Dante just sat there, staring gapping at the picture. That was his mother. That had to be his mother. The way his dad had his free arm around her, the way she nestled into him. That was her. And that was a baby in her belly.

He didn’t remember a sibling, but then again, he could hardly remember his mother. Who’s to say his parents didn’t give the child up before they died? Who’s to say he didn’t have a brother or sister out there right now?

“So, did your mother miscarry, or did you just never-”

“I never knew about this,” he said. Finally, he shook the shock away and grabbed his phone back from her. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the image. Couldn’t stop looking at his sibling, still growing.

“I take it, then, that you didn’t grow up with them.”

He shook his head. “My dad raised me alone until I was seven. Then he passed away.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Just the two of us.”

Gwen looked at her hands, spinning them in on themselves, so Dante looked away, back at his phone. He wanted to do something about this, wanted to figure out what happened. The article gave him nothing, though. There was his name, Durante Reich, his father, Johannes Reich, and his mother, Philipa Jordan. There was no mention of the baby or how far along she was. The article was about some stupid community activity they’d helped put together “as a family.” Of course, he’d know his family had been involved heavily in the mundane community, but that didn’t help him much now. Nothing in the article helped, either. There wasn’t so much as a mention of the soon to be mother of two.

“Did your father ever mention anyone else?” Gwen said, looking over at him. He just shook his head.

“He never mentioned anyone. Just Mom…”

He hesitated just long enough for Gwen to pick up on it. But the memory didn’t come back to him quick enough. He couldn’t bring back the the memory that stopped him. Gwen wouldn’t let it go.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“He did talk about someone else, didn’t he?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Did you think it was someone else at the time? A mistress? An uncle? An aunt?”

This one stopped Dante, and he looked over at Gwen without really seeing her. The name was coming to him now, along with some memories of stories. Stories he hadn’t really cared about at the time, because he’d thought his dad had been making this person up.

“Jessie.”

Gwen looked back at him with such intensity that she finally forced him to focus on her. She jabbed her finger towards his phone. “That’s who that is. And by the sounds of it, if you’ve heard of her-”

“She’s still alive.”

“Or at least was while your father was still around. You said you were probably two in this picture?”

“She’d be about twenty-four, twenty-five,” Dante said, as if saying it out loud would help him find her. Would help him figure out who she was. Then a thought dawned on him, and the blood drained from his face. “She’d be sick, too.”

“That should make her easy to find,” Gwen said, much too casually.

Dante shook his head and blinked at her, stunned. “What?”

“Well, there can’t be that many people with… what was it? Demon curse?”

He hadn’t even thought about that before. “Do you think… it would even be possible?”

Gwen shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe your parents shipped her off so she wouldn’t get sick. Maybe she’s off somewhere far away, and it’s better if you don’t find her so, you know, she doesn’t get sick, either.”

“I can’t imagine,” Dante said, the thoughts rushing at him so fast he could hear nothing but the pounding of his eardrums. “No, she was. If my mom was pregnant when she got sick… there’s no way. She would be sick, too. She’d have to be.”

“Why are you trying to convince yourself she is?” Gwen asked, he head cocking to the side like a dog. Like a fox. “Isn’t that a bad thing? To be sick?”

“It’d be… I couldn’t see…” He took a moment, eyes closed, trying to gather his thoughts, to figure out what it was he wanted to say. To arrange everything to come out right. “Maybe she would know how to fix it.” He looked to Gwen, like it finally made sense. Her head stayed cocked. “Maybe, if she is somewhere’s else, and she is sick, she has the resources to figure out a cure.”

“Is there even a cure?”

“Not that I can find.”

“Right,” she said, rolling her head back and away from him. “You fix everyone but yourself.”

“I’m not powerful enough to fix myself,” he said, his anger unexpectedly flaring up, surprising even himself. He took a moment to calm down. Luckily, Gwen didn’t seem to notice. “But she might be. Maybe she figured it out. And even if not, I’ve got to help her. Because if she’s sick-”

“Then what are you going to do? You can’t even fix yourself!”

“Maybe it’ll give me more reason to try.”

This stopped Gwen with her mouth hanging open. Dante looked at her a moment, then realized what he’d said. Looking away from her, he slipped his phone back into his pocket as quick as he could, and stood up with his plate to take it back to the kitchen. He refused to look back at Gwen as he did so. It took her a moment, and he had his paper dish in the sink before she did, but she finally spoke.

“You mean, you haven’t been trying? You don’t care?”

“I’m not dying,” he said, staring his paper plate down, trying to figure out why the picture before him didn’t look right. “Not yet, anyway. I have time. I have tried and so far, no, I haven’t found anything. But I have lots of time. She might not. This puts a rush on it.”

“If you even find her.”

“When I find her. Bring your plate over.”

She didn’t move for a moment, so he kept staring. Finally, the couch gave and he listened to each fall of her footsteps as she approached. He didn’t look at her, though. He refused to. She came up right next to him and dropped the plate into the garbage. He just watched it fall.

“You don’t have to wash a paper plate, you know.”

Dante paused, staring at the sink as if he didn’t understand what she meant. It took him a moment to process it, but he did eventually throw his plate out, too. Gwen stayed silent throughout.

“Thank you,” he finally said once the garbage can closed. “For showing me that. Though your intentions may have been… less than favourable, I do appreciate it.”

Gwen shrugged out of the corner of his eye. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”

“Would you have shown me?” he asked, still not looking at her. “Had you known?”

“I mean, that’s why I showed you, wasn’t it? I thought you knew.”

“So it was no good as blackmail, and you forgot about it.”

“I thought you said you were grateful.”

He sighed and straightened up from the sink. “I just hope any other favours you do for me start out as good intentions. Or don’t start at all.”

“Maybe if I had some food…”

He sighed and reach into his pocket. There was some change in there, he was sure. After some digging, he found a bill and handed it to her. A fifty. That seemed dangerous.

“I want every penny accounted for,” he said. “Keep the receipt.”

“You mean,” she said, taking the money from him, though hesitant. “I have to buy it myself?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to do everything for you.”

Dante crashed into the couch the moment he got back to the apartment. He still felt the exhaustion from no sleep the night before, made worse now by the fact that Phin refused to open the blinds. Dante used to get away with saying he needed them open for customers, but that wouldn’t work anymore, and he just had to contend with the omnipresent, florescent light.

“You smell like girl,” Phin said as he came in from the other room. Playing with one of his newest trinkets.

“So do you,” Dante said, deciding he’d rather not defend himself. Despite the fact that saying he had a girl client was a completely viable excuse.

Phin shrugged, a big smirk on his face as he looked at the toy in his hands. “I got hungry.”

Dante snorted, trying to find the remote. “Remarks like that will only hinder your case to change me, just so you know.”

“I figured it was a lost cause, anyway,” Phin said. He came up onto the arm on the couch, whatever the object he had now completely concealed in the palm of his hand. “Besides, it’s not like I really have a choice, is it? Would you prefer I go rogue?”

Dante sighed. “No.”

“Because I can. I can just stop hunting all together and I’ll go completely rogue.”

“I know. I get it.”

He finally found the remote and flipped the TV on before Phineas could say anything else. He didn’t even care what was on at this point; he just needed something. Anything to stop this conversation from going any further.

“You don’t need my help again tonight, I hope.”

Phin looked over at him, his brown eyes seeming almost hurt by the comment. “Why? Do you think that’s why I’m hanging around?”

“Just tell me you don’t,” Dante said. “I’m dead tired.”

“I don’t,” Phineas said. “Won’t need to for a while, I don’t think. Though, if you wanted to come…”

“You’ll be fine. That Hade… that whoever it was won’t bother you again. I scared him off.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Phin said, looking back to the object in his hand. He looked pitiful, like a child, and Dante didn’t know what to do with that, so he just ignored it and got up from the couch. Phineas looked up after him. “What are you doing?”

“Getting food,” Dante said, suddenly realizing the only food he had in his stomach was the egg and spring rolls from earlier. “Unlike you, I have to eat.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy eating.”

Dante ignored him as he reached for the fridge, a familiar pain making its way up his leg. He shook it off and bit his tongue; the pain didn’t usually last too long, and as long as he didn’t overexert himself, he should be fine. He pulled some leftover pasta out of the fridge and threw it onto the counter as the pain shot up his arm. He cringed and tried to cover it up, but Phineas was too sharp.

“You alright?”

“I’m fine,” he said, though it came out through his teeth. “Do we have any marinaaa…”

He bent over as the pain shot up his stomach, from his naval to his chin. He fought against it, trying to breathe, trying to numb the pain. Some food would make him feel better. There was nothing to be concerned about.

“You sure?” Phin said, now on his feet. Now making his way over to Dante, though cautiously.

“Yes! I’m fine! I just need some food.”

He bent down at that and, in a rush to cover up the pain that had caused him to bend over, starting digging through the cupboards below the sink. Phin stood close behind him.

“What are you looking for?”

“Marinara, I told you.”

“In the cleaning supplies?”

Dante stopped and really looked where he was. He slumped down, because there was just about nothing he could do to make Phineas stop worrying. He turned to look at him, trying to seem as pain free as he could.

“I’m fine, honestly. I’m just haaaaaa…”

He bent over again, his time hitting his head on the cupboards. That didn’t hurt nearly as much as the pain which ripped through his lungs, stealing his air. Phineas rushed to his side, but it wouldn’t do any good. He tried again, furiously, to numb the pain, but he couldn’t concentrate enough. Another shot ripped up his right rib and he dropped over, Phineas only just managing to catch him before he hit the floor.

“Dante…”

“I’m fine, Phineas.”

“Dante, you need some-”

“I’m fine!” But even as he said it, another horrible streak hit him, this time taking over his entire body from the inside out. He could hardly feel his extremities anymore, and all his insides were on fire. He felt around with what magic he had, because he needed to fix something. His heart picked up at what he felt.

“You are not fine!” Phineas said. “Don’t try to be so… don’t be so stupid!’

“I think my liver just quit.”

Another shot of pain and he was in tears, now on the floor, not even Phineas able to keep him up. He was dying, he realized. This was what dying felt like. A slow, painful death. A sharp pain cut through his back, and he assumed it was his kidneys. He tried to fix them, tried to use his magic, but the pain was incapacitating. More pain and his vision blurred. He reached forward, not sure what he was looking for, but trying to find something. A dull pain struck his side, but he hardly noticed it next to everything else. His body moved but he wasn’t moving it. His heart raced, faster than it ever had, trying to keep itself alive. His jaw popped open, he saw Phineas’s face through his hazy vision, and his memory stopped.