He felt her gaze, heard her gaze, long before he saw it. Her focus materialized in subtle ways; a swish of skirts, a soft tread on the floor that still reverberated through him like a marching drum. How had one woman managed to be so corporeal and incorporeal at once?

As it were, he continued his task until she beckoned otherwise – and then, too, did as he was directed.

“I can’t even clean properly,” he repeated, “and you expect me to run off for good, fend for myself, and leave my sister behind?”

There was a touch of dry amusement to his voice. He was pretty sure running off to a place not saturated in, what, screaming souls of the dead and visceral runoff? Would be cleaner.

"Of course not. That is what women are for." She said somewhat bitterly as she started to clean.

She wanted to talk, but she cleaned. "Are you still telling me you weren't leaving? You just decided to take all of that for just a few days?" She looked at him and stared at his face, studying his expression.

"I could be cruel to you, brother. Don't ask me to do that." She felt she had been very nice to him so far. She never asked him to help her with her habit, she tried to in fact keep him out of it since he had no interest in it. She always tried to make sure the house was neat, he had food when he was actually home, she asked for so little. What was a little murder between siblings?

“Funny,” Aslan teased with a levity half-materialized by lightheadedness. “Here I thought women were for climbing out of wells and shaming mankind.”

His gaze slid to her. Was she going to be wringing him on this for as long as she let him live? Malachi would be gone with the morning, supposedly, unless his pretty London life was a lie too. How risky was it to speak of someone who wouldn’t be around for her to hunt? For once, the urge to talk was there.

It still felt like a step too far … especially considering it probably was a lie. How many wives had he cracked with lovers who mistakenly thought they knew someone?

“I suppose I over-packed.”

(Content warning below)
[ Spoiler]Cw: mention of abuse and miscarriage[/spoiler]

Nisa rose her brow and shook her head. "Not at all. That's merely our favorite pastimes. " She offered a defeated smile.

He was still so nervous. She had no weapon and was sitting at a table but she might as well have been a bear, the way he almost trembled when she looked at him. He was more of a rabbit than a man.

"If you say so." She stood slowly and decided to start tea since they were both there. Still only bathed in lamplight.

"Since you are leaving in the morning... "forever. "For your important trip. I suppose I should give you a nice send off. You didn't seem to like my original plan." She glanced at the other room which still had a knife on the ground and burn marks that would be expensive. "I want to tell you a secret. Just so you stop thinking I'm some invincible entity created to haunt you."

She grabbed their tea cups and spoons as she spoke as casually as before. "While I was married, you were going to be an uncle. But our father in law decided it was best not to tell anyone after the 'stair incident'.. though I think neither him nor my husband told you of that either. "

Sometimes his nose wiggled like a rabbit’s when he ate.

No scathing ripostes? No turn-arounds to remind him that, by the way, everything he did was wrong and he treated his poor dear sister like a maid by … hiring her a maid they couldn’t even consistently afford? No demanding truth while feeding him a lifelong diet of lies and half-truths?

He wanted to be touched by that. He wanted to want to forgive her. He wanted to forget what that fellow felt like under his foot.

But he couldn’t.

He picked up the knife and brought it to wash at the sink, one brief exasperated raise of the brows when she brought up his ‘trip’ again. He would have to spend a day or two somewhere else to cover for this. Oh, lovely. Was she going to tell him something she didn’t want him alive knowing now?

Aslan stared, water running over the knife. No. She was going to tell him something he didn’t want to be alive knowing. Had she--…

Did he even blame her for not wanting their mother’s fate? Allah, no. It didn’t even occur to him that she might not have orchestrated that. Stair incident … and what business did their father-in-law have telling her what she could tell her own family?

“I don’t think that’s his decision to make, Nisa.”

He turned the blade in the sink. It was clean, but it felt right in his left hand.

“Your husband never liked me,” he shrugged. “When we talked, it was me asking about you and him asking what my plans were for the rest of the day.”

Subtle one, that.

Ah, tea cups. Was it poisoning time, then? He didn’t have the energy to care. To keep running. To pretend there was any such thing as a moment that wasn’t now. Aslan chewed his words, mouth moving in a slightly lapine manner.

“Did you want a child?” he finally asked.

Of course she didn’t. It made no sense to wonder if she did.

Nisa looked down as she put in some tea leaves. "No. I didn't. And it wasn't his. He didn't like me, he married me to cover for his mistress. His father though was very comforting," she said practically heavy in sarcasm. She watched him wash the knife, wondering if he'd finally do something with it.

"It was really a blessing to them. I played the perfect wife and cared for my husband's child by another woman and pretend it was mine. Sad thing, he fell down the stairs. And then that very heavy book case fell upon him. He might have made it other wise."

She smiled slightly. "I wonder if they turned their back on that woman or admitted it was his."

That-- was, uh, a lot to take in. She had a child? A … mistress’ child? He and his father had just figured she was off enjoying newlywed life. Watched her in the reflection of their kitchen knife.

He knew he should feel more than exasperation over the plausibly deniable confession of killing her husband’s bastard, but … all that got out of him was a higher arch of his brows. Of course.

“You could have dropped him off at a-- church.”

Ugh, the word tumbled out before he could stop him.

“Never mind, for the better.”

He paused the knife in the water, a million questions whirling through his mind.

“Whose was it?” was what finally came out.

Nisa frowned in confusion. "I didnt kill any child. My child's father, my father in law, pushed me down the stairs." She clarified. "I didn't want it but I was still playing the part of a good wife at the time. Just not trying to cause any shame."

She sighed and poured the water when it began to boil. "He was the only one spending time with me. They wanted an heir after all. But his anger got to him when I began to argue back. After that, I realized I only had to be good on the surface. All of this frustration and feeling caged I've had for years finally ignited."

She moved and sat in front of him as she placed the cups. "It's funny though. All this killing helps, but I'm still not fully satisfied." Her eyes wandered away. "I used to be happy helping father with the shop. I was jealous when you spoke of becoming an officer. I wanted to be something too. A lawyer. A doctor. A detective. Something big and serious. But..." she shrugged and folded her hands neatly in her lap. "I have been what father and mother wanted me to be. To everyone else, I am just your sweet and tormented sister."

Why was there still a part of him left that wanted to believe her? Was she destined to turn out like this, or had she been pushed? Then why the disappearing family friends before she married? Could that, too, truly have been a coincidence?

Was Yasmin out there, somewhere, still getting tangled up with anyone who would have her? Had Abdul really just had a bad stroke of luck out in River Ouse? Her father-in-law had seemed nice at the wedding … and then they stopped hearing from him. Baba rarely got angry, but he had noticed a tick in his jaw that seemed to build and build each time he checked the mailbox and found naught of what he was looking for.

He’d send Aslan and mind the shop, face the picture of calm even as his fists clenched under the table.

“You know … Baba asked after you, all the time. I … quoted your husband back to him once.”

Aslan took a deep breath through his nose. Remembered, vividly, the jutting of his jugular, the red of his face. Set the knife down in the sink, and turned to face her with his hands resting on the edge of the counter.

“I believed you because I’d seen the murder in his eyes that day.”

He looked to the window, darkness shifting to overcast blue.

“Do you think something else could be your life’s calling at this point?” he asked. “There is important work out there for women, too. Some of them might even … call upon your expertises.”

Nisa watched him from across the table. "I wrote to you. I wanted to hear from my family and see you both desperately. They told me you had married me off and to not bother you. You had your own lives and that was now mine. I knew it wasn't true, but I was trapped."

She looked away momentarily as she sipped her tea. "No maids, nor visitors helped me. My constitution was never great, but it was a good excuse to hide me away or to remove me when I was saying 'strange things'. I was so overjoyed when I returned home. But I'm not the same as I was. I can not return to that girl that left you and baba so long ago."

She tilted her head and watched him, trying to decipher what he was speaking about. "I don't know. I don't know what I could do. I do sometimes find myself so full of anger, but perhaps if I had a direction to take it. Something that gave me a release from these feelings. Did you have a suggestion?" She didn't promise anything. She'd already promised to spare the girl he liked so much.