The blood would not leave him.

No matter how long Sylas pressed his hands into the basin, it clung—as if the flesh itself had learned to drink it. He scrubbed until the cold water numbed him, until his fingers trembled from the ache. The candlelight bent across the water’s surface, turning it amber, then copper, then nothing recognizable at all. He stayed still, only watching the swirl.

Behind him, a voice cut through the silence.

“Have you killed them?”

Sylas did not turn. He watched the crimson spiral into the blue, a storm of color that refused to settle.

“They’re gone. All of them. The corpses are in the field.”

“I see.” The voice softened, but carried no mercy. “Sylas… do you think we are sinners?”

He rose slowly. His hands were pale now, though the stench of gore clung like breath, like something that had decided to live in him. He turned from the basin. The man behind him was standing in the doorway, framed by the dark hallway. His face was difficult to read—not because he was hiding anything, but because there was simply too much in it, all pressing against the skin all at once.

Sylas answered steadily. Almost resigned.

“We’ve done what can’t be undone… so when push comes to shove, we will be the ones condemned as murderers.”

“We… are?” The man’s tone wavered. “You count yourself amongst us now?”

Sylas looked at him for a long moment. There was no performance in the look. Only the peculiar numbness that comes from having already had the argument with yourself and lost.

“Yes… of course I do. I’ve learned to carry it. But three months ago, I would not have.”

The man’s brow furrowed. “Three months ago?”

Sylas’s gaze drifted. From the floor, to the window. Then somewhere further. His voice dropped to a rasp.

“Three months ago… everything was different.”

The words hung like a curse. Then—

*Three months earlier.*

Morning light slanted through the shattered window, carrying the faint, musty scent of dew and turned soil. Sylas sat on the edge of his narrow bed, eyes moving slowly across the rusted ceiling, the cracked walls, the shards of glass that let the light spill in with distinct rays. This was the orphanage. The one and only Home—in all the ways that mattered.

The door burst open with a harsh, grating screech of old hinges.

A dark-haired boy exploded into the room, arms flung wide as if he’d just conquered a kingdom. He struck a dramatic pose, one hand pressed to his chest, the other sweeping through the air with theatrical grandeur. “Behold!” he bellowed, voice rich and booming. “His Majesty has arrived! Bow before your king, peasants, and tremble in awe!”

He spun on his heel, eyes landing on Sylas with feigned delight. “Ohhh, look at you, Sylas—already tearing up at the mere sight of me. That’s the kind of respect I’m talking about!”

Sylas sat motionless on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, and leveled his friend with the flattest, most exhausted stare in his arsenal. “Kael… leave. Now.” He paused, letting the silence sharpen. “Or I’ll drag your corpse out by the ankles.”

Kael clutched his heart as if mortally wounded, staggering backward until he collided with the doorframe. “You—!” He gasped, eyes wide with betrayal. “You wound me, Sylas. Truly.”

Later, in the dimly lit hallway, Sylas balanced a precarious stack of laundry, the fabric rough and damp against his arms, the whole pile threatening to slide left—while Kael sauntered beside him with his hands behind his head.

“Do you ever do your own laundry?” Sylas asked.

Kael flashed a smug grin. “I’m just too important for these lowly tasks.”

Sylas glanced upwards, letting a faint smirk settle on his face. “Huh. If that’s so, I guess that means you won’t be having breakfast.”

The horror that crossed Kael’s face was immediate. His eyes went wide. His expression akin to a man watching his house burn down. “No, I will be having breakfast!”

Sylas quickened his stride. The bundle shifted. “If you’re too important for chores, you’re too fancy for food.”

“I take it back!” Kael announced to the hallway. “I’m not that important!”

“Then do your damn chores.”

Kael groaned, shoulders collapsing inward. “Fine. But what should I start with?”

“Clean that godforsaken room of yours.” Sylas glanced to his side, at Kael. “Then, maybe think about cleaning anything else.”

After wrapping up their chores, a nun in a soft-rustling habit found them in the corridor. She pressed her hands together, giving Sylas a look that was equal parts request and order. “Sylas, can you help us serve the food? Head Nun Mercy isn’t feeling well today, so she said to make you two help.”

Sylas nodded once.

Kael, naturally, trailed along.

The cafeteria was warm—the body heat and noise of the children making quite a ruckus. But the savory smell of simmering broth layered over fresh-baked bread drew everyone’s gaze. Children filed in with their trays. Sylas ladled soup in steady, practiced motions. Kael stood beside him, distributing the loaves with slightly less discipline.

“T-thanks, Brother Sylas.”

“Thanks, Kael.”

“Thanks, Sylas! Can I get more soup?”

“No.”

“But it’s only soup—”

“No.”

“Thanks, Kael, you’re the best!”

Kael straightened up, puffing his chest, permitting himself a magnanimous nod. “I already know, kiddo.”

Then the last in line stepped forward.

A girl with cascading obsidian hair that caught the cafeteria light like spun silk. She moved without agenda, which somehow made her more visible than anyone else in the room.

Kael’s cheeks went crimson.

He leaned sideways toward Sylas, barely moving his lips. “Sylas. I think I’m in love.”

Sylas followed Kael’s gaze. He arched an eyebrow. “She looks nice. But you don’t really have the guts to talk to her. Do you?”

Kael scoffed, rolling his neck once with great deliberateness. “Of course I do. Just watch me, maybe you’ll learn something.”

He drew a long breath, bit his lower lip, and declared:

“Darling—are you an evil doctor? For you have stolen my heart, and yet I fear I may never recover without your love.”

The girl’s giggle was genuine. A blush bloomed across her cheeks like rose petals unfolding in fast motion.

Kael spun toward Sylas—and caught sight of the nuns beside the serving table, both of their faces hidden behind their hands, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

He leaned back toward Sylas, whispering urgently. “Why are they laughing? Wasn’t it kinda… cool, though?”

Sylas kept his expression flat with visible effort. “I honestly don’t know. Give her the bread. She’s here for food.”

“Oh. Y-yeah. Right. Totally forgot.” He shoved a loaf across the counter.

She took it, and just before turning away, she said quietly, a smile still playing at her mouth: “My name is Alice. See you later?”

Kael practically vibrated. “For sure. See you later!”

After the serving ended, a nun pressed a warm bowl into Sylas’s hands, nodding toward the tables. He scanned the room, found an open seat amid the general chaos, and took it. Kael dropped into the seat across from him.

They ate. The broth was good. Steam curled up with a comforting, herbal smell that sat well with the light coming through the high windows.

Then a crash split the noise.

A boy no older than seven, round-faced, looked mortified as he stood over his dropped bowl, soup pooling around his shoes in a steaming mess. His face crumpled. He looked at the floor, then at the people around him, unable to decide which was worse.

Kael reacted first.

“Oof. Tough luck.” Without further ceremony, he slid his own bowl down the table. “Here. Take it. I’m not that hungry anyway.”

Wordlessly, Sylas nudged his bowl toward Kael. The wood scraped softly against the table.

Kael blinked, looking at the bowl, then at Sylas. His expression shifted into something very usual for him. “NO WAY. Kindness from you? I thought that was just a myth.”

“Actually,” Sylas said, reaching back for the bowl, “I take it back. I’ll eat it.”

Kael grabbed it with both hands. “No. NO. I’ll take it!”

Sylas pushed his chair back with a sigh that managed to carry more resignation than a whole speech. “Fine. But you’re helping with work.”

Kael shoveled the last spoonful into his mouth, standing while still chewing. “Yeah, yeah. Lead the way, boss.”

They left the cafeteria together, bowls stacked in Sylas’s arms. The hallway stretched ahead like a tunnel of worn oak and faded wallpaper, the paint pale in the way of things that had once had colour which simply let go of it over time. Sunlight fell through the windows in long rectangles, painting the floorboards gold at intervals, like something trying very hard to be beautiful.

Sylas had taken three steps when he heard it.

Laughter. High and very bright. The unmistakable squeal of small feet chasing each other across wooden floors—that particular frantic rhythm of children mid-game, the kind of sound that has no concern for anything outside itself.

It spilled from the playroom at the end of the corridor. The one with the crooked door and the painted alphabet on the wall.

Sylas slowed. He had served every child in the orphanage that morning. He’d counted them himself, a habit—like quiet inventory—that had become part of him over years. No one had slipped away. He would have noticed.

The giggles rang out again. Then: the heavy, hollow thud of a wooden block tower toppling.

Who’s in there? he pondered.

Without looking, he handed the stacked bowls to Kael.

Kael blinked. “What?”

Sylas was already moving. He reached the playroom door, pushing it open with his shoulder.

“Kids, go eat breakfast before it gets—”

The words died on his tongue.

The room was empty.

Not just quiet—empty in the particular way that signals no one has been here. Dust motes drifted through the light at their own leisurely pace, unbothered. A single doll lay on its side near the window, one button eye staring up at the ceiling as if it had been left mid-thought. The wooden blocks were scattered in a perfect circle across the centre of the floor, like someone had knocked them from above rather than from the side.

A silence so complete it pressed against his ears.

Sylas stood in the doorway for a long moment. He stepped inside, past the threshold, checking the corners. Looked under the low table where the smallest ones liked to hide, the one with the scratched legs and the wobbly top. Nothing. He straightened, looking at the blocks again, at their arrangement that made no natural sense.

He backed out. Closing the door, he turned to Kael.

“Must’ve been the wind,” he said.

Kael raised an eyebrow. He was still holding the bowls. “You sure? You looked like you saw a ghost.”

“I don’t see ghosts,” Sylas replied, taking the bowls back. “I only see more chores. Come on.”

Outside, the garden waited under a sky that had already begun to yellow at the edges. The grass was long in the corners where no one bothered. Sylas and Kael worked until the light turned copper, the first crickets testing their voices against the evening.

Dinner arrived with the dark.

Sylas and Kael ate at the end of the long table with the mechanical efficiency of people too tired for ceremony. Kael still snuck glances toward Alice three tables over. She caught him once, smiling with her chin down, making him nearly drop his spoon.

When the bowls were cleared, the nuns moved through the cafeteria with the practiced authority of shepherds who have been doing this a very long time. The smallest ones were herded upstairs in a sleepy parade, some already half-asleep on their feet, heads lolling. From the stairwell came the lullabies—two voices overlapping, sometimes harmonizing by accident, singing the old lullaby about a child with a lantern.

Sylas paused at the bottom of the stairs. Just for a moment. Just to hear it. The notes curled through the hallway, warm and impossibly familiar—the kind of familiar that doesn’t come from remembering but from having heard something so many times that it has become part of the architecture of you.

Kael bumped his shoulder.

“Come on. Your turn to blow out the lamps tonight.”

They climbed the stairs together. Sylas snuffed each lamp as he passed, the hallway darkening in stages behind them. By the time Sylas reached his room, the sky outside the window had turned the deep bruised dark of full night.

Rain had started. Soft at first—just a tentative tapping on the glass, hesitant, like someone checking whether anyone was still awake before committing.

He didn’t speak. Pulled off his boots. Blew out his candle. Lay down on the narrow bed.

His breathing slowed.

The rain grew steadier.

Sleep reached for him—

The candle lit on its own…