His tea tasted bland. Well, "taste" was a great word for something that was flavorless, but he knew that Phoenix preferred coffee. Despite his attempt to buy some better quality tea, his purchases always ended up being just as failing. He appreciated his efforts, though, mostly because none in his house drank tea, so he kept those boxes stored in the counter just for him.

"So, Miles," Phoenix put some butter biscuits on the table between them. "What did you want to talk about?"

Edgeworth didn't remember when they started to call each other by their given names. Phoenix was the first, for sure, but he still had quite some troubles. He wasn't used to being called anything but Mr Edgeworth, or sir, or Herr Miles Edgeworth, or fool. "Well, it's a rather difficult matter."

Phoenix nodded, sipping his tea. "Well, don't leave me hanging. You look worried."

Edgeworth sighed and pierced the yellowish liquid in his cup with his eyes. "You know I spent quite some time overseas."

"Mh-mh."

"And, well," he paused. "Now I'm back."

"Did something happen?"

"I was contacted by… social services."

"About what?"

Edgeworth tried to recall the moment his phone had stopped ringing when he picked up, the gentle voice of a woman asking for him. "I found out I have a relative on my mother's side."

Phoenix smiled like a child, his eyes glowing. There was something soothing in his innocent, surprised gaze. "Miles, that's great news! Someone from your family has tried to reach out to you!"

"It's not as great as it seems, Wr-Phoenix."

Phoenix sighed and placed his empty cup on the table. "Miles, if you want my help, you need to speak clearly, please. I can't see where you're going with this."

"It's a child."

Phoenix looked at him agape. Edgeworth couldn't bear his expression, those deep blue eyes that seemed to stab his heart despite their gentle aura. He wasn't able to find the right words to describe the whole, absurd situation life had put him into.

"It's my cousin. Well, my second cousin, actually. And she's an orphan."

He gulped his tea with one sip, feeling the hot liquid burning his throat, welcoming the pain that made him forget the whole ordeal for a brief moment. He felt like he had just thrown a heavy stone in the ocean and stood there to watch the water opening with unbearable violence. They both kept quiet for a while, with the rain outside singing its light melody. May had been gentle with them, bringing a sweet, warm weather, sometimes accompanied by a blissful day of kind rain.

"So, what you're trying to tell me is," Phoenix put his chair aside and got up. "You're going to be a daddy."

His smirk vanished when Edgeworth slammed his fist on the table. "Are you really joking right now?! Seriously?!"

Edgeworth took a deep, deep breath, removing his hand from the table and massaging his reddened knuckles. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap like that."

"No, it's, it's my fault, sorry." He shook his head. "That was inconsiderate of me."

Edgeworth waited a moment to regain his composure before speaking again. "Long story short: she's fourteen, has no other relatives and has been living in foster care for two years now. Apparently, her father was one of my mother's cousins, but I doubt I have ever met him. He died in a car crash four years ago and she went to stay with her grandfather for some time, but he didn't live much longer."

"And her mother? What about her?"

"She's not in the picture, but I don't know much else. When I came back from abroad, her foster family decided to call social services because they said she wasn't behaving and refused to keep her any longer. They conducted research and, well, they found me this time."

"Can they do that? I mean, sending her away. She's not some device you can return if you have kept the receipt."

"The law allows it. With a reason, of course."

"And the reason was 'she's not behaving'? You must be kidding."

"They told me quite a lot about her," Edgeworth said. "Like how she destroyed her foster father's laptop out of the blue and how she enjoyed breaking dishes."

Phoenix looked at him quizzically. "That sounds strange, Miles. Why would a fourteen year-old girl do something like that, like, all of a sudden? There must be a reason."

"That reason being: she's a brat and apparently I got to keep her in my own house."

"Miles." Phoenix approached the sink to fill two glasses of water. Edgeworth thanked him with a nod. "I have the feeling that you're treating her like a defendant and the social workers as your witnesses. Professional deformation at its finest."

"What would you think if you were in my situation? It comes as no surprise that kids who have experienced foster care might come out as problematic."

"First of all, I have been in your situation, Miles. Do I need to remind you that you have a sweet, beloved niece?"

"Trucy was eight when you adopted her and never acted like a brat."

Phoenix burst into laughter, spilling some water on the floor. "Miles, Trucy behaves in a way when you're here and in another when she is - and were - just with me." He sighed, pointing his eyes to the ceiling. "Is that why you're here, by the way? Do you need any piece of advice?"

Edgeworth nodded in a slow way, as if he couldn't hide his struggle to show how his pride was getting torn up. "Yes," he answered. "I… we have our first meeting this evening."

"So, you're going to bring her home, am I right?"

"I studied the laws about it. It appears that I am obligated, since I have the sources."

"Are you obligated or do you feel obligated?"

Edgeworth gave him a small smile. "Perceptive as always, Mr Wright."

"You're a better person than what you give yourself credit for. Whatever your objections might be, they're all overruled, Mr Prosecutor." He smirked. "Jokes apart, tell me everything, now. Are you going to adopt her?"

"Not yet. Kinship care, I think. Still, it will probably be a permanent solution for her."

"And a good solution, I add."

"Phoenix, stop flattering me. I am the last person you want to give a child to, believe me."

"Oh, I don't know, Miles, you were quite good with Trucy."

"Trucy is your child," Edgeworth responded. "And I wasn't always good with her. Kids are… not my thing, and teens are way worse. They are a ticking bomb ready to explode when you least expect them to."

"You're exaggerating. Though, I won't lie, it's not easy. Trucy wasn't - isn't - easy, but they are still people, Miles. And I know you like to be logical and realistic etcetera etcetera." Edgeworth frowned at him, but Phoenix pretended not to see. "But, well, people aren't always logical. Children are usually the least logical people on this planet. If you want that to work, you'll have to step out of your comfort zone. Be more empathetic."

Edgeworth inhaled sharply. "Phoenix, first of all, you are telling an enormous amount of nonsense. Secondly, you know I am not empathetic. Don't you remember what happened with Adrian Andews? Or Ms Cykes? Plus, I am the Chief Prosecutor. I do not have the time to deal with some teenage fuss."

Phoenix scoffed and Edgeworth looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost six in the evening. Their meeting had been scheduled for seven and Edgeworth wished he could just ask Trucy to stop the course of time with one of her usual magic tricks. That girl was capable of anything, after all.

"I know you're not the kind of person to just give up your responsibilities, Miles," Phoenix muttered. "Whatever they are. If you need anything, even just… talking about it, you know our door is open."

"Thanks, Phoenix." He meant it, though he wasn't really able to express his gratitude properly, not that he had ever been capable of doing anything related to his feelings properly. Logic was easier, logic had always been the key to his problems and now Phoenix - who had a way wider knowledge about kids than his own, and Edgeworth conceded to him that to be the only topic he had a bigger understanding of than him - was telling him to throw it away. Sure, it wasn't the first time Phoenix decided to take logic and throw it out of the window - he had won many cases by doing that, but Edgeworth didn't. He couldn't understand people like he did, he had never been able to get inside people's hearts. His heart had been violated multiple times, though.

They just sat and chatted for a bit longer, until the rain stopped and Edgeworth excused himself. He took long, slow steps while descending the stairs, hoping they would never reach an end, but the end came, and so did the front door, his car, the road and the pinkish shade of the sky that accompanied the sun into the night.

The shelter was better than he had imagined. It was a colorful building, with boxes full of any kind of toy aligned near the wall that was painted with white clouds on a light blue wallpaper. The lockers were decorated with stickers resembling characters from cartoons he couldn't recognize - though, he spotted a Steel Samurai image that made him think "whoever this kid is, he has got good taste" - and when he walked past the cafeteria he looked at the yellow tables surrounded by small chairs. It was nice, but looked like a kindergarten, not a place where a fourteen-year-old girl would fit.

The social worker who had phoned him - Hannah Jefferson, he remembered, a thirty-year-old woman whose smile seemed to be glued to her lips - guided him to a small lilac room with a table and two chairs facing each other. Another chair was placed near the corner. A tin can was filled with colored pencils and some childish drawings had been abandoned probably just some minutes earlier.

Someone must have had a meeting with one of the children. Judging from the drawings, they should have been pretty young, maybe four or five. Edgeworth followed Hannah and sat on one of the chairs. A tiger and two lions, a male and a female, the grass is yellow, this kid probably loves African animals and has some kind of knowledge about them.

Hannah removed the drawings and the colored pencils from the table. Of course, they do not use them for a meeting like this.

"I'll bring Lavinia here in a moment," Hannah said. She put a small folder filled with documents on the table. "She's a bit shy, by the way. I think she might need a bit of time to open up."

Great, just like the kind of person I am perfectly capable to work with. What am I putting myself through, I wonder.

Hannah disappeared behind the door and left Edgeworth alone, engulfed in those disgusting lilac walls that looked like they were made of candy. Maybe they were meant to be kind of soothing, but only managed to trigger him more. He found his hands to be quite sweaty, something that rarely occurred, and wiped them on his trousers. He was used to talking to people, especially strangers. He had asked many times what their name and occupation was - despite them being difficult sometimes -, he knew people's darkest secrets, he had spoken with serial assassins, robbers, even rapists, and yet he wasn't capable of putting a stop to the sticky sensation that devoured his palms.

He wasn't Gumshoe, who, in spite of his incompetence, seemed to yell "I am a good big guy with a good big heart" to the world just by putting a smile on his naive face. Nor was he Kay, who got along with people with just a couple of words and that devilish little smirk she loved to show him when she outsmarted him (which didn't happen often, but happened nonetheless). He wasn't Phoenix.

His heart started to increase his beat. He could feel the blood pumping from his ribcage and the sound became an echo in his head. He hadn't been so nervous even when the PIC had to pass judgment on him nine years prior, nor when he dared to challenge Blaise Debeste in front of the Committee with no badge, no backups, with the entire system against him. And now he feared a little girl that was probably more scared of him than he was of her.

No, he was not scared of her. It wasn't that. It was the whole, overwhelming chain of events that was just about to start and turn his life upside-down, like Phoenix always did during the trials. This was a turnabout he had to face, something he had never been taken into consideration. He was known to be someone who planned, the Demon Prosecutor who never lost his composure at the bench, the cold-eyed attorney who only aimed for the truth, the one who fought corruption within the legal system that was starting to be questioned.

He waited. Five, ten, fifteen minutes. His heart slowed its uncontrollable pace, but his mind never stopped the train of thoughts that kept racing. Lavinia. Lavinia Shackelford. I have a meeting with Lavinia Shackelford, fourteen years old, an orphan, born in Sacramento on the 30th of April. The name tasted strange, foreign. He didn't tell Phoenix the girl's name, nor did he tell him that he had received some pictures but had ignored them, because giving a face to that name could only turn the ghost he feared into reality. Lavinia did not have a face. He knew he was a coward, but it was too late now.

Twenty minutes. His patience was running thin. What was keeping them from opening that bloody door? Didn't she want to meet him? Was she throwing a tantrum? Crying in her room while Hanna tried to make her presentable?

Finally, almost half an hour later, the purple door creaked. Edgeworth fought to ignore the urge to keep his eyes on the floor. Hannah entered, with her finger interlaced with a small, white hand.

He didn't know what to expect. He hadn't built a physical image of the girl that was about to jump into his life. So he stared. He stared at her long, bright red locks that almost covered her entire back. It was well kept, the ends had been trimmed and it shone in the light of the room. She had milky skin covered with freckles, especially around her nose and on her cheeks. She was short, with thin arms and tiny hands. He then met her eyes, just for a second, because she looked away the moment her gaze locked his. She had big, icy blue eyes which couldn't conceal the fear that her rigid posture betrayed. They were so similar to Franziska's, to her child eyes, before the studies and the principles her father shoved in her mind stole her infant innocence.

So, this is Lavinia.

Hannah made her sit in front of him. She talked a bit, but Edgeworth didn't really pay attention to her. Lavinia had crossed her arm around her torso and started to bounce her leg. Her eyes never left the floor. The white t-shirt she was wearing was a bit too big for her and she had to adjust the sleeves from time to time in order to not show her shoulders. She had tucked it inside a pair of jeans that looked new, though not really expensive.

Some hair cascaded in front of her nose and she put the chunk behind her ear. She had short, ruined nails. She bites them often. She must have been nervous for days. Her leg is still shaking.

As if Hannah could read his thoughts, she gently put her hand on Lavinia's knee and she stopped moving. Her freckled cheeks turned pink and she started fidgeting with her hands.

"Just for this time, I'll stay here," Hannah said. "Pretend I don't exist," she then caressed Lavinia's hair, her smile never leaving her. "Come on, darling."

Edgeworth had encountered all kinds of witnesses and defendants. Some of them were kids, so the interrogation needed to be approved by their parents and supervised. He still remembered how much he struggled to make them talk without them stuttering or making long, useless breaks between sentences. Gumshoe used to mock him about his incapability at communicating, though he stopped when Edgeworth threatened his salary. Since Kay had become a detective, she had been helping him get through this particular kind of interrogation - despite not being seventeen anymore, she still hadn't abandoned her cheerful, easy-going self. It was as if the person they had in front of them was a book: Kay could read it with no effort, while Edgeworth felt like he had to decipher something written in a completely different language, with another alphabet, in a pitch dark room.

Hannah sat behind him without saying another word. He couldn't see her anymore, like her whole presence had disappeared from the room. Now, he had to manage this on his own. Good grief.

Lavinia sat as rigid as a statue, as if she was counting the seconds that there were left. Hannah had told him they had thirty minutes: that was a long, really long time for two people that clearly wanted to be somewhere else and had no intention of carrying on small talks whatsoever.

It was obvious that Lavinia wasn't going to be one to start the conversation. She brought her left thumb to her lips and started to bite her already damaged nail. She glanced behind Edgeworth and he presumed she was hoping to get a silent hint from Hannah.

Talking was a big part of his job. God, it was one of the major parts of his profession, he argued and objected and made counter arguments and now he was sitting in silence with a little girl.

Name and occupation. That is how I always start. Name and occupation.

"I am Miles Edgeworth," he said. "I am a prosecutor."

He extended his hand. Lavinia opened her mouth to say something, but then she shook his hand with a weak grip. It was small and so gelid Edgeworth almost recoiled. "Lavinia. It's a pleasure, sir."

Edgeworth nodded. She was polite, at least. Not a bad start. Her voice was light and had a sweet tone to it, like a nightingale.

"Lavinia… "

"Yes?"

Edgeworth was startled. He didn't realize he was giving voice to his thoughts. "Nothing, it just… rings a bell. It's unusual."

"It's Aeneas's wife."

"I'm sorry?"

He wasn't lying when he said that it reminded him of something, but now he knew. Right, the Aeneid. His private tutor had five different copies back in Germany,

"The princess of Latium. Well, i-it's a legend, actually." Then she added, "Dad was a Latin Literature professor. He liked Virgil."

Edgeworth thanked the heavens. That was a good conversation starter. "Did you read it?"

Her lips curved just slightly before dropping again into a neutral line. "Yeah, well, a bit. And the Iliad and the Odyssey, 'cause Dad knew Greek as well, and, erm, he used to read me the Eclogues."

"I am afraid I am not familiar with the last one you mentioned."

"Oh" she muttered. "They are poetries about, er, rural life."

What kind of books did this girl read? Then he remembered he used to bring his father's law books in bed and didn't feel in the position of judging.

"So you like to read."

"Yeah."

"What else do you read?"

"Erm," she looked at the ceiling. "Harry Potter and… Neil Gaiman's books and, erm, Christine Dabos."

Edgeworth kept a mental note of every author she mentioned, though, he had to admit, he knew none. Trucy had some copies of Harry Potter, but she would rather die than lend them to someone. As for the others, he would have to search for some stuff on Amazon. If he had little fiction at home - though he didn't remember how little - he was certain that he didn't have any books suitable for a young girl. His Steel Samurai manga collection was out of the question.

"How many books do you have, dear?"

She turned to the side. "Few, actually. I used to borrow them from the local library."

She does not have many books. I ought to buy something, then, maye before she comes home. But what about her father's books? He should have had a massive collection, he was a professor after all. Perhaps kids in foster care cannot bring too much stuff with them?

"Do you like dogs?"

"Yeah."

"I have a dog at home. Her name is Pess," he said.

She smiled again and this time it lasted a bit longer. "What breed?"

"Akita inu."

"They're soft. Lots of fur." She dangled her legs under the table. Her cheeks regained some shade of pink. "Do you have, erm, do you have a p-picture of her?"

Edgeworth sighed. "Not on my phone, unfortunately. I keep them on my computer only," and then he insulted himself.

"Oh."

They didn't talk much after that. Edgeworth would ask questions, Lavinia would answer and sometimes asked in return. It was just for thirty minutes, but when Hannah got up and told them that their time was off, Edgeworth felt as if he had taken part in a marathon. Trials weren't even close to what he had been doing for the past half an hour.

"Lavinia, Mrs Young is waiting for you in the kitchen, could you please go help her? I'll talk with you later. Now, say goodbye to Mr Edgeworth, you'll be seeing each other as soon as possible."

Lavinia spared an annoyed glance at her when she told her to "say goodbye". She offered him her tiny hand and they shook with minimal force. "B-bye, sir." She looked at him in the eyes for a slight moment and then disappeared in the hallway.

Hannah closed the door and faced Edgeworth with some handwritten document in her hand. "I'll be honest, it went better than I thought."

Then I prefer not to hear what your thoughts were. "As ironic as it sounds, despite being a lawyer this kind of conversation is not my strong suit."

"She's a hard girl to deal with, I know," she sat down in front of him. "I'll keep you here just a couple of minutes more, Mr Edgeworth. There are things about Lavinia that I think you should know."

"Are they about her behavior towards her previous foster family?"

"Yes," she answered. She picked up one of the sheets from the folder and put on her glasses. "Her foster father, Mr Ron Backe, told us that during the last six months of her stay she had been exhibiting some disturbing behavior. He said that she talked back often and, using his own words, 'showed little to no manners towards him or his wife', and that she threatened him to ruin his marriage, though he said he didn't really understand what that meant, nor did I. In general, she seemed to hold some kind of grudge. It's not that rare among kids in this situation and, well, she's fourteen, that's a delicate age."

Edgeworth nodded. Lavinia acted kindly in spite of her timid nature, but he was perfectly aware that most of the time people were not what they claimed to be. Though, he couldn't deny how he struggled to portray that small, innocent looking girl throwing a tantrum against one of her elders. Maybe, Dahlia Hawthorne's lesson was not enough yet.

"Lavinia never denied these accusations. To be fair, she barely spoke up for herself and accepted to leave the house. She's been living here for two months now, and her whole situation bears some mysteries, but that is simply my own opinion."

"I do value your opinion, Ms Jefferson. I would like to listen to what you think."

Hannah glanced at him and let out a small, discreet laugh. "You seem to fit well in the courtroom, Mr Prosecutor," she cleared her throat and her expression turned serious. "I personally - and I would like to highlight this - think that there's more behind the curtains of that house. Mrs Aways - Lavinia's previous foster mother - works as an export manager for a well-known company and was abroad about two weeks per month, so we mostly relied on Mr Backe's words. His reaction, I have to say, was usually pretty harsh. When he phoned us, he said that he wanted Lavinia out of his house immediately and if none came he would put her on the streets. We managed to calm him down and shut the matter because we thought he was just having an outburst or something, but that made me think a lot. Lavinia never contacted us and we are always - and I mean, always - just a call away from many of our children. She had been warned many times, yet she never stopped to get on his nerves. The Backes are an upper-middle class couple, they live in a nice area, provided well for her and even mentioned adoption when they met Lavinia, but apparently something went wrong."

Hannah paused, taking off her glasses. She read the document for a moment before speaking again. "As I said before, this is just an assumption of mine," Hannah sighed. "The fact that Lavinia doesn't open up with anyone makes the matter way harder. We're trying anything we can to create a safe space for her - and the other kids, of course - but, well, many questions are still unanswered."

"Thank you, Ms Jefferson," Edgeworth said. At that point, he only wished to get in his car and drive away. "I really appreciate your help."

Hannah nodded and guided him to the front door. "You are a good man, Mr Edgeworth. I hope we can make things work."

Edgeworth muttered a small goodbye, wondering how many times she had told foster parents that same sentence, even to people that turned out not to be "good men".

When Lavinia first met Mr Miles Edgeworth, she had three main thoughts whirling in her mind. One, he was a good-looking man with a unique, picturesque sense of fashion. Two, he had a deep, masculine, polished voice. Three, he glared at her with such force that he almost made her sprint outside the meeting room.

He was her father's relative, though she had no idea where he came from. Apparently, Dad and Mr Edgeworth's mother were first cousins and Lavinia fought to find a word that could express their relationship properly. Cousin wording was a mess.

Nevertheless, calling him by his first name sounded inappropriate to her, not only because he was an adult, but especially because he didn't look friendly at all. He was a lawyer, the kind of attorney that sent people to death row and investigated crime scenes with a fresh corpse still laying in a pool of blood, someone who probably dealt with an enormous amount of paperwork everyday and who spent more time in his office than at home. His demeanor showed an elegant rigidness that she had only witnessed in the historical dramas her grandpa was fond of. She often wondered how an historian could be interested in such inaccurate, romantic depiction of his precious subject.

Lavinia was deep in thinking while cutting the vegetables that she jumped when Hannah touched her shoulder.

"Oh, sorry darling, I didn't mean to scare you."

"That's fine," Lavinia said. "I was thinking."

"So, what do you say? Mr Edgeworth is a principled man, he'll take good care of you."

"Yeah, he seems nice," Lavinia answered. Or, "nice" in a particular way. He never smiled at her, but she could sense how he tried his best to arrange some decent conversation that could make her comfortable.

"He's one of the top prosecutors in the city," Hannah continued. "He's a hero of justice, you know? I'm certain you'll have a great life with him."

Lavinia wanted to glare at her so badly, but she had promised herself that she would wear the mask of the perfect, flawless good little girl when Ron finally decided he had enough. Only a child would need cartoonish expressions like "hero of justice" to describe what a prosecutor did.

"Yeah, I hope so. I'll be good."

Hannah nodded and headed outside the kitchen, car keys already in her hands. Just another two weeks and she wouldn't be a part of her routine anymore. Nor would the kids or Mrs Young, the cook, who was stirring the tomato sauce. Maybe, she could own books again. Ron never let her buy books and she had to hide the beloved copy of the Aeneid her father had left her, filled with notes, colorful highlighting and wonderful illustrations. The pages were yellow, the angles bent, the cover had lost some glue, but she would have rather died than let that man strip her of her most valuable memory.

Also, Mr Edgeworth seemed wealthy and prosecutors were known to earn a good salary. Maybe, she could even have her own room. A room in which she would be able to just sleep without having piles of boxes and gardening tools scattered around, as if a bed had been placed randomly in a storage room.

"Honey, whatcha doin' there? C'mon, get me the vegetables, quick!" Mrs Young called for her and Lavinia rushed with a plate full of chopped greens.

"Handsome fella, your new dad, uh?" she said. "Heard he sent Joe Darke and Sirhan Dogen to jail. Life's decided to award you, boy drives a red sports car, seen it from here, y'know?"

Lavinia smiled at her and went to grab some meat from the fridge. She didn't want a sparkle of hope to grow inside her. The disappointment she had to endure with the Backes was something she deeply wished to avoid.