Word Count: 637

“Was Mommy bad?”

Paris made a partial turn from the stir-fry she was cooking up so that she could look at her baby sister.

Lilah was no longer a baby in the literal sense, but Paris knew she would never think of her as anything else. Almost nineteen years separated them in age—nearly two full decades. Not so long ago Lilah had learned to crawl, to walk, to talk, had graduated from diapers and onesies to big girl clothes. She was all that Paris had left of her mother, all that Paris had left of her side of the family, and she was just a little girl.

Six years old, edging closer to seven by the day, Lilah sat at the kitchen table in her Knightside uniform, with her summer homework spread out in front of her. She held a pencil at hand, dragging it over the page in large, crooked letters. From the distance that separated them Paris could just make out one of the words that made up the spelling list.

Senshi.

“No, Lilah,” Paris said, “Mom wasn't bad.”

“Where did she go?” Lilah asked.

It was not an uncommon question, nor was the answer ever any different. Paris didn't know why Lilah continued to ask it, unless she hoped that she might one day hear something else.

“I don't know,” Paris said.

“Mrs. Davis says people like Mommy are bad.”

Lilah stopped writing and lifted her head to look at Paris. She had their mother's eyes, but her curls were golden instead of platinum. Hers was not a face that knew how to smile. She was a sad child who knew very little of happiness. Pale and thin, Lilah drifted about caught between government imposed falsehoods and a family with too many secrets, and far too much tragedy in their wake.

“We've talked about what Mrs. Davis says before, haven't we?” Paris prompted. She turned back to the stir-fry, mixing in a portion of snow peas. “Mrs. Davis repeats what's she's told to say. It's dangerous to tell the truth.”

“Did Mommy tell the truth?” Lilah asked. “Is that why she went away?”

“Mom did what she had to to protect you,” Paris said.

It was never an easy conversation, and never an easy decision to determine how much to tell a six year old girl. Paris knew Chris would rather keep Lilah ignorant and minimize the risk of her saying something that might endanger them all. Momma Gallo preferred to weave the truth into a story that sounded something like a fairytale.

Paris saw the merits in both approaches, but ultimately decided that she would never tell Lilah anything but the truth. After losing her father, their mother, and their cousin in the course of a single evening, Lilah deserved that much from her. And if there ever came a time when neither she nor Chris could return, Paris wanted Lilah to know why.

Their mother was gone, likely hunted down and killed soon after leaving Lilah in Paris's care. Their family was in shambles. No one remained of the Reeves. Rhiannon was taken, now shrouded in black, Rhiannon's mother a victim of her own addictions. One after another their distant relatives had fallen in kind, defenseless victims to a war none of them could even understand. Lilah was the last of the line.

'Palatine is in your mother's blood,' Chris's older brother had told her before he'd gone to his own death. 'With her gone, Lilah's all that's left.'

The meaning was clear: if Paris's mother was dead, the title of Palatine went to Lilah.

How could Paris agree to lie to her when knighthood was in Lilah's future?

How could she conceal the truth when it might very well be their last hope?