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I. The Fairy Queen
Long, long ago, when fairies still roamed the Earth, there lived a fairy queen who was feared and revered by all. Her name was Pearl, and she was the most dangerous of her kind, for she was neither spiteful nor cruel. No, Pearl was a true romantic.
As time went on, the fairies withdrew from the human world, until encounters with mortals were few and far between. So it was to everyone's great surprise when an orphan appeared on their doorstep.
"What's a hee-yoo-man?" Queen Pearl asked, peering up at the child, for though the boy was young, he was already a head taller than she.
"A visitor from another world," her cousin Mia explained. Mia had traveled far and seen much. "You're a lucky little thing," she now cooed to the little child. "The forest is vast, and your chance of finding our little home is one in a million. We have wards to prevent that sort of thing."
Mia's younger sister Maya came to take the child's hand, and he looked at Maya with wide, trusting eyes and a trembling lip. Maya was Pearl's favorite cousin, kind and gentle and resolute, the one who kept smiling when the world settled upon her shoulders. Her smile was genuine now, warm and beaming from her face, and Pearl refused to darken it with a cloud. "You should keep him," she told Mia. "I think he'll get along with your sister."
Pearl was a romantic, after all.
*
As time went on, the child grew despite a stream of terrifying accidents, each enough to snuff out a less resilient child. He was bright and cheerful and eager to please, and Maya, the queen's favorite, blossomed along with him. They named the boy Cat, for he seemed to have just as many lives, and then later changed it to Phoenix, when he'd far surpassed his allotted nine. And still, he grew, his charmed good fortune shielding him from harm.
On the eve of his eighteenth birthday, Pearl paid a visit to Mia's cabin, where Phoenix was happily setting out a supper of nectar and honeydew. Phoenix had grown strong and handsome. His chest was as broad as three fairies abreast, though his eyes remained kind. He was Maya's best friend and Mia's assistant.
"Mr. Nick," Pearl said magnanimously, for she was fond of titles. "You have grown so big, and worked hard, and been a friend to fairies and humans alike. Now that it is your eighteenth birthday, I have a present for you."
"Is it wisdom? Or courage?" Phoenix asked eagerly, for fairies were raised on legends. In this regard, fairies were just like humans.
"No, Mr. Nick. Wisdom is gained through experience, and courage comes from within."
"Then, is it word of my parents?" Phoenix tried not to let the hope bleed into his voice. Even fairy magic couldn't see beyond.
Pearl shook her head. "No, it is something far better. As Queen of the Fairies, I give you permission to ask my cousin Maya's hand in marriage."
The smile was plastered to his face. Phoenix glanced at Maya, aghast, and her face reflected the same shock back. "Ah, your honor, there must be some mistake," he stammered. "Maya is my best friend, and a true one. I love her as deeply as a friend has ever loved another. But I don't wish to marry her."
Pearl frowned, and the thunder crackled in the dark night sky.
"Pearly, no! I agree with—" Maya tried to protest, but it was too late. Pearl's eyes were swiftly changing, from forlorn to furiously glowing, two flames of iridescent jade against the darkening sky.
"You bad, bad man!" she shrieked. "You lived with us and made my favorite cousin fall in love with you, but you won't love her back! I'll make sure everyone knows that loving you feels really, really awful!"
"No! Pearly, stop!" Maya cried, but her please fell on deaf ears.
"Everyone must be warned away from loving a bad man like you!" So saying, Queen Pearl cast a powerful spell upon Phoenix and reshaped the world around him, and when he opened his eyes, though his body remained unchanged, tendrils of coldness gripped his heart. The forest was empty save for a single plant in a painted clay pot, its cluster of elongated leaves arranged like a flower. The fairy queen's parting words rang in his ears.
"I guess I have to give you a way to break the curse. Stupid fairy rules! You can break the curse when someone loves you even though it feels really bad, and before your twenty-first birthday! But that will never happen, right?"
II. The Three Charges of Lord von Karma
In the nearby town of lived a great lord in a grand mansion, with a hundred servants to his name and a thousand acres of land, admired by many and envied by all. Lord von Karma was a merchant of great renown, and the father of two perfect daughters. The elder was called Frieda, and she was as dazzling as a golden crown and brave as a roaring flame. The younger was called Franziska, and she was as brilliant as a crystal chalice and hard as a shard of ice.
For many years, the family of three-plus-others lived alone in their lofty halls, but there came a day when the Lord's fortunes took a turn for the worse. Ship after ship were lost at sea, and his wagons were oft beset by bandits or ravaged by wolves. Their funds were quickly dwindling away.
The situation was quickly becoming critical, for though the von Karmas had kept up the appearance of wealth, their trading partners were growing uneasy. With each passing year, Frieda's gowns became more worn and patched, and soon, no amount of skill would hide the threadbare fabric. Franziska had outgrown her skirts, and a von Karma must never be seen in hand-me-downs.
"One curse understands another," the eldest daughter said one night. "I have heard rumors of another one cursed such as we are."
"Bah, curses are fools' talk," the old von Karma scoffed.
But Frieda held firm. "Something must be done," she said. "If one more shipment is lost, Mr. Gant will complain, and then all the world will know we are cursed. Better to find the root and stamp it out before word gets out."
Her logic was unassailable, and so von Karma allowed Frieda to pay Phoenix a visit.
Frieda knocked on Phoenix's door, with a small cart laden with jewels and rare spices, and books delivered from foreign lands. And though Phoenix attempted to turn her away, she so reminded him of Mia that he relented. Frieda stayed for three days and three nights, combing through her tale with Phoenix for any trace of a clue.
"It does sound like a fairy curse," Phoenix said thoughtfully. "The most likely culprit is the incident between your father and Feisty May. What doesn't add up is why the curse took twenty years to take effect."
Frieda nodded emphatically. "She mumbled something under her breath, let me find it." She flipped through her notes until she found the account, written in her father's stately hand. "Aha! One day, you'll know how it feels to have and lose everything!" she read out loud.
"That must be it! The curse must have waited for your father to build up a fortune, so he had more to lose!"
Phoenix lit up when he got excited: eyes sparkling, face beaming. Quite without meaning to, Frieda smiled back. She reached for the notes at the same time as Phoenix, and their hands touched upon the table.
"Ah," Frieda said, making no move to pull her hand away, the warmth slowly creeping up her face.
Without warning, an icy current flashed through Phoenix's chest, a frigid wave that made him shiver. He yanked his hand back and leapt up. "Erm yes we've had a long day good night!" he stammered, rushing out of the room and to his bedroom. The door slammed behind him.
In the morning, Phoenix was nowhere to be seen. Frieda awoke to an apologetic letter and provisions for the return journey.
Her horse returned to the von Karma estate alone. Frieda was never seen or heard from again.
*
Franziska set out that very night, without a word to her father, losing no time when her sister's horse returned alone. Every wasted hour decreases the chance of finding Sister, she explained in a hurried note.
When she arrived at the crack of dawn, Phoenix was not there. She hammered on the door for an hour, and then camped upon the doorstep for a week. But at last, she was forced to return.
"It seems that coward has foolishly fled," she reported to her father. "We must find him! He has taken Sister and must be brought to justice!"
The old von Karma shook his head, looking ten years older than Franziska remembered. Sighing, he produced a bloody knapsack, the fabric shredded with claw marks. Franziska paled at the sight of it.
"Your sister was killed by a bear," von Karma said simply.
"No! I refuse to believe it!" Franziska declared. "She said he was cursed, and I must get to the bottom of it!"
"You cannot! Frieda's disappearance has already put us in the spotlight!" von Karma protested.
"There's no other way!" Franziska retorted. They glared at each other, and they'd still be there today, were it not for the firm cough that interrupted their staring match.
"I will go," the newcomer declared.
Franziska rounded on him. "Miles Edgeworth! You have lost your mind if you think I'll entrust such a task to a fool such as yourself!" she snapped.
"That's not for you to decide, dear sister," Miles Edgeworth sneered back. "Well?" he said imperiously, turning to von Karma.
Von Karma looked from one to the other, deep in thought. "Yes. . ." he said slowly. "It will do. If you succeed in proving Phoenix Wright's involvement in Frieda's disappearance, I will bestow upon you the von Karma name. And should you fail. . . at least you won't be missed."
*
Nearly three years had passed since Phoenix first appeared in the forest one night, alone and lost and mysteriously the title-holder of a rickety abandoned castle. It had been a troubling almost-three years for Phoenix. Handsome and pleasant, and the apparent heir of an ancient castle, he'd at first befriended the townsfolk. The first months of his stay were pleasant: frequent visitors and flowing conversations filled his halls.
One day, he peered at his plant, his last relic from his time with the fairies which he'd kept and tended with care. It flourished in the sun, unfurling blade after vigorous blade, each covered in hundreds of little barbs. He doted on that plant, but today, he found a single shriveled fly ensnared on a barbed leaf. Phoenix inspected it, fascinated. It was dried and misshapen, the wings were crumpled, legs curled grotesquely into its body. A wave of revulsion rose in Phoenix. Averting his eyes, he plucked the fly away and threw it out.
The next day, word arrived from the village: Miss Cindy Stone had been found bleeding in her apartment, with a broken shelf and a heavy statue next to her. She'd been rushed to the hospital. It wasn't looking good.
Miss Cindy had smiled at Phoenix the day before, her fingertips lingering upon his coat sleeve.
The day after, the plant captured three more flies. Three baristas had fallen ill—at the very coffee shop Phoenix liked to frequent.
It was all circumstantial. When the rookie detective hesitantly suggested all four victims' connection to Phoenix, the department made only a perfunctory investigation. Phoenix had never been to Miss Cindy's apartment, and surveillance footage provided indisputable evidence of that fact. The baristas were sick with the town's first recorded cases of tuberculosis in a hundred years, and neither Phoenix nor his castle held any trace of the bacteria.
But though he was resoundingly cleared of suspicion, the pattern persisted. Soon, none who lived in the town dared to visit, or even speak to Phoenix. His only companions were the occasional travelers passing by, in need of a hot meal or a night's shelter. Phoenix enclosed the drosera plant in a bell jar to stave off the flies, and he tried his very best to be cruel, and sometimes he even succeeded. But more often than not, his charm would break through, beguiling and dooming his unlucky visitors.
*
Miles Edgeworth was an unusual guest in many ways. The first thing Phoenix noticed about him was the ruffled handkerchief at his throat.
The second was his infuriating, insufferable mannerisms. "Open the door!" Miles Edgeworth announced himself by screeching. "I know you're in there!" When Phoenix didn't answer, Edgeworth picked the lock and marched in like he owned the place.
Phoenix took an immediate dislike to his visitor. He slinked into view, complaining, "Geez, I don't care if von Karma owns the whole town. You can't just invite yourself into someone's home!"
"I didn't learn it from von Karma," Edgeworth said disdainfully. "I'm a prosecutor. I file for a warrant, and then I can invite myself in."
He was actually holding out a search warrant, signed and stamped. Phoenix stared at it in disbelief. "How did you know I was in anyway?" he heard himself saying. He thought of detectives in shows who could pull timelines from the smallest of clues, and wondered what had given him away. The direction of his bike tracks? The state of his garden?
"I didn't."
"Huh?"
Edgeworth waved a condescending finger at him. "It might have convinced you to open the door, ergo, is was worth a try," he reasoned.
"A bluff!" Phoenix was equal parts delighted and outraged. "It didn't help, did it?"
"Well, it's not like it caused any harm either." Edgeworth was now giving himself a tour of the place, going from room to room with a bottle of some spray. Every now and then, he paused to inspect a fingerprint. Phoenix rolled his eyes.
"If it's Frieda's prints you're looking for, they're all over the place. She was here, I'm not denying that. And no, I don't know what happened to her!"
For some reason, Edgeworth whirled on Phoenix. He stalked right up to him and studied him on all sides, so close Phoenix could feel the heat radiating off his skin. He gulped and fought down the impulse to step back. Miles Edgeworth was not going to menace him in his own home.
"You're quite honest by nature, are you?" Edgeworth said at last, every word screaming derogatory. Phoenix glowered at Edgeworth, who met his gaze with an even, unbothered look. "It's like this," Edgeworth continued, tapping Phoenix's raised arm. "You're not going to convince anyone when you're rubbing the back of your head. Especially not with that idiotic expression. I'd mention the sweating too, but I've been told that's impolite."
"You're demonic!" Phoenix gasped, indignant.
"Tell me what you know, and I'll be out of your, erm, if you can call this hair."
And Phoenix was about to give the usual speech about his curse and the danger he posed, when an unfamiliar sensation stopped him short. The curse's icy fingers were imperceptible in his chest, replaced by a simmering heat: a hint of anger, mixed with the heat of their argument. It was invigorating. Phoenix realized with a start that he'd been bored the past two-odd years.
The other man regarded him sternly, coolly, with no hint of that dangerous affection.
Surely someone so insufferable. . . It could work.
A slow grin spread across Phoenix's face. "I'll tell you everything," he said. "And in return, you must stay and keep me company. Once, I had friends, and lately I've had myself. It will be a change of pace to have an adversary."
"For how long?"
"One month."
"That is acceptable."
"What?" Phoenix blinked, surprised by the quick agreement.
"I'm here to investigate, aren't I?" With that, Edgeworth pointed his bottle at Phoenix's chest and sprayed.
Fingerprinting powder filled the air. Phoenix sputtered and sneezed while Edgeworth calmly recorded the fingerprints on his shirt.
"I've changed my shirt since Frieda left, you know! Do that again and I'll use your napkin to wipe it off!" Phoenix yelled.
"It's called a jabot," Edgeworth said haughtily. "Were you raised by wolves?"
"By fairies, if you must know!"
"Heh. And I'm the Queen of France."
*
The thing about living with Edgeworth was, he was an unfortunately, miserably, intolerably good housemate.
Edgeworth was neat. Not only did he clean up after himself, he cleaned up Phoenix's things too, entirely without permission or justification. The entire castle was spotless. "How can I be sure of finding all the clues when it's cluttered?" he'd simply remarked. Phoenix hadn't seen a dirty dish since the day Edgeworth moved in.
Edgeworth was fastidious. He sorted his books using the Dewey Decimal System. "Quit complaining," he'd said sternly, when Phoenix had gestured in outrage at his re-arranged books. "You'll get used to it in time, and then you'll save time on searching for the rest of your natural life."
He'd handed him a thick binder listing every topic and subtopic. It was laminated. "I only have one bookshelf," Phoenix had seethed.
Edgeworth was possessed of a staggering number of truly unnecessary skills, such as cooking. "Really?" he said, his voice dripping condescension. "Cooking is a basic human skill."
"Yeah, if you're fussy!" Phoenix argued, around a mouthful of raw mushrooms.
Edgeworth yanked away his bowl of wild-foraged vegetation. "You're eating the dirt too," he said in disgust. "Don't pull this with me, Wright, you know how food works. I know you eat out!"
"Why would you know that?"
That was how Phoenix discovered that Edgeworth had an extensive dossier on him.
"I'm not a criminal!" Phoenix groaned. But he did quietly cede the kitchen to Edgeworth after that. Edgeworth accepted the role without comment, and in turn, Phoenix pretended not to notice the superior expression Edgeworth got on his stupid, too-perfect face.
"It's puzzling," Edgeworth mused, flipping through the disconcertingly-detailed pages of the dossier: grainy photos showing Phoenix leaving his home, frequenting restaurants, or riding his bike. There was hardly a day missing. "The only records of you prior to three years ago are government records. Take a look."
Edgeworth extracted a primary school report and slid it over to Phoenix. "You're marked Satisfactory in every subject. What child is so completely average? It's as if this entire report is a placeholder."
"Yes, I know I'm unsatisfactory in every regard," Phoenix said sarcastically, only-half listening.
Edgeworth rolled his eyes. "I was discussing the report, not you. Look." Edgeworth reached into his other briefcase, the one that wasn't filled with Phoenix's mundane minutiae. "These are the cases that the von Karma family was involved in, and every one of them has some aspect that is not routine—"
"Every one of them? Isn't that, you know, suspicious?"
"Suspect," Edgeworth corrected automatically. Then his eyes widened.
"Edgeworth? I was only arguing for the sake of it. Edgeworth?"
*
The thing about living with Edgeworth was, one can't help but grow fond of him over time. So it was with a heavy heart that Phoenix put aside his recreational jabs and jibes, and took up the von Karma files in earnest. Together, over sleepless nights and endless pots of coffee and tea, they unraveled his long history of deception and forgery, case by painstaking case.
Phoenix sat leaning against the couch where Edgeworth had fallen asleep halfway through a court transcript, reviewing a folder of evidence and making notes in cramped shorthand on a post-it. Edgeworth mumbled something in his sleep, so close to Phoenix's ear that he could feel each warm exhale. Behind him, the sun was rising. Phoenix waited.
He knew what to expect when the thrashing began. Gently, Phoenix laid a hand on Edgeworth's hair, running his fingers through silky gray bangs. One smooth stroke after another, from the top of his head to the soft hairs at the nape, until the man stilled under his touch.
A cold draft swept through the room, and Edgeworth stirred. Phoenix withdrew his hand.
Edgeworth blinked awake, then sat up and rubbed his eyes. His eyes passed over the evidence log and all the notes, fanned out all around Phoenix. Those stern gray eyes swept over the bullet, the elevator photo, and last of all, the page of profiles. His gaze came to rest on a familiar, bespectacled face.
He drew a deep, uncharacteristically shaky breath.
Phoenix touched his arm, fingers resting there with the barest pressure. "Whatever you find, you don't have to do anything with it," he said.
Edgeworth seemed not to hear him. "For the last fifteen years, I've had the same dream almost every night. A nightmare. . . or a memory. . . ." He shuddered, shrank in on himself.
Phoenix rose and sat on the couch next to him, legs and shoulders pressing together. "You'll be okay," he said, giving his very best bluff. "That's what prosecutors do, right? They find the truth."
"And if the truth is that I'm a killer?"
Phoenix wrapped an arm firmly around Edgeworth's shoulders. "Then you were a killer all along, and nothing has changed. What's done is done, right? Knowing it won't make it worse. Burying it won't make it better. Besides." He gave Edgeworth a light shove. "You can hide out here and be a fugitive with me."
Edgeworth chuckled then, and he leaned into Phoenix for the briefest moment. He squared his shoulders and straightened up, and picked up the first page of the court record. "I'm ready," he said.
A sunbeam painted the room golden as they smiled at each other, on the morn of Phoenix's twenty-first birthday.
*
And in the depths of the castle, tucked away in Phoenix's room, a single fly helplessly beat its wings. It thrashed desperately, twisting and pulling at its legs, each held fast in glue. Its legs snapped beneath it, and its wings wore down to nubs, yet always, another grasping tendril reached out to caress its body. Its buzzing grew fainter and fainter.
No one was there to witness when its last gasping breath faded away.
III. Soliloquy
When Phoenix was alone once more, with only a scrap of paper and five horrible words for company, his thoughts returned to Maya and the fairies. Time and again, he wondered where they'd gone. Pearl hadn't sent him away, as far as he could tell: the paths outside his castle were the same he'd always walked, and the forest the same one he'd foraged with the fairies. But where their cabins had been, he was met with a wreath of leaves or a circle of stone. It was as if they existed in a dream, and he was simply a traveler who'd gone—
"—there and back again," Phoenix finished the thought with a wry grin.
Now, all alone in his castle, he wondered more than ever whether he ought to have lied, taken Maya's hand and made a pretty performance. She'd be displeased, repulsed perhaps, but she had better sense than he. She'd play along rather than face the wrath of Queen Pearl. He swallowed that thought with a mouthful of drink, and settled in for both to digest.
His thoughts always seemed clearer, washed along on a river of wine. Distorted and tinged with self-reproach, but flowing freely at last. He'd take that trade, on balance.
"What's the truth to a mere mortal," Phoenix mused into his wineglass. The cut crystal had no answer, but Phoenix supplied his own. "I talk a big talk, to take arms against a sea of troubles, and I can even make a case for it. To reveal the truth; to prevent greater harm—but must the truth always be noble?"
He hiccupped. The wine rippled gently, twinkling merrily at him.
"You're right," Phoenix told the glass. "Some truths are better left unsaid. I don't want to know how many spiders I've eaten in my sleep. . . nor what Maya thinks of me now. She's out of reach. What good would it do to torment myself?" He swirled the wine and took another gulp. "He could endure being his father's killer, I thought—he'd been enduring it for a decade! Any fool could see he already believed it! But I never imagined. . . all the forgeries, right under his nose. . . the contaminated cases. . . ."
He closed his eyes, reliving the horror on Miles's face at each wrongful conviction and execution. "Those are his spiders, right?" He mumbled nonsensically. "Now he knows. . . and what's the use in that?"
None at all, the glass seemed to reply.
Phoenix frowned. "Mia told me I must never trust a talking object," he said to it. "Either it's playing a trick on me, or my head is. . . and neither is anything good. Lazy minds pretend there is naught to be done. . . and thus. . . absolve themselves of responsibility. You. . . you won't. . . fool. . . zzzzz."
It was a bonus that Phoenix was cleverest in the mornings after. In the harsh light of day, with the drunken haze slowly fading away and the previous night's revelations as sharp as the crick in his neck, the threads of logic would knit together—quite without conscious thought—leaving Phoenix staring at the cruel, miserable truth. Night and morning, evidence and logic in turn: it all conspired to ensure Phoenix could never, ever hide from himself.
One by one, the pieces of evidence marched through his mind. The first papercut. The bruises. The little moments he'd dismissed as easily as the first seeds grew in his heart. They'd crept up on him so gradually he hadn't noticed, until he was left standing under the precarious heap of them. Until the final, dramatic explosion, when the curse and inescapable Logic had wrapped their tendrils around the man's splintered psyche and ripped it apart.
"I did love that pompous, over-primped bastard," Phoenix sighed at his reflection.
*
His growing body count would send the most stoic person into the depths of despair, but Phoenix was resolute, possessed of unprecedented optimism, and determined to live up to his name. He whistled that day as he boarded up his doors, and he sustained a strained smile as he fenced off his castle. Last of all, he sowed a row of thorny hedges along the path, to keep any and all visitors away from his hearth.
For seven long years, he lived alone among the trees and the dust, and if he gagged when swallowing his dirt-covered raw mushrooms, well, no one would ever know. He spent his days reading, until he really did know the Dewey Decimal System like the back of his hand, for he never found it in himself to sort the books back. He tended his hedges, and kept his fairy plant clean of corpses, and he lost himself in stories and wine. The sharp ache in his chest grew dull and familiar, until he hardly noticed its presence, until the unchanging days were all he knew and all he could remember.
And thus, the seasons passed.
IV. Miles
Edgeworth came back.
Phoenix wasn't entirely surprised to see him. He'd had a week's warning, after all, in the form of the thuds of axes and the whirring of machinery, and on one memorable day, clouds of smoke that seemed to rise from a flamethrower. By the time the intruder finally pushed his way through the thorny hedge, with one final grunt and a great ripping sound, Phoenix was prepared.
Miles Edgeworth stood before him with bloodied hands, and charred spots all along his sleeves and hems, and leaves and thorns set in his hair like a crown. In seven years, he had only grown more beautiful. His eyes were blazing now, his jaw firm and resolute, and for one, terrible moment, Phoenix contemplated throwing himself into his arms.
The cold flared back to life in his chest, and Phoenix remembered to be cruel. "Back from the death, Edgeworth?" he spat.
Edgeworth froze, keeping back as if Phoenix were some kind of wild animal. "I can see I've wounded you, Wright," he murmured. "I've come to make amends."
"I don't want to hear it."
"I didn't ask you if you did."
He could hear Edgeworth huffing in annoyance. Even an apologetic Edgeworth couldn't change that much. Phoenix stood rooted to the spot, face turned away, waiting for Edgeworth to continue and wondering why he didn't simply march into the house and slam the door.
"I was a coward," Edgeworth said into the deafening silence. "I once accused you of, what was it, making everything about yourself, and those words came back to haunt me. Those and others." A deep, staggering breath, and then he forged on. "You said once, prosecutors find the truth, and I—I was staring at the noose, and there was something I could still do. I could reopen all those cases and make reparations. Nothing would ever undo the wrongs I caused—facilitated, I mean," he added hurriedly, seeing Phoenix's shoulders rise.
Phoenix kept silent, tried to control his uneven breaths and the tears starting at his eyes.
A few more moments of silence. "It wasn't easy," Edgeworth said with a wry smile. "But I like to think I learned something. . . of taking the long, messy road. . . of being hated. Of staying. And that's why I'm here now. I don't care if you hate me, I'm staying."
He said the words so warmly, and the ice gripped Phoenix's heart more sharply than ever. Images flashed through his head: Frieda's bloody knapsack, Miles's note, Miss Cindy in the hospital bed and desiccated flies around the drosera. "No, Miles," Phoenix choked out. "Say goodbye to your unnecessary feelings. I'm afraid I don't feel the same."
Edgeworth's jaw tightened, the irritation breaking through. "I won't! Who was it who taught me the meaning and the value of truth?" he demanded. "You're still a terrible liar. Turn around and look at me!"
Phoenix whirled around, teary-eyed and messy-faced. "So what if I am? I was wrong. What has the truth brought me? Brought you?"
"It brought my father justice—" Edgeworth began.
"—and estranged you from your last living sister."
"How did you know that?"
"I read the papers, you know."
Edgeworth closed his eyes. "Then you must also know how Franziska suffered under her father's thumb. She may hate me now, but she's ruthless and principled. At last, she has the room to grow."
"Then what of your other sister?"
"What of her?" Edgeworth's brows furrowed in confusion. "I ruled you out as a suspect within the first two days," he said slowly.
His heart was pounding in his ears, blood rushing through his head so fast he was dizzy, and wasn't this the second chance he'd wished for every day for seven years? His mouth shaped the words, and no sound came out. He gulped, swallowed, and tried again. "I killed her," he whispered.
Edgeworth flinched, face turning white. "That's. . . impossible," he stammered. "She was killed by a bear. . . the surveillance videos—"
"—showed me at home on the day of her death," Phoenix agreed. His voice was growing stronger. "But I'm cursed by the fairy queen herself. Loving me feels really, really awful," he quoted. "It turns out that just liking me feels worse than anyone can survive. Huh. I guess she must've used too much power," he finished miserably.
For once, Edgeworth was struck speechless.
The blood. The note. The flies. "And. . . that's why!" Phoenix said, seized with sudden inspiration. He pointed dramatically at Edgeworth. "I was just bored from being alone, and you were heartless, that's all! You were a safe source of entertainment and nothing more!" A half truth, for it had been true once.
Edgeworth crossed his arms, and only the tightness of his grip gave away his uncertainty. "Look me in the eye and say it, if you really believe it," he bluffed.
"I will!" With all his strength, Phoenix dragged his eyes up to meet Edgeworth's. And he still couldn't lie, but maybe he didn't need to; if his words were meant for himself, Edgeworth didn't need to know.
"I'm waiting," Edgeworth snarled.
He pictured his own face and fixed the image in his mind. "Anyone who ever wanted you is dead," Phoenix said coldly.
Edgeworth staggered as if he'd been struck. Without a word, he turned and shoved his way back through the thorns, jabot tearing on the way out.
When he was gone, Phoenix delicately freed the bloodied scrap of fabric and laid it next to the drosera and the note. "Guess that's the last I'll see of him," he murmured, and his heart was heavy with longing but light with relief.
*
One spring morning, Phoenix awoke to a strange, spindly stalk emerging from his drosera. In the days that followed, the stalk grew taller and taller, until it towered over the leaves. It was almost as tall as Phoenix.
He was now twenty-eight, and the plant had been unchanged for years. It still merrily ensnared and strangled flies. Phoenix was never sure how they were getting into the bell jar. He eyed the new development warily, wondering what unpleasantness it had in store.
*
"I'm back, you self-centered, insufferable twerp!"
Phoenix started out of a fitful sleep and sat bolt upright. The first rays of light were barely peeking over the horizon. A year had passed since he'd last heard a human voice. "There is only one pretentious jerk I know who is awake at this hour," Phoenix grumbled, but he couldn't help smiling as he rushed out to meet his visitor.
This time, Miles Edgeworth was impeccably dressed and blood-free, though his hair and clothes were windblown. He had glasses now, and a smile that had grown softer with time.
This time, Phoenix couldn't resist throwing himself into Edgeworth's arms. "There, there. I, ah, missed you too," Edgeworth said gently.
"Did you do another week's worth of damage to my hedge?" Phoenix asked.
"And ruin the surprise?" Edgeworth scoffed. "I became licensed in skydiving."
"That's. . . certainly. . . huh."
"Speechless already? Good. Maybe this time, you'll let me finish what I was saying. Are you alright? Good."
Phoenix nodded, scrubbing tears out of his eyes. His face hurt from smiling.
"You are a punishment I cannot escape. The curse activates when I love you, correct? Nothing in your power can stop it. Really, that fairy queen should target her curses more carefully. So I have come to accept my fate: to be a hopeless old bachelor, to love one who loathes me, to yearn for one who wishes never to look upon me. And I. . . I will watch you from afar, and have some comfort in seeing your footprints now and again. And if perchance the curse allows me to visit, whether it be in a year or ten years hence. . . I will be back to spend a night with you."
"Knowing that the sweetness of your embrace will only sharpen the pain of longing?" Phoenix teased, still grinning widely.
Edgeworth huffed. "Say that again and I'm leaving right now and never coming back."
"Okay! Sorry!"
That evening, when the helicopter arrived to spirit Edgeworth away, Phoenix watched with a new weight in his chest, equal parts warmth and ice, as if the curse had reached an agreement with his heart. And when he returned to his room, he found a single flower, bright and beautiful, perched comically at the zenith of his plant.
It looked like a peace offering. It looked like hope.
*
Weeks became months, and months became years, and Phoenix's curse was never broken. But curses do grow with their owners, and in time, he learned to live with it, and it with him. Phoenix wore a ring on his finger and an ache in his heart, and in turn, the curse begrudgingly released his acquaintances and friends. Ten years after Edgeworth's return, he helped Phoenix dismantle the hedge, and twenty years after, Phoenix had friends throughout the town once more. His days were bustling, and his heart was full.
Though fate and circumstance prevented Edgeworth from visiting more than once a year, and thwarted all other means of contact, Phoenix nonetheless wrote Edgeworth a letter every night, and saved them in a journal. Each year, he presented Edgeworth the entire book, and Edgeworth in turn brought him trinkets from all over the world.
And they lived—not quite happily ever after, but close enough to count.
END
