Maria's room, and indeed the approach to Maria's room, was as crowded as implied. There were blankets and pillows on the floor, as if the children planned to sleep there. Even as he watched, some of the children came out of their rooms down the hall holding mattresses over their heads, though they waited for other children with brooms to sweep the floor first before setting the mattresses down. Shio took up half a mattress to herself and her tail, which the other children clutched at as if it was a big pillow, and the older women who had children or siblings among them were holding them, comforting them that, no, Maria-mama wasn't going to die.

Rafael had to wonder how the mothers felt about their children calling someone else mama.

It wasn't just the children, though. The older women were there too, crowding the halls worriedly, whispering to each other in thier own language, which Rafael only knew bare scraps of, and that was being generous. He was used to the badly-veiled envious looks, and by now he knew which ones had been bee so hollowed by the presence of men that he needed to avoid them so they wouldn't be traumatized even more, but it definitely slowed his way toward's Maria's room.

The children also crowded when they saw him, calling him papa, crying as they asked if mama was going to be all right. He smiled reassuringly and did what anyone trust into the role of surrogate father did, which was to comfort them and tell them that of course Maria would be all right, she was Maria, nothing could keep her down for long. He wasn't sure if they really believed him or not– they'd come from the street, and some had very good instincts when it came to smelling someone giving them a load of dung pies and swamp muck– but they nodded and turned to keep the other children calm.

It still seemed to take him half an hour to get to Maria's side though.

Her bed was full of children. Shana sat near her head, stroking her hair, while the others cuddled up next to her. Sadako had beaten him up here and was at her usual spot on Maria's side of the bed, looming ominously. He could tell she was concerned, but how did she manage to be looming and ominously concerned?

She looked up when he finally managed to come in, then blushed and studiously (and ominously) stared down at Maria's sleeping face, making Rafael roll his eyes.

"Right," he said, looking around the children, the women, the women with practice swords and who know how many knives on their persons and the older children who all seemed to have at least one night tucked away on their belt. So far, none of the caretakers had needed to be replaced, and the children all seemed to get along with them, even when they were being scolded and told to do their chores, but everyone still carried knives anyway. "All right everyone. It's getting a bit crowded in here, so we need to make some room. Everyone who doesn't love Maria, please wait outside."

It was so cute how the children translated for him.

A lot of people shuffled nervously and looked aside with feigned innocence, but no one stepped outside. He gave Sadako a bland stare and moved over next to her so he could sit on the edge of the bed near Maria. Two of the children made room, giving him hopeful looks as they held on to Maria tighter.

"Maria?" he said gently. "It's Rafael. Are you all right?"

There was an indistinct mewl somewhere in the back of Maria's throat. From the way the children perked up, that was probably a good sign. He reached for one of her hands, which were still covering her face, and though she wouldn't pull them away, she let him hold her hand in his.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" he said gently.

The beginnings of a wail began to rise from Maria's throat, her grip tightened almost painfully on his fingers, and her knees moved closer to her face as if trying to curl up tighter. Someone, probably the children, had taken her boots and socks off..

"With words, Maria, with words," Rafael said, still gentle. One of the children, turning to be more comfortable, lay his feet across Rafael's lap.

The wail fluctuated, as if she was trying to talk without having to stop letting loose an anguished cry from the depths of her being.

"Maria, it can't have been that bad," Rafael said.

The wail took on a momentary scoffing tone.

"I'm serious," Rafael said. "At least your mother is all right. That's already very good, right?"

The wail became an indifferent grunt, a verbal shrug. When the wail rose again, it had a sulky quality, like it was trying to deny him.

Rafael looked up for a moment, seeking inspiration, then looked down and tried a different secret passage. "So… do you hate your mother now?"

The wail cut off. Maria's hand moved as one eye stared balefully at him.

"Because that's what she seems to think," Rafael said. "Maybe you should talk to her and tell her that's not the case?"

The eye wavered, and the other hand came down, revealing Mari's other eye.

Lightning flashed and there was a crash of thunder, making Sadako flinch. The sudden attention drew Maria's gaze towards her, and Maria froze.

Another wail rose from Maria's throat as pulled her hands towards her face again, and Rafael and Shana spent the next little while trying to keep her from scratching at her eyes as Sadako recoiled, surprised and hurt.

Try as they might, they didn't get anything more from Maria until she fell asleep.

The storm continued to rage outside.

Maria found herself lying face-first on stone.

She blinked. Her mind felt fuzzy as she instinctively pushed herself up to her feet, and found herself at the base of a worn stone path. Grasses and strange, white flowers that smelled of yearning grew along the path's edges, as if it had been allowed to grow with no maintenance. What seemed like flowerbeds edges by short, angular fences of wrought iron grew more flowers, and among the flowerbeds were graves stones that looked ancient and worn. The smell of yearning as strong, as if this place was bathed in desire.

The path continued on, and as Maria followed the path with her eyes, her breath caught. She knew this path, had walked it…

Her feet moved, and as she turned the corner, there it was looming above her.

The building looked like an old stone cottage, or perhaps a small country church, standing under the shadow of a tall, gnarled, looming tree bereft of leaves. Beyond it was a twilight sky with a large, shining moon, so bright and clear and completely unlike the corpse of Gwyndolin. It filled Maria's heart with nostalgia and a sense of childhood, of the smell of blood and oil and gunpowder…

A figure stood just to one side of the bath, before the curling stairs leading to the familiar front door. Tall and pale and strangely beautiful, they wore a plain dress and a brown, mantle-like shawl and matching bonnet, and there was something about her hands…

Maria found herself, as if in a trance, being drawn to figure, who stood with her strange hands clasped as if waiting.

"Hello, ailing one," the doll-like figure said, her voice strangely familiar. "You have come a long way, if you have found this place."

"Where… where is this?" Maria asked. It felt so familiar. It reminded her of… of… a bad dream?

"This is a nightmare," the mysterious woman said, her porcelain-like face serene, "a dream of the sick, of those on death's doorstep. Minds ravaged by disease but still clinging to life. This is where they come." The woman tilted her head. "Does that not describe yourself? Dead, but with renewed life, in this nightmare. Or perhaps your life before was the bad dream? Who can recall? Madness is, after all, a fog."

Maria flinched. At the words, nightmarish images came to mind of her mother… her mother…

She let out a wail that seemed to echo infinitely, endlessly.

Try as she might, she could not get the image out of her mind. Her mother… and Anne Shelley… in their house, the house Maria, her mother and her father had lived in… the regalia of a maid, shed and discarded on the floor… the sounds… the SOUNDS! They haunted her mind, like phantasms digging into her brain…

Falling to her knees, Maria screamed.

When it became clear that Maria had fallen into a… well, Rafael wasn't sure he could call it peaceful, but it was definitely sleep, he set about trying to instill some sort of order. The children didn't want to go back to their rooms, but he insisted they wash their faces and clean their teeth. Maria's personal bathroom was soon crowded by children doing just that, forming and orderly line as they had been taught.

It took only a little less urging to nudge the women (and three men) under Maria's protection to do the same. That finally gave Rafael the chance to change out of his Ministry uniform, as well as take a quick bath in his rooms. Lasciel, thankfully, had already prepared both casual clothes and sleeping clothes for him, and he put on the former because he still hadn't eaten dinner. He really should be paying her salary from his own pocket…

Rafael resolved to ask Maria how much she was paid– he could already feel the strain on his ministry salary– as he went downstairs, where he wasn't the only one having a late dinner. Some of the women and older children were there was well, all eating gloomily and flinching every time lightning sounded.

He had Ghirardeli ready a towel and a rain cloak for him and went to visit Alice, but when he reached the little house, the door was locked, and they didn't respond to his knocks. He wondered if it was in poor taste that they two of them were actually doing that after it had clearly scarred Maria's mind, or if they had decided to turn in early. Rafael hoped it was the latter and turned back around to go inside.

It was dark as he made his way upstairs, the chandelier's candles having been extinguished and the candles and lanterns blown out to prevent a risk of fire, save for a candles at intersections and at the stairs. Walking barefoot because water had gotten into his boots and he didn't want to walk around with soggy feet, he passed a curious sight. A strange woman was wandering around the second floor in nothing but a nightgown, holding a candelabra that must have been too heavy for her, because it was shaking slightly in her hands. She couldn't possibly be one of Maria's wards– she was too old, too pale and her hair was dark brown– and anyway, none of them wore a nightgown like that. Was she one of the accountants? What was she doing wandering around in the middle of the night? And dressed like that, of all things? She wasn't even wearing a robe.

"Excuse me," Rafael called as he came up behind them woman just as the windows flashed with lightning followed by a particularly loud roll of thunder, .

He didn't expect her to scream, suddenly drop her candles, and start running like all the demons of lost Izalith was after her.

Rafael jumped, and by the time he'd gotten over his surprise, the woman was already gone. Sighing, he bent down and grabbed the fallen candles, wincing as his hand touched hot wax, and setting the candelabra upright as he put the three candles back on it. two had been extinguished, and he left them as they were so that Maria wouldn't spend more on candles than she had to. As he picked up the candelabra, he shook his head. That woman must have been weaker than he thought. The candelabra wasn't that heavy, even when held in one hand.

He headed for his room, changing into the nightclothes that Lasciel had dutifully laid out, his maid leaving him by himself as he got changed. When he was finished, he stepped back inside and put away the still-damp clothes he'd been wearing.

"Thank you, Lasciel," he said, as he put on his robe for the walk to Maria's room. "You're dismissed for the evening. And no need to lay out another uniform tomorrow if it's still storming."

"Yes, Master Walt," she said. She hesitated. "Master Walt…"

He looked at her, and she bit her bottom lip. "Lady Maria… she is going to be all right, isn't she?" she said.

Rafael gave her a practiced Sirius Dieke reassuring smile. "She'll be fine, Lasciel. Maria's fought terrible people, at least two huge monsters, and has to put up with all the people trying to get at Katarina now that she lives here on the estate. I'm sure she'll be fine after a night's rest. "

"I… I heard Lady Maria walked in on Mistress Alice and Miss Anne in… in…" Lasciel shuddered, a blush on her face, her features contorted into an expression of distress. Rafael was sure of that. With how blasé Katarina and Maria can be about their assumptions of what expressions people were making, he'd learned to double check, just to be sure. This wasn't some sort of aroused expression, his maid was genuinely distressed by the idea.

"Yes, that's what seems to have happened," he said. "I suppose it must have been very shocking for Maria, walking in on her mother like that. I can't imagine what it must have been like."

"It's terrible," Lasciel said. "It's… it's not something you should see."

Rafael blinked. "Lasciel… did… did you…?"

Lasciel blushed, this time in embarrassment, and looked away. "It… happened a long time ago," she said. Her hand twitched.

"Um, please don't try and claw out your eyes, it really won't help," Rafael cautioned her.

"Ah, yes Master Walt," she said, head bobbing up and down in a jerky bow.

Rafael looked at the still-distressed expression on her face and made a snap decision. "Look, you want to come up with me to Maria's room and listen while I read to the children?" Rafael said. "You probably shouldn't try and go to sleep just yet. Not after what you just thought of."

Lasciel gave him a grateful look. "I… that would be nice, Master Walt."

Together, the climbed up the dark halls of Maria's manor, and back to the corridor outside her room. The matresses were full of children wrapped up in blankets and using their pillows as cushions to lean on behind them, and a few more mattresses had been added since he left, with these containing some of the woman under Maria's protection. They all sat in strange vigil around the open door to her room, where Shana and other children still cuddled around Maria on the bed.

Standing in the hall in front of the room, where he could by those on the bed, Rafael clapped softly for attention. "All right children, get ready to go to sleep. I'm not going to tell you to go back to your rooms, so I want you all to lie down on those mattresses and get ready to sleep. Yes, Shana, you can sleep next to Maria on the bed, as long as you lie down to sleep properly. I know you might not have school tomorrow because of the storm, but that's no excuse."

There were general groans of reluctant dismay from the children.

"Look, I know you're all worried for Maria, but she's asleep right now, so there's nothing we can do for her," Rafael said. "The best we can do is to go to sleep ourselves so we can help her in the morning."

"But what if something happens to mama while we're asleep?" one of the children, a Gerudo girl with dark skin and red hair, and incidentally being held by her actual mother, said. The young mother in question nodded in agreement with her daughter.

"Sadako will be watching over her," Rafael said, and he didn't need to be looking directly at the woman to know she nodded in agreement. "And everyone will be around her to make sure that nothing happens. So all of you children can go to sleep."

"But we're not sleepy!" someone protested, followed immediately by a yawn.

Rafael sighed in relief. Finally, something he could do. "Well, why don't I tell you a story?" he said, holding up the book Maria used to read to the children. "How about that?"

There was a murmur of agreeableness, followed by the children settling down and curling up in the blankets and pillows. Lasciel went inside Maria's room and returned with a candle. She placed it on the floor next to him as Rafael sat down, opening the book and angling it to catch the candles light.

"All right," Rafael said as the children began to settle in. At least three in his sight had already fallen asleep just from lying down. "Let's see… 'Long ago, people lived in peace, bathed in the safety of darkness. Everyone loved the dark. Then people began to fight over it. They wanted to keep it for themselves. And disparity was born in their hearts. The disparity spread, swallowing the dark and many people's souls. It covered everything in light, and the world disappeared. But small fragments of darkness survived... in the souls of children. With these fragments of darkness, children rebuilt the lost world. It's the world we live in now…'"