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Kyrie’s hand passes through a ray of warm sunshine as she lifts the last clean plate into the cupboard. Soon, the sun will rise above the kitchen window and she’ll be able to see the backyard without having to cover her brow. The day is shaping up to be crisp and blue, early summer on Fortuna Island. A little glimpse of Paradise.
(Nero would argue it’s even better now that the demon-worshiping cult is in shambles.)
(Kyrie’s feelings remain mixed. She’ll brush the dust off them eventually—come to terms with everything. Not today.)
Today, she has bread proofing under a linen towel. She lifts the corner of the fabric to check it’s progress, testing the gluten with a gentle poke. The dough retains a firmness that tells her it needs another half hour or so of proofing; after, she’ll roll it out to knead again, give it another forty minutes of proofing, and then forty minutes in the oven. She’ll take it out to cool just as she starts lunch and have to keep Nero from burning his tongue trying to eat it immediately.
A contented sigh escapes her as she runs her hands under the sink. This isn’t something she has to come to terms with.
The doorbell chimes. Kyrie looks up from the sink with a frown. As she turns the water off, hurried footsteps coming from the garage become evident. The door creaks as Nero opens it. Her frown deepens as a moment of silence passes. Her mind jumps to the children. She grabs a hand towel. What if…
“Kyrie!” Nero hollers. She straightens her shoulders. “It’s your d—It’s Dante!”
Oh.
Kyrie folds the towel in her hands, smoothing out the creases along with the frown on her face. “Let him in!” she calls back.
She drapes it over the sink-lip and leans back against the counter, facing the doorway to the hallway. Two sets of footsteps draw close.
In another world, they could be related.
Nero has white hair. So does Dante. Nero has blue eyes. So does Dante. They both have broad shoulders and calloused hands.
But that’s not what Sanctus said. “I had intended to use you, Dante, but your daughter will do .”
Her stomach turns. One of things best left collecting dust.
She smiles at them. “Would you like something to drink? Water, iced tea, and I think—” She turns and opens the fridge. “Yes, there’s still a couple cans of ginger ale too.”
“The tea.” She’s not facing him. She can’t see what his expression does. But she can hear it in his voice, in the pause—his uncertainty.
Kyries grabs the pitcher of iced tea, brewed this morning with thoughts of sitting out on the deck with Nero once it was covered in shade and eating lunch, and shuts the fridge door. She glances back at Nero.
“Do you want some too?”
“Er, sure,” he replies. “But I’m going to have to get back working on the van, if that’s okay with you?”
There’s a silent question in his gaze. Her smile shifts, softens; it’s just for him.
“Of course.”
She sets the pitcher down to open the cupboard, but Nero’s shoulder brushes against hers and his hands reach in, grabbing three glasses. She pours them and pushes one towards him. He plants a kiss on her cheek before taking it.
“I’m just a holler away, alright?”
She pats his shoulder.
“Go.”
He skirts around Dante in the doorway, disappearing into the dark hall. Dante watches his retreating back as she watches Dante. When the sound of his footsteps change from wood floors to concrete, Dante looks back at her.
“I wouldn’t trust me either,” he says with a shrug, lowering himself into a dining chair.
Kyrie’s lips purse as she sets the drink in front of him. “He’s always been protective of me.” Her expression shifts to fondness. “Or maybe we’ve always been protective of each other.”
All the way back to the first time they met, in Fortuna’s no-longer standing orphanage. Kyrie was happily ensconced in her adopted family—adopted being a word that held little meaning to her. They were the only family she knew. Family was kind and warm, unlike the stark halls of the orphanage, unlike Nero’s intensely frigid gaze as he first assessed her.
(She knows now—not that he’s told her—that he’d just been trying to figure out if he knew her. He looks like that at everyone when he’s not wearing his glasses or contacts. But there had been some wearines too, because he had countless reasons to be weary of everyone back then.)
There had been an immediate kinship once they talked. Nero with his unusual appearance and entirely mysterious parentage. Kyrie was just as much a scandal— adopted from the mainland . A pair they had made.
“Didn’t peg you for the fighting type,” Dante says, snapping her from her memories.
“I’m not. You don’t have to hurt others to protect someone.”
This time, it’s Dante that pauses in thought.
“That’s not been my experience, I guess.”
Kyrie takes a sip of her drink, swallowing tea and questions. What experiences? But this is too new. They don’t know each other well enough yet.
Instead, she asks, “What brings you to town?”
He clears his throat. “I had a job not too far away. Figured I’d swing by and see how y’all were doing out here.”
Was that all?
“We’re rebuilding as best we can,” she answers, instead. “There’s… Distrust, a lot of it. Who knew, who didn’t, who was part of it, and who wasn’t.”
“They’re not giving you any trouble, are they?”
Kyrie shakes her head quickly.
“Or, not anymore. Nero got some grief at first, being a Knight. But since he’s been taking charge on a lot of rebuilding efforts, that’s quieted down. They—They don’t know.”
They don’t know she’s the daughter of the assassin in red. They don’t know she’s a quarter-demon.
She doesn’t feel any percentage demon.
“That’s good,” Dante says. She hears relief in his voice, but not shame.
“I’ve been focusing on the orphanage,” she continues. “It’s going to take a long time to rebuild and there’s not any suitable buildings for a temporary one.” Half the city was rubble. What remained was too small or too haunted. Especially for the more than a dozen newly orphaned children. “Nero and I are talking about taking in one or two of them.”
Dante coughs on his drink. “Hold up. I just learned I’m a—a dad. Now you’re gonna make me a grandpa?”
She can’t help her smile.
“We wouldn’t be adopting them, just taking them in. That’s not a bad thing, is it?”
His smirk fades slightly. “No, suppose not. If there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have given to get out of the group homes when I was a kid. But—” He swallows. “Wouldn’t have been a good idea. But you’re not going to be ‘taking in’ the most wanted child in all of hell, so it’ll be fine.”
“I—Yeah.” Her eyes are blank. She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t think he needs to hear an apology—he speaks with a sense of humor. That had to have been a lot, though. “I was lucky, I guess. I was too young to remember being adopted. Nero wasn’t. With our experiences, I think we could do right by them.”
Dante hums and takes another sip of his tea. “You two seem… Good. Stable. God knows at your age I was a disaster.” He points at her. “Do me a favor and cover your ears if Lady tries to tell you those stories.”
Lady . Had that been the shorter woman with the dark-hair and sunglasses? Nero had said the blonde was Trish. Or was it Gloria?
Did it matter? Would she see them again?
Maybe. Dante is here, after all. He’d gone out of his way to check on ‘the town’ but Nero and Kyrie lived just outside of town, so he’d gone out of his way a second time to visit them . She likes that.
“No promises,” Kyrie says.
He gives her a look of mock betrayal.
So, yeah. Maybe she’ll properly meet Lady one day.
“Will you be staying long?” she asks.
“I shouldn’t.” He sighs. “It’s a hike back home.”
Kyrie tilts her head to the side. Another thing she doesn’t know: where does he call home? Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe it’s still worth the offer.
“At least for lunch?”
Dante glances down the hallway. “Would the kid be okay with it?”
Kyrie follows his gaze. “He’s not going to trust you if he doesn’t get to know you. But—”
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Dante didn’t ask for this. She is the illegitimate daughter he spent two decades not knowing. He didn’t ask for a daughter, for a someday-son-in-law, for any of it. He didn’t seem to have any family left before they met and maybe he preferred it that way. But he’s here, he seems to be trying. Enough maybe. She should put the question right on the table, on her grandma’s crocheted doily, between their glasses of iced tea.
(She should , but she wasn’t raised to be direct.)
“But you don’t have to. He’s not your family.”
Dante looks at her. “He’s your family though, right?”
She nods.
He nods back. “Then he’s mine. Guess I got to get to know him. One question though—”
Her warmed heart stills.
“If I tease him about the glasses, am I getting punched?”