CW: hints of assault and murder.

With all the commotion downstairs, Olivia couldn’t help but investigate.  Sleep was a precious commodity that she was not able to find much off these days, so why not satisfy her curiosity?  Wrestling herself into a robe, she pulled her long, straight, brown hair out from under its collar and left her room.  At the top of the main stairs, she saw that Pearl was leaving the library.

“Pearl, darling, what’s everyone shouting about?” she asked her sister curiously.  

Olivia adding the faux sweetness of ‘darling’ because she knew Pearl hated it so, and Olivia got a perverse thrill out of being just a shade prickish.  After all wasn't that the role of an older sister?

When her sister popped out of her room, she recalled the last encounter she had with her when she had selfishly whined about her problems to Pearl and stormed out of Pearl's house in a fit of anger. "I have something to tell you," she said flatly and moved into her Liv's room. "I know what happened to your beau. I hired someone to find out..." She couldn't stand Olivia sometimes but the girl didn't deserve her fiance's demise.

She waited until she had her attention. Assuming she did, she told the whole, sordid tale of Magnus and his exploits.

At her sister's revelations, Olivia's felt her body suddenly become weak and unable to support itself. She needed to sit, but she missed the bed and slid onto the floor. Her robe splayed around her and with arms and legs limp, she bore a striking resemblance to a marionette that had just had all it's strings cut. Her brown eyes looked past Pearl at a point beyond fixed on nothing.

"No. You're wrong! It can't be true. No. No. No."

"Magnus... he killed him." she repeated, "He's never coming back... I..." She moved to enfold her sister in a hug despite their dislike for each other.

"No. No. No" Olivia whimpered softly unwilling or unable to accept that her own brother had killed her dearest Peter. The horrid, dark voices that she had directed towards herself in the wake of his disappearance were abruptly silenced. It was if a colossal dam broke and she began to cry into her sister's arm.

"Magnus is dead too..." she whispered, "He can't hurt us anymore." Her mouth found it's way to her sister's forehead. She wouldn't wish this kind of grief on anyone.

Her sister's words were heard by Olivia as continued to sob, but it took several long seconds for it to register. She turned her face towards Pearl, her cheeks puffy and slick with tears.

"Dead?" she questioned. had she heard that right? In her quietest moments, awake in the middle of the night, she had wished Magnus dead at times. There had been a brutal side to him, she had seen it. But she hadn't thought he would actually die. The bitter and evil ones usually lived to die in their own beds.

"How? When?" Olivia asked softly.

"He was shot earlier tonight," she whispered. Then her tears started anew. "I knew it was bad but not as bad as that." She looked at her sister and did her best to comfort her. "It's over... he's gone... He won't ever hurt us again." She had loved her brother, but he deserved what he got.

Pearl's new tears set Olivia off crying again. Olivia's emotions had always run close to the surface, and she was easily effected by others.

"But, what about Peter?" she asked between sobs. Deep down, she knew the answer.

"Magnus killed him and he killed others," she said thickly. "He was a bad, bad man. I am so very sorry. I had hoped that Mr. Tillman had good news about him but... Magnus..." She trailed off.