.

Chapter 3

(In which Kazuma learns that not all strange things are bad, and he and van Zieks seek neither vengeance nor absolution.)

When van Zieks handed back a report miraculously free of copious notes and crossed-out passages littering the front page, Kazuma could hardly believe it.

"Goodness," he said. "Where are all the corrections?"

"It's a good report," van Zieks said.

Kazuma turned the page and saw notes scrawled across the next one. "Ah, there they are."

"I said good, not perfect."

Kazuma sighed, but he couldn't summon up the same ire he used to. Perhaps he had grown used to van Zieks's brusque way of tearing his work apart, or maybe he had just finally accepted that the process had improved his work immeasurably, no matter how frustrating it might be. Besides, van Zieks had said the report was good, and that was high praise from him.

Kazuma skimmed over a few of the notes and then paused as one of a different nature stood out to him. "Are you…correcting my grammar now? You didn't find enough to nitpick in my argument, so you've moved on to critiquing spelling?"

The pen in van Zieks's hand stilled. He looked up at Kazuma with murky eyes, jaw set like he was expecting a fight. "Something along those lines. Your grasp of the English language is impressive, but the structure of our languages is very different. Some things do not translate over as well as others. You have a few recurring errors that appear in your writing, specifically."

Kazuma raised his eyebrows and tried to tamp down his rising irritation. While his first reaction was defensiveness, there was usually a point to van Zieks's lessons. He might as well hear what it was before deciding if it deserved his censure.

"Considering it's my second language, I thought I was rather good at it."

"You are. You could pass as a native speaker, for the most part. But sometimes you will come across uncommon words you would not have learned in your studies, and there are certain incorrect grammatical patterns foreign speakers are wont to fall into."

"Sounds like more excuses for nitpicking to me. So, how is it meant to make me into a better attorney?"

Van Zieks hesitated, brows drawn together in consideration, and then steepled his hands on the desk in front of him. "It is meant to make others see that you are a better attorney," he said finally. "As you are undoubtedly aware, there are many people who do not…look favorably upon foreigners."

Kazuma's eyebrows jumped up his forehead with such alacrity that he was surprised they didn't fly right off. "Is that so, My Lord?" he asked pointedly.

Van Zieks pursed his lips and looked away. "Many people hold the view that persons from some foreign nations are…uneducated, backward, uncivilized. They will judge you by it and look for anything to confirm their biases. You can be the most eloquent speaker in the room, but as soon as you make the smallest mistake, someone may seize upon it as proof that you are a fraud or ignorant. It is not fair, but you will have to work twice as hard and be twice as careful to earn the same respect as any second-rate English prosecutor for the time you remain in London. You must always put forth the most polished work you can to give no one the chance to find fault with it."

"I don't think that polishing my grammar would be enough to defeat your prejudice."

"No." Van Zieks's fingers slid through each other, tightening into a shared fist on the desk. "But then, my grievance was never with those things. Most people's prejudice is less…personal. It is shallower, more surface level. You do not look like them or act like them or talk like them, and even when you do, they see an imposter dressing up like them. No matter what you do, sometimes it will not be enough to change people's minds. Polishing your grammar will not have an appreciable effect there either. But you want to give no one an obvious opening to point and say 'I knew it'. You cannot change the way that people think, but you can put on your best show so that at least some of them may stand corrected and be forced to admit your skill.

"There are certain grammatical errors that appear frequently when someone learns English as a second language. These are the ones I have marked, because they will immediately highlight your foreignness in a way that a simple misspelling will not. Pray forgive my discourtesy if I have offended you, however… I do believe this is something worth taking note of. You are skilled and talented and eminently competent, and it would be a shame if people were distracted from realizing that because of something so simple and easily fixable."

Kazuma stared at him. This was certainly not a lesson he would have expected to learn from van Zieks, of all people. He wondered how difficult a lesson it had been to deliver. Van Zieks had spoken slowly, choosing every word with care, and Kazuma wondered if it was because he was wary of setting his apprentice flying into a rage or because it was difficult to work around his own prejudices to speak of others' and how to handle them.

Kazuma was surprised van Zieks had bothered at all, and… He found it interesting how van Zieks acknowledged the irrationality and unfairness of other people's racism when it seemed like a sentiment he ought to share. The man had obviously been making an effort to keep his own prejudices from bleeding out and affecting their partnership over these past weeks, but Kazuma was sure they were still there. It was not so easy to erase a decade of resentment overnight. But maybe… Maybe van Zieks was trying.

Kazuma dropped the report onto the desk and went to fetch the spare chair. Van Zieks glanced back up at him warily when he dragged it over and settled himself in it.

"What would I have to do, then?" Kazuma asked softly, genuinely, without any heat. "To defeat your prejudice?"

Van Zieks's mouth twitched towards a grimace before flattening back into a straight line. "Nothing," he said. "There is no hoop you need to jump through, no action you need to take. My…feelings on the matter have very little to do with you at all. They are something that I will need to overcome myself."

Kazuma regarded him curiously and felt something inside him soften, just a little. It was a start.

"Walk me through this grammar nonsense," he said, tapping a finger against one of the corrections. "It doesn't make any sense to me."

When Kazuma walked into the office to find it empty and still dark, he decided to take advantage of his good fortune. He very rarely beat van Zieks here in the morning, and he wasn't particularly early today. If anything, van Zieks was later than usual. Strange, since he usually worked longer hours when they had a case.

Kazuma could work on their case, but since the day hadn't technically started yet and van Zieks wasn't here, he decided to devote a few minutes to a more pressing problem.

He owed Ryunosuke and Susato a letter. And given how long it would take to ship it across the ocean, he had better get started. He had been putting it off for a long time already. Every time he put his pen to the page, it hovered there uselessly, dripping blots of ink across the paper. He just…had no idea what to say.

They had left so much unsettled and unspoken between them, and so much had changed from the time when things had been simpler, back home in Japan. He didn't know where to start.

"Are you writing to Mr. Naruhodo?"

Kazuma nearly jumped out of his skin and looked up to see van Zieks standing beside him. The man was tall at the best of times, but he positively towered over Kazuma while he was sitting seiza-style at his low desk.

"Don't scare me like that!" Kazuma said. And then, "How did you know?"

Van Zieks raised his eyebrows. "Pray forgive the discourtesy of walking into my own office. I assumed you heard my arrival and were simply ignoring me again in a fit of pique. And it was a guess based on the fact that those kanji would not be suitable for writing case reports and I do not know enough about your personal life to have any idea who else you might write to."

Kazuma looked back down at his letter, if it could be called that. All he had managed to do in the past ten minutes was write Ryunosuke's and Susato's names at the top. He was surprised van Zieks had bothered to ask at all. They did not generally inquire about each other's personal affairs.

"Oh," he said. "In a manner of speaking. I've been trying for weeks, but this is as far as I've gotten."

"Why?"

Kazuma scowled. "I don't see how that's any of your business."

"It's not, aside from the fact that you're doing it during business hours when you should be working on your assigned tasks." Van Zieks paused, lips pressed into a tight line as he considered his next words, and then said, "I am going to offer you an unsolicited and undoubtedly unappreciated piece of advice: the longer you leave things like correspondence, the harder it is to do them later. If you can't think of what to say or you aren't ready to discuss any…lingering issues, then start with something small and impersonal. Just to keep the lines of communication open until you're ready for more. Tell him that I am driving you mad at the office, that your studies are going well, that you hate the weather. And then when you are ready to tell him something important, something real, you can add that in. It's harder to reopen communication if you've let it languish for too long, so don't neglect it."

He let out a breath, gaze flicking to the massive portrait of his brother that still dominated the far wall. "And you never know how much time you have left with the people you care for. Don't take it for granted, or all you'll be left with are regrets."

This was not a lesson related in any way to Kazuma's apprenticeship, not even tangentially. It had nothing to do with the law or taking care of himself in the streets or trying to maintain a respectable image. It was personal, human, and entirely at odds with their unspoken truce to keep out of each other's personal lives.

The advice was unsolicited and not entirely appreciated, but van Zieks did seem to mean well enough by it, and it was…almost kind of him to care enough to offer it.

"I didn't realize you were so well versed in the art of correspondence," Kazuma said. "Write a lot of letters, do you?"

"No. Not personal ones. I let all my correspondence die out ages ago, when I had…bigger things to worry about, and then later it seemed insurmountable to start again after so long."

"Have you been writing to Professor Harebrayne?"

Van Zieks sighed. "I owe him a letter. At this rate, he'll think I've dropped off the face of the earth again."

Kazuma put down his pen and leaned back, looking up at his mentor with new interest. "You don't know what to say to him?"

Van Zieks was starting to look very sorry that he had opened up this particular line of communication. He cast another look at the portrait, and Kazuma thought that he understood.

Van Zieks's life had recently been turned upside down as much as Kazuma's had, the kind of upheaval that made it difficult to make room for anything else. Kazuma doubted van Zieks would want to talk about it, even—or especially—with someone who may have known his brother once, but what else would he speak of when it loomed so large in his mind?

"I managed not to have a proper conversation with Ryunosuke and Susato before they left, about the secrets I kept and things I did and the time we were apart," Kazuma said. "But it just seems worse to talk about it across an ocean, and I'm not sure how to move on to other things until we've figured this out. I know I need to say something, but I'm not sure what that is."

Van Zieks looked down at him. "Start with something small."

Kazuma noticed, suddenly, that van Zieks did not look well. He seemed somehow paler than usual, the lines of his face drawn taut, dark smudges smeared beneath his eyes. And he had been late.

"Did something happen?" Kazuma asked. "You're late."

Van Zieks shook his head slowly. "No," he said, voice heavy and eyes dull with exhaustion. "Nothing happened. Now, if you aren't making progress with your letter, perhaps we might move on to today's work? Personal correspondence is best written on personal time."

Whether or not something had happened that morning, something had certainly put van Zieks in a mood. He went dead silent through the rest of the morning, the kind of heavy silence that settled over the room and made the air feel thick and smothering. Kazuma made overtures once or twice, asking a tentative question about some task just to chase that dull emptiness out of his mentor's eyes and force him to focus, but van Zieks's answers grew increasingly waspish until he finally sent his apprentice out with a list of errands to run at the Yard and coroner's office. Whether Kazuma was technically allowed to do some of those things without supervision was debatable, but he wasn't going to give van Zieks the opportunity to bite his head off by asking. Whatever uncommon goodwill van Zieks had been feeling that morning quickly eroded over the course of the day.

Kazuma was glad of the opportunity to escape the office. He could get some fresh air and let van Zieks sulk in solitude. He had no idea what was wrong with the man now, but van Zieks seemed somehow distant and obviously wanted to be left alone.

Kazuma went about his tasks leisurely, stretching them out across the rest of the day and taking a long lunch for good measure. In fact, he dallied for so long that he lost track of time and had to rush to complete the last of them, which of course took far longer than he had anticipated. By the time he was hurrying back to the office to drop off the armful of reports and statements he'd gathered, it was already well past the time he would have normally left.

He was cursing his foolishness as he fumbled with the handle and pushed the door open, but stopped short in the doorway. Van Zieks stood in the far corner of the room by the roosting bats, examining a small bat cupped in his palm. He looked up at the sound of the door, blinking at Kazuma in faint surprise.

"Ah… I thought you were already gone for the day."

"I had to come back to drop everything off." Kazuma deposited the stack of papers on van Zieks's desk and crossed the room to get a closer look at whatever was going on here. "What are you doing?"

"Oh." Van Zieks looked back down at the small creature in his hand. He carefully pinched the membrane of one wing between his fingers and fanned it open. The bat fluttered its wing weakly but submitted. "She hasn't been flying well for a few days. I thought her wing might be injured. But truthfully, I am beginning to think that there is nothing wrong at all and she is only enjoying the extra attention."

Kazuma looked at the creature in disbelief and then at his mentor. "Sorry, you think the bat is faking an injury for attention?"

"Hm. I wonder. I prefer to leave them to their own devices because they are wild creatures with no need to be tamed, but a few of them have a bit more curiosity and are prone to seeking attention. She seemed fine last evening, but now it's back to this again. I can't find anything wrong."

"And… You're planning to do surgery on a bat if it's hurt?"

"Hardly. With any luck, it would heal on its own, although she may need help feeding until she can hunt properly again. If I knew where the problem was, I could try to splint it, but… There's a good chance she would tear it back off, and I would probably get bitten in the process. They can be ferocious little creatures when they want to be."

Kazuma eyed the ferocious creature in question warily. "Why keep them around, then? How did they even get in here in the first place?"

"I like them," van Zieks said simply. "They moved into a different part of the building months ago and there was talk of removing or exterminating them, so I lured them in here instead. I intended to relocate them when I found a more appropriate place, but I suppose I grew used to their company. And they eat any bugs that get into the office, which is fair rent."

Kazuma stared at him. For one, he couldn't believe that van Zieks would admit to liking anything, besides perhaps wine. And it boggled the mind to think of him embarking on charity rescue missions, even for bats.

The bat crawled across van Zieks's hand, the clawed fingers at the ends of its wings clinging to his glove. Kazuma watched in slightly horrified fascination. He had never much liked the bats. They seemed like spooky, plague-ridden little vermin, prone to startling him by taking to the air if he made too much noise or got too close. And they moved strangely, when not in the air. The way the bat crawled up van Zieks's fingers, leathery wings dragging its body along, looked like no animal Kazuma had ever seen.

Kazuma might have said so, but when he glanced up again, he noticed that van Zieks's eyes were soft, his expression relaxed. He was not smiling, of course, but he looked almost…fond as he watched the little beast. It was disconcerting.

"Are you sure that you don't only like them because you look rather like a bat yourself when you wrap yourself up in your cloak?" Kazuma asked.

Van Zieks looked at him, brows drawn together. "Excuse me?"

He looked so put out that Kazuma had to laugh, loud and genuine. "You can't tell me you haven't noticed. They're strange creatures."

"Are you calling me strange?"

"I've called you worse."

"Fair enough."

"At least they seem to have put you in a better mood…"

"Ah." Van Zieks looked back down at the bat. "I've been nursing a headache today, and it's made me irritable."

It was not quite an apology, and Kazuma wasn't even sure it was an entirely truthful explanation, but it was something.

"Hopefully, you and your friend there will feel better soon, I suppose."

Van Zieks cast him a sidelong look, eyebrows lifting minutely. "You can hold her if you want. Just be careful. She's delicate."

Kazuma wondered what part of that had translated to him wanting to interact with the critter. "I really don't think–"

"Not all strange things are bad. You do not need to be friendly with them, but you do share the office with them. You might find yourself more comfortable around them if you understand them better."

Van Zieks held out his hand and waited. Kazuma looked at him and then at the bat. He sighed and offered his hand. Van Zieks tipped his hand against Kazuma's, just barely brushing his fingers, and prodded the bat gently until it crawled across.

"If you do handle them, always do so with gloves," van Zieks cautioned. "You don't want to catch some disease. And be gentle… They can bite."

Kazuma was not sure he liked the sound of that. The bat was so small that it barely weighed anything. It huddled in his palm, perfectly still but for the quivering of its nose. The leathery wings were unsightly, but… Kazuma supposed it had a cute face, at least. He wouldn't go as far as to say that he liked it, but at least it was a little less horrifying up close.

"I still don't see the appeal," he said, stubborn.

"You don't have to. It's my office, so they stay if I say they do. Your feelings on the matter are irrelevant. Still… You might find the environment improved if you can share the space with them more harmoniously."

Kazuma scowled at the heavy-handed assertion of authority, but he let it go this once. Van Zieks's tone was still surprisingly mellow despite the harsh words, which was a distinct improvement from earlier.

Kazuma poked at the bat's furry body with one finger, and it finally stirred, reaching out with its wing to hook its claws around the intruding appendage. Kazuma wrinkled his nose but let it be. He still couldn't get over the unnaturalness of its movements, but the way it wrapped around his finger like a tiny hug felt more familiar. Its eyes were black and glossy and round, liquid and shimmering in the light. Without the wings, it could look a little sweeter, a bit like a mouse. He bet Iris would love them. She always adored small animals.

Then he straightened up with a start, jolted suddenly back to his senses. He had entirely forgotten that he was supposed to be eating dinner with Iris and Sholmes tonight. They invited him over frequently, and he made a point of going at least once every week or two. His attitude towards Sholmes was still lukewarm and improving slowly, but he quite enjoyed Iris's company and had few other acquaintances in London to socialize with anyway.

"Oh no!" he said. "I'm going to be late! I forgot that I had plans tonight."

"Well, don't let me keep you." Van Zieks reached out to pluck the bat from Kazuma's hand, carefully unhooking its claws from his glove. "Goodnight."

In a moment of lunacy, Kazuma considered inviting van Zieks to join him. The man could certainly use some more socializing, and Iris had been complaining for weeks that he had been politely declining her invitations and still had not presented himself for tea. Something had certainly put him in low spirits this morning, and Iris could cheer anyone up.

But again, this was van Zieks they were talking about. He and Kazuma were not friends, and they did not issue invitations outside of work hours. Besides, van Zieks would definitely make everything awkward, especially if his earlier bad mood reasserted itself. It was a silly thought.

"Goodnight," Kazuma said.

He cast one last look over his shoulder as he went, to catch van Zieks running his thumb down the bat's back, and then hurried out of the office at a quick trot. As he ducked out into the street and rounded the side of the building, he was just in time to see a dozen small, dark shapes escaping through the window to wing across the evening sky. He wondered if the supposedly injured bat was among them or if van Zieks was still holding on to it, puzzling over whether something was wrong and if he needed to figure out how to help it feed.

Shaking his head, he rushed down the street and hopped on the first omnibus he found. His fingers tapped an impatient rhythm against his leg as he willed the contraption to go faster. When it finally trundled to a stop on Baker Street, he disembarked hastily and hurried to rap on the door of Sholmes's suite.

It flew open at once to reveal Iris. "You came!" she said, her face lighting up. Then she folded her arms over her chest and pouted outrageously. "I was starting to think you forgot."

"No, of course not. I was merely…detained at the office. Sorry for being late."

"Oh, alright. I accept your apology. Come on in. Hurley got distracted with some project of his while we were waiting, so we'll give him a few minutes to wrap things up. He was in a bit of a mood earlier."

Kazuma had now experienced a variety of Sholmes's moods, and he couldn't say that he cared much for most of them. He sat on the couch with Iris to chat while they waited. Although he was starving after a long day and would rather eat now, it would be rude to make demands when he was a guest—and a late one at that.

He listened to Iris explain the story she was currently writing until Wagahai jumped up on the couch to say hello. The cat sniffed at Kazuma's hand vigorously and then hissed, her fur sticking out every which way as she flattened her ears and arched her back.

"Waggy!" Iris said, aghast. "What's gotten into you?"

Kazuma eyed the cat warily. She was usually friendly enough, if a bit feisty at times. He wasn't sure what to make of her sudden attitude, but then he remembered the way she had sniffed his glove ferociously.

"Maybe she doesn't like the smell of bats," he said.

"Bats?"

"Lord van Zieks thought one of the bats that live in the office might be injured, so we were examining it."

Iris suddenly looked very interested. "Is it okay? Was it very cute up close?"

"I don't see the appeal. Strange little creatures. He thinks it's faking an injury to get attention? I'm not sure I've ever heard of an animal doing that."

"Oh, you'd be surprised. One time Waggy pretended to be stuck and meowed for ages, but when I went to let her out, she hopped right out herself!"

"If you say so… Then I asked Lord van Zieks if he kept the bats around because he looks like a bat all wrapped up in his cloak, and he gave me the most affronted look I've seen in all my life."

Iris laughed. "How funny! Now that you've said something, Mr. Barry does look a bit bat-like sometimes."

Kazuma raised his eyebrows. "Mr. Barry?"

"We can't call him Mr. Reaper anymore now that he's been acquitted, can we? That wouldn't be very nice."

"I'd love to see his face when he hears that one."

Iris pouted at him. "He said he didn't mind."

Kazuma paused and frowned at her. "I didn't realize you'd spoken with him recently."

In fact, he had been under the impression that van Zieks was pointedly avoiding his niece.

Iris beamed. "He finally came to tea over the weekend. It certainly took long enough! He's a bit awkward, but it could just be because he doesn't have any friends. He was very polite, though. Waggy liked him, and he said the tea was good and made some suggestions about that motion-activated device I'm working on for Hurley's red-handed recorders. I had a nice time. I think I shall invite him back again soon. Honestly, Kazu, he wasn't nearly as bad as you said, and he's not quite so scary outside the courtroom."

Kazuma stared at her, scarcely able to process what she was saying. But he thought back to the way van Zieks's eyes had softened while he fussed over the bat, how he'd encouraged Kazuma to write to his friends already, how he'd told Kazuma that the most important lesson he'd teach him was how to survive.

"No," he said softly. "He's not so bad."

Later that evening, after he'd survived dinner despite Sholmes's screeching concert with his newly rediscovered violin, he went back to his apartment and sat down at his desk and pulled out a fresh piece of paper. He wrote Ryunosuke's and Susato's names at the top and stared at them for a while. He still had no idea what to write.

"Start with something small," van Zieks had said.

Kazuma took a deep breath and set to work.

I hope you've been well and your journey home was uneventful. No more great mysteries, I hope. I look forward to hearing how your practice goes once you get everything set up. I'm sure it will be a challenge, but the two of you make such a good team that I expect you'll be wildly successful.

Things are fine here. Lord van Zieks drives me mad at the office and I hate the dreary weather, but my studies are going well. I'm not technically allowed to prosecute my own cases yet since I've been put on probationary practice, but I've been tagging along on Lord van Zieks's cases.

I've also been visiting with Iris and Mr. Sholmes as you suggested. I've been getting along well with Iris. I see why you like her so much. Mr. Sholmes's appeal is more debatable. Last week he made a great deduction about how I was late to dinner because I was chased across half of London by a flock of trained attack pigeons that some disgruntled gentleman set on me when I refused to lend him a pocket watch to tell the time. I think he might be certifiably mad.

Sorry for how late this letter is. I've been meaning to write, but I was having trouble deciding what to say. Actually, Lord van Zieks is the one who told me to stop fiddling around and send you a letter already, so I suppose you have him to thank, believe it or not. He might have just been tired of me slacking off while I was supposed to be working. We've actually been getting on rather well, so there's no need to worry. He's still utterly exasperating, but I've learned more from him in these past weeks than in the rest of my education combined. You'd better watch out, Ryunosuke. You might be surprised next time you face me in the courtroom.

Sorry for the short letter. I promise I'll write more soon. I just wanted to send you something, because I know that I'm very late. Take care. I miss you.

He frowned at his words. They sounded short and unsatisfying, next to nothing of substance. Hardly even worth the bother of mailing. But the other option was to send nothing and keep waiting to see if inspiration would strike. These were not the things he needed to say, but perhaps it was better than saying nothing at all. A start. Something to keep the door wedged open until he'd had the chance to mull things over and decide how to arrange them into words.

The most frustrating thing about van Zieks was that he was very often right, and Kazuma thought he might have a point here too.

He sealed the note in an envelope, resolving to post it tomorrow.

Kazuma woke early the next morning and made a detour to mail his letter. The moment it left his hand, he was assailed by a new wave of doubt, wondering if it was a mistake. But he had surrendered it to the world now, and it was time to let it go. Maybe the way the unfinished message itched at him would encourage him to buckle down and write a proper letter to make up for it.

He made it to the office exactly on time. Van Zieks was already there, standing at the window with his back to the door, looking out over the grounds.

"Good morning," Kazuma said.

"Good morning," van Zieks replied in a distant sort of voice.

Kazuma eyed him suspiciously, wondering what kind of mood he was in today. Another odd one, maybe. Van Zieks had picked up this habit of staring pensively out windows recently—ever since the Reaper trial, perhaps—and it never seemed to bode well. Kazuma had no idea what he might be looking for, but he had a half-baked notion that had been slowly coalescing since van Zieks had mentioned his 'imprisonment' after the suturing lesson and wondered if his mentor was simply looking for a way out, watching the world go by without him from behind a glass prison. A fanciful notion.

But that was not Kazuma's problem, unless it put van Zieks in a bad enough mood to be somehow even more churlish than usual. He turned away, but barely made it two steps before stopping short. A wide, blank expanse of wall stared back at him, glaringly empty.

"The portrait…"

"I finally had it removed," van Zieks said. "I should have done it a long time ago, but I kept finding reasons to put it off."

Kazuma had hated that portrait. Klint's cold-eyed gaze had seemed to follow him around the office, making his skin prickle. He had made biting comments about the wisdom of keeping a shrine to a murderer more than once, back before he and van Zieks had reached an uneasy truce, when their hostility had bubbled closer to the surface. Van Zieks had always ignored the jabs with such pointed indifference that it practically broadcasted how deeply they stung.

But somehow, that blank expanse of wall was hardly any better. There was something so obviously missing. Somehow it seemed even more jarring than the massive portrait, an even more potent reminder of all the things left unsaid and tragedies left largely unacknowledged for the sake of keeping the peace.

Kazuma edged farther into the room, trying to get a look at his mentor's face. "And you're alright with that?"

Van Zieks's expression was blank, his eyes vacant. He still wore the same pinched, tired look as yesterday, but there was no other obvious sign of emotion. His gaze never strayed from the window.

"Yes, of course. I always intended to get around to it eventually."

Kazuma didn't know whether that was true or not. Van Zieks had never seemed inclined to remove it before, even when Kazuma had sneered at it. Kazuma was not sure how difficult it might have been for him to expunge any sign of the brother he had all but worshiped, here in the place of the work they had shared and both devoted their lives to. It seemed logically right to keep the Professor out of a building of justice, but emotionally speaking… Kazuma was not sure it would feel so clear-cut to van Zieks.

"You don't have to," Kazuma said carefully. "If you don't want to. As you always say, it's your office and my feelings don't carry much weight here. I've grown used to it by now, anyway."

Van Zieks's eyes slid to meet Kazuma's in the glass. For a brief moment, he looked genuinely surprised by the concession. Maybe not quite as surprised as Kazuma was that he'd made the offer at all. But in truth, Kazuma was largely used to the ugly old thing by now, and he thought that his dislike of it probably paled in comparison to van Zieks's feelings on the matter.

"How noble of you," van Zieks said without obvious mockery. "While I appreciate your consideration, it is already done, and it would not be appropriate to keep such a thing here now. But on that note, I have something else I should discuss with you, as it may affect you as well."

He paused, gathering his thoughts, and Kazuma frowned. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear about anything that was 'on the same note' as Klint van Zieks and his obnoxious portrait.

"What is it?"

"It's about the exposé. I think it's about time I got around to that as well, and I should like to solicit your opinion on certain details that might affect you."

"Exposé? What exposé?"

Van Zieks shrugged. "Whatever you want to call it. Publishing the truth of the Professor case."

Kazuma had been under the impression that van Zieks had long since dropped that particular idea. He'd advised as much himself when the man had first voiced the intention after his trial, hadn't he? Even when they'd still hated each other, Kazuma had seen that publishing the story and abandoning his post to run off and hide in the countryside was unbefitting of a man once feared as the Reaper of the Bailey. He'd thought the matter closed.

"I thought you'd given up on that."

"Whatever gave you that idea? I said that I would."

"But I–"

"I should have done it sooner, but frankly, I didn't want to. And I was busy with reestablishing the terms of your apprenticeship. But as that matter has long since closed, I suppose now is the time." Van Zieks had turned his gaze back to something on the other side of the glass, and his voice was perfectly cool, clipped, clinical. "My intention is to write up the facts and submit them to the gossip rags. The story will make its way around London quickly. In the interest of full disclosure, the Lord Chief Justice does not approve of this plan because he thinks the judiciary does not need to be rocked by another scandal so soon after Lord Stronghart's fall from grace, but he will back me and won't demand my resignation as long as the public outcry is manageable. I intend to remain at my post and continue supervising your apprenticeship, although I may step back from public-facing duties until the furor dies down. I might petition for permission to have you shadow another prosecutor's trials until such time as I return to the courtroom."

Something about this plan did not sit right with Kazuma. Maybe it was just that he feared his apprenticeship would suffer, or that he didn't trust van Zieks to stick around for it if things got too bad, despite his assurances. Maybe it was just that he didn't want to shadow another prosecutor in court and miss the hands-on teaching during trials and investigations. Or maybe it was something else, something he hadn't quite put a name to yet.

"But… That sounds bad. And I don't see what you'd need my opinion on."

"The matter on which I'd like your opinion is whether or not to name your father."

Kazuma started, straightening up in surprise. "What?"

"As I see it, we have two options: I can provide the full truth or conceal your father's identity. To clear your father's name and acknowledge the great wrong done to him, I can identify him in the story. However… The consequence is that people would quickly make the connection to you, and you would become a figure of public interest. This might not be so bad since your father is not the villain of the tale, but all of your actions may come under scrutiny. Opportunists may uncover more details about what you've been doing since you arrived here, such as the assassin exchange and Reaper trial. There will certainly be fierce speculation about why you remain my apprentice under such circumstances.

"On the other hand… His identity was never made public before. Only the judiciary thought he was the Professor, and they know the truth now already. So perhaps it is not truly clearing his name to publish it. If I say the person executed as the Professor was a Japanese student, people may well make the connection to you eventually, but if I leave out his nationality and only say that someone died in Klint's place, it shouldn't work its way back to you. Unless someone in the judiciary leaks his identity or your connection to the case, which is also a possibility.

"Regardless, I think you are the best one to decide how your father should be presented and how closely you want to be mixed up in this mess, so… You can take some time to think about it if you'd like, but I want to move on this soon."

Kazuma could only shake his head, feeling wrong-footed and thrown for a loop. "I don't want to be involved in this at all."

"Very well. That is what I would have advised. But if you change your mind, let me know."

"What about Iris?"

Van Zieks looked away from the window at last and raised his eyebrows. "What about her?"

"Aren't you worried that she might get caught up in this too? If people start looking more closely at your brother, there's a risk that someone might stumble across something that leads back to her. And if she's involved with you…"

"It's…an unfortunate possibility. However, given how well guarded that secret has been all these years and how little remains to link her to the family, I think the risk is minimal. And she will not be involved with me."

"I heard you had tea with her last weekend."

Van Zieks turned back to the window abruptly, angling away from Kazuma. "I promised that I would," he said flatly. "It seemed wise to do it before publishing the story. Once the gossip begins flying around, I won't dare be seen with her. I fulfilled my promise already. I do not intend to go back."

Kazuma studied van Zieks's profile silhouetted in the light of the window, the tight clench of his jaw and hollow shadows ringing his eyes. He felt uneasy, vaguely sick to his stomach, like his perception of the world had shifted suddenly beneath his feet.

"She will be very sad to hear that," he said. "She said that she had a nice time and was planning to invite you back soon. She was very clear that you were not nearly as bad as I'd said you were, and that you aren't so scary after all outside the courtroom."

A muscle jumped in van Zieks's jaw. At his sides, his fingers flexed towards fists before falling open again, loose and empty.

"She will do just fine without me," he said. There was a rough note to his voice that hadn't been there before.

"But will you?" Kazuma wondered. Van Zieks said nothing. Kazuma stepped up to the window beside him and looked out at the sky too. "Don't," he said softly. "What good would it do, really? It won't clear my father's name. It won't bring me satisfaction. All it would do is hurt people."

He felt van Zieks's gaze slide towards him, burning into the side of his face, but he didn't look.

"It's not meant to clear your father's name," van Zieks said slowly. "Not really. You and Mr. Naruhodo have done that already. It is meant to give you closure and allow me to take responsibility for my own mistakes and those of my family. All these secrets have festered terribly this past decade… Perhaps it's time to air them out."

"I already got what I came here for. I don't need anything else. And your punishment for past mistakes is putting up with my insolence every day for the rest of my apprenticeship. I think that's vengeance enough. Besides, I've grown to like Iris a lot, and she'll be upset if you blow everything up and then refuse to see her again."

"I don't think–"

"Don't you think we've already been hurt enough?" Kazuma asked, facing his mentor. "Let it go, My Lord. We know the truth now, and that's enough for me. There's no need for the entire city to join the fray. You asked for my opinion, and I am giving it to you: don't publish the truth. It's not going to help anyone."

Van Zieks stared at him. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again and looked away.

Kazuma wondered if something had happened yesterday morning, something that both made van Zieks late and finally pushed him into taking action on the portrait and exposé. Or if the man had simply been looking so pinched and careworn because he had been thinking about these issues and preparing himself. Regardless, Kazuma doubted they were unrelated. If just the thought pained van Zieks so much, Kazuma wasn't sure he was ready to see the results of actually going through with it.

A few weeks ago, that wouldn't have mattered to him. He might have even taken a vicious satisfaction in it. But as his rage and resentment began slowly softening and eroding away, it seemed that something new was seeping in through the cracks and filling up the empty spaces. He didn't know exactly what that was yet, but he knew that it mattered.

"There's no hoop for you to jump through," he said when van Zieks didn't respond immediately. "My feelings on the matter are something I'll need to work out on my own."

A brief, startled look flitted across van Zieks's face. "My, you do think highly of yourself, don't you?" he said, and Kazuma was startled to hear a distinct undercurrent of amusement threading through his voice. "To assume I would be seeking your absolution."

Van Zieks was very rarely amused by anything, or at least very rarely showed it if he was. It caught Kazuma off guard.

"All I'm saying–"

"It's not all about you, Mr. Asogi. Maybe halfway. But I am not looking for your forgiveness."

"And I am not looking for revenge. Not more than I've already gotten, at least. So you needn't go seeking it on my behalf. I don't suppose your other reasons are enough to stand on their own, and whatever mess comes of your scheme will be very inconvenient."

"The story might come out regardless, when Lord Stronghart goes to trial. It will depend on how much is made public and how much detail is revealed."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm sure we have enough work already without fussing about things that haven't even happened."

Van Zieks's gaze slid back towards the window, searching out something Kazuma couldn't see, and the world seemed to hold its breath while he considered. Then he looked back at his apprentice and said, "Speaking of work, I've found the file for a very interesting case. I expect a diverting report."

Kazuma groaned, but when he took the files from van Zieks's hand and retreated to his desk, he breathed a sigh of relief.