The restaurant was totally still—for a moment, nothing and no one moved. The second Rebecca started to move around the bar to see what was going on, however, a loud laugh boomed from the group of men that Mariela was staring down with wild eyes.

"Same little Mari, huh?" The man, a head taller than the rest of his comrades, moved through them with his hands up, one clutching a wooden tankard. Turning in a slow circle, he addressed the rest of the restaurant loudly, "Don't mind us, folks; go back to your drinks and your food, there's no need to focus on a little old reunion between friends."

"We are not friends," Mariela hissed, the bottle still clutched tightly in her hand and pointed straight at the man's chest. She felt like a wild animal—she was trying desperately to keep her breathing under control, but she could feel her throat closing and her chest starting to heave.

This isn't real, she thought to herself desperately as she stared directly into the smirking face of a man who had haunted her nightmares since the first time she'd had the misfortune of seeing it. This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real—

"And who is this?" Vanessa's voice broke through Mariela's panic and immediately calmed her down—then made her panic twice as badly. Finally dropping the bottle and turning to grab Vanessa and pull her away from the bar, she froze as she saw the entire table of Magic Knights she'd just been sitting with getting to their feet. Her eyes stuck to Mimosa and no matter what she did, she couldn't tear them away. Unlike before, when Mimosa had been immersed in conversation with Klaus, her eyes were now fixed on Mariela. The second they made eye contact, she finally managed to shake herself out of her frozen stupor and rip her eyes away from her cousin.

"Everything's fine!" Mariela forced out in the cheeriest tone she could, plastering a smile that hurt to her face and dropping to her knees to start picking up pieces of the shattered bottle with her hands in a desperate attempt to hide their shaking. "Please, I'm sorry, this is my fault—"

"What's going on?" Mariela closed her eyes and grit her teeth to keep herself from biting through her tongue. Gauche. How could she have possibly forgotten that Gauche was also here somewhere? When she opened her eyes, Noelle had dropped down in front of her and grabbed her hands, the concerned look on her face making Mariela want to sob.

This can't be real, this can't be real, this can't be—

"Magic Knights?" Derik, the leader of the group of bandits and the man still standing over Mariela as she tried not to look back up at him, burst out laughing. "You've found your way to the company of Magic Knights?"

"Who exactly are you talking to?" Asta's voice was the final straw. The second he opened his mouth, all she could think of was Marlin—Asta had always reminded her of her little brother, and it was like he had flipped something in her brain. Yanking her hands away from Noelle, the glass in them making blood drip down her forearms, Mariela didn't even bother to drop the mess into the trash on her way out as she weaved through the crowded restaurant that had finally started to go back to normal and found her way out the door.

x

"Follow her." The man who seemed to be in charge of the bandits had watched Mariela run out of the restaurant, looking profoundly amused, and waited until she was out the door to signal for his men to follow her. It was like he was playing a game of cat and mouse, letting her get a head start before chasing her down. Gauche moved himself in front of the door, Asta quick to follow him with one of his swords already drawn and pointed at the men that had started to move toward the door on their leader's command.

"Who are you people?" He asked. "And what do you want with her?"

Gauche said nothing. He didn't want to talk to any of these men. He was starting to remember something—the look on Mariela's face, that defiant look when she'd told him about the time she'd spent on the road with the bandits. That look like there was something she was daring him to accuse her of, but he hadn't been able to figure it out. Slowly, all the pieces were coming together, and if these were the men she'd been talking about, Gauche was positive he wasn't letting a single one of them leave alive.

The man rolled his eyes and waved a hand dismissively. "Whatever that girl has told you, don't believe her. She's nowhere near as innocent as she seems. And in case you haven't noticed, she was the one to cause a scene here—not me or my men. We were just trying to have a nice reunion with an… old friend." His face darkened for a brief moment before his smile flickered back into place as he held his arms out around himself. "And look? Now that she's gone, everything seems to have gone back to normal. Now, if you'd excuse us, we'd like to finish that reunion we were trying to have." With a stiff kick to the man in front of him that Mariela had knocked out with the bottle who had finally started to moan as he finally came to, the leader of the bandits nodded toward the door. "We'll be leaving, now."

"You're not going anywhere," Klaus, voice carrying across the restaurant, adjusted the glasses on his face. He narrowed his eyes on the man, looking annoyed, his hand on Mimosa's shoulder to keep her seated next to him. She had a hand over his, and was staring out the door after Mariela, her brow furrowed. "You've ruined our dinner and disrupted all these nice citizen's meals. You'll be coming with us."

"Like hell," the bandit burst out laughing. "You've got nothing on us."

"You're planning on chasing down a woman who ran out of here with blood dripping down her hands because of you," Finral snorted, moving to stand next to Vanessa, who had Rouge curling around her shoulders. "That's more than enough reason for us to take all of you obvious bandits in."

"Obvious bandits," the man mimicked, voice pitched annoyingly high. "If you're taking us in, you'll need to take her, too. Why exactly are you all so convinced that she's innocent?"

"Shut the fuck up," Gauche finally snapped. Mirrors appeared all around the man, who just met Gauche's glare with one of his own. "Stop talking about Mariela. Shut your goddamn mouth."

"Mariela?" The bandit rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, and Gauche gnashed his teeth together. The guy wasn't even a little concerned, barely bothering to make eye contact with any of them; instead, his eyes kept landing again and again on the open restaurant door. His men stood behind him, relaxed but alert, waiting for his que. "You talk about her like—"

Gauche blasted him directly in the face with one of his mirrors before he could finish the sentence.

"Derik!"

Asta's sword kept any of the other bandits from running to their leader's side as he groaned on the ground. Gauche would have been impressed if he wasn't annoyed; the man should have been dead. At the very least unconscious. He must have had some kind of automatic magical shield set up. Not that it mattered; Gauche was quickly realizing that this was a waste of his time.

"Gauche," Finral mumbled, making him turn and raise an eyebrow. The spatial mage had moved to his side and was giving him an exasperated look. "I know that you're upset—"

"Shut the fuck up," Gauche snapped, before moving forward, kicking the bandit directly in the face, and all but running out the door to go find Mariela.

x

"What the hell was that?" Yuno asked, his eyes following the Black Bull that had just left the restaurant out the door. Charmy was standing on the chair he'd just stood up from and holding on to the edge of his robe. His hand was on her head.

"Gauche has a bit of a thing for Mariela," Charmy explained with a sigh. She hadn't taken her eyes off the group of bandits, but Asta, Finral, and Vanessa seemed to have it covered. Gordon stood behind the three, ready to jump in and help if he needed to, but his attention had also followed Gauche out the door. "And she really likes him, from what I can tell, so it's probably for the best that he went after her."

"Bit of a temper, huh?" Yuno asked, turning back and looking at the bandit who was still fried and on the ground. His comrade, the one that Mariela had broken the bottle on, was still struggling to stand next to him. "The two of them seem like a good match."

"Mariela is never like this," Charmy mused, tilting her head to the side a bit as she watched them. "I don't know who these people are, but if they can make her act like this, I don't trust them."

"Do you know who that girl was?" Yuno and Charmy both turned to look at Mimosa, who had walked up to them while Klaus called in what had happened with the bandits. She had barely looked at the bandits throughout the entire exchange, from what Yuno could tell; she'd been staring at Mariela the entire time. "The one that ran out of the restaurant?"

"Her name's Mariela," Charmy answered as she finally looked away from the other Black Bulls that were dealing with the bandits and leaned over the table to grab a biscuit from a basket at the center of it. "She worked at the hideout for a second, but she's working with Owen learning healing magic now, I'm pretty sure. She's really sweet, and really talented, too, from what I heard. She'd probably love to see your healing spells, in fact. Was there something that you needed from her, Mimosa?"

Mimosa shook her head, but looked over at the door again, still obviously troubled by something. "Do you know what her last name is?" she asked after a moment.

Charmy thought about it for a second, chewing on her bread slowly as she did. "You know what?" she said finally, "I don't know. I don't think she ever mentioned it."

"And you said that she was only working at the Black Bulls hideout for a little while?" Mimosa asked. "Would you happen to remember when she showed up there?"

"Two months ago, I think? Maybe a little longer?"

Mimosa chewed on her lip for a second, seeming to think, her brow still furrowed in thought. "And she came from the Forsaken Realm?"

"Yeah, actually." Charmy swallowed the rest of the biscuit and reached over the table to grab another one before asking, "Do you know her, Mimosa?"

Mimosa shook her head slowly, frowning. "Thank you," she said quietly. Before she could say anything else, Klaus came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She turned to smile at him, but was still obviously distracted.

"Why don't we all leave?" Klaus suggested. "It's been called in and the Black Bulls obviously have this handled. It would be overkill for us all to stay here, and a waste of the night as well, yes?"

Yuno shrugged, but Charmy nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, let's go find another place to eat!" she suggested with a smile and grabbed onto Yuno's arm. He smiled down at her and picked her up to let her sit on one of his shoulders. "Why don't we take care of the tab here, my Prince?" she suggested, and winked at Mimosa, who immediately blushed and finally looked like she was fully present in the conversation. "You two can pick where we go next. If we need to leave here, I'm sure Finral will help us out so we don't have to spend all night flying."

Yuno stopped himself short of rolling his eyes as he maneuvered over to the bar. Klaus and Mimosa had yet to make anything official—or tell anyone that there was anything between them at all, as a matter of fact—but it was plain as day that there was something going on. Charmy had been loving teasing them about it—Yuno was just hoping this didn't end up becoming a problem with the three of them working together.

"Are you sure Asta and the rest of your squad mates will be okay with you leaving without them?" he asked as they came up to the bar and he finished asking Rebecca for the table's tab. He figured it would be easier to cover the entire thing and just have everyone pay him their share; it wasn't like they'd been there long enough to rack up a huge bill, especially since Rebecca said she was blaming it all on the bandits because Asta had vouched for Mariela. He glanced up at his girlfriend as he waited for Rebecca's new husband to bring over the total bill.

"Oh, that's no problem," Charmy waved it off dismissively, but glanced back at the door before looking back down at her boyfriend. "I'm more concerned about Mariela; she didn't look like she was going to be okay."

Yuno shrugged the shoulder that Charmy wasn't sitting on. "Your other friend seemed to be taking care of that, right?"

Charmy gave a small smile before saying, "Yeah, surprisingly. I think Gauche might be the best person to handle this right now, anyway."

x

It took Gauche a second to catch up to her, but when he did, he didn't know how to even begin approaching her. Mariela had dropped to her knees in the alley next to the church and had ripped off a chunk of the bottom of her dress. With the chunk of fabric between her teeth, she bit down hard as she yanked piece after piece of the shattered glass bottle out of her palms. Blood was everywhere, splattered all over the front of her dress, dripping down her arms, even flecked across her face. Clear paths where the tears had washed away the red stains ran down her cheeks and with every new piece, she whimpered quietly.

Like he was trying to save a wounded cat, Gauche stopped at the mouth of the alley and started walking as slowly as possible toward where she was at the very end of it. "Mariela?" he asked, trying to keep his voice quiet. He didn't want to wake up anyone in the orphanage—especially not his angel sister—and he also didn't want to risk scaring Mariela. She still hadn't even looked up at him; it was like she didn't even know he was there. "Mariela?"

Finally, she raised her head, eyes huge and bloodshot, and let the scrap of her dress fall from her mouth. "I need the glass out," she said quietly. There was an edge of desperation to her voice, but the frantic energy that she'd had in the restaurant seemed to have mostly vanished. "I can't see Marlin with glass all over myself, I could hurt him."

"It's the middle of the night, Mariela," Gauche said slowly. He was halfway down the alley—close enough that he could see the blood she must have gotten in her hair when she had pushed it back with her bloodied hands. "Marlin is sleeping."

Mariela chuckled, that same bitter, dark sound that he'd only heard from her a handful of times, now. "Marlin's always sleeping, silly. Marlin's been sleeping for months." Her voice hitched up and Gauche could see the beginning signs of her starting to hyperventilate as she continued, "I need to make sure he's safe. I need to protect him from—from—"

"They're being taken in right now, Mariela," Gauche interrupted, trying to keep her from panicking any more than she already was. He was almost to her—just a few more steps. "The bandits are gone. You don't have to worry about them."

Instead of calming her, however, Mariela started to shake, huge eyes starting to go glassy with tears. "I know," she choked out. "I know that all the fine Magic Knights are taking care of them right now. Aren't they?"

"Yes," Gauche answered slowly, brow creasing in confusion. "Why don't you sound happy about that?"

Mariela closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Because they're right," she answered once she'd let the breath out. "Derik was right. If they're being taken in, I should be going in, too. I just… I just need to see Marlin, just one more time. And I need to stay with him until those men are gone, until especially Derik is sure to never, ever touch me or my brother—"

"Touch you?" Gauche interrupted. He was finally to her side and dropped down to crouch next to her. "What do you mean, touch you?"

Mariela's jaw clenched and her eyes focused on a point just over Gauche's shoulder as she refused to meet his eyes. "It doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that, as soon as they start any sort of interrogation, I'll be taken in, too. And I don't care about that. As long as Derik and his band of monsters are behind bars and can never see either of us ever again, I'll do anything." She looked at him suddenly, eyes piercing even in the dark alley, and caught Gauche entirely by surprise. "You'll watch after my brother, won't you? I know…" she grit her teeth and took a breath before continuing, "I know you don't really care for him. But I don't have anyone else to ask. Sister Theresa will take care of him, but she's getting old. Please. If you care about me at all, please tell me you'll watch over my brother."

"You're not going anywhere," Gauche answered immediately, feeling his face heat with both irritation and guilt as he deftly sidestepped having to discuss his not caring about Marlin. "I don't know what you think they have on you—"

"I was with them for months, Gauche," Mariela interrupted, her tone and face dead. Just like the first time she'd told him about the bandits, she was staring at him like she was expecting something. The only difference was that this time, it was like she was waiting for the disgust with resignation not defiance. "How do you think I survived with a group of men like that? What kinds of things do you think I did for them? What kinds of things do you think I let them do to me?"

Gauche clenched his jaw and closed his eye before answering carefully, "Why should any of that matter?"

Mariela gave a cold, dead laugh, shaking her head and giving him a look that said she almost pitied him. "What kind of world do you think we live in, Magic Knight? It matters because it matters. It matters because, even though I never hurt anyone, I still ransacked houses with those monsters whenever they tore through a place. It matters because even doing that wasn't enough to make them keep me and Marlin around—it matters because I made them money in ways you couldn't imagine and let them do things to me that you wouldn't want to believe." Her voice finally broke, the tears streaming back down her face again. Her hands were clenched in her lap, squeezed so tightly that blood oozed out of both, soaking her ruined skirts with the crimson stain more and more. "I had to. You don't understand, no one could ever understand. They wouldn't let me feed Marlin. They'd keep him away from me for days, for weeks if I didn't go along with them—they were going to let him die as a game, I had to do whatever they wanted, I didn't have a choice."

"Then that isn't your fault," Gauche said, trying to calm her down but confused all the same. "If you were forced, that isn't you fault."

"Why should that matter?" Mariela snapped, then closed her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. When she had let it out, she said again, more calmly this time, "Why, exactly, should it matter that I was forced, Gauche? What proof do I have that it was forced? They have story after story of how I broke into houses with them and helped carry their loot—even if I didn't get a cut because my 'cut' went to rent for me and Marlin. Every single one of those men has… has…" she closed her mouth and clenched her jaw, that look of fire coming back to her eyes as she met Gauche's eyes again. "Every single one of those men has dragged me out of whatever cot they were letting me sleep on that night so I could warm theirs for the night, instead, and they all have stories about that, too. Stories that you wouldn't believe—stories that would make you sick. Stories that will definitely make whoever interrogates them sick, and stories that will definitely get me treated like a bandit at best and a willing whore at worse. Literally. They also have stories of selling me and my time. All of them. I was with them for months. Months. I didn't get away until we finally got to Hage." Mariela closed her eyes again and finally leaned back against the wall behind her, tilting her head back as her hands relaxed in her blood-soaked lap. "The priest didn't buy me and Marlin. By that time, those animals didn't even bother to chain me—they trusted that I would never go anywhere, especially since Derik wouldn't let me anywhere near Marlin unless I would… unless I would…" Mariela grit her teeth for a moment before saying stiffly, "They didn't think I was going anywhere, and they were mostly correct."

"Mostly?" Gauche prompted after a moment of silence. Mariela let out a shaky breath and, for the first time, a ghost of a smile came to her face.

"Yeah, mostly. I cooked all their food and filled all their glasses every night, too." Opening her eyes and raising a shaking, still dripping hand, Mariela opened her grimoire. The pale green glow that always surrounded it when she first opened it slowly darkened and darkened until it was a deep, crimson red—almost the exact same shade as her ruined skirts. For a moment, a single drop of blood seemed to hang from the palm of her hand and then that, too, started to darken and darken until it was as black as the shadows in the alley around them. Gauche squinted his eye, trying to see if it were some kind of trick of the light—but it wasn't. When the drop of blood finally fell, it was pitch black, and when it hit the ground, it sizzled loudly. "My grimoire saved me again. The only spell I have that isn't healing. I can make my blood toxic. I don't know how it works; Owen has mentioned that he thinks it has something to do with drawing a certain type of raw magic out of the elements that I touch, but he can't be sure. We haven't done any tests; I need to gash my hand and use a fair amount of blood to do it, so he's been avoiding looking into it. I can't say I don't appreciate that."

"So you poisoned them?" Gauche asked, jaw dropping. "How is it they're still alive? What are they, invincible? That big one was even still conscious after a blast from me."

Mariela snorted. "They use charms to keep themselves safe; they all take damage the same way anyone else does for the most part, they just take it a lot slower as the actual charms lose their effectiveness. When I poisoned them, I knew that I wasn't going to kill them. I didn't… I wasn't trying to murder them." Mariela squeezed her eyes shut. "I just needed them to be unconscious long enough for me to take Marlin and get to a safe place. We were so close to the orphanage that Sister Lily was at that I managed to get there while it was still dark; I don't know how long they were out, but when they came through Hage days later, raising hell looking for me, there were Magic Knights in the town. I don't know why, but it was a miracle; they couldn't cause any trouble, so they left. And Marlin and I left on a trader's cart for Sister Theresa the very next day."

She opened her eyes again and tilted her head slowly to look over at Gauche. "I'm sorry that I lied to you."

He blinked. "What?" he asked dumbly. "What are you talking about? When did you lie to me?"

That ghost of a smile was back on her face when Mariela answered, "About how I got away from the bandits. I told you that the priest who ran the orphanage bought us off of them. That was a lie. No one who saw me with those men would have thought I was their prisoner. Not after they'd made it clear they would hurt Marlin if I ever tried to get away."

"None of that is your fault," Gauche said, trying and failing to keep the frustration out of his voice. He stood and glanced at the entrance to the alley. No one was there; apparently, no one had followed him. Which was good; he didn't really want to see anyone else right then. Moving closer to her, he hesitated for just a moment before getting down next to Mariela and putting a tentative arm awkwardly around her shoulders. Instead of leaning into him, though, she immediately started to laugh. "What?" he asked, feeling suddenly defensive. "What's so funny?"

"You don't have to bother to pretend that you like me." Mariela rolled her eyes and looked at him with a smile that lacked all her usual sunny charm. "I appreciate you coming after me, and I know we're friends. But you don't have to go out of your way to comfort me like this, especially not when I'm probably going to get arrested."

"You're not getting arrested," Gauche snapped, then closed his mouth before he could do anything else stupid. More calmly, he repeated, "You are not getting arrested. And I don't have to pretend anything. I do like you."

"Gauche—"

Making the first split second decision that he didn't regret in a long time, Gauche cut Mariela off by reaching up, tilting her face toward his own, and catching her lips in a kiss.