"Mrs. Crown, you are under arrest for the murder of Jeffrey Crescendo."

The handcuffs were around her wrists before Jade could even have the time to process what they had just found. She kept thinking of everything she heard the woman say, every fake tone she used, and wondered how someone could even live so long with the blood of someone else staining their hands their whole life. She watched from the doorway with her arms crossed as Detective Inspector Lestrade arrested Emily Crown.

"I swear, I didn't do it," she hissed, grunting as he grabbed her by the arm. She looked so much different when she was angry the way she was now. Her glare was permanent, and her face was shaped into something called hatred. "Please, sir, yes, I knew him..."

As Lestrade droned on about whatever police officers say to the convicted at this point, Lilith was sitting on a small sofa chair not a few meters away, legs hanging off the edge of the left armrest. Her coat was thrown across the chair across from it, and she was fiddling around with a single chess piece, the king to be exact. She didn't say anything. She just watched as Lestrade dragged the woman out of the room, police sirens being heard in the distance.

Dante Crescendo walked in a moment after.

"So it was her," he breathed, the relief being lifted off his shoulders before their eyes. "It was Minuet's aunt."

"Well," Lilith replied, still twisting the chess piece between her fingers, her body facing the fireplace but her head turned towards the flying troll. "That's who we've arrested."

"Oh Lord," Jade groaned animatedly. "You don't think it's her."

"I never said that."

"You didn't have to."

Max could feel the tension rising from their words from the other side of the study.

Jade sighed with a sarcastic grin and dropped her arms to her sides. "Alright. What's on your mind?"

"Dante told me he saw one more word in his nightmare." She crossed one leg over the other, still hanging off the chair. "Hairs."

"Well the other word is the name of the woman who killed Mr. Crescendo," Jade pointed out, leaning back on the wall. "He probably just saw that word somewhere else, maybe heard it mid-sentence or something. What matters now is that he can finally sleep peacefully for the first time in twenty years."

But instead of listening, Lilith rolled her head back and closed her eyes, face tilted at the ceiling. Almost instantly Jade stood up straight and shook her head. "Great. Yeah, okay. Great."

"What?" Max frowned at her. Dante was also looking quite confused.

Jade waved a hand in the air and stepped a foot outside the door. "Mind palace. It's this... thing, she does. She'll be out for ages."

"What's a mind palace?" Dante looked at Lilith like she was an alien with three heads.

Jade grabbed his arm and began to drag him out the door, Max shortly following after. "Mental thinking technique. It's like this imaginary memory palace, all she has to do is mentally enter it and eventually come out with the answer to whatever sort of shit we're in." She scoffed. "Come on. She also prefers privacy."

Lilith faintly heard her muttering something about booking train tickets as they left the room, her mind racing like speeding cars.

Hairs.

She firstly thought it could have been a word of a sentence, just a single leaf of a huge tree. So meaningless, there were billions of sentences and phrases using that word.

Then came the word itself. Hairs. Hairstyle. Hairspray. Perhaps a hair salon name, she had seen several while spending the last few days in the kingdom. Hairsalon. Hairsmith was one of them.

But then perhaps it wasn't even hairs that he saw. Hairs. Chairs. Could he have been seeing the word chairs? It was possible.

When she saw the word Emily drift back into her head, pounding on the doors of her palace, she thought back to the scene of the crime. The very place where Crescendo was brutally murdered.

Emily Crown.

Emily Crown.

Emily. Hairs.

Emily Hairs.

She remembered the surname from somewhere. She practically dashed across the room to the nearest phone book.

~*~*~*~

"Do you believe her?"

Lestrade was sitting on the other side of the table with his fork in his hand, their take-away sprawled across the table delicately. When he asked the question, she looked up from her food at him like she couldn't quite understand the question.

"Lilith. Do you believe her?" he asked again. "About the Crowns."

"Mrs. Crown knew him," she pointed out, more accusing-like than matter-of-fact. "She was there that night. And she's hiding something, you know it too."

"The shoe prints we found are most likely a man's show though."

"She could have worn her husband's shoes," Jade remarked thoughtfully, though her words were still tainted with anger. "She probably knew I saw her with the muddy shoes last night and was trying to make sure it didn't happen again."

"The experiments," Jade snapped. "Has she said anything about those yet?"

Branch shrugged. "The police here have questioned her about it, but she won't say anything. But she knows something, they've figured that much out. She has no alibi for the murder and no one to confirm her whereabouts. All we have is her words from the dinner and the security footage from the theatre that shows she was entering the woods at several points throughout the past few months." He realized his words were matching up with everything Jade was saying, and he realized she had to have been right.

"The experiments are a weird thing," Jade added. "Has anyone found out what she was doing there?"

"Well not even Lilith seemed to mention what she thought about them," Branch noted. "It seemed to be some sort of science experiment to do with bioluminescence though, from what Max could tell. There's people investigating it as we speak."

She scowled and didn't answer. He was purposely holding off on asking her the one thing that's been clogging his mind for the past hour or so.

"Jade."

She practically threw her spring roll across the table as she tried to wiggle it out of its container. "What?"

"Talk to Lilith." His voice was stern, like he was talking to his own child. "I know something happened between you. I can tell, Max can tell, everyone can tell. You solved the case so you might as well make up."

She avoided his gaze and stared out the window. "What, do you expect us to kiss and make up?"

He paused for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah."

She rolled her eyes as though she couldn't stand the idea of making up with Lilith. Or kissing Lilith. But really she was rolling her eyes because she couldn't believe the fact that she was being lectured about her friendship problems with Lilith Holmes by the Detective Inspector of Shortcake Yard.

She poked her food with her chopsticks and watched her broccoli rock back and forth. "We should get ready to go. Train's leaving at eleven."

The inspector huffed and leaned back in his chair, legs stretched under the table. "Are you sure you don't want to take the morning train?"

"Very sure. Come on, help me pack up this food."

Branch eyed her curiously. "You didn't even touch your food."

"Never did like Chinese food."

~*~*~*~

Jade waited, standing side by side with Max Hooper. He had a timid look on his face, almost as though you could break it at any moment possible. Stiff, and fragile. Like a doll, Jade thought. She wished she could enjoy the pleasantness of the lack of trolls crowding the train station at that particular hour, but she had a nagging feeling in her stomach that told her she shouldn't. So she didn't.

She looked quite pale herself, and he couldn't seem to tell if it was because she was feeling like someone punched her in the stomach, or because of the loud winds and the chilly air. Either way, he nudged her slightly and handed his pair of mittens. She took them.

Lilith and Branch came together, both equally as silent as the four of them boarded the train. Lilith didn't even bother to look at anyone when she stepped into their shared booth. She was too busy thinking how she couldn't be happier to have booked this exact train.

"You look like you're... waiting for someone," Lestrade remarked slowly after a moment. The train was about to depart the station in a few moments.

"I'm surprised you can tell that simply from one's face and not have to have it spelled out for you like a child," Lilith snapped back pleasantly. It took everything for Jade not to snicker at the comment.

Max looked up at Lilith thoughtfully. He was seated directly across from the girl, and seemed to not be able to stop staring at her. Branch was the only one who noticed, with Lilith looking down the row of booths as though she was really expecting someone.

The train had just begun to move when Lilith's face lit up and she hollered, "Mr. Crown! I didn't expect to see you here!"

He looked like a deer frozen in headlights.

Her name sounded forced and foreign on his lips. "...Lilith."

"Now wherever could you be off to?" she asked, smiling wide. Her friends all stared at her in blank confusion, like they had never seen her be sweet to someone before.

Mr. Crown, on the other hand, looked like someone was holding him at gunpoint. "I... just needed a break," he sighed, looking genuinely tired. "With everything that happened at the theatre... I'm going to visit my sister in Trolldon."

"Interesting," Lilith nodded. Jade felt like she knew something that the rest of them didn't. "What about Minuet? What's happened to her?"

Chord forced a smile. "Oh, she's here with me."

And like magic, Minuet appeared at his side with luggage in her hands.

Jade instantly knew something was definitely, very very wrong.

Minuet's eyes looked drained, her face pale and her colour dull. Jade wanted to stand up and start questioning the girl, but she kept herself still and watched. Lilith knew something they didn't, and Jade could tell.

"Hello, everyone." Minuet practically croaked out the word like it physically hurt to say. "I didn't think you would be leaving so soon."

"Well Max and Lestrade have to get back to work," Lilith told her, still smiling like Minuet was suddenly her favourite person in the world. "And I don't mind much for staying around here without anything else to do. Besides, we solved the murder, and now your aunt's behind bars like she should."

Jade saw something in her face, but she couldn't grasp at what she was seeing. Chord was looking down at his niece like he was prepared to interrupt her at any moment, even though she wasn't even speaking. She only nodded and gestured to the older man that they should go to their seats now. He didn't hesitate to leave with her, waving to the detective as they continued down the aisle.

Branch seemed to have actually caught on something in that conversation. "Lilith, what's going on?"

Lilith was glaring down the aisle, like a snake watching its prey, the fake smile instantly gone. "It was Chord. Mr. Crown killed Dante's father."

"What."

Lilith shuffled in her bright red seat, leaning closer to everyone like she was telling a massive secret, which, in a way, she was. "Dante told me a little while ago that he saw two words in one of his recent nightmares about the night of the killing. Emily was one of them, and I assumed it was because, in a way, young Dante knew Emily had killed him but couldn't remember it as he grew up."

"So why else would her name be in her head...?" Branch asked blankly, like he didn't even understand what she was saying.

Lilith sighed. "He saw her name because Emily was also on stage that same night. She was a background dancer."

"But we would have realized that," Jade blinked. "Dante could have realized that, anyone here at the theatre would have realized that. They've dedicated so much time to this mystery."

"The reason no one realized that Emily Crown was on stage that night was because she was under a different name," Lilith explained quietly, practically whisper-shouting at the moment.

Branch made a face as though he just sucked on a lemon. "What? But her maiden name was Georgia. Of course she would have a different name, she wasn't married to Chord yet. That was twenty years ago."

"Sometimes, Lestrade, I wonder if you waited until I finished explaining to talk, you would sound less stupid," Lilith mumbled back. She kept glancing down the aisle, to where the two classical trolls sat quietly. "I looked into the phone book before we left, after she was arrested."

"...why?"

Lilith was glaring down the aisle again, and Jade wondered how long someone could possibly look so angry for. "I looked through Emily's room at the theatre before we left as well."

"You WHAT-"

"-and I found a wedding ring in her jewelry box." Lilith was twitching her fingers now, stimming on the side of the seat. "And it's not her ring from Mr. Crown."

"...so she was married before?" Max gapped.

"Indeed. Judging by the ring itself, it's no older than twenty-one years old, hand-crafted. She had to have been a married woman to someone else during the time of Dante's concert." She inhaled. "I found the marriage certificate in her room. She was married to someone called Willem Hairspain."

Jade's eyes went as big as ever. "Hairs. The other word from Dante's dream-"

"Yes." Lilith nearly felt bad for snapping at her so quickly after seeing her face change. "Since she still has the ring and marriage certificate, Willem must have passed away sometime since then."

"And let me guess," Branch interrupted. "You looked into his death."

"Of course I did." She was picking at the lint on her coat again. "He died from poisoning."

"Who poisoned him?"

"That's the thing," Lilith whispered. "It was Jeffrey Crescendo."

"WHAT?!" All three of them practically screeched from their small little booth, startling others sitting around them. Lilith glared at them horribly, mouthing a subtle, "Shut up!"

"Wait." Jade calmed down the quickest and now seemed to be finally grabbing onto the hooks Lilith was lowering. "What if Jeffrey was the one doing the experiments in the first place? He killed Willem, for whatever reason, and then Jeffrey was killed as an act of revenge?"

"Exactly." It felt like the first good thing Lilith's ever said to her since the night at the diner.

Max frowned and scrunched up his face like he smelled something foul. "But then how does that make Chord Jeffrey's killer? He wouldn't even have known any of them at the time."

"Unless he did."

Branch groaned like the whole new discovery boggled his mind until it gave him a headache. "We have no proof that he was there, though. And besides, if he wasn't with her at the time, why would he kill Jeffrey?"

Lilith hesitated. It wasn't something that happened often. "Well, inspector, maybe, just maybe," she spat, shaking her head slightly. "He was in love with her before, he was in love with her twenty years ago and she was with someone else."

He hesitated back.

"The things you people do for love," Lilith scoffed. She didn't see Max sliding further down his seat as he leaned back and stayed quiet.

"So what do you plan to do now?" the inspector asked. "You have no proof Emily didn't do it either, her name was still in Dante's dream and she's hiding something from us."

"There's only one way for us to find out," Lilith shrugged, a slow smile creeping on her lips. She frowned for a moment. She was standing up and leaving the booth before anyone had time to object or yell at her or even say a single thing. She was gone and out of sight, leaving for Minuet and Chord.

"The girl who emailed me the other day, the one who was complaining about her father's behaviour," Lilith said suddenly, her eyes shining in the dim light of the room. "Her name was Petra Crown."

Jade 's eyebrows narrowed and her face formed into a look of confusion. "Crown? Like Chord Crown?"

Lilith nodded, flipping her covers over on itself. "His daughter was the one who emailed me. And if I'm right, then there's something he's hiding." Her gaze hardened. "Something they're all hiding."

"...right."

"WAIT!" Jade was screaming like her hair was on fire, eyes wide and skin burning with realization. Branch and Max gawked at her like she was an alien from another planet.

"...what's wrong?"

There was a daughter.

"There was a daughter," she breathed in reply, looking like she had just seen a ghost. "So why isn't she here with Chord going to Trolldon?"

"I," Max blinked. "Have literally no idea what you're saying."

But Jade was already marching down the aisle when he uttered those words.

~*~*~*~

"What," Jade said, doing her best to handle her words carefully. "Was it like growing up with your brother?"

"Hell." She was smirking, though. She could see it behind the cold February air. "Absolute hell."

"I imagine you were a delight to live with as well."

"Says the person who's currently living with me."

Jade always liked stakeouts with Lilith. At first, she was more interested in the feeling of danger and thrill, waiting for something or someone that could murder them fresh in the night. It was the same feeling she felt when she first met Lilith and first went on a case with her. But then she soon grew to love the conversation, the words and random thoughts that fled through her mouth. Lilith, having nothing else to do, would always listen.

"I remember once," Lilith said. "When I was about nine, August tried to run away. He was so fed up with the whole family. He didn't get very far, of course. He left his laptop at home and didn't have the money to buy a new one.. That, and my grandmother didn't have the space for him at her house."

"For some reason I can't imagine little August trying to run away."

"Of course you can't. It's August."

"My mum always said I was the favourite child, but now I think she was joking."

"How come?"

"Because August wasn't the one who ran away. It was me."

~*~*~*~

Jade found herself standing in front of Chord and Minuet's booth before she knew it. Lilith was standing there, beside her, and seemed to be mid-sentence, a small smirk on her face. Jade had no idea what she was interrupting, but she didn't even care.

"Minuet's your daughter."

Minuet looked like she was about to cry, which would have looked like an odd reaction to anybody, but to Jade, she found nothing wrong with it.

"What?" Chord scoffed like she made the wildest assumption in the world. "That's ridiculous! She's my niece, you idiot!"

"Well," Lilith said simply, holding her hands behind her back. "I believe Jade here is actually right."

"What!?" Chord's face turned a pale shade of red, like he was about to pass out. "I can't believe you, I thought you were supposed to be a detective, Miss Holmes."

"Consulting detective," she corrected, almost automatically. Jade thought she might as well go around wearing a huge sign that reminded everyone she wasn't an ordinary detective at this point.

"I don't care what it bloody is." He was growing more angry by the second, and they all could see it on his face. "Please leave us alone, Miss Holmes. And take your little girlfriend with you."

"Oh, trust me, she's not my girlfriend," Lilith sassed, shaking her head, still enjoying his anger. "But thank you for being considerate of the possibility. Always nice."

"Oh shut up."

"Minuet, you've been awfully quiet this whole time," Lilith remarked casually, turning to her. "Anything you'd like to say?"

The young woman was looking down, silently, as though she was trying to figure out how to answer the question without setting her uncle's (??) temper higher than it needed to be. They all waited for her as though was a teacher about to tell the classroom the next big assignment.

Then she jumped up out of her seat like a freshly toasted piece of toast and dashed down the aisle at top speed.

"Minuet!" Mr. Crown was growling at her the moment she darted away like a bullet shooting from a gun. At first, Lilith had willingly swished aside for her to run through, but then realized that might have not helped the situation at all a bit too late.

Instead she fluttered over to the elder man, who had just leaped up himself. "Uh, sir, please sit down. I suggest you don't make matters wors-"

But he was bolting away to follow Minuet before she could finish her sentence.

"God damn it, Lilith!" Jade scolded, waving her hands and huffing.

"Mistakes can be made!" Lilith replied with a swish of her coat as she began to run down the aisle, a wave of gasps being heard from surrounding trolls in their own booths.

Before Jade decided to follow her, she shook her head lightly and forgot all about their problems as she sent a smile in Lilith's direction. Then she was high on their tails in the next second.

The entire train seemed to be shaking around as they ran, their feet bouncing across the floor and their bodies looking like blurs of colour. Jade felt like she was going to trip on the carpet at every step. She kept following the trail of Lilith's flowing hair, keeping her eyes steady on it.

When they passed their own booth, she could hear Max shouting, "JADE!" She ignored him.

The end of the compartment was nearing, the doors right there. She couldn't tell if anyone had fled through them already, but she didn't care. She just needed to stop the person who could have murdered Jeffrey Crescendo all those years ago.

Lilith could run fast. She knew it, everyone knew it. And yet she never felt this slow before. Her legs felt like plastic, heavy and like they were going to give out any moment. She did a good job at pretending she didn't feel that way, though.

She heard Max yell Jade's name, and then she heard Jade not answer back. She hadn't realized how close behind Jade was until she heard Max cry her name like the world was falling apart. She focused on the man she was chasing, being reminded with every footstep that this was not the first time she'd chased someone in an area that had to do with a train.

When Jade made it to the other end of the compartment, she saw that the door to the second part of it was wide open, leading them into the first class seats. She sucked in a sigh as she went against her will and followed the three trolls in, shouting apologizes to those who seemed bothered by all the commotion. She was used to apologizing on other people's behalf at that point.

"Chord!" Lilith cried his name, angrily, but he didn't listen. He was flying now, hovering in the air and zooming through the aisle at top speed. Minuet had been flying since the start, her small wings flapping furiously in the air. The whole scene must have looked chaotic to the trolls surrounding them. Four trolls dashing through the train, running and flying the opposite direction the train was actually going.

Jade knew the next door would lead to the staff room. She didn't know where it led to next, and that scared her.

"Mr. Crown!" Lilith was snapping at him now, loudly, and full of hatred. What confused Jade was why she sounded so desperate, like he was running straight into a fire and she was trying to save him.

She looked ahead, and then saw Minuet holding the door open, and even from behind she could feel her eyes widen. She didn't run through.

She flew through, and up. Because the door only led to the open space and the outside, the binding of the trains right in front of them. Chord Crown made no hesitation to dart up into the sky as well, leaving the two wing-less trolls standing right at the open door, inches away from falling off and dying a painful death. Lilith was fuming, the night sky hiding the classical trolls.

"And now is when I wish I was a classical troll," Jade breathed, holding the sides of the doorway with her hand. "Now what?"

Lilith was still staring up. It was completely dark outside, the whole world hiding in the shadows and covered in a pitch blackness. She could barely see her own arm in front of her if she were to stick it outside. Chord and Minuet could have been miles away from them now.

"They're probably going to go back to Symphonyville," Lilith grumbled, clearly unhappy with the whole situation. "By the time we get to Trolldon, they'll be long gone and hiding from us. There's no point in going back after."

"Well we can't leave her with a criminal," Jade pointed out.

"Not that she hasn't spent the last twenty years with one."

Jade ignored her, beginning to pace slightly in the small space they stood in. "What do we do now? Minuet knew this the whole time, she was Petra Crown, the little girl asking you for help."

"Yes, she was."

Jade frowned at the floor, breathing heavily from the running. "Why wouldn't she tell us straightforwardly?"

"Why does anybody do un-straightforward things?" Lilith chuckled softly, grabbing her hair and shoving it out of her face. "Fear. It eats a person up, Jade. Trolls are so used to joy and hate they don't understand what to do with fear when it shows up."

"So now we're being poetic?"

"My mother told me I had the soul of a poet once."

Jade laughed.

She didn't even mean to laugh so loud and so joyfully, but she did. And when Lilith Holmes saw the wide smile and the creases beside her eyes, she couldn't help but giggle along as well, even despite the fact they just lost a very likely murderer.

She was shortly reminded when Lestrade and Max practically came parading through the aisle to finally catch up to them. The inspector had a thrilling look on his face. "What the hell just happened?"

"Well." Lilith turned towards the wide open door, her hair flowing in the loud wind. "We just lost a killer."

Lestrade looked at her like she was Anderson, and frankly, she felt offended by the gesture.

"Okay hang on." Max looked like a small child compared to all the annoyed people standing around him. "Why was Miss Sonata fleeing too? She didn't even do anything."

"She's Mr. Crown's daughter," Lilith explained, and Jade watched in amusement as his face lit up when she answered him directly. "And she must have known what he did all these years. She called for help a little while ago."

"And she just left too?"

"With her father hot on her heel. She's likely heading back to Symphonyville, it's not a far flight from here. But unfortunately," Lilith told them, looking slightly worried for the young Minuet Sonata. "There won't be any escaping her father."

"I'll talk to the police here," Branch offered, eyes sharp. "They can help find them."

Lilith gave him a face and turned around on her heel. "Mm, no. No offence but even Mr. Crown will be sharper than the dullard police officers here."

Branch looked at her like she was an idiot. "So you suggest we do nothing about it?"

"Oh, I didn't say that," Lilith grinned cheekily. "We just so happen to have a friend sitting around Symphonyville at the moment."

~*~*~*~

Dante Crescendo was not in his right mind.

He felt like he was almost not in his mind at all. And he felt bad for it. He should have been rejoicing, celebrating, feeling the weight of all his problems lift off his shoulders. They caught the killer, the woman who was responsible for his father's death. He didn't stick around to hear the details, and he didn't even bid his new friends farewell when they left for Trolldon once again. He was too focused on something, but he couldn't tell what.

His mind felt empty, and yet completely full. It was an odd feeling, and he wasn't sure he liked it very much. Pacing around the room felt ordinary, like it was a habit gone wrong. Then he started floating, wings flapping at an alarming pace. Maybe, he thought, if he did this long enough he would fall asleep and never wake up and be done with everything.

They caught it.

The killer.

But he saw a hound, he saw something. He and everybody assumed that Mrs. Emily Crown was the one in the costume, in the getup, out there to scare them. And yes, she had succeeded, but he still felt like maybe, just maybe, he was actually seeing the hound. It was all too real to be fake.

He didn't believe what he wished he could believe.

"Dante?" The knock on his door scared him so much, he practically jumped in his skin. "Are you there?"

He wanted to throw something at the door, anything. His mind wandered over to the glass vase as an ideal throwing item but then he heard, "It's Lilith. Well, it's not Lilith. I'm not Lilith. But she needs your help."

He frowned, staring at the closed door. He recognized the voice, but he was more curious as to why she was at his door.

"Why are you here?" It sounded like an accusation rather than a question. "I don't have an appointment."

"Because you didn't answer your phone," she shouted back. She was knocking louder, like she was dying. "You need to come with me, Dante."

"Why?!"

"Because you need to help me catch your father's killer."

~*~*~*~

Lilith did not like waiting for something that she didn't even know would be coming. She hated it, hence the pacing began. She would walk up and down the aisles, getting strange looks from the passengers, and when she made it all the way back to her own booth, she would get even more strange looks from her own friends.

"I don't have," she spat. "Friends."

She felt the word cling onto her stomach like a bad aftertaste. She looked at Jade Watson, who was sitting in the booth, talking lightly with Max. Lestrade was busying with something on his phone, no less something to do with the police at Stmphonyville. She normally would be thrilled to not be a part of the chatter, but she somehow didn't even feel the least bit happy.

And Jade saw it.

"Um," she heard Jade say, to Max in particular. "We should probably search Chord and Minuet's booth in case they left anything here."

Max frowned. He had already seen Lilith go and check it out earlier.

But then he looked at Lestrade, who gave him a knowing nod, and figured it all out.

Jade got up quietly and quickly, hustling to get through the booth and into the aisle. Lilith watched her as she began walking down towards Chord's old booth, and without even thinking about it, followed.

She thought Jade looked particularly exhausted at the moment, and wondered when the last time she slept was. She was standing right in front of the booth, while Jade was digging through the bags that were left behind. She didn't even mean to voice her thoughts, they just came out like waterfalls. "You look tired."

"It's midnight," Jade reminded her without emotion. "Of course I'm tired." She eyed her. "Aren't you?"

"I slept last night, I'm fine," Lilith told her, which got a small head shake from the doctor. "Have you found anything yet?"

"I've been searching for thirty seconds, Lilith."

Lilith had to hold her tongue to keep her from saying that it took her less than that to search through all the bags about ten minutes ago, when she did.

She looked down. She didn't know how to word this, and it frustrated her.

"I'm sorry."

Jade thought she might tumble back with shock.

"What?"

"I'm sorry." Lilith did not like how the words tasted on her tongue. She decided she wouldn't say it so often anymore, not that she did already. "For... you know, the other night."

Jade looked away, hiding the emotion in her eyes. "I don't think I've ever heard you say sorry for something."

"I know," she scowled back. "It's gruesome. Do all you people find it so difficult?"

Jade grinned a grin Lilith had missed for the past day, and she couldn't help but smile back. "You're sorry for...?" She knew she was pushing it at this point.

"Don't."

"Alright."

Lilith gave her a look that anyone could tell was made up of pure love.

"I... shouldn't have said those things," Lilith said reluctantly, like she wished she could be anywhere but there. But Jade saw it in her eyes, and she was smiling and thrilled. "I'm sorry."

"No." Jade shook her head, confusing the consulting detective. "I was overreacting."

"But-"

"Shut up," Jade teased, joy flashing through her eyes. "Just, shut up."

~*~*~*~

Dante never wanted to look at another tree ever again. He hated the forest. He even considered moving at this point, he wanted to be rid of the whole woods altogether.

Without Lilith or anyone accompanying him, he found he could fly ahead much faster. Before he even knew it was there, the abandoned train sitting right before him like it did before. He felt the wind hissing in his ear, the trees swaying in the air and the leaves falling with every breeze. He could barely see in front of him. In such a rush, he didn't bring a flashlight, and he deeply regretted it.

His therapist didn't even come with him. She was waiting, sitting inside the theatre. Mrs. Cane was never one for long distance flying.

He kept reminding himself that it was only Emily Crown messing with their minds. There was no hound. There was never one, it was all the chaos from one woman who had her heart broken and her lover killed. Revenge, he liked to think of it. Dante never seeked revenge for his father's death. He just seeked justice. And he got it, so why didn't he feel better?

Because he never got justice, not yet, at least. Emily Crown was not his father's murderer. So every time he kept reminding himself that it was only Emily Crown, he had to keep telling himself that was a lie. Mrs. Cane told him so. Lilith had been wrong, or at least, she was wrong at the time.

The wind was howling like a crying hound. Oh, the irony.

He was instructed to wait, but he didn't know where. The trees and bushes didn't give him too much room to hide, and he couldn't go inside the train. He felt his stomach dropping as he thought about having to face the man who killed his father, the man who rid him of anyone to guide him through his life. He was an orphan for as long as he could remember.

"Come on, Dante." Mrs. Cane told him that talking to himself was only a natural factor of stress. "You got this, it's just an old man."

"Well that's no way to talk to your elders."

His heart dropped, and he feared it physically did.

"You." The single word sounded tasteless and foul, like gritty dirt. "You."

"I should have known you would be here," he spat at him. Dante was trying to figure out where he even came from. He just seemed to appear. "Look, kid, I don't want to hurt you. I just need you to listen-"

"You KILLED HIM!" Dante's voice shook the earth, crying out and screaming louder than the birds above. "You MONSTER!"

He eyed him back like he was a rat. "I can't believe Lilith Holmes sent out the most emotional man I've ever known to stop me."

Dante wanted to kill him. He wasn't even going to deny it, he wanted to pierce something sharp through his skull until he bled to death, slow and painful. He hated himself for thinking those horrid thoughts.

Dante then remembered the second part of his task. "W-where's Minuet?"

Chord looked at him like he almost forgot about his daughter. "Oh, her. Don't worry about her. I'd be more worried about yourself."

"Where's Minuet?!"

"She's safe, if you were wondering," he snapped back.

"I want her here, and I want her safe."

"She's safe where she is." Dante literally wanted to lash at him, claw through his throat. He hated the man standing in front of him, and pitied the wife who had to suffer for the crime he committed, twenty years ago. "I have no idea why you're so worried about her."

Dante's whole body shook like he was freezing in the middle of the Arctic, but it wasn't because of the cold. He had to choke back the sobs, the screams, the wails. He felt so alone, so fragile, and he wanted it all to stop.

"You m-murdered my father," he gasped out. lifting his head up and letting the breeze clear his tears. "You murdered him in cold blood right in front of me. You've been- a-a walking criminal for the past twenty years, Mr. Crown."

"Yes, I suppose so." He didn't even look fazed, which was unsurprising, considering he's been keeping it a secret for so long. "And Minuet found out somehow, so I had to make sure she'd keep that quiet. And then I found out she had emailed Miss Holmes for help."

Dante couldn't speak, he felt sorry for the girl. He felt sorry for everyone, he felt sorry for himself. For being such a coward in the face of this disgusting man.

"You're just a boy," Chord snarked, floating closer to him. "You've lost everything, are you really prepared to lose your life?"

Dante could just imagine those words being uttered to his father moments before his death.

He felt his hands begin to sweat, even in the cold. He wanted to hurl something at this man, he wanted to-

There was a growl in the bushes not ten feet away from him.

"What the HELL-" He jumped out of his own skin, feeling his whole body tingle with fear. Chord was hovering still, not saying a word.

Another growl. Movement. Something remarkably large, something large enough to kill him with it's bare hands. Or paws. Everything seemed to go numb. Dante thought he might as well cave in and die.

"No, no. No no no no no no no no no," he uttered, feeling every word hit him like a pack of bricks. He kept his eyes on the bushes, on the growls, on the noises and on the monster that was emerging from them.

It was giant, like something you would see in a movie. Something that Dante never wanted to see, but was staring right at it. Oh, it's eyes. It's huge, glowing eyes like shimmering orbs. Only they weren't very friendly. They were the kind of eyes you would see seconds before your death.

"This isn't real, this isn't happening!" His voice broke, snapping in the air like a pile of twigs. "This isn't happening, this ISN'T HAPPENING!!"

Chord still didn't say anything. He just stood still and watched like this was some exhibit at a museum.

Dante was going to die, he could see it and it's ruffled fur and it's huge, pointed teeth and it's vicious eyes. He didn't even know what to believe at this point. It was there, it was real, and it was going to kill him and he would be slaughtered on the ground like his father was twenty years ago.

He was crying, weeping. He didn't even care, he cried like the world was ending, which it was for him. Tears sprung out like water fountains, and he mentally felt like he was back to being a child again. And he loathed it.

Until it died.

An arrow whisked through the air within seconds and planted the hound to the ground, whimpering in pain and dying before him. Dante couldn't even process what happened. He thought maybe angels from above had come to save him, but it was actually something even better.

"Dante, Dante, I need you to stop," Minuet cried, floating down towards him, hand stretched out. "There was no hound, there was never any monster. What you saw was your imagination, it was a delusion. It's what your father was working on in that train all those years ago, a hallucination drug." She was going near the dead animal, looking at it closely. Dante thought she had to have been completely stupid to go so close to it.

"MINUET!" Chord was screeching like an annoying teenager. "Shut up and get back here, you little-"

"No, uncle, you shut up." And then she was pointing an arrow at him from her bow. "Dante, look at it. LOOK AT IT! It's just a dog, just a normal dog. Your mind made you think you were seeing a monster, but this is just a stray dog in the woods. It's not dangerous, it's not going to hurt you."

Dante was shivering, shaking, seething. "I... I-I, no, no no no. This can't be, what's happening?!"

She sighed like she had seen this behaviour before, coming closer to him. "Dante, you have to listen to me. When your father died, mine took over the experiments to make people believe that they were actually seeing monsters, that you had actually seen a hound. But that was never true, it was all a hallucination." Her eyes looked hurt, pitied, like she wished she could do so much more than just explain to him what had been happening.

"B-but.." His mind couldn't think properly. "How did I get the drug inside me...?"

Minuet looked drained. "The air. It's all from chemical fumes coming from the train, Dante. I-I'm so sorry, I should have told you..."

"Minuet." For a moment there Dante had forgotten that Chord was even there. "Give that freak back to me."

"And... why the hell would I do that?" she snapped, voice bitter and eyes hostile. She looked like she was about to shoot him with her arrows any moment now.

"Because," he hissed. "You have no choice."

Minuet's skin went pale, but her eyes remained dark. "You're going to prison, father. For a very long time."

"No." He stepped forward. "I am." He grabbed her wrist. "Not," he whispered in her ear before suddenly grabbing a knife from his jacket and raising it in the air to attack the poor girl.

Dante didn't even know what he was doing now. All he knew was that the next thing he remembered was that Chord Crown was laying on the ground with his head bleeding.

~*~*~*~

"He killed him in self defence," Lestrade stated, almost proudly. By the time they had arrived back in Symphonyville, it was early morning. Jade and Max had gone off seeking some breakfast.

Lilith's eyes rolled over to where Dante Crescendo sat in the ambulance, a blanket folded over his shoulders. He looked broken, pale. She remembered what happened to her the other night, and realized that could have easily been her.

"What's going to happen to Dante?" Lilith asked with a grim face.

Branch shrugged. "Hospital, first. Some mental health groups should help him get back on his feet eventually. After all, the poor guy's had a hard life."

"Indeed."

Branch eyed her suspiciously, and smiled faintly. "You wish you were there when it happened, don't you?"

Lilith looked down and kicked a pebble until it bounced away into the distance of the street. "I'm glad that Minuet was there when she was, that's all."

Branch gave her a look of utter sympathy, even though she wasn't the one going through all the disasters that Dante Crescendo did. "I'm going to find Max and Jade. Would you like to come?"

Lilith felt the insides of her coat dig up under her fingernails as she shoved her hands in. "No. I'll find you later."

He hesitated, then nodded quietly before he walked away.

She took the few steps to approach Dante, the broken troll who lost practically everything. "How are you feeling?" She didn't realize how kind she sounded.

He looked up, eyes crowded with emotions of all kinds. "I don't know."

She nodded.

"...why did you send me, of all people, to go and stop Chord?" he asked after a moment's hesitation.

She paused, then looked down like the ground had suddenly become super important. "Because I knew you had enough resentment to stop him, however possible. And I suppose it's also got something to do with your desire for justice. Trust me, I know."

He stared at her blankly for a moment, looking at every part of her face to desciper her emotion. And after a few moments of that, he smiled.

For the first time in a long time, he felt happy so he smiled. "Thank you, Miss Holmes. For everything."

She nodded at him. "Tell Miss Sonata that. You wouldn't be alive right now if it weren't for her."

He decided he would do just that.

And as she was walking away, into the cold night with the wind slapping her in the face and her hair going in all sorts of directions, Dante called out one more thing.

"Oh! And tell Dr. Watson I said thank you as well!"