It was morning before Lucy finally realized she had gone for far too long without any rest, and lay like a log on the kitchen floor in a sort of sleepless stupor. Pitch scolded her harshly, and at length.

In the meantime, Dreadli decided to explore the mansion.

Most of the rooms she came across looked just as empty and neglected as the kitchen. Many were covered in a thick layer of dust.

And yet, they were surprisingly devoid of life. She found no spider webs, no mouseholes or birds’ nests. It was as if the house had been abandoned by everyone and everything.

All that remained were the phantasms…and the skeletons.

They were just barely hidden by the shadows of the hallways, accompanied by large, dark stains on the walls and the floor. Some were half-crushed, many were missing pieces. One held a black rose in the remains of its hand.

Dreadlilocks stepped lightly over the bones.

She found Azor in the drawing room, standing in front of a large window. Phantasms swarmed around the edges, as if clamoring for a look at their target…fortunately, they failed to obscure the view of the garden and its thousands of roses.

In the light of day, Dreadlilocks could see a few other details of Azor’s form that she hadn’t noticed before: Like the striped horns, half darkness and half some golden amber substance. The wing-like appendages that sprouted from his back like curled flesh. The delicate tail with a single yellow eye on its end.

The eye blinked at her. “What do you want…?” Azor asked without turning around.

“…Nothing really,” Dreadli answered. She joined him at the window. “You know…there’s a lot of dead people in this house…”

“I know what you’re thinking, and they all deserved it,” Azor answered abruptly.

“ALL of them?!”

“It was a matter of self-defense.” Azor narrowed his eyes. “People…whenever they find something that frightens them, they try to kill it. They don’t know when to give up, either.”

“You don’t look frightening to me. Well…maybe just a little bit frightening. But not too much.”

“That is thanks to several years of hard work. When I first turned, I was much worse.”

Dreadlilocks wondered what that meant. She looked back at the roses.

“…Are you saying goodbye?” she asked. “To the flowers.”

Azor didn’t reply.

“If you love something, you should say goodbye to it,” she continued. “I wish I could’ve said goodbye to my family before they disappeared. Or I disappeared. Whatever happened…

“I mean, if you go with us, you might never see them again. ‘We could die’…Miss Pitch says that a lot. Really, I don’t know what will happen even if we do reach the moon.”

“…You are not making this easier…” Azor said under his breath.

“You could bring a few roses with you,” Dreadli suggested. “You could press them in a book…Mama Bear used to do that. That way they stay pretty for a long time.”

“It would not change the fact that the rest will perish when I leave here. For centuries I have cared for them, and now I sentence them to death…either from exposure, or these creatures…” He tapped the glass, and the phantasms recoiled playfully.

“Well, it’s kind of inevitable…” said Dreadli. “But I guess maybe…you would’ve liked to at least be here with them at the end.”

Azor fell silent again.

Dreadlilocks wondered if she should stay or go…in the end, she decided that if he wanted her gone, he would tell her so.

So she stood silently by his side, and together they bid the roses farewell.