Odd of a thought as it was, Lucius was rather grateful that he had no more corpses to bury in the glade outside of town.

The path to Claudia and Mabel's grave had been neglected a few years prior and there was barely any of it left. As if pulling a cart with two dead bodies hadn't been bad enough, the current state of the trail would have made it near impossible.

Now Lucius chose to tread with caution, carefully listening for snakes or rats and trying to discern potential hornet nests in the ground.

"You may be overthinking things," Samueli finally said after watching Lucius scout the area in front of him by swinging an old branch through the grass. "I can walk ahead if that would make you feel better."

"No," Lucius hurried to reply. "It's fine."

"Didn't think living a comfier life for just a few years would make you this concerned about snakes and wasps," Samueli commented, but soon changed his mind. "But then again I do remember the first time you had lice."

"Well sorry for being a kid freaking out over his hair being infested with gross insects," Lucius muttered, still cringing at the memory. Perhaps the amount of panic had been unnecessary but in fairness the one time he'd heard about lice before that was when his mother had immediately dragged him home from school once she'd found out there was an infestation going on there. So he liked to think child-Lucius' reaction had been justified.

He received no further comments on his spoiled past, but Lucius could still sense Samueli's gaze burning his neck and he could guess what it was about.

And it was not lice infestations.

"Just ask." He turned his head to glare at the old man. "Get it over with."

Samueli raised his eyebrows as if Lucius' words came out of nowhere, yet there was no hesitation in what he was supposed to ask about.

"How did things go with Lord Hargreaves? I assume Eliza got you there with no problems?"

"Yes, she did." Lucius still felt bad for the woman. She'd been dragged into something so confusing and downright scary so quickly. "Very effectively."

"She knows her strength." Samueli nodded. "So? What did your best friend have to say for himself?"

"Just 'friend' seems debatable to begin with, not that I thought we were of the best kind, but..." Lucius' gaze sank to the ground. He felt so defeated. It wasn't just the condition of having stayed up all night that made his feet heavy.

"So... Not much I'm guessing?"

"Barely anything." Lucius was uncertain how much he should tell the man. On one hand he didn't have a lot of people to turn to in terms of conversation, but he'd promised Anthony not to tell anyone.

Not that words mean a lot anyway, it seems.

"Huh..." Samueli walked in silence, and Lucius glanced back at his troubled expression. "Well... I guess he's just the worst then."

"Sam, you don't need to go that far."

"You know how I feel about anglers, Lucius. The one thing that made me positive towards him was that you seem to like him, but if he's not treating you well? Then... Shame on him."

"It's all right to use a swear word once in a while, you know." Lucius had to smile. "Even for you."

"I prefer not to, even if that would be true."

"I guess he's not being cruel though," Lucius admitted, mindlessly sweeping the twig through grass again. "He's just withholding a lot of things. Like... Telling me what I should do and so, but not why."

"For instance?"

"Telling me Lucia should step down."

"Sounds like someone's eager to get his position back."

"Right?" Lucius threw his arm out and ended up hitting a tree with his twig. "He says it's for a bunch of other, vague reasons but that would be the obvious conclusion."

"It's a pity," Samueli agreed. "My guess is he won't want to join Lucia in fixing The Entrails then."

"I don't know where he's standing in all of this now." Lucius shrugged. "He sounded as though he'd try to support me concerning some 'secret' things he didn't want to elaborate on."

"Sounds like quite a catch, that one."

Lucius grimaced at the sarcasm.

"He doesn't even see me as someone he can trust, let alone a friend I guess."

"But you like him?"

"I mean I... Care about him." Lucius made a half-hearted gesture with his free hand. "He helped me through some heavy moments and we went to that ball together."

"The one where you snuck inside and he had to pretend you were there together because you got caught?"

"Well we were still there together, regardless of reasons." Lucius reached back to give Samueli a light bump on his shoulder. "And that Dyris' day we spent together was nice too, I suppose. I just... I dunno, it was nice."

"Sure sounds a lot like 'like' to me, on a level above caring."

Lucius scoffed.

"Maybe, if he hadn't died and disappeared and then reappeared and started lying about things."

"Have you told him all of this? Your feelings, I mean?"

"I did tell him I care—"

Samueli interrupted him with a loud groan.

"Not caring, Lucius. Liking."

Lucius frowned and looked back at Samueli again.

"There's hardly a difference. I don't think word choice matters that much."

Samueli looked taken aback.

"Hold on, we're not talking about 'like' as in... Like liking him?"

"Like the romance kind of like?" Lucius' eyes widened at the clarification. "Oh... I, uh... I didn't think so, at least."

"Well, talk about those feelings then. You're not gonna grow closer if he can't be honest with you."

"But I don't know—I don't think he wants something like that." Lucius finally dropped the twig as his previous caution had faded. "I don't even... Know if I do."

Samueli sighed.

"It's... Understandable, of course. And perhaps you're still cautious after that Adrian person?"

"Hard to imagine I'll be over it anytime soon." Lucius' voice grew lower. "I don't need another person I care that much about to go behind my back. And like you say, if Anthony's this secretive around me, how could we—"

He interrupted his sentence. Was he even certain he had those kinds of feelings towards the man? He spoke as though he did but he hadn't given it that much thought. His mind had mostly been occupied with his gang and Adrian at the time after all, not to mention the whole dying part.

He cleared his throat.

"It's something I'll deal with once he decides to talk to me for real," he declared. "Should something like that be on the table it won't be relevant until then."

"I suppose you're right," Samueli agreed, and the two of them continued down the path in silence until Lucius eventually spotted the opening to the glade.

"We're here." He gestured forward and picked up his pace. As depressing as visiting graves could be, he'd rather focus on something else than Anthony for a while.

"Oh, this is beautiful," Samueli commented as he looked around the place, eyes lingering on the sparkling lake. The sun had peeked through the clouds to emphasise its beauty. "I can see why they loved the place so much."

"I only got to be here with them once," Lucius said, holding back the implication that he'd actually been there with them more than once, just not with them alive. "But I treasure the memory."

"So, um... Where are they?" Samueli's gaze shifted to look around the area, and Lucius pointed towards the other side of the meadow.

"Just further down."

He gestured for Samueli to come along and began making his way towards the girls' grave, though something didn't feel quite right. He couldn't place it but the area was quieter than usual, and just as he realised it a cloud blocked out the sun, allowing shadows to embrace the place.

His eyes suddenly widened, pace speeding up without him knowing it and he fought to breathe as he reached the spot where he had buried the girls.

"What—" His body refused to return his ability to inhale as he kneeled down in the dirt, mind reeling as he tried processing the sight in front of him.

Samueli soon appeared next to him.

"... Are—Are you all right?" he asked, frown having appeared on his face. "And... What is this hole?"

"It's—It's their grave," Lucius whispered, words barely escaping his mouth as he dug his fingers into the fresh dirt below him. "... At least it was."

There was a hole in the ground. A deep hole in the ground right where he'd buried his best friends six years ago.

An empty hole.

Lucius' vision grew blurry where he sat, body trembling but unable to move. He couldn't see Samueli's reaction, but it only took a moment for him to speak.

"Wait... What do you mean?"

"Some—" Lucius choked, needing another breath to continue. "Something should be there. It's—It's not supposed to be empty."

"So you're telling me this is where you buried them but now they're supposedly gone?" Samueli sounded far from pleased. "I know you've learned some wicked sense of humour over the years but this is too much, even for you."

"I'm not joking!" Lucius' breathing sped up, heart apparently trying to beat him to death. "I know where I buried them! I've visited them for years!"

"Al—Alright, let's not panic." Samueli's voice had taken a quick turn towards unnerved, and he stepped forward to inspect the hole closer. "Oh... No."

"What?" Lucius still focused most of his strength on not falling apart, but those two words together were never good.

"Well, uh..." Samueli crouched down beside him and pointed to the side of the hole.

Lucius followed his hand and a jolt of pain hit his chest as the air went out of him.

"Arm," he confirmed in a whisper, turning his head away before the view got stuck inside his head forever.

"And... Finger bones." Samueli's voice trembled, but he at least seemed to handle it better than Lucius did. Perhaps because of his time at war. "Or... It's the bones of an underarm, but it looks like two sets of hands?"

Lucius squeezed his eyes shut at the memory of him linking the girls' hands together before burying them.

"Mabel," he then whispered, eyes glazing over as he kept staring at the arm, and Samueli turned his head towards him as he continued. "She—She was to the right. If... That's the arm next to Claudia, then—"

He wanted to throw up. It had to be some kind of prank after all. The Scourge probably had something to do with it. Lucius could bet he'd find that fucking blight cat somewhere near them if he looked hard enough.

"Then Mabel's... Missing?" Samueli asked, voice finally having taken a similar tone to Lucius'. "How—How can she be gone? Why would she be gone?"

"I don't..." Lucius could barely utter any words, mouth opening and closing trying to figure out some kind of explanation. "I—I don't know. I was— I mean... I visited so many times."

Samueli pursed his lips together, blinking tears from his eyes and linked his fingers in prayer. Lucius had no energy to follow his example but respectfully remained as silent as his breathing would allow in the meantime.

"Al—Alright..." Samueli said again as he was done. "We should... We should look around first, right? See if we can find anything around here that could, uh... Give us some clues to what happened?"

"Yeah, that's... That's probably good." Lucius nodded, but he was honestly not sure what they expected to find. The idea of Mabel's bones missing was impossible to begin with. "And—And perhaps I could ask around. Use Lucia to get some names, like... Like the owner of the land, or if hunters have noticed anything strange around here. Some... Bigger animals roaming around or something."

The idea of werewolves occurred to him, but he sure hoped Richard wasn't into plundering old graves.

"No." Samueli shook his head as he looked back at the grave. "I don't think wild animals dig that deep years after something's been buried. Besides... The edges are too clean for an animal to have done it."

Lucius wrapped his arms around his knees, wishing he could escape the thoughts crashing against his mind.

"... So someone used a shovel."