"She isn't my kid. I happened to be the one to babysit them," said Mavislin, staring right at Clement's livid's eyes.
"But you could at least look sorry for it!"
"There's nothing to be sorry for! She took lives as well. And she made a bad decision of facing off with me. Thinking that she could have gotten another victim by going a left turn. This makes me wonder if I should give her a more merciless death."
"She's just a child! And it's not as if you haven't killed anyone."
"And so are the young girls that you gave away! You have no right to say those words when you've been destroying young girls' lives!" argued Mavislin.
Clement looked offended but guilty. Her eyes were devoid of any mercy or remorse. It shook Bryan down to his core but he didn't let it show. He couldn't, or else Mavislin would probably kill him.
"None of us in this room are saints! The only ones innocent are the meats sitting on this table!" shouted Mavislin, while pointing at the cooked lobsters.
Mavislin took a deep breath before sighing.
"It's always the dilemma. She is a child, but that does not exempt her from the crimes that she had committed. I heard there some dead girls found on the other side of town. Those were her casualties. And that single moment of judgment can cost a lifetime's worth of regrets."
'"Murder is murder. There's no such thing as 'exemption'. And I can't say anything to refute that, especially when I, myself, am converting girls into prostitutes. But at least, you wanna let us know who she was?" asked Clement.
"She was one of the Quadruplets of the Five Kings. More specifically, Gab's siblings. The Five Kings were still in construction and we were trying to ask Gab to help us. The group was more or less done but we needed the last King. Someone from Albion. And Gab seemed like a perfect fit."
Mavislin finished collecting the cards and neatly stacked them back into a deck. She then closed her eyes, as if to choose the correct memory to describe to the two men.
"Gab's age gap with his siblings was quite large, about ten years apart. His father had already passed due to the minor conflicts happening around the area. His mother was about to give birth when that happened and was devastated that she went into early labor."
"She was quite near us, having contractions right at our doorstep. Unfortunately, the birth could only save the four babies. The mother died, her whole body just gave out. There was so much blood that even Ysabeau started puking."
"I thought she should be able to stomach it, since seeing that your favorite snack are eyeballs," asked Bryan.
"But Ysabeau has never faced me when I am eating one. She usually turns away. And besides, she never likes the sight of blood anyways."
Clement blinked a few times, out of confusion before proceeding to stare at the duo. The atmosphere was dark in tone but this caught the man off guard.
"What?" asked Bryan, uneasy at being looked at.
"She eats, what now?" asked Clement, still shocked.
"I thought you were confused or you couldn't keep up with the story," said Mavislin, stifling a laugh.
"Both actually. First, you are scary. Second, it is amazing that the woman could have so many children. Very rarely I would see twins, let alone four at once. The human body can't stand it," reasoned Clement.
"Nope. Perhaps if her body well-nourished or if she was resting instead of walking around, she would have had a better time delivering."
"I would have to strongly disagree on this. Even my wife died during childbirth, and she was only delivering one kid. And the kid didn't make it either. We gave her the best; plenty of rest, food and kept her hydrated. But childbirth is very unpredictable."
A wave of silence and shock struck the two Mages. Mavislin remembered how it felt when Ysabeau suffered a miscarriage for the second time. Bryan regretted being so harsh on the man. Clement blinked away as he recollected his thoughts.
He never liked dwelling on the past too much. Brings back bad stuff.
"Don't have to give me any apologies. You wouldn't have changed anything either. And you can't as well since she had already passed after the kid popped out. Fate just doesn't want me to have a family, so I decided to do something else."
"It tests the limits of the physical body. Looks like humans are not ready to have too many kids in them," said Bryan.
"But Mages can handle it, right?"
"Depends. Some Mages don't even reproduce. They create another out of another being."
"Like passing it as a disease?"
"More or less."