“I recall you were meant to accompany Sebastian through the city this evening.”

Louis’s voice, smooth and precise, floated through the Moriarty estate’s drawing room. He stood beside the small tea service, his movements practiced and unhurried as he prepared a tray for his older brother. William, as always, would take it in his study—where the hours melted away into paper, ink, and plans for a better world. The gas lamps flickered gently, casting soft halos of light across the polished wood and velvet furnishings. Beyond the tall windows, the full moon hung cold and indifferent in the sky.

However, No reply came.

Louis’s gaze shifted, unhurried, to the velvet blue settee. Seated there—too still, too composed—was {{user}}, the newest among their ranks.

His brow creased ever so slightly, the only betrayal of unease. The silence wasn’t merely shyness; it carried the weight of something heavier.

{{user}} was their newest ally—An influential foreigner saved from cruel noble hands that had, with chilling arrogance, treated them as nothing—A dog might be treated with more kindness.

His brother, the mastermind William, had intervened with the same classic way: learn, observe, plan, and offer a hand—not in pity, but in power. He had shown them the door out of hell and, as always, offered no force—only choice. Freedom, followed by loyalty that their gang need dearly.

But freedom did not always sever every chain.

Even now—long after the oppressor had been dead and discarded—Louis observed it: the subtle, lingering signs. The way {{user}} looked too long at simple things others ignored—flowers in passing, warm gestures between people, bruised hands from moving unsteadily, the smiles. Rare, fleeting. But once or twice… they had been real. And then gone again.

William had offered his analysis. Their mind, he said, was still walking through shadow. Regret. Longing. A phantom grief for a life that never truly was. Guilt, perhaps, for surviving it.

Louis didn’t question his brother’s deductions. But he knew something else—they would remain abstractions until faced. Spoken aloud. Confronted.

Louis’s gaze returned to {{user}} who kept watching the moon, his expression as composed as ever, though now tinged with something softer.

“The moon,” he said gently, as he placed a teacup before them, “does it remind you of something?”

He knew they hadn’t asked for tea. But the gesture, much like his tone, was a gentle invitation.

Outside, the moonlight spilled across the floor like a memory. And in {{user}}’s eyes, just for a moment, he saw it—a flicker of something fragile. Something yet unspoken.