Half an hour later, we were in Aris' car, the atmosphere considerably different than last time. A part of me was relieved that he was there, but I was still debating with the fact whether he should come with me to the house or not. It felt like a too intimate part of myself.

"So...where exactly in England?" he asked after a while, glancing at me from the corner of his eyes. "To be honest...you don't look British."

I gazed at the scenery passing by me as he continued.

"Your accent-"

"It's years of illiteracy that gave me my accent. Not the region I was born in," I said shortly. I didn't want to discuss anything about my life. My stomach was already knotting uncomfortably. I expected my strange, lazy drawl to sound unrefined next to his. He didn't say anything for a while. A few minutes into the area where I was born would give him a good idea of why my accent was so crass. Vulgar even.

"It's not really bad, you know," he said after a while as I turned to face him. "Your accent." He smirked, "Chicks dig a weirdo."

I stared at him for a while. "Was that your sugarcoated way of calling me a weirdo?"

He laughed, his eyes twinkling. "Why would I sugarcoat it?" He shook his head. "Do you have any idea how many people have asked me about you? They are under the impression that we're close."

I felt annoyed by his words. I couldn't understand what would give people such an illusion.

"People tend to say all kinds of shit," I replied, clenching my jaw.

"Er...I mean-" he seemed hesitant but trudged on moronically. "I guess it's because we have been spending a lot of time-"

I drummed my fingers impatiently on my thigh, finding myself more and more irritated the longer that he talked.

"Zeke," he spoke and I gritted my teeth to keep from cursing under my breath. What was his incessant need to make small talk? My patience was worn thin by my nervousness anyway. He continued relentlessly, "Is it okay if I ask you-"

"No," I said, finally losing my temper. I averted my eyes from his gaze, my words slipping out of my mouth before I could comprehend them. "By the way, do you ever fucking shut up? Since the first damn second, you've been blabbing like a fucking idiot."

My chest felt tight the moment the words were out of my mouth. I fixed my gaze at the trees running past the window and waited for him to throw me out of the car. I wouldn't blame him. I was a deplorable, worthless, sorry excuse for a human.

I bit my tongue, blood pounding in my ears. My outburst had been instinct. No matter how hard I tried to control it, I felt powerless. I felt distorted, once again as if I was on the outside of this body that I had no control over.

Prickling hot shame overwhelmed me, my stomach twisting into knots. I had a sudden urge to hurt myself. To pay for the distress I had caused.

"S-sorry," Aris spoke, his voice trembling slightly, shocked from my sudden yelling. "I-I have a habit. I get over-excited about everything. I didn't mean to pry. Ad I just keep blabbing," he chuckled nervously and my heart sunk. "Shit, I'm doing it again. "

I vaguely entertained the thought of opening the door and jumping out of the moving car. I hoped the consequent cuts and scrapes would cause me enough anguish to pay for what I had caused. It wasn't until Aris gave a startled yell that I realized that I had released the stopper on my door.

"You'll hurt yourself!" he called and leaning over, locked it again.

I shuddered slightly. Hurt me? That indeed was the plan. I glanced at the faded cut on my index finger, picking at it again with my thumb as crippling regret rattled me.

The ride was solely silent from then on. The intense need to physically hurt me out of guilt was mounting and I knew I needed a distraction before I ended up acting. A long, thick silence hung in the air. The venomous snakes of guilt writhed in my stomach, threatening to tear me open. It would've been easier if Aureus Greenwood, like a normal person, would be just a little unkind. But he seemed incapable of such an emotion.

I didn't say anything for some time before I began in a desperate attempt to normalise things. "You have been very...nice to me. All three of you," I said awkwardly. "What exactly about me have people been asking?"

My throat was uncomfortably tight in anticipation of the answer. I wondered if he would reply after all.

"Well, you know..." He shrugged. His voice was suddenly low, small. As if he was scared. A pang of agony seared in my chest. "If you're single. Available. I daresay they find your er... supposed delinquency quite alluring."

I felt my face flushing hot as I forced myself to focus instead on the disappearing scenery.

"How's that training thing going with Everhart?" he asked.

I sighed, "That's...actually why we're going to the mortal world today." My answer was eager, stemming from my guilt.

Aris glanced at me. "I don't follow."

"Do you know about anchors?" he nodded as I continued. "That's where we're going. To find an anchor."

His eyes widened. "To your...childhood home? Where were you born?"

I nodded, biting my lip as I tried to calm myself. I felt an obligation to tell him something worthwhile as a penance for my vehement behaviour towards him.

"That's...not going to be easy," he remarked, and I could feel his gaze on me. "Thank you for telling me," he said unexpectedly.

I sighed and raked a hand through my hair, feeling extremely guilty by his understanding nature. "Was there..." I began, my stomach clenching as I asked the question I had wanted to ask for so long. "Was there anything? Any...rumours? Theories about my past among the Obscurans?"

He was quiet for a while. "Plenty," he glanced at me, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. "I think it's better if you don't hear of them."

"I suppose some of them are true. Others...I want to know. I need to know." I insisted even as my heart rate increased.

He sighed, "Okay. But let me first tell you that...I can understand family scandals. Upholding traditions and all that bullshit. And..." His look suddenly darkened. "I can understand things getting to you. So I won't ask you not to let what I'm about to tell you get to you, but I just want you to know that some people don't give a fuck about your past."

I gazed out the window, straining my ears as he began. "I'll start with the easier ones," he took a deep breath. "You were born on a ship."

"Yes," I sighed. "And my first words were 'Aye matey.'"

There was silence for sometime before both of us burst into laughter. We laughed for a long time. It felt good to laugh, exhilarating. As if the stress I was feeling on revisiting England was being expressed as delirious laughter. It seemed like the same went for him as he laughed along. Although, his laugh was hesitant, nervous somehow. Finally, we quietened as he shook his head, his voice still amused. "That's not true then."

I shook my head.

"Well...the second one..." he was silent for sometime before he continued. "I'm really not comfortable with this, Zeke."

"I'd rather know." I urged. 

He sighed in his infuriatingly understanding way as he continued, a troubled shadow etched in his face. "That your mother...she was a prostitute who had seduced the king on one of his visits resulting in you."

I shut my eyes and bit my lip as a wave of agony passed through me. "They had a short fling. Yes. She...yes. She was. Slapper."

I turned to look at him and saw that his eyebrows were knitted in confusion.

"Er...a sexually promis-" I sighed softly. "Prostitute, yeah."

I could feel my face heating up as he gazed at me. Finally, much to my surprise, a small smile tugged at the end of his lips. "She must have been beautiful to have birthed you."

I was shocked and found myself blushing. Quickly trying to cover it up, I spoke, "She...raised me through difficult times."

Her beautiful face flashed into the eye of my mind, sending an icy shard piercing through my heart. "I...don't know if what she did was brave." I could feel a wave of emotions that I tried hard to swallow. "Sometimes I hoped that she should never have put up such a fight. That she should have..." never had me.

I didn't finish my sentence, not wanting to sound melodramatic and thankfully Aris didn't pursue.

"Why is loving too much such a weakness, Zeke?"

His words caught me off guard. I couldn't say anything, resorting to listening silently instead. The naked truth of his words seemed to reverberate my soul like a devastating crescendo.

"She was there for you. With you. She fought for you. That's..." he laughed humourlessly. There seemed to be some suppressed sadness in his voice. Profound. Almost a yearning. "More than I can say what my mom did for me."

I didn't say anything, wondering if he was going to elaborate. "My mom left me when I was seven," he continued, gripping the steering wheel hard. His jaw was set as he spoke, "It was a huge scandal. The first lady of Greenwood Corporations eloping. Leaving behind her asshole husband and a little child." He smirked sadly. "Man, that was a fun time."

He shook his head like a shadow of great sorrow passed through him. "But I had the sympathy of the entire nation, my father, their mockery. I was the poor child who got caught up in adult affairs. Everyone knows about it. Hell, I still hear about it," he smiled morosely, the twinkle in his eyes disappearing in a storm of sadness. "Juicy scandals like that never get old. The press had a field day."

"Did you...find her?" I asked, wondering if I was overstepping. My collar felt slightly suffocating around my neck. A part of me was curious, my recent outburst causing me to listen politely and patiently while wondering if his oversharing tendencies came from some deep-set insecurity.

"No." He shook his head. "My dad was never going to look for a woman who humiliated him so." His eyes seemed suddenly brighter when he spoke, his voice trembling slightly. "I waited for months. Years even. I didn't know where she was..but she knows where I am. Why hadn't she come to take me with her? Even today..." He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'd rather live with the sorrow that she's dead than the realization that she recreated her life without me in it."

I was silent after his revelation. I gazed at him, tilting my head slightly and studying his clenched jaw and shadowed eyes. Somehow it felt wrong that he would have to go through something like that. As if someone like him should simply never be sad. I let my eyes study the jade bracelet on his wrist before I spoke, "Yet you keep her bracelet."

His eyes widened as he glanced at me in alarm. "How...how the fuck did you know?" His eyes flitted to the green bracelet on his wrist.

"You love to show off your father's money, Greenwood," I said. I hadn't meant it as an insult, merely an observation as I continued, "You wear all the latest trends, yet keep a bracelet which looks shi-" I corrected myself quickly as he raised an eyebrow. "Rather unrefined and dull from years of being worn." I shrugged. "Obviously it's something very important to you. So I took a guess."

He was quiet for a while before he burst out laughing. "Damn, Hunt." He shook his head, looking impressed. "That's a killer deduction."

He gazed straight at the road before speaking softly. "She was...so good," he said simply. "You know what I honestly think? That my dad made it impossible for her to find me. Else...there is no fucking way she would just leave me."

I gazed at him, slightly alarmed by the pitch of his voice as it rose.

"And one day I'll find her. It's her necklace." He rattled the bracelet lightly. "She's...my anchor."

I felt a tide of pity for him but buried it. I hated sympathy, and I knew there was nothing I could say to make him feel better. I didn't even know if he was right about his father making it impossible for his mother to find him. It felt like it was just something which he wanted to believe in. His own coping mechanism, horrifyingly similar to mine. A glass armour protecting shambles.

We pulled across the now familiar toll booth and took a bus from the bus stop behind it. I took a route which would directly drop us about two miles away from where my house was.

"I'll wait here," Aris said, breaking a long hour of silence. I shook my head, my blood cold as the proximity of all my memories increased. It was hard to hear his voice over the pounding of my own heart.

"I...I can't go. You have to get it." My fingers felt numb with terror and I realized there was no way I could go alone. He stared at me, his eyes wide, before nodding in understanding.

Gratitude filled me as I started leading him along the right path. I passed the eerily familiar shops, each of my steps heavier than the last. Most of the stores had now become grander, but still remained a filthy impersonation of the bigger shops in the central city. We walked for a long time in silence. Dirt, squalor, and drunken harlots becoming more and more common. My heart stopped completely as we rounded the bend beyond which the dreaded building lay.

"It is behind there," I said, pointing. My heart hammered as I toyed with the possibility of facing Geoffrey again. My dad had told me that he had been arrested, however, I wasn't sure for how long.

Aris nodded. "A description?"

I stared wide-eyed as my breathing became shallow.

"Zeke," he placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "I'll be quick. Just tell me about the location."

I shook my head. I appreciated that he wanted to help me. I didn't however, want to remain shackled by my past anymore. I took a deep breath, feeling like I no longer had control over my own words. "It...could have changed. It's been eight years."

"Yes...but-'' he began.

I shook my head. "I-I'll go with you."

He opened and shut his mouth, as if he wanted to say something. Instead, he decided to remain quiet as we started walking. My legs felt like blocks of ice as my heart settled around my naval. The dilapidated building that came into view was horrifyingly almost exactly as I remembered it. I tried to calm my increasingly erratic breathing as Aris spoke through the end of a tunnel. "Is it different?"

I shook my head, almost in a trance. His words seemed muffled, as if, I was buried under water and couldn't break through the surface. As if he was standing on the shore, calling.

So far away.

"Alright. You stay here, and I'll go and get it," he whispered softly.

I shook my head, almost in a dream. "I'll...I'll go," I said as the familiar scent of filth entered my nostrils, and I stepped into the dark building that harboured my worst nightmares.