Invisible String - Sebastian Sallow

Chapter Twenty: A Broken Home

It was quiet as we sat at the table, our hands held around delicate tea cups, our wands all placed on the rough wooden surface, the only sound the occasional clink of cup to plate.

The small home in Feldcroft was cleaner than the last time I'd been in here. I'd come searching for Sebastian after the events with Ranrok and Professor Fig, finding him on the floor, tears in hid eyes, Anne's letter clutched in his hand and watched him shatter almost every delicate object in the home in his anger.

I'd had to stop him from snapping his own wand.

Anne sat across from me at the small table and I couldn't help but take her in. Sebastian hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said his sister was beautiful. Her hair was free, flowing past her shoulders, and her face was dusted with a light layer of freckles, more visible now she had color again, though less prominent than her twins. I kept finding myself staring at her eyes, wondering how on earth a pair of eyes could be duplicated from her brother to her.

"How, um, how have you been?"

It was a simple question that slipped through my lips, cutting the silence and the tension with a knife. She looked down at her cup, hands flexing around the china for a moment. Sebastian tensed beside me as he waited for his sister to answer.

"That's a complicated question," Anne sighed. "It was rougher for a couple of weeks after Solomon. And then one day, things were just... Better."

I gulped and glanced at Sebastian from the corner of my eye. He was looking straight at Anne, eyes desperately searching her as though he was waiting for the pain to come at any moment.

"I'm glad that you're feeling better, Anne," I smiled warmly. "You look so much healthier."

She gave a half smile at this. "It's marvelous what not being cursed will do to a person."

She had me there.

Sebastian tried his hand to diffuse the tension that was building in the room, the ice in Anne's voice not missed by either of us.

"I never got to say that-" He was promptly cut off, Anne's hands slamming down on the table, rising to her feet.

"That you were sorry? That you regret any of it?"

And there it was. That classic Sallow temper, always bubbling under the surface, waiting until it needed to be brought out. Her nostrils flared and I ducked my head shamefully. What happened was my fault, all of it.

I encouraged Sebastian.

I allowed myself to be tortured under the Cruciatus Curse by his hand.

I helped him find the relic.

I used Imperius on Ominis.

I dueled Solomon in that catacomb.

I'd never reached out after.

"It's my fault," I said. "Please, don't take your anger out on him."

Anne snapped her angry eyes to me, causing an immediate recoil. It was hard seeing his eyes on her face, seeing that anger and having to remind myself it wasn't him.

"Oh don't even get me started on the list of what you need to apologize for. I'm dealing with him first."

"Abbi has nothing to apologize for, Anne." Sebastian spoke with a tone of warning.

"You both have plenty to apologize for," she said, moving away from the table and opening a drawer in the small nook of a bedroom. The sound of rustling papers filled the ever claustrophobic space.