Their payment

It was almost silly. Now that I remember how Lavi's father looked at me when he saw me at my father's study months ago. 

He'd given me a strange look, one that was quite knowing or rather, meaningful. Actually, perhaps a bit of both. 

That moment, I had only thought that it was nothing. 

But as he stood in front of me tonight, in a room lit only by a lamp on his table, I wondered what could have possibly entered his mind once he saw me.

No, there wasn't any use thinking about that. 

I cleared my head and breathed out all the emotions that had cramped tight beneath my chest. 

"Take a seat." The Northwestern Duke motioned to a couch as he took the one opposite of it. 

With a heavy heart, I followed. This said heart had been throbbing nonstop since earlier, as though it still hadn't quite took in the betrayal it just witnessed earlier.