Be Gay, Do Crimes: Ros Vs Everything, Apparently

aw honey, look, its where you almost died!

Gavaldon had not changed in thirty years. Not that Tedros remembered it particularly well-- he had been fifteen and was missing about a pint of blood when he'd arrived, and the only time he'd gone outside the villagers had tried to execute him. But the quaint little town was pretty much identical to the one he remembered, even down to the pastel cottages.

"You'd have thought they'd have changed it a bit in thirty years," he remarked as they drew closer.

"They got rid of the statues," said Agatha vaguely.

"What statues?"

"The statues of me and Sophie."

"You had statues?"

Agatha did not respond. Tedros didn't press her; she'd been prickly all day, and he'd not really had the chance to talk to her about it. Everyone had left at the same time, early this morning; Rosalind to Evil, Marcus and Chinhae to Good, and Eunha, Jun and Seohun back to Avalon Towers whilst Tedros and Agatha had decided to ride to Graves Hill themselves. The court had offered to send representatives to put a stop to the Everwood society's construction, but Agatha had refused, on the grounds that she didn't want anyone else meddling with her mother's house, which was really fair enough.

Still, Tedros had never really been able to fathom why she'd not gone back before now. He'd never been back until now--he'd never thought his presence would exactly encourage goodwill--but Agatha had been on a couple of visits with Sophie and Nicola, to negotiate the future of Readers at the School for Good and Evil. He'd assumed she'd taken the opportunity to visit whilst she'd been there, but, apparently, she hadn't. When he'd asked why, she'd muttered something about there being no point and gone to check Rosalind had packed her boots.

He initially thought she was antsy because of Rosalind and Marcus's departure, but it was definitely their trip to Gavaldon. Rosalind had sauntered off without a hint of...well, any emotion, as was her custom, and Marcus had seemed happy enough to go with Chinhae. Now he knew both Chinhae and Sora's brother, the ever-irreverent Raiden, were both going, he'd seemed a lot more comfortable with the concept, thank god. They hadn't been pacing and fidgeting and wild-eyed like Alex had. At least not outwardly. Tedros had managed to catch Ros alone the previous night, and while she hadn't said anything about herself, she'd had plenty to say about how she felt Marcus's prospects at Good were, and Tedros had worried himself by finding that he agreed with her. Evers could be vain and easily swayed and disparaging of anything less than perfection, and--

Agatha swore from beside him, and Tedros was snapped out of his thoughts.

"What?"

Agatha made a bad-tempered gesture down the street, and Tedros followed it--

There was a crowd at the base of Graves Hill.

"What's this, the welcoming committee?" he snorted. "Did the Council of Lords send advance notice so that they can bow and scrape appropriately?"

"They're not waiting for us," said Agatha, who'd always maintained good eyesight, long after Tedros had started to bad-temperedly concede that he might, sometimes, need to wear glasses. "They're watching what's happening. Look."

Tedros squinted in the direction that she was pointing. "Is that a wagon? What do they need that for--? Oh."

There was a long line of workers snaking down the hill, marching towards the already piled-high wagon, all carrying armfuls of stuff, presumably Callis's. Tedros blinked. "All of that fit in that tiny house?"

"You never went in the cellar, clearly."

Tedros had a foggy memory of Callis saying if he had died, she would have put his body down there, because it was "nice and cold," but he didn't voice it. "What are they doing with everything?" he asked instead. "If they're making a museum out of the place, don't they need to keep it?"