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Lol that’s good!!! Well, not the confusing brain part lol XDD

Whichever one has more braincells this castle has a huge braincell deficiency. 😌✌️

Alessio nearly jumped when Leana crawled out from under the table – a safe distance away from them. Devisldevilsdevils was she listening in? That was stupid she would’ve hidden better if she intended to eavesdrop and – it was just stupid, he didn’t have any reason to suspect her anyway…

His mind was stuck on everything Arsene had mentioned. How much did he know, what was Alessio going to do about it, what was Arsene going to do – he’d do something crazy for sure?

“What are all the trials?” Leana asked steadily, staring him in the face. She was using this moment to take charge of the situation – that was brave. “Is my father in one of them?

Do you know where he is? Or if I can find him?”

It took Alessio a conscious effort not to feel a little paralyzed maintaining eye contact, he still wasn’t used to it. And he wasn’t paying enough attention to her questions, hearing Nathair mentioned had completely jarred everything, Just…focus.

Could Nithel be in one of the trials? That…almost gave Alessio hope but it was such a slim possibility.

Alessio bit his lip and thought over her questions.

“It’s possible if Nithel is still in this world…dimension…place…then he might be forced into the trials as well and there’s a chance of us finding him there.” He said, trying desperately to think of something encouraging to say, but he couldn’t think of anything. The only thing he could manage was to be as frank as he could with her.

“I don’t know.” I’m sorry…Taking a deep breath, he plotted forward “The last time I saw him…was right before a robber –“ Devils that was a comforting thing to say! “But he made it out safely, as far as I know, that’s when we got separated.”

Was it physically possible for him to anything marginally helpful…??

“The trials…” He frowned trying to concentrate on what he remembered of it and at the same time not break down. Images, sensations all came flooding in, he caught himself biting his knuckles again as if a bit of pain would ground him back in the present. “They um…”

He couldn’t focus enough to articulate anything. It was all starting to get numb again. By now he was staring off into space, losing a lot of his grip on the real world and he knew it. With an effort Alessio blinked back a bit of that deadening sensation and tried to plunge forward.

“I believe that whoever or whatever brought us here is using these trials to experiment with whatever responses it can elicit, but the trials show you things that have happened in general to force whoever’s a part of it to feel guilt.”

Alessio’s still not all there anymore but that’s ok he just couldn’t feel anything.

“Nithel doesn’t have anything to feel guilty for so he should be past the trials before any of us and, assumably, we all end up in the same place afterward.” He conveniently ignored the possibility Nithel wasn’t in the trials because in that case there was absolutely nothing he could do to find him again.

It was getting harder to function right now – Alessio took a deep breath and fidgeted with the table cloth to coax his senses to start working. He couldn’t not default to logic but Leana had lost her brother and her father and her home all in one day he needed to show some level of compassion and empathy, he just couldn’t…figure out how to express that.

“Um,” Alessio started softly, staring down at the table. What do normal people say to someone? “…He’ll…he’ll be ok, and…we’ll find him. Whatever dragged us here seems to derive more pleasure from keeping us alive so…in all likelihood he should be alive…”

Devils. That was the literal worst way to comfort someone.

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