Ilea.

The manikin flew to a window of the mansion leaving a trail of golden light behind it. The window slowly opened as the white curtains parted and Frank lifted the glass window to let the manikin in. Once letting it in, Frank leaned out of the window. The moon shone brightly.

He looked below at the hidden stairs trail leading out to the gardens, Julia's secret escape route. There was no one else except for Higgins, the chef, who had just now come out to throw the kitchen trash in the compost pit in one of the gardens.

Higgins waved at Frank and smiled, to which Frank just shut the window. Because of his 'memory loss' excuse, Frank could easily get away with being rude and not greeting back anyone.

As he turned back, he felt a physical response called 'surprise' and he reflexively jumped back. Lia was standing just behind him. He looked at her with an expressionless face. She looked strangely calm.

Frank saw a light coming from under the bed as it disappeared behind one of the bed's legs.

"I don't want to," he said to Lia.

Lia sighed and took some deep breaths. It was more of a sigh of relief than that of anger.

"I've told you this so many times in the last week, you should greet back those who greet you first," Lia said pulling Frank's hand as she led him back to bed.

"I don't want to," Frank replied, never changing his stubborn tone.

Lia climbed onto the bed followed by Frank. She looked at him with tightened brows and asked," Why? At least tell me the reason why."

Frank stared at her face for some time. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it back again, flipped the bedding over himself, and pretended to be asleep.

Lia hit him with her fist and shouted," That's very not convincing! Get up and tell me!"

In response to her, a hand came wriggling out of the bedding and held the nearest part of Lia it could reach. Once holding her foot, he pulled her into the bedding and tucked her into his chest.

Lia tried to push him away but there was only much she could do with a boy who has had a huge growth spurt recently. She gave up pretty easily given her wits to assess her capabilities. Thanks to these same wits, another brilliant method of retaliation entered her mind.

She wriggled her hands out of Frank's tight grip and slowly proceeded to open his shirt's buttons, one by one. Frank paid no attention to her little fingers tickling around near his neck.

Finally having secured a certain region of his bare chest open to herself, Lia sunk her face closer to the area of her target. It was his collarbone. It used to be non-existent before his so-called 'growth spurt'. Now it was defined to the point of jealousy.

Lia stuck out her tongue and licked the highest point on his collarbone. She felt him shudder at the sudden shock. Frank looked down at her face and then gave out her final blow. As he looked at her face, she looked him right in the eyes and sunk her teeth into his flesh covering the collarbone. She could feel the bones under her teeth.

There was whatsoever no response. Lia blushed.

'That must've been painful. Why isn't he reacting?' Lia muttered to herself as she nibbled more and more. At some point, it just became her goal to make react instead of freeing herself. She kept biting harder and harder, so much that now she could feel the places she had already bitten by her tongue.

Exhausted she gave up and stopped biting. Trying to lie down, she unconsciously pressed her lips against the skin she had bitten. She could feel tremors go up and down Frank's body.

And suddenly, she was released and pushed out the bedding in the span of a breath.

Quite baffled, Lia looked at the dune of white sheets in front of her.

"What was that?" she asked curiously looming over it. "Why did you tremble? Are you cold?"

"I'm not!" a quick and flippant response came from under the bedding.

"Then why did you push me out?" (Lia)

"You wanted to get out."

"Yes, I wanted to but why did you suddenly let me out?" (Lia)

"I just felt like it."

"No, you did not. Not after that fight, you put up with my teeth!" (Lia)

"I did not."

"You did! Get out of there!" (Lia)

"I don't want to!"

"You have to!" (Lia)

With a sudden jerk, Lia pulled the bedding off him, taking him entirely by surprise. She looked at his face and was left looking. The narrow slit from where Frank had looked out of the window earlier, let in a slice of blue light which fell directly over Frank on the window side.

Her bite marks, (looking quite painful) were all over his bare chest that could be seen from the undone buttons. But they weren't the main center of attraction. It was the face. After one month and two weeks of the lake accident, Lia had seen Frank having the reaction she loved the most.

His entire face was red and his dark blue pupils were shaking. The mint hair just added to the contrast between the cool shades of the night and the warm hue over his face.

"I want to kiss you," Lia said leaning in.

Frank had just gone through a serious identity crisis. Yes, Lia was his dear one as a bi-core. But never had she ever made him react like that. When it came to Lia, Frank's body automatically reverted back to how it was when his cores were sealed. How? If yes, then why now?

Sylvia. That was all he could think about as she was the only one who could answer questions at the moment. But that night he had another plan. He tapped gently on Lia's forehead and she fell asleep right as she had leaned in.

Putting her into the bed properly, he looked under the bed. The manikin was asleep. He grabbed and put on shoes and a coat. As he closed the buttons of his shirt, he could his face burning with the resurfacing flush. His sight kept going back to those now reddening bite marks.

He took a deep breath and then rushed out of the window. As he flew in the direction the manikin told him, someone in the gardens saw him. It was none other than Raymond.

Frank increased his speed of flying as the directions by the manikin were getting faster and faster. They were heading to the east of the empire, the birthplace of the genius mage, Agnito Ilea.

If a 'mage' he was. The manikin had been searching for his traces all over the place for Frank. The starting was of course his hometown, Crossfield. It used to be a small independent dukedom before the unification war. Upon looking for the name Ilea, one old man recalled it. An old knight to be exact.

He told a very interesting thing about that name. He said it was the name of a witch he executed during his time. He said that he fell in love with a human and lost his powers. That human then sold him off to the knights for a bag of gold. They killed him, of course. The Duke of Crossfield despised witches.

His house was abandoned. No one ever went inside it. Initially, they feared being related to a witch. But later, it was an actual terror that kept people away from it. Anybody that went inside never came out.

Frank landed right in front of this very house. It looked like a perfect house to be haunted by ghosts. Frank could already imagine several apparitions like Sylvia loitering around in there. What he feared was somewhat the truth as he entered the house.

There never was a house actually. The door of the house opened to a place he was very well familiar with. And yes, there WAS Sylvia loitering around chasing fireflies. The door of that house opened right into the forest of the afterlife, exactly in front of Sylvia.