trying to wedge shut the door he had accidentally cracked open without hurting his niece's feelings. "Most of the time, I was just underfoot."

If anything, perhaps that was why he had never been much of a child. Klint had only been a boy for a very short time while Barok knew him. Although they had gotten into mischief together for a few years, soon Klint had grown up and Barok had done his best to keep up, leaving his unfinished childhood behind to playact as an adult.

"Wow," Iris said, blithely ignoring her host's rapidly cooling tone. "No wonder you looked up to him so much. With that big of a gap, he could've been halfway a parent instead of only a sibling."

Barok put down the teacup with more force than necessary, afraid his tightening grip might crack the porcelain. It clattered loudly against the saucer, drawing even Iris up short.

Klint had been his brother, half a parent, a guide, a confidante, a mentor, a co-conspirator, a role model, a friend, a protector. Even then, Barok had been awkward and perhaps a little shy around people, polite but distant. Klint had been all he needed, really, besides his parents and the staff and a handful of friends that mostly amounted to Albert. He had never had an extensive network of close friends and colleagues. He had had Klint. Klint had been a dozen people wrapped up in one, filling just about every role Barok might have needed. And in exchange, Barok would have done anything, given anything, for him.

Maybe that was why Barok could hardly bear to think of his brother anymore. He could say that Klint had been the Professor, that he had been his own kind of monster, without making excuses. But he could not say that and still think about the way Klint had slowed down and looked back over his shoulder with a smile when Barok called after him to wait up, the way he had sat with Barok in the office and patiently guided him through a difficult case when he was growing frustrated, the way he had slyly suggested Barok accompany him into trouble during those scant few years when they had both been simply children. It was too painful to think of him as both.

Something must have shown on Barok's face, in the tight set of his jaw.

"I'm sorry," Iris said, wilting. "I shouldn't have…"

He immediately felt bad again. He shouldn't snap at her, but he hardly knew how else to behave anymore, after all these years.

He could see something of Klint in her. Her mannerisms were all Sholmes, but he could see Klint in her clever mind, the curl of her smile, the dogged determination hidden beneath her cheery demeanor. He could catch glimpses of his sister-in-law too, in the shape of her eyes and tilt of her chin.

If or when Iris found out the truth of her parentage, he didn't want her to see Klint as the monster everyone else did. He wanted her to know that he had been good too, in his own ways, and who else would acknowledge that now except for Barok? This, perhaps, was the last gift he could give to Klint: to tell his daughter that he was more than the grim legacy he had left behind.

"No," Barok said softly, looking away. "You are not wrong. He was everything to me, Miss Wilson. I will not make excuses for the things he did, but he was also my family and my friend and my inspiration all in one. The world may think him a monster, and perhaps he was, but he was a man first."

He flexed his fingers until the tension began to unknot and then downed the rest of his tea. Wine would have been better, but he was wary of turning back to that so soon after last time.

"I…" Iris trailed off and blinked rapidly.

Barok slumped back into the chair and closed his eyes. Inviting her and the others here had been a mistake. He wasn't ready for it, and it didn't help that the throbbing pain made it hard to think.

"That is strange," Asogi said when no one else took the initiative to smooth the moment over. "I always think of you as wildly old, but I suppose you aren't actually my father's age."

"Wildly old?" Barok repeated. He scowled, even though he was grateful for the change of direction.

Asogi nodded solemnly. "Wildly."

"Well, no. I followed after Klint and his friends, but I would have been closer to your age, not theirs. Although I suppose I'm just now as old as he was." He paused, heart plummeting abruptly, and murmured to himself, "I'm not sure why I never considered that."

It had been a decade now since Klint's death, and with Barok's own birthday not a few weeks ago… Barok was now the same age as Klint had been. And next year… His stomach twisted back into knots, undoing whatever good Iris's tea had done. Klint was the elder brother, but sometime during the passing years, they had closed the gap. Why had it never quite occurred to Barok, despite the obvious implications, that one day he would be the oldest?

And then another thought, worse than the last, occurred to him, and whatever blood he had left drained away. "Or did I?"

He could not say for sure what had passed through his mind in those hazy, wine-drunk hours that he stumbled through Klint's office, perhaps subconsciously looking for something he had buried there long ago. But there was no way he could have never considered the implications of either his advancing age or the gun hidden away, especially not with his birthday so recent and the leaking of Klint's crimes. He hadn't thought about those things, but he'd been doing his best to think of nothing but work at all, hadn't he? And when his work was taken away… There were some things he must have known, deep down, even if he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge them.

The truth was that he had never wanted to surpass Klint, only be him. He had followed in his brother's footsteps, but he had found shelter in Klint's shadow. He had never intended to go it alone. But Klint was gone, and this moment, right here, with the realization pressing down on Barok's shoulders, felt like an ending all of its own.

Barok had reached the end of Klint's guidance, in a way. This was where Klint's path had ended, his footsteps petering out. After this point, Barok truly walked alone. He had always been able to compare himself to his brother, even once he was gone. When Klint had been twenty-five, this was where he had been in his life—that was where Barok should be. When Klint had been thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three… But what about thirty-four? Forty? Fifty, even? Where should Barok be then? He could barely even imagine making it that far, without the yardstick Klint had left to measure up to.

Suddenly, the world had opened up around him, his life unplanned, his path aimless and wandering. He did not find it liberating. It felt suffocating, like he was drowning, floundering, reaching for someone who was not there to show him the way. He did not know who he was without the Reaper, and he did not know who he was without Klint's guiding light, and he was not sure that he was ready to find out.

So, in that hazy moment when he had held the gun in his hand, felt its weight, clumsily loaded the bullets, had the thought occurred to him that now was the time to bury himself in Klint's grave too?

"Lord van Zieks?" Asogi asked cautiously. "What's the matter?"

"My dear fellow," Sholmes said with bald concern, "you've gone quite nearly translucent, and that's a real feat given you already looked like you had one foot in the grave."

Barok couldn't find his voice to deter their nosing. His hands were trembling again, fingers tapping a staccato rhythm against the chair's arms, and that lightheaded sense of disorientation tugged at him once more. He wavered on the edge, shivering himself to pieces, and wondered if he had been falling apart all along and was only just now realizing it.

What he wouldn't give for a challenging case to distract himself or a good bottle of wine to drown his thoughts. He had not wanted to open this Pandora's box, and he didn't know what to do with it now that everything was spilling out.

Asogi appealed to Iris instead. "He's not going to black out again, is he?"

Barok's gaze slid back to Iris, who had scooted forward to the very edge of her seat to watch with wide eyes.

"I'm not sure. Maybe if–"

"Miss Wilson," Barok said, pleasantly surprised by how steady and even his voice sounded. "You write all those delightful detective stories, don't you? Why don't you tell us about the one you're working on now?"

She stared, taken aback, and he nodded sharply in encouragement. She shot a look at Sholmes as well, before taking a deep breath.

"Well," she said uncertainly, "there's this interesting case…"

Barok only listened with half an ear as she began to tell her story, falteringly at first but then gaining confidence, but the sound of her voice helped ground him. Anything to interfere with the spiraling of his thoughts or ominous silence.

He calmed slowly, fingers stilling as he settled back to watchful immobility. His unwavering gaze never left Iris. She was a charming girl, Klint's daughter, and her mere presence soothed some raw ache in his soul. It meant more than he might have imagined, to know that some piece of Klint still resided here, in her. That he still had some semblance of family left, even if she didn't know it yet. It was enough, for today.

He retrieved the plate from the table and slowly, methodically began working his way through the snacks Iris had brought, one bite at a time. He figured he owed her at least that much. Thankfully, the tea seemed to have done some good after all. The food still felt vaguely unsatisfying and tasteless, his appetite still stubbornly absent, but he caught enough of an edge of taste to know that they were lovely even if he couldn't fully appreciate them right now.

By the time Iris had finished delivering her rather rambling explanation, Barok felt a little more like himself. Still shaken, still lightheaded and melancholy and miserable, but at least he could breathe again.

"How interesting," he said, even though he had heard very little of what she'd said. "I shall look forward to reading it once it's published."

She smiled shyly. "Thank you. And you enjoyed the food?"

"Immensely. For once I must agree with Mr. Sholmes: your culinary talent is superb."

She giggled, coloring a little as she dropped her gaze to the ground. "You should accept my invitations. I'll cook you all sorts of nice things! And I can tell you all about what I'm writing."

Maybe it shouldn't seem quite so out of reach when she meant every word, but Barok had a hard time imagining having such visits on a regular basis, as if they were really friends, or even family. He did not know how to respond, and searched for something else to say rather than making a commitment.

"I suppose you like to read as well?" he asked.

"Oh, yes! A bit of everything, really. There's ever so much to learn from books, and the novels are quite fun too."

"There's a large library here as well that rarely sees any use these days. Perhaps you might find something of interest to borrow."

Iris's entire face lit up. "Really? That sounds wonderful! Can we go take a look?"

Barok blinked at her, startled. "Now?"

"Of course! Hurley, why don't you stay here? I know you've been dying to polish off the snacks. We'll be right back."

She hopped off the couch and reached out one gloved hand, and Barok was so taken aback that he could only stare at her. She watched him expectantly, patiently waiting for him to make his move. He hesitated and then reached out. Iris smiled and placed her hand in his palm.

Her hand looked so small in his. Barok curled his fingers carefully, gently, around her hand, and it disappeared within the fold of his glove. She was delicate and small and beautiful, and he was all sharp edges and jagged pieces these days. For a moment, he was terrified he would hurt her if he so much as breathed wrong.

But she only smiled at him, and he rose from the chair and led her out of the sitting room, across the entrance hall to the library. She gripped his hand tightly, unafraid.

"Wow!" she said in awe when he showed her inside, looking around at the heavy wooden bookshelves stretching floor to ceiling. "It's so big! There are so many books!"

"My father was an extensive collector," Barok said, releasing her hand so that she could wander off to explore the shelves. He relaxed when she was safely free of him, but felt strangely bereft too. "You can find something on any subject."

Iris ran her fingers over the spines of the books lining the shelves, silently mouthing titles as she went.

Barok let her be and looked around the room, grimacing. He had not spent much time here over the past decade, aside from occasionally fetching a book to bring back to his room. The place was steeped too strongly in memory. He could almost see his mother sitting in the chair before the fireplace, helping him read along to a book as he perched in her lap as a small child. He saw the gaps in the shelves that his father had not found the perfect book to fill before passing away. He could very nearly see Klint perusing the shelves, hunching over books of law while scribbling notes, pointing out relevant passages to his tagalong little brother.

But he could not afford to dwell on those things now, even if he wanted to. He had already faced enough of his past today.

Looking away from the ghosts, he watched Iris instead. Strangely, it was not Klint he saw in her wide-eyed wonder as she drew books from the shelves, flipped through them, put them back. It was himself. Himself how he had been as a child, following Klint with dogged devotion, admiring everything he did. He remembered trailing after Klint even as a child of nine or ten, carefully pulling out every book after his brother put it back just to read the title and later curling up in the armchair nearby to soak up any tidbits Klint chose to share while he flipped through his chosen tome. In truth, he had forgotten there had been a time when he looked at anything with such fascination. It had been a very long time ago.

But looking at Iris now, he felt the faint stirrings of that fascination long since lain dormant. A fascination with her. It occurred to him now that she was the gap between him and his brother. Her life spanned exactly the space between when he and Klint had last met. As he aged past Klint's lifespan and the gap between them grew wider and wider, Iris would match it step for step, keeping pace with him. She was not Klint and could not take his place, but she was exactly the right shape to fit into one of the holes in Barok's heart, where something was missing.

He was not sure how he had survived so long without something to stopper up that wound. But he'd had nothing, nothing besides the cold comfort of the Prosecutor's Office, and perhaps all his warmth and kindness and childlike wonder had bled out of him. He wished he had known Iris before that had happened. He would have been a better uncle. Nothing came naturally to him anymore. It would be a struggle to figure things out every step of the way, and he would fail and have to get back up and try again. But at least he had something worth fighting for now. And she was worth the effort and heartache. Not only because she was Klint's daughter, but because she was an amazing young woman in her own right.

Iris turned back as if sensing his scrutiny. "I can borrow one?"

"Take as many as you'd like. They're only gathering dust here."

A grin split her face as she began pulling books off the shelves. "I shall have to, so that I have an excuse to come back and return them."

Barok could hardly believe that she would want to come back. Maybe it shouldn't surprise him as much as it did. But he couldn't deny that his heart lifted just a little at the hope of next time.

When Iris had chosen some four or five volumes, she drifted back to Barok and leaned in close. "May I slide down the railing too?" she asked in a hushed voice, eyes sparkling and one corner of her mouth curled into a sly grin.

For just a second, he felt an answering flutter at the corner of his mouth, although it didn't quite achieve a smile. "Only if you are very careful. May I take your books?"

He reached out, and Iris smiled a little shyly and surrendered her armful of books.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll be careful."

Barok regarded her for a moment, hesitated, and then shifted the books under one arm and offered her his hand again. She smiled and took it, and he led her back out to the foyer and stopped at the bottom of the staircase.

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't accompany you to the top," he said.

"Of course! You should be resting, not running up and down the stairs."

She ran up the steps two at a time, footsteps echoing off the marble. Klint would never have taken them in such an undignified manner. Barok might have, once, when he was young and eager.

He set the books on the bottom step and watched Iris situate herself on the railing high above. He hoped she had a good sense of balance. Falling onto the stairs would hurt, but falling straight down to the floor below was liable to break bones.

Perhaps this had not been such a good idea. He was finally starting to understand why his parents had not liked this particular game.

Iris waved down at him gaily. "Here I go!"

Before he had the chance to change his mind and call her back, she had already pushed off. She came sliding down the polished wood railing at high speed, hair whipping behind her and skirts billowing. A shrill scream of pure delight shattered the oppressive silence of the old, empty mansion.

Barok's eye caught on the end of the banister, the way it curved upwards before dropping to the ground with the newel post, and remembered, almost too late, how that uncommon feature could send the unwary sailing through the air an alarming distance.

The warning caught in his throat, but Iris was already almost upon him, laughing wildly. She hit the bottom and went flying, and Barok lunged to grab her about the waist and swing her in a wide circle to redirect her momentum. She was still laughing as she flung her arms around his neck and held on, but his pounding heart didn't slow until he had set her back down safely on the ground.

"My apologies," he said, trying to keep the strain out of his voice. Swinging her weight about had pulled at something in his chest again, enough for the pain to make him feel unsteady and lightheaded, and he was finding it difficult to breathe. "I forgot about the bit at the end. It's great fun if you know it's there, but it can be startling if you don't."

"It's alright!" Iris said, her face flushed with mirth and her voice still edged with laughter. "You caught me. And you were right! That is the most fun railing I've ever slid down."

"What in the world have you been up to?" Asogi asked, and Barok started guiltily and turned to find him and Sholmes making their way across the room.

"I admit, I'm sorely tempted," Sholmes said, looking between Iris and the stairway. "If it's truly that much fun, I wouldn't want to miss out–"

"Don't you think you're a little old for that, Hurley?" Iris asked, tilting her head.

"I'm wounded that you think I'm old."

"Well, big, then. If you break the banister, we might not be invited back."

One corner of Asogi's mouth quirked upwards at the banter, but he was watching Barok with a considering air. Barok did not like it and was about to say so when Mrs. Cooke came bustling through the doorway. Her look of alarm quickly morphed to confusion and then something approaching anger as she saw that no one was hurt despite the shrieking and put the pieces together from Iris's excited chatter.

"Barok van Zieks!" she roared, drawing herself up to her full height, eyes flashing as she advanced on him. "I know you are not teaching that innocent girl to slide down the railing. Have you forgotten when you broke your arm? It's bad enough you learned this nonsense from your brother, but you will not be passing it on to other unsuspecting children!"

Barok stared at her, mouth hanging partway open. She was a polite and mild-mannered woman who had not dared take such a tone with him in many years, not since he was a very small child, and even then only rarely and when he had done something particularly bad. It had been so long since she had snapped at him that he'd nearly forgotten she ever could.

Everyone had fallen quiet, hardly daring to breathe in the stunned silence. Mrs. Cooke took in Barok's expression and the ring of shocked faces, and a look of horror spread across her face as well. Color rushed to her cheeks, and she lifted a hand to her mouth. Her eyes had gone as wide as saucers.

"Oh," she said faintly. "My Lord, I… I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

A choked sound worked its way up Barok's throat and out of his mouth, something between a hiccup and a wheeze. And then, as alarmed gazes turned back to him, he began to laugh.

The urge was so sharp, so sudden, that it took him by surprise, but he felt wild, unmoored, reckless, and couldn't stop. He clutched futilely at his chest with one hand and stumbled back a step. The back of his boot hit the edge of the first step, and he collapsed onto it in a tangle of limbs.

He laughed and laughed, and when he couldn't breathe past the building pain, he pressed his other hand to his face until he could rein himself in and catch his breath.

"I…" He gasped at the air and slumped back, the edge of the next step up digging into his spine. "I apologize. I think perhaps my mind is still a little clouded after all."

"Don't apologize for that," the housekeeper said softly, and he dropped his hand away from his face to see her watching him with a melancholy smile. "I haven't heard you laugh in a decade."

He huffed out a breath tinged with the last remnants of his amusement. "At least it looks like one of us has not changed so much after all."

She flushed again. "My apologies. I forgot myself."

He just waved a dismissive hand, unable to summon any ire at what should, by all rights, be an impressive breach of protocol. Iris was giggling behind her hand, Sholmes was smiling, and Asogi could not have looked more taken aback if someone had just grown a second head before his eyes.

It had been a long time since the manor was filled with people, laughter ringing through the air. It had been a long time since a child had slid down the railing and shrieked with laughter and gotten scolded. It brought him back, for a moment, to a happier time.

It wasn't the same, of course. His amusement was already fading back towards reserved apathy, but it didn't feel quite so cold this time. He was still alone, but maybe not as alone as he had been before. The manor would still feel empty and haunted when his niece and her friends departed, but maybe that would be easier to bear knowing that it was possible to bring life back to it after all. It was still a miserable state of affairs, but he had glimpsed a possibility of improvement, and that was enough to cast an edge of doubt on the bleak and oppressive inevitability of his imprisonment here.

It was something he could think on, at least. Whether it would go anywhere, he couldn't say.

"Are you alright?" Iris asked, sitting on the step beside him. "Did you pull your wound open again catching me?"

He tipped his palm away from his chest and peered down at it, but his glove was still pristinely white. While he did think he had pulled the injury enough to start bleeding through the bandages again, it didn't seem like it was bad enough to have soaked through his jacket yet.

"I'm well," he said, but he pressed his other hand back to his face. His head was throbbing again and everything felt heavy, like the effort of entertaining his guests and trying to connect to Iris and remembering how to laugh after all these years had worn him down to the bone. "But I think that perhaps this might be a good time to wrap up tea."

"Oh, of course. You should rest. Thank you for inviting us over. I had a lovely time."

"It was my pleasure," he said politely. "Mrs. Cooke, might you help Miss Wilson pack up her things and fetch Mr. Sholmes's coat? Is Mr. Asogi's jacket ready?"

"Yes, My Lord," the housekeeper said. "It may still be damp, but the stains have been removed."

"Please fetch that as well."

"At once, My Lord."

Something touched the hand pressed to his chest, and Barok peered through his fingers to see Iris's small hand atop his own. She squeezed once and smiled at him.

"You should accept my next invitation," she said. "We would love to have you over again."

"Well… I suppose, if you wanted me to."

"If I didn't want you to, I wouldn't have sent the invitation." She stood up and brushed off her skirts. "I hope you're feeling better soon."

With one last flash of a smile, she bounced off to the other room after the housekeeper to gather her things, leaving Barok staring after her.

"It will be easier if you accept next time," Sholmes advised. "Otherwise she may grow impatient enough to track you down at your office or home again."

"She does seem rather tenacious."

She was not, however, the only tenacious one here.

"Are you alright?" Asogi asked yet again. "You've wilted quite impressively."

"Yes," Barok grumbled.

"Did you pull your wound again? You look awful."

"It's not bleeding everywhere yet, at any rate, which seems an improvement. I'm fine. Just tired."

"I'm just saying–"

"My dear fellow!" Sholmes interrupted, leaning in close to put his face right up to Asogi's. "You're looking rather wan yourself. Are you sure you haven't caught my flu?"

"Wh-what?" Asogi leaned away. "Of course not. And I thought it was a head cold."

For once, Barok was grateful for Sholmes's antics. The detective managed to keep Asogi distracted until Iris and the housekeeper appeared again. Iris had her basket hooked under her arm, and Mrs. Cooke had the coats slung over hers.

Barok gripped the newel post tightly and heaved himself back to his feet. He lingered with his hand hooked around the post to ensure he kept his balance, then carefully bent over to pick up the stack of books and hand them back to Iris. Sholmes shrugged on his coat, and Asogi held his away from his body, grimacing. It must still be damp.

"These look interesting," Iris said as she hefted the books. "Thank you again for letting me borrow them. I read fast, so I expect I'll be back soon to return them."

Barok looked away. "I suppose that would not be so bad, as long as you are able to find another that catches your interest."

"Of course! Take care! We'll see you again soon."

Mrs. Cooke opened the door for them, but Sholmes turned back to raise his eyebrows at Asogi, who still lingered inside.

"Are you coming back with us?"

"Ah… Go on without me," Asogi said. "I'll accompany you another time, but I still have work to do today."

Sholmes shrugged, and then he and his ward were gone.

"You should invite them back sometime," Mrs. Cooke said as she closed the door behind them and slipped past Barok to disappear back to her work in the depths of the manor. "I think it would be good for you."

Barok hummed tonelessly and looked at Asogi. "Shall I call you a carriage back to the Prosecutor's Office?"

"I…had actually thought that I might stay a little longer, if that's acceptable."

"Why?"

"I thought that perhaps you would prefer to continue working. Lord Ashbourne might have sent you home from the office, but he can't stop you from working here. We only have a few days left until Hanscombe goes to trial."

Barok stared at him. He was not sure what Asogi's angle was, but it would be foolish to look a gift horse in the mouth. Exhaustion aside, it would be better to focus on a case than wallow in his own thoughts.

"If you wish," he said, turning on his heel. "This way."

He did not bother trying to keep up his normal brisk pace this time, but let his boots drag lopsidedly down the hall. Asogi had already seen him in a far worse state. He ushered his apprentice into his study and motioned for him to drag up a chair to the other side of the desk while he collapsed into his own high-backed chair and closed his eyes.

"And what did you want to discuss?" he asked.

"I wondered if you might have some insight on what order to call the witnesses."

"Hm… Why don't you lay out your strategy for me first, and then we can discuss if there might be better options."

Asogi sighed, but Barok wasn't about to let him off so easily. Barok had already done much of the legwork before handing the case over and would make sure they went into the trial with the best strategy possible, but he would let Asogi take the first stab at the presentation before offering his own thoughts.

Asogi rattled through the line of argument Barok had already crafted this morning, and then began puzzling out the plan for the examination of witnesses and presentation of evidence more slowly, drawing together the pieces as he went. Barok listened in silence, only cracking one eye open when Asogi paused to ask if he was falling asleep.

When his apprentice had trailed off awkwardly to bring his preliminary plan of attack to a close, Barok began slowly, carefully poking at any soft spots and asking pointed questions to nudge him in the right direction. Thankfully, Asogi was a clever man and picked up on things quickly, but it was still a lengthy back-and-forth. If he'd spent more time going over the case instead of investigating the unfortunate shooting incident, he might have come up with a more polished plan without relying so much on outside guidance.

"Your strategy is solid," Barok said finally, when he was satisfied. "Good work. We can reexamine the files tomorrow to make sure we didn't miss anything, but this is good for now."

"I do feel better about it." Asogi paused and then added, "I feel like I came up with everything on my own with only a little guidance, but the more I think about it, the more it seems obvious that you came up with it first and prodded me into getting there myself."

"My apologies," Barok said, propping one elbow on the desk and slumping over to press his fingertips to his forehead. "My influence might have been more subtle if I was thinking more clearly."

"It's unfair that you function so well when you are apparently not thinking clearly."

"I've had a good deal of practice." Barok glanced at the clock and grimaced when he saw that it was already half past four. "We've been at this for a while. You should probably go."

"Oh." Asogi did not seem pleased by the dismissal, even though Barok thought he should be glad of the opportunity to escape back to his own devices. "May I ask you something?"

Barok sighed wearily. "I'm not sure I could stop you."

Asogi's hesitation made it clear that it was not going to be a question he liked.

"What were you going to say earlier? Something about being your brother's age, and then you went a most ghastly shade of gray."

"Nothing relevant."

"Oh, I think it is. Anything that can provoke such a reaction from you seems concerning."

"You really want to talk about my brother?" Barok asked wryly, knowing very well that Asogi hated hearing anything about Klint. It always showed on his face.

Sure enough, he grimaced. "No, but I want to know what's going through your head, especially if it might be related to your unfortunate suicidal proclivities."

Barok did not want to share those particular thoughts. But there was a stubborn set to Asogi's jaw now, and he had already ferreted out every other bit of the truth.

Barok sighed and leaned back in his chair. "It only occurred to me that I am the same age Klint was when he…died. It does not feel right that I should be older than him. I have measured myself against him every step of the way, but now… I do not know what to do without him, or even without the Reaper. It is easier to follow in someone else's footsteps or keep up the same charade one already has for a decade. Perhaps I have very pointedly avoided thinking about it, but with my birthday and the fiasco in the press, I suppose it would make sense that I had to have at least considered it."

"Your birthday?" Asogi repeated, picking up on the least relevant piece of the entire admission. "When was your birthday?"

"A few weeks ago."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"…Why would I?"

"So we could celebrate, obviously. Iris would have loved to make you a cake."

"I was not celebrating."

"Then what were you doing?"

Barok shot his apprentice a look of exasperated disbelief. "Working, obviously."

"…Obviously," Asogi repeated with a sigh, massaging his forehead. "Your brother's already been dead for ages, and now the Reaper is too, more or less. Maybe it's time to move on. Perhaps you'd be happier without ghosts and rumors hanging over you."

"Maybe," Barok said, unsatisfied. "But at least I served a purpose then. I never meant to surpass Klint, but I can't keep following after him now either. And I've been the Reaper for so long that I hardly remember who I was before stepping into the role, even if I wanted to go back."

"Then don't go back. Just go forward. You were quite sweet with Iris today, and you can be kind in your own way, even if you pretend you aren't. If you just stopped–" Asogi broke off abruptly and drew in a sharp breath. "You're saying that's what you were thinking about when you were going through his things?"

"I'm sure I don't remember. It's only a suspicion."

"You don't… Your brother has been dead for a decade, but you are still alive, Lord van Zieks. You are not his shadow, you are not Lord Stronghart's puppet, and you are not the Reaper. You do not have to serve a purpose at all, but you already do a great deal of good work through your prosecuting, even without the Reaper's influence. You are your own person."

Barok felt his lips stretch into a brittle, broken approximation of a smile. "My apologies. It's pathetic to throw oneself into the grave after the dead, and even more so to let oneself be consumed by the legacies of dead men and murderers until there is nothing left. But you did ask."

Asogi closed his eyes. "Yes, perhaps. You are stronger than that, despite this lapse. You've been…different, lately. But I never doubted that. You've always stood strong in your convictions, and you are more than capable of making your own way without your brother or the Reaper guiding you. You've got Iris, a purpose helping Lord Ashbourne clean up the judiciary, your prosecuting, and even…"

He trailed off, and Barok let out a breath.

"Your apprenticeship," he finished. "Ironic, isn't it, how Lord Stronghart gave me all of those things?"

"What do you mean?"

"I would not have found out about Iris if you didn't push so hard to uncover the truth and he didn't take over the judging and try so hard to keep it all hidden. We would not be rooting out the corruption from the judiciary if he hadn't grown it there and been deposed. And you would not be my apprentice if he hadn't given you to me as a cruel joke."

Asogi considered that for a moment and then raised his eyebrows. "Do you think he knew who I was?"

"Oh, yes. I think so. He would have known your name from the assassin exchange, and even though you arrived unexpectedly, you were the right nationality and had an extensive knowledge of law. At the very least, he had a suspicion. Otherwise he would not have been so insistent on hiding your identity and passing you off on me when I had no interest in taking a student."

"Hm. I assumed he was just trying to hide my nationality. Maybe because of your prejudice, or because he didn't want to deal with an international incident."

Barok sniffed at the absurdity of that. "Don't be ridiculous. I knew you were Nipponese from the beginning." He paused and then corrected himself. "Japanese. It was quite obvious. No, he wanted you to wear a mask because you look like your father, and I knew what he looked like. And your Japanese friends would have given it away the second they saw you. I expect he found it amusing in the way I'm sure he found it amusing to paint me as the Reaper in a very obvious parallel to Klint's crimes. I'm sure the joke was at your expense as well."

"That's…honestly very twisted." Asogi hesitated, frowning, and then added, "I didn't realize you knew so early. You were never warm, but you didn't treat me with the same disdain you did Ryunosuke."

"You didn't have any memories, did you? It's not very sporting to kick a man while he's down, Nip– Japanese or not."

Asogi regarded Barok for a moment and then laughed. "You can be a colossal thorn in my side and wildly discourteous to boot, but you're not so bad. At least you're trying."

Barok frowned at him, not at all sure what to make of that. "In any case, I think I've indulged you enough for today. It's time you were on your way."

The humor fled from Asogi's face at once, and he bit his lip. "If…? If I leave, will you be alright?"

Barok sighed and closed his eyes, but he dutifully considered the question. "Yes," he said. "I will be fine for tonight."

It was the best he could offer, or at least the most honest assessment. He still felt some lingering warmth from Iris's visit, and he was too exhausted to contemplate much besides going to bed. Things might take a turn for the worse once he was alone and left to his own devices again, but the gun was gone, he was still wary of the wine, and he did not think he would make any drastic moves while still so shaken from the last one. Tomorrow might be another story, or a week or month or year from now, but tonight would be alright.

Asogi still hesitated.

"I am not your responsibility," Barok said, heaving himself to his feet. "It is not your job to look after me."

Asogi scowled as he stood. "Of course not. I'm not concerned because I have to be. I'm concerned because I… Because I care."

Barok cast a vaguely baffled look his way and then crossed the room to hold the door open. He still did not understand why Asogi should care at all. Even aside from Genshin's ghost hanging over them, Barok had never been kind to him. Had, in fact, kept him at arm's length and been quite rude and dismissive, as he was to most people these days. Even if Asogi might no longer revel in his downfall, there seemed to be no reason he shouldn't be at least indifferent to it.

Asogi grumbled under his breath, slinging his coat over his shoulders as he followed Barok out of the room and back to the foyer.

"While you were amusing Iris in the library, Mr. Sholmes invited us to dinner at Baker Street tomorrow," he said. "Will you come with me?"

"I wasn't invited."

"Of course you were. You were just busy when the invitation was issued. You should come. It would make Iris happy, and I think it would be good for you."

Barok hesitated before saying, "Well, I suppose so."

Asogi smirked. "Perfect. Although you might want to be careful, if you're still pretending to be the Reaper. Lord Ashbourne is already under the impression that you're fond of me, so I can only imagine what anyone would think should they see you with Iris."

Barok tilted his head, considering, and then decided, against his better judgment, to impart one more truth today. "I am," he said. "More than I'm fond of anyone else in the judiciary, at least, for all that's worth. You're just so frequently exasperating that I forget it sometimes."

Asogi stiffened up straight, eyes going wide and mouth parting in a slight 'o'. He hadn't looked so shocked since he'd come to the realization that Barok had been the culprit in his own assault.

The truth was that although Asogi was beyond frustrating, Barok did find some small solace in having him around. He had not been able to fully appreciate that lately, selfishly preoccupied with his own problems and immersing himself in his work to avoid both himself and everyone else. He had originally felt compelled to take Asogi on and indulge him as a penance of sorts for what he'd done to his father, but they had reached an unspoken understanding of their own somewhere along the way. And while Barok was not looking for a friend, he had to admit that having a colleague he could more or less rely on was…nice. The only thing he could really offer in recompense was to guide Asogi into becoming a star prosecutor. If that meant being hard on him, then so be it. He did not require Asogi to be fond of him in return.

Asogi stepped forward abruptly, reaching out to grip Barok's hand tightly. A startled sound caught in the back of Barok's throat, and he leaned away.

"Forgive me for being overfamiliar," Asogi said, his eyes burning. "You said that you didn't want to surpass your brother, but you already have. He cracked under the pressure and gave in to his baser instincts. You never did. You faced all the same pressures he did as a prosecutor and shouldered the burden of the Reaper's mantle, and you never gave in. I know how much you admired him, but you have always been the better man.

"You do not need him, and you do not need the Reaper. You want to know where to go from here? Stay at the bench. Keep prosecuting your cases and showing your face in the courtroom. Go to tea with Iris and invite her back here. Get to know her. She's the only family you've got left. Own when you're kind instead of trying to pretend you aren't. Learn how to laugh and smile again. Today was the first time I heard you laugh, and even if it was only because you're out of sorts, it was… You should do it more. You don't have to be invincible or frightening. You don't have to scare people away. I'm not saying it will be easy, but you can make your own path. It's a start, at least. I…would be very sad if you died, and more so if it was by your own hand, and I wouldn't be the only one."

Barok shifted uncomfortably, thrown thoroughly off balance by Asogi's sudden fervent intensity. He blinked back uncertainly while Asogi searched his face, apparently looking for some sign of acceptance.

Then he slowly extracted his hand from his apprentice's grasp. When Asogi sighed, Barok dropped a hand awkwardly on his slumped shoulder instead. In a moment of déjà vu, he remembered the way Klint had always done this for him, when he was proud or offering support. He wasn't sure that was a good thing, but if there was anything he could still learn from Klint, perhaps it was how to be a mentor.

"I'll try," he said, and Asogi perked up a little again. "Now, go on. I'm exhausted enough that all I intend to do is sleep, so there's no need to fuss. I will meet you at the office tomorrow." He let his hand drop away and added, more hesitantly, "Thank you."

Asogi smiled wryly. "Thank you too. I expect I'll see you bright and early, then."

He turned and started off down the walk, raising one hand in farewell without looking back. Barok watched him go, brows drawn together, trying to puzzle out the mystery of his apprentice. He didn't think he'd ever understand Asogi anymore.

The most perplexing thing was that Asogi did genuinely seem to care, and even look at Barok with something approaching respect, at least when he wasn't only angry or frustrated. Barok was not sure he had done anything to earn that yet, any more than he had earned Iris's high regard. But he supposed that if he was to muddle through finding a new path forward, perhaps he could do his best to become the kind of man who deserved it. It seemed as worthy a goal as any. Something to get him out of bed in the morning and draw him from his well of self-pity. And maybe, just maybe, someday it would be enough.