The Girl That Died

Thorns Of Death

"Good day, Madame. My name is William T. Spears, I work for the English branch."

The taller one of the two introduced himself, to her relief in French, and almost instantly pushed his glasses higher up his nose. He looked at her seriously and politely waited for her response.

"Yvette Moreau. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Her eyes wandered to the other man; his figure was quite petite, small, and slender. The dark rings under his eyes and slightly fallen-in cheeks made him seem fragile and ill.  

"This is my colleague, Alan Humphries."

Spears went on, making a small hand gesture in his direction.

"You know why we are here?"

Alexandre and Gerard nodded silently and the latter pointed towards the office door:

"Monsieur Couture will certainly welcome you any moment. He knows that you are here?"

"Of course not. We only got informed about Black Rose's sighting this morning as well."

Spears replied as he knocked on the door, visibly impatient. He didn't seem like an impatient person.

When they were called in after a short time of waiting, Yvette followed them curiously but was held back by her mentor:
"I am very sorry but I'm afraid this is very little of your business. Please wait here or go to your room."

She wanted to talk back but the cold look Spears gave made her hesitate.

"Of course."

"Mr. Spears, I can stay with her, if that is alright with you. It's rude to leave a lady waiting."

The smaller one of the two said, in English.

The taller one agreed, a bit annoyed and the three disappeared behind the door.

"You have to understand that this is a very important matter."

Humphries explained, his French broken but understandable, and gave her a shy smile.

"You must be the one who is here on accident, right?" 

He asked, clearly interested, and sat down on one of the benches. Yvette affirmed, taking place next to him:

"Yes. How do you know that?"

"Oh, something like this makes the rounds quickly. There are also more people knowing about my disease than I'd like."

Her mood changed to worry:

"So you're the one Alexandre was talking about. May I ask what you're suffering from?"

He sighed and it was impossible not to notice that he had to have this conversation regularly:

"Thorns of death. It shouldn't happen, but sometimes a Shinigami falls ill with them when he starts growing sympathy for the humans whose soul he's supposed to collect. It's a little complicated, but it is easiest if you literally imagine it as thorns. It feels like they were spreading slowly in my body, bound to reach my heart eventually.

Barely audibly he cleared his throat and Yvette felt a little sorry for asking.

"The symptoms range from sudden coughing fits to, more rarely, collapsing. They will come more often as the disease gets worse so I'm lucky it hasn't come to that yet."

An awkward silence filled the cool air and neither of them really knew what to say. The woman wanted to express her compassion for him but couldn't think of any fitting words.

Like that they sat in quiet for a few minutes, a quiet Yvette had started to hate over the past days and longed for each other to say something.

"So,"

Humphries finally began and Yvette breathed in relief:

"How exactly did you die? There are many different rumors and nobody quite knows what to believe. Of course, you don't have to tell me if you're uncomfortable with it."

"I was invited for tea by a family friend and was poisoned. It's likely that it was his servant but that's just a suspicion. It was really painful, I wouldn't recommend it."

She joked, lifting the mood a bit:

"When I woke up Ale- Monsieur Segal and Monsieur Francois explained to me what happened. I think you can imagine that I didn't believe them and didn't want to go with them."

"Yeah, that sounds plausib-"

Humphries started saying, interrupted by the sudden and energetic opening of the door. 

Alexandre stormed out of the room, his head a deep read, followed by Gerard who desperately tried to calm down his colleague:

"Alexandre, please listen to them at least! There is so much at stake!" 

"No! I do not want to say it more often! I won't let you put her in such danger! Take someone with more experience and strength!"

Said man protested loudly, shaking his head frantically.

"What if he attacks her? This is not about some determined goner, this is about a demon! She stands no chance against him!"

Spears and Couture joined as well, talking to him insistently, with a slightly calmer tone yet still noticeably annoyed by his behavior: 

"He won't attack her. Black Rose has never targeted weak Shinigami. He wouldn't care even if he did notice her. Besides that, it isn't your decision."

"Monsieur, I don't care if it's my decision or not, I won't let you use my protegee for something like that, it's absolutely not alright!"

Now Yvette reacted, putting herself into the fight that now seemed to be very much of her business:

"What's going on, Alexandre?"

The one addressed jerked around and looked at her:

"They want to use you to gather information about Black Rose. And just because he allegedly never attacked someone who was clearly inferior to him they deemed you fitting to help."

Angrily he chewed on his lower lip and turned back to the other three:

"Look for someone else and leave my mentee alone, she has gone through enough, don't you think? It's not her fault that she's here, she doesn't deserve to be treated like this, and no, I do not care how crucial the situation is."

Spears glared at him furiously, Gerard and Couture desperately argued with him and Alan stared at the floor in silence. Yvette herself didn't know what to do or say or if her opinion would even mean anything to anyone. Therefore she stood up and turned to leave:

"Let me know when you came to an agreement. Since it obviously isn't my decision either, I will leave you alone."

With these words and under the looks of the present parties she distanced herself from the arguing men and made her way back to her room.