Lenalee watched from the kitchen as Lavi checked the door. At first, she'd felt foolish about Komui's insistence on Lavi being there if he wasn't. She didn't think of herself as especially timid or fragile. However, being stuck in a cast while a stranger repeatedly knocked on her door terrified her. He might not be a stalker in the sense that he was following her around, but he knew where she lived. If he got impatient and broke in, she was helpless.

Lavi wasn't. There was something in how he stood when he looked through the peephole, something in how he moved when the doorbell rang that frightened her a little. Somehow, somewhere, he'd watched doors before, knowing he would have to deal with whoever was on the other side.

All she knew was that he was from Israel. He showed up three years ago, as the last Holy War was ending, with a heavy accent and a large scarf he wore under his jacket. After a while, he stopped wearing that scarf, switching to something more locally fashionable, and not only did his English improve, he learned French with surprising speed, almost as if he was doing his best to deliberately shed his alienness.

He was obviously talented, but it was clear that he was also rusty, as if he hadn't been dancing for a while. He had, however, been using his body somehow because he was still strong, just stiff, as if whatever he'd been doing required more power than flexibility. He loosened up after a while, but he still retained that power, and it showed in the visible flex of muscle when he curled his fist.

"Who is this guy?" Lavi asked, more out of frustration than because he expected an answer.

"Komui doesn't know, either," Lenalee said.

"I don't like this," Lavi said.

Her heart was racing so fast that she thought if she were Allen, she might pass out. "I don't either."

"It's not someone from..." He hesitated.

"From China?" she said. "No, definitely not."

"Sorry," he said, but the past was generally considered off-limits in the Order. No one ever asked anyone where they were from beyond the name of the country.

"I don't think Komui's slept with anyone from the church," she said, smiling, trying to let Lavi know he was forgiven.

"Not even involuntarily, when he was an altar boy?" Lavi asked.

She swatted at him. "You're horrible! And Komui was never an altar boy anyway."

"I know, I'm sorry!" he said, ducking. "I'm just frustrated. I like knowing who my enemies are, and I have no idea who this guy is."

"I don't really have any enemies," she said, "unless you count the Rouvelliers. Komui doesn't, either. He spent high school mostly in the closet."

"How...?" Lavi began.

She smiled. "You can ask. I mean, you know he's gay. I don't know how they got evidence, but it's possible that he gave it to them himself."

"Why?" Lavi gasped.

"Because of me."

His eyes softened, and he took both of her hands in his. "You don't have to tell me anything. I just want you to know that it wasn't your fault."

"How could you know that?" she asked. "You don't even know what I did."

"I know you were what, about ten?" he said.

"More like seven," she said.

"See? Not much a kid that young can do that's really their fault," Lavi said.

"You'd be surprised," she said.

"I would be very surprised," he said.

She knew that Lavi liked her. He did a terrible job of hiding it, but she couldn't take it seriously. He didn't know her.

Maybe it was time he did. It wasn't like it mattered anymore anyway.

"All right," she said, "then I'll surprise you. I was kind of a spoiled brat. Komui's good, but I was better, and my parents gave me everything they could, getting me the best teachers they could afford, that kind of thing."

"I think that's pretty normal in families that have talented children," Lavi said. "I got a bit of that myself, only I didn't have siblings so I didn't know I was spoiled."

"You being spoiled didn't get anyone killed," she said.

"How does being spoiled get someone killed?" Lavi asked.

"There was a storm, a really bad one, and we lost power. I was scared of the dark. My father gave me a torch to keep by my bed, but it wasn't enough. I wanted a light in the bathroom, because I always had to get up in the night. So he put a candle in there for me. He was careful. He put it in a heavy glass on the counter, so it couldn't catch anything on fire, but we had a cat."

"Oh, no!" Lavi said.

"Yes," she said, closing her eyes and trying to swallow her shame and grief. "Komui got me out. Our parents died of smoke inhalation."

"That wasn't your fault," Lavi said.

"Yes it was!" she said. "I had the torch. All I had to do was turn it on, but for some reason that wasn't good enough. I was afraid, and I made my dad give in to my fears, and he died because of it. They both died because of me."

"Lenalee!" he said, reaching for her. "Come here. Come here. Shhhh!" He pulled her into his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder, stroking her hair. "You didn't make your dad do anything. He thought what he'd done was safe. I've left candles burning in containers, and usually they just burn down. It was bad luck, that's all. "

"But..."

"What did Komui say?"

"That it wasn't my fault." She was amazed her brother was still speaking to her at all.

"Who do you trust more, him or the Rouvelliers?"

"It wasn't just the Rouvelliers," she said. "My grandmother wouldn't take me. She said I was a devil child. It's why Komui's my guardian."

"Who do you trust more," he asked, "the Rouvelliers and your grandmother, or Komui and me?"

"I know who's nicer," she said.

"And you don't really trust nice," he said.

She lifted her head to look at him, astonished, but she'd never thought about it that way. "No."

"Me, neither," he said. "It's a little stupid, don't you think?"

She laughed a little "Yeah."

"I mean, where did we get this idea, that nice means weak and untrustworthy? Where do we get that?"

"I don't know. I just wish I'd been braver."

"I know," he said. "We wish a lot of things, but we can't have them. What's done is done. Just do me a favor, and don't dismiss Komui and me in favor of the Rouvelliers, okay?"

"Okay." She stayed where she was, though, and stayed quiet, but she wasn't quite finished yet. "Have you seen the scars on my wrists?" she asked softly.

"Yes," he said.

Of course he had. "That's what I did when they brought me here. By then, a few years had passed with just me and Komui, and I was happy. I wanted to stay in China with him. I didn't want to come here, and that was my way of getting out." She sighed. "I told you I was spoiled."

"I thought it might be something like that," Lavi said. "I can't even imagine being ten and being brought here by myself."

"They hospitalized me," she said. "Rouvellier used to sit at my bedside."

"Oh, gross!" Lavi said.

"Yeah. I used to try to pretend I was asleep, but he'd talk to me all the time."

"About what?" Lavi asked.

"About how ungrateful I was. He told me that I was selfish and stubborn, a spoiled attention-seeker, and I'd better learn to think of others before someone else got hurt. Then I woke up one day and Komui was there instead. I was so happy to see him, but..."

"Now they have him, too," Lavi finished for her.

"Yes." She sniffed and squeezed her eyes tight shut. "Rouvellier was right about me. Someone else did get hurt, and that's my fault."

"Hey, hey! Don't start that again!" Lavi said. "Komui's a grown man, just like your dad. He can make his own decisions."

"Sometimes grown men make stupid decisions," Lenalee said. "He should have just left me here."

"The stupid decision belongs to Rouvellier. How could he tell you that? How could he sit there and tell you that?"

"He was right," she said, although she found Lavi's thinly controlled anger reassuring. "You know what the worst part is?" she asked.

"What?"

"I can't remember them. I was barely seven when they died, and I can't remember their faces anymore. I just remember...I don't know, impressions. Things they used to say, things we did together. I don't have any pictures or anything, and they're slipping away. It's like I'm killing them twice." Lavi's shoulders were solid and warm, and she clung to them while tears seeped into his shirt.

"You didn't kill them," Lavi said, "and you're not killing them now. You do remember. I know what you mean," he added. "I was older when my parents died, thirteen, and it's their faces that fade first, but I still remember the things they said and did. I always will."

"I'm so sorry," she said. "What...?" Then she stopped, remembering that this wasn't just two friends sharing confidences. She had no right to Lavi's secrets.

"It's okay," he said, disengaging from her and reaching for the box of tissues on the end table so he could give them to her. "And it doesn't matter anymore. After Paris, I'll be gone."

"Lavi!"

"I will. I can't beat Tyki."

"They might not dismiss you right away."

"No, but they will eventually, and when that happens, my grandfather and I will be arrested."

The look on his face made the hair on her arms rise. "Lavi?"

He made himself smile, but she could see the tremor in his hands."At the time, we thought we were fighting for the land," he said. "And there were some who were on our side. But not everyone. A lot of people thought we were doing more harm than good. Even some of our own countrymen were calling us terrorists." He swallowed hard. "That's what I am. I'm a terrorist."