Flower Gleam and Glow

Healing Tear

"You let him escape."

"The entire tavern showed up, Lutz. It was totally unawesome!" Gilbert whined.

Ludwig sighed.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Gilbert said, ignoring the splitting headache he now had.

"Good," Ludwig nodded. "Because we have to go see the Postmaster General about that letter."

About twenty minutes later, they ran into the Postmaster General's office.

"We need you to take a look at this," Ludwig said. "We have reason to believe it may have been forged."

The Postmaster General—a tired-looking man called Heracles Karavitis—took the letter.

Ludwig and Gilbert waited for what seemed an eternity; finally, Heracles brought the letter back.

"It's a forgery," he said. "Do you know who could have forged it?"

"It was most likely a distraction to pull off the break-out," Ludwig said. "So, someone close to Jones."

"Erzsébet?" Gilbert suggested. But no, that wasn't right.

"She was leading the break-out," Ludwig said. "That'd be too obvious."

There was a moment of silence.

"Roderich might," Gilbert said. His younger brother was a wimp, and the awesomeness of any room dropped ten degrees whenever Roderich entered it. But he'd do anything for Erzsébet.

"Forgeries aren't in Roderich's skillset," Ludwig said. "But they are in Erika's."

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When Berlitz got to the tower, Alfred dismounted and sprinted to it.

"Tolys!" he shouted. "Let down your hair!"

The blond hair came tumbling down, and Alfred began to climb.

________________________________________________________________________________

"Tolys!" a shout came. "Let down your hair!"

Alfred.

"Ah!" Ivan told a bound and gagged Tolys. "It seems we have a visitor! Let's invite him up, shall we?"

Tolys gave a muffled sound of protest, but Ivan ignored him. Eduard was silent,—unconscious but not dead—tossed to the side as if he were a piece of trash and not Tolys's best friend.

He could only watch, struggling, as Alfred climbed into the darkened tower.

"Tolys?" he asked.

Tolys tried to warn Alfred, to tell him to get out before it was too late, but it just came out muffled—

Alfred took a few steps forwards—

He suddenly gasped in pain, staggering forwards.

Alfred's hand gripped a jagged piece of glass jutting out from his side as he collapsed to the ground; Tolys let out a muffled scream and his insides had turned to ice.

"Now look what you've made me do Tolys," Ivan said. "If you'd just stayed with me instead of trying to abandon me like everyone else, none of this would have happened!"

With great effort, Tolys managed to move the gag.

"Let me heal him," he said.

"So you can run off with him and leave me here alone? Just like everyone else? No," Ivan said.