Silver Rose

Chapter XXII - The Light which Shines into the Dark

"Leon, would you quit pacing?" Athena yelled.

"What the hell do you want me to do?" Leon yelled back.

"Okay, first of all," Ingrid began, "we are not going to do this. We are not gonna go bouncing off the fucking walls and end up right where we started!"

"Let's think through this calmly," Xanthus said, pushing up his glasses. "Penny wants us to wait right here. If she disappeared from this spot, this is exactly where she might reappear."

"Reappear?" Perseus said. "First of all, people don't just disappear."

"I don't know about that," Echo said. "Some of the stories I've heard about the first war, well, apparently, during the Defense of Mistral, there were a lot of people who just...disappeared. They weren't taken by the Grimm or anything. They were just gone. And these were people in places that were locked from the inside."

"Come to think of it," Yuan began, "haven't there been quite a few missing persons cases recently?"

"That was one of the jobs we were sent on, wasn't it?" Ingrid said.

"Yes," Xanthus said. "The one in Forever Fall last month. We never found them, but there were no remains either. And no sign of Grimm activity."

"You think what happened to those people happened to Lilly?" Athena said.

"It's hard to say. We don't even know what happened."

Leon balled his fists. If only he had been watching her more closely. If only he wasn't fooling around, she'd still be here with them.

"Leon," Ingrid said, putting a gentle hand to his shoulder.

"No," he grunted. "This is my fault."

"You're not gonna get started with that shit," Athena said. "This is nobody's fault."

"If only I—"

"Hey!" she yelled into his face. "Get a fucking grip!"

He stared into his sister's intense blue eyes for a moment before looking away and taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

"Much better," Athena said.

He stood at the edge of the pool, looking over at the knight statue. He wondered what that knight would do if he were in the same position.

* * * * *

Lilly held the girl's hand tightly as she led her to the outside, but the sun was still gone and the world was pitch black and empty. At least there were no monsters around. Still, whatever was happening to the world couldn't be good.

"My..."

Lilly turned to the girl.

"My mommy..."

"Huh? Where's your mommy?"

The girl pointed to the library.

"Is your mommy a teacher here?"

She shook her head.

"A...student?"

She nodded.

Lilly was dumbstruck. Her mother had to be quite young if she was still a student here. Then again, young mothers weren't exactly uncommon. After all, her own mother wasn't even in her twenties when she gave birth to her. Leon and Athena's mom was even younger than that. Although, of course, theirs was a special case.

"She's...trapped," the girl said.

"Trapped?" Lilly said. "Is someone holding her against her will?"