Life After Death

Corryn: midnight counselling

{Corryn}

Nick woke me up by tapping my forehead, and I looked at him in confusion. Through the window, it was still dark.

"Arthur has vanished with Larachime," he said. "Lancelot doesn't want to worry anyone, but I figured you don't count, because you don't need to sleep."

"Who?" I asked before remembering the twins had names. "Oh, well, lead on."

"Just open your door," he told me and disappeared.

I stretched for the sake of stretching and then floated to the door. I could grab the handle, at least, on this side of the door. When I opened it, one of the twins was walking past.

"Corryn!" He stopped in front of me. "I'm glad to see you. My brother, sorry, Arthur, is missing. I think he ran off with Larachime because she's not here anymore. I would wake my parents, but I can't find their room and it's one in the morning, and I don't know..."

"Hey, Lancelot." His name was odd, probably because I had never used it. "It's all right. We'll find them. I'd say come in and sit down, but I think everything in here is ghost-form. Let's go to the kitchen, get some tea, and you can tell me what happened."

Gawain would laugh if he saw me in this position. Here I was, arguably the most powerful wizard in history, consoling a boy in the dead of night. But Lancelot nodded and followed me to the dining room, where, as I suspected, was sitting a pot of tea already there for us. Sadly, I wasn't solid enough to drink tea.

Lancelot pulled out a chair for me, and sat across, pouring a cup. He stared into the steam for some time before sipping the tea.

"Now, tell me what happened," I said gently.

"We talked to Larachime after dinner. I don't know, around eight or nine. We, sorry, Arthur wanted to know what she had meant about the seventh son being special, because she was right; I was born first. He is that seventh."

"And then what?"

"We went back to the room, played some chess and went to bed," he told me. "I woke up twenty minutes ago and he was gone. Bed already made, shoes taken, gone."

He took another sip and sighed. "I know it's stupid, but we're always together. He didn't even tell me he was leaving. He didn't say anything about it at all. That's never happened. I know everything about my brother."

"Except this," I mused. "I didn't hear anything, but I'm on the other side of the manor. Juliet will have tracking spells; we'll be able to find them in the morning. Worrying about him now doesn't alter anything."

"What if he didn't go under his own free will?" Lancelot demanded. "What then?"

"If it is Larachime, then she's not going to just kill him," I said, trying to sound reassuring. "He's the seventh. As she pointed out, he's damn rare. Lancelot, he'll be fine."

The boy startled at the sound of his own name and then shook his head.

"I guess I better get used to it," he muttered. "We're going to be different now. Things will never be the same again."

I wanted to assure him that things would return to normal, but he was right. The twins shared a common memory of events because they were always together. Even if everything was normal from this moment on, Arthur would have memories of this night that Lancelot didn't have, and vice versa.

"Drink your tea," I told him. "Relax. This could be a good thing. You're what? Twenty years old? Do you really want to live inside each other's shadows?"

"I didn't want it to be like this," he pointed out. "It would have been nice if he had just told me, you know? He's my best friend. We're the same person, only I wouldn't have run off like that."