Merlyn had followed Leonard, and now she stood looking at the still figure. Maybe figures. One standing straight, the other sprawled.
She felt giddy with pleasure at the sight, no doubt.
No, she frowned, the execution is not quite right. She looked at his Nephew, who was in fact looking at her.
Both were unusually calm despite the situation in hand.
"Leonard?"
"Yes, Aunt?" he looked unnervingly calm. Not a person, with a dead's man hand splayed on his feet.
She flinched, bare feet.
"Did you kill him?" she asked. Little advantage beating around the bush.
Leonard looked almost hurt, "not really."
She was relieved, of course. He did not.
Leonard looked down, his eyes finally finding the puzzle. He shook his head.
"How did he die though? He was just begging and panting just moments ago?"
Merlyn looked at him, "begging for what?"
He said nothing for a while, looked torn between touching the still warm body for a pulse or go on with the concluded, "he begged me not to call Mum."
"What?"
"You heard me."
Leonard was quiet and then as if suddenly noticing his feet with a dead hand, backed off, his face finally breaking to an emotion.
He knelt and checked Turdley pulse. "It's weak, but he is alive." He said with a marvel in his voice. "Probably out of shock."
For a moment all Merlyn saw was the dark mane of hair with his head down.
Not his eyes, the curve of his mouth.
Maybe that is why she did not see the look on his face when he rose.
For a moment, they stood silent.
Merlyn legs went out.
She collapsed.
All went dark.
Then, nothing.
"Leonard."
Full name. Voice stern.
"Caught your attention?"
"I have been caught up with you for some time now."
The casualness, the dryness did little to subdue the rage.
"Toying around is fine, but humans must be spared."
Silence.
He chucked, "gone? Backing away from an argument, are you? That's new."
Her footsteps was quite, and then she was standing in front of him. Her hands entwined. Leo was looking down, gazed at her bare feet.
His foot was bigger than hers was.
The last time he had meet her; she still had the upper hand.
For all his courage, he was not sure how to look up.
Her hands fell, and then he felt a ruffle in his hair. Warm hands, no trace of cold. Warm, as the living.
He did not see her but he could feel the smile in her voice, "a minute of insane courage?"
"30 seconds."
She snorted, "Is that all the time? Then you should hurry."
He looked up, and was stunned. He was taller than she was. She was looking up at him. The change hit different. He had always thought that he would look up at her, and feel her arms around him, engulfing him. The warmth.
The eyes. Now that he can look at them again, he realized he had dimmed the brightness in his memories. They shone green. Her lips quirked to a smile.
She had not aged. She looked a few years older to him.
"Why have you not aged?" this was not the question he had wanted to ask when he found his mother's attention after more than a decade.
She laughed; the brimmed tear fell down her cheek in a single stroke. She shook her head, "where are you manners? Asking a lady her way to maintain youth?"
"Asking my Mother- if she is aliv- well", he managed.
Her smile was sad, she clicked her tongue, and "I am well."
He nodded, unsure.
She strained her neck to look behind him. Her sister. His aunt. Then looked at him. He felt embarrassed.
"She is fine, just a little tampering with the food."
She nodded, "The timing was unnerving. Almost as if you knew." She was quite for some time, searching my face, "did you?"
"I did not trust her. The rest just happened."
Emerald cocked her head, "you do not trust Merlyn? So, the Imp then?" she asked her eyes falling to the shocked body.
"Not him either."
She walked around me again. I followed her, not that I can help if she chooses to disappear.
"Leo?"
"Yes?"
"Where is the painting?"
He was not used to hiding anything from her-
"It's burning in the backyard."
Turdley cursed himself, his senses restoring. Please let me be senseless, unfeeling, but to no avail. His eyes stuttered open.
The scene was dramatic.
The duo was paying him no heed. The mother and son resembled two elaborate statues, frozen in time. Close by, Merlyn lay, her hand twitching.
He could see wisps of smoke rising from the shut window behind. Smoke? Fire? There is a fire in the backyard? That should have been enough to have him sprinting and curb the disaster. Nevertheless, this was a special situation. He had managed to break every oath to his Father he had kept for more than 23 years in a single day.
He realised Merlyn was awake too but she held her silence too. It was fascinating- hold her tongue and self-back.
The room smelled of smoke, charred. Was the window open? The entire room was still though, no wind. The windowpanes were threating to split apart with the external pressure of the nature, the outside smoke going awry. Maybe, through the trapdoor, he realized.
Not that he was going to risk looking up.
Emerald voice for the first time in all his years was devoid of its strength. It was soft, a tremor underneath all,
"What have you done?"
Merlyn felt nothing.
How had she collapsed? She had felt an urge to drop, to shut down. Strangely had the feeling of an automaton. She felt no pain, no burning. Nothing hurt.
Except this.
They both stood as we facing a duel. Her eyes were stuck on her elder sister. Her hair were lose. She burned with a ferocity of an untamed anger. She looked alive. So much.
Was she alive then? All along?
Merlyn felt a load in her heart, the one she had been carrying for so long, she had forgotten it dwelt. Now, seeing her sister, it made its presence known, a demand to burst on a being whom she had cherished all her life.
Her nose wrinkled. She did not cough though. The room looked greyer. She realised that weasel of a creature Turdley was splayed nearby, his eyes wide open.
Did not die. Pity.
Has someone planned to burn down the room? She looked wildly around for the source, wanting to douse it immediately lest it hurts anybody. Except for the weasel, she hoped he burned in Hell. Might as well begin from here.
Then her eyes caught with the source. The source of smoke.
She cannot douse. She cannot douse him.
Her hand came to her mouth to suppress the scream.
It was coming from Leonard.
He was burning.