Benedict watched Caine wrap up Gerard's body in a makeshift shroud. When Caine was done, he stepped back from the body, and stared at it, much as Benedict was doing. After a few moments, Caine turned briefly to Benedict and asked, "Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"About?" Ben prompted, out of habit more than anything else. He felt exhausted.

"Why him." Caine turned and shook his head, stopping to pick up the body and balance it across his shoulders. "And who's next."

Benedict shrugged slightly, "Probably him because he was alone."

Caine winced at that and drew a breath, as if to say something. He must have changed his mind as he just shook his head and walked towards the door, moving as if Gerard were heavier than he was. Benedict watched him leave, then looked over the area quickly. Everything looked in order, or as much as it should, so he left, closing the big double doors behind him. He took his time to seal the room with a Ward, compounding it with a mood affecting spell, so people wouldn't want to enter the room. He wasn't concentrating properly, so it took him longer than it did normally. That didn't surprise him. After the task was finished, he moved silently and morosely to Flora's rooms in the tower, still trying to accept that his brothers and sister were gone. He didn't want to.

The door to Flora's rooms stood ajar, and he pushed on it slowly. It swung open, and he entered. Her rooms were almost how he remembered them, and it pained him to know that she was not going to inhabit them anymore. Too little, too late...there should have been something I could have done! he thought while looking the area over. There wasn't a chance it was a suicide; Flora would have never done that. So, it was a murder, but by whom he didn't have a clue. He wasn't going to find any standing in the doorway either, so he moved to her bath.

She wasn't there, and that was probably a good thing. He just looked on the scene dully, last night's conversation with her replaying in his mind..

He answered the Trump call, after making sure the energies he was using weren't going to go awry. "Yes?" he asked, then received an image of Flora.

"Oh, Ben! Thank goodness!" she said with a big sigh of relief. "I was beginning to scare myself silly! I've never seen the Castle so empty! Where is everyone? Where are you?"

He shrugged slightly, "I'm in my, er, a guest room right now." He paused, wondering if she remembered what happened to his rooms. "The castle staff is safe, from what I've been told, and will return...sometime."

"Oh! That's it. Missing servants," she said with a nervous laugh. "I'm okay now. So sorry to have bothered you."

Benedict replied with yet another shrug, "It's no problem. Be sure to --" And he stopped for a moment, not wanting to sound like a overprotective big brother. He modified what he was going to say, "Just be careful tonight, ok? With no guardsmen around, you can't be too careful."

"I'll keep that in mind," she replied, smiling a little, "Goodnight." And she cut the contact...

Benedict pulled himself back to the present, and shuffled out Llewella's Trump. She answered the Trump looking on edge, probably as much as he was, "Yes? Oh, Benedict." She didn't sound happy to see him.

He stopped, and took a breath, then asked in a low voice, "Did you find her?"

Llewella bit her lip for a moment. "Yes," she finally answered, her voice not quite steady, and not meeting Ben's gaze. "We found," she swallows, "them."

He looked down at the tiled floor, tears threatening to overwhelm him. Ben's features twisted into a grimace, and he stammered, "Ah..." He took another breath, then asked, his voice very thick with emotion, "Did you want me to seal off the, ah, other areas too? I'm at her bath right now..." Much as he wanted to, he couldn't even bring himself to say Flora's name, lest he lose the tenuous grip he had on his self-control.

When Ben met Llewella's eyes next, she was crying. "Yes. You'll need to lock down her rom...and Random's."

He nodded, still grimacing, "I'll... it'll be done shortly." He stopped, closing his eyes. Images of Random and Flora came to him unbidden. He couldn't push it away entirely, but somehow managed to ask, "What would you have me do after that?"

"There is one other matter of security that needs attention." She paused for a long moment, and when she goes on, it's clearly a struggle bringing each word out. "The guards on the sixteenth floor,t he Rebman guards, must be returned to Rebma, and the gate between here and the other castle shut down." Her grief actually made him feel a bit better himself, and he reopened his eyes. He wanted to embrace his sister, so they could grieve together, but, instead, he swallowed his next words, and replied, "It'll be done shortly, after..the other." He shook his head slightly, trying to clear it still, then asked, "Anything else?"

She nodded, her expression bleak, "My friend Callandra is up there. She'll want to know what's going on. Don't allow her to leave. When she realizes what you're doing, she might try to."

He nodded, then asked to clarify, "Not to leave the castle? Or the floor?"

"Not to return to Rebma with the guards."

He noded, ahhing slightly. He looked around where he's standing, and grimaces again, remembering his grim task. "I'll...get back to you, Llewella."

"I'll be in my office." She sighed. "There's good news too, believe it or not. Do you want to hear it now or wait?"

"Better be now," he said, "if anything else goes wrong before then..." ...I don't think I could handle it, he finished mentally, sighing and shrugging.

"We've more brothers and sisters we didn't know about. Three of them will, if the Unicorn wills, be returning to the castle shortly. And Callandra isn't just a friend of mine. She's our neice."

He frowned slightly, "Neice? Whose daughter is she?" He remembered back to the dream he had this morning, and Dworkin mentioning other siblings. A neice though...he thought briefly of Jacqueline, lost in Shadow, and shook his head.

"She is the daughter of our brother Rhyvin. He's been living incognito in Rebma for rather a long time, so I'm told."

"Does she know?"

"Yes. She's not overjoyed about it, but she knows. HEr father sent her here when he realized things were finally coming to a head...but I won't go into that now. You'll hear it all soon enough."

He nodded, "Alright." He waited briefly, the broke the contact, sighing. He got to his task, the went to Random's room. It was utterly trashed, his belongings torn apart and strewn everywhere. Benedict only briefly looked inside before sealing the room.

He headed towards Llewella's floor, and went to the guards. Though suspicious, and perhaps a little frightened, they obeyed his orders, and went through the gate to Rebma. He recited the spell to close the doorway, then was at a loss as to what to do next. Just when he reached the thought of contacting Llewella again, a voice broke his train of thought, "Hello. What are you doing?"

He jerked up, and looked to the source of the voice. A small, slender woman stood nearby, leaning in a doorway. She had short, wavy blonde hair that floated in a sort of halo around her head, brilliant green eyes, and a figure to kill for. She was wearing some sort of silken robe that clung to her. "Sealing the way," he answered succinctly. "You must be Callandra." He studied her face, looking for resemblances. It didn't take long to spot them.

She frowned, wrinkling her nose up, "Yes, I'm Callandra. You're too tall to be Random, and you're not a redhead, or a brunette. So I'm guessing maybe you're Benedict."

Upon hearing Random's name, he grimaced, thinking of the rope that was in the room.... He felt rather lightheaded and thought, almost amused with the thought, So, this is what it feels like to faint... He sat down quickly in a nearby chair.

"Why'd you do that?" she nodded toward the closed gateway, which now appeared as simply an empty door frame built into the wall.

"Orders," he replied, dully. The lightheaded feeling left him, but he didn't want to stand yet. Ben didn't trust his legs to hold him yet, so he stayed seated.

She took a tentative step toward him, cocking her head quizzincally to one side. "But...you're Captain of the Guard, right? That'd mean yout ake your orders from Llew. Why would..." she trailed off. "Are you okay? You don't look so good."

"I don't know," Ben replied to her unspoken question about Llewella. He paused for a heartbeat, then said again, "I don't know."

She was quiet for a long time. Benedict screwed his eyes shut, trying to force the images of his siblings out of his head. It's my fault, I should have...there should have been something, something.. That thought pounding away at him, he didn't notice her kneeling by him until she was right by him. "It's more bad news, isn't it," she murmured. "You...I'm all new here, I know, but I'll listen, if you want to tell me about it."

The offer to just listen...shocked him. It was too much like Jesse, and his tears started to flow. He wanted desparately to reach out to her, to someone, again. "Random, Flora..." he grimaced again, closing his eyes tightly, and gulping a bit, "Gerard...they're dead, and I don't know..." He trailed off, uncertain of how much to say. She was so young, and she didn't need his problems on her shoulders. If only Jess was here.. he thought selfishly. She had a way of making things better for him, easier, and he missed that ability sorely.

Her hand came up to cover her mouth, her eyes widening in shock. "Oh, gods. Uncle Benedict, I'm so sorry. How did it happen?"

He shook his head, "I don't want to talk about it." He sighed heavily, opening his eyes again. He felt almost in control again. Almost. "I better go." Especially if I have a breakdown, he added mentally.

She sat back on her heels, hugging her knees. "All..all right. Oh gods, this sucks..." She shook her head, then leaned it on her knees. "This is, like, the most trite thing to say, but if I can help, somebody get hold of me. Please?" She glanced up, looking forlorn.

He stood, and started to head to the doorway, then stopped, and turned around. What he saw wasn't just a new neice, but a young girl in a new place, her only friend taken away. He felt some affection for her enter his heart, and he frowned deeply. "I'm not a very good uncle, am I?" he asked. He paused, wishing he were better at this. "Do you want to come around with me? I mean," he added as an afterthought, "rather than stay up here by yourself?"

She looked relieved, and immensely so. Callandra jumped to her feet in a swift move, "Yes. Yes. Definitely. Llew sent me up here 'cuz I'm not used to dry land." She walked to him, quickly. He almost smiled, but quashed it down quickly. He was relieved himself, though he hadn't realized that he'd been tensing for her rejection. "...but it's been awful sitting here by myself. I could see in her face that things were bad."

He nodded, looking grim. "I won't lie; they are. But I don't think any of us should be by themselves." Especially with someone killing loners, he thought, getting depressed again. How he wished he could control his emotions more readily. He shrugged, and started walking towards the door. Callandra caught up and walked alongside him.

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