Alice's face crumpled immediately, the specific sadness of someone who had been waiting for a reunion and received something complicated instead. She sat on the edge of the bed, carefully this time, and held his hand with both of hers and didn't say anything for a moment.
Alyssa said nothing either, but something moved behind her eyes that wasn't sadness, like with Alice. 'That might be better for you, perhaps you'll be able to forget the past and focus on yourself. I wish it was permanent.'
They talked for a while after that, working around the gaps as best they could. Leon pieced things together from what they offered and what he could deduce, filling the edges of the picture that the original Leon's fragmented memories hadn't completed.
The twins were his stepsisters. Though one looked a little older, mostly in the way she carried herself than looks, they were twins. Alice and Alyssa were close enough in age to him that the dynamic felt less like steps, being ahead of him in age only by a couple of months. Though of the two, Alyssa had pulled ahead significantly. She had graduated early, her talent recognised and fast tracked through the system, and was now a licensed Summoner operating under the national programme.
Their country, Varen, was among the few that hadn't handed summoner management to private organisations known as guilds. The government held that function directly, which meant Alyssa reported to the state, trained under the state, and raided under the state's coordination, as most were. She was a national talent.
"I'm going into a green dungeon next week," Alyssa said, with the same casual directness she had walked through his door with. "You should come."
Leon gestured at his leg.
"Mother will have that sorted in a few days." She said it the way people said things they had already decided were not up for debate.
Leon looked at her and then looked at the cast and then decided not to ask follow-up questions about what sorted meant in this context. Either their mother had access to some divine medical treatment that operated on a totally different scale than he was familiar with, or there was something else available in this world like some sort of powerful elixir. Either way, apparently, he would be mobile sooner than expected.
"I'll think about it." He answered.
The conversation moved around, the way conversations did when people were circling the actual subject. They asked, gently and then less gently, about why he had left. Why he had stayed away, and how long he had intended to keep himself at that distance.
Leon had no real answer to these questions, because the original Leon's reasons lived in the gaps the memories hadn't filled cleanly. He added what he could together from context, from the reputation problem, the pressure, the gradual accumulation of being told, from enough directions, that he was the thing the family name had produced wrong, all of these seemed like good reasons. He still thought of the possibility of negative treatment from his stepmother and sisters, but that didn't seem to be the case so far.
Despite his thoughts, he didn't say any of it. He attributed it all to memory loss, and they had no reason to accept it and accept the fact that he was there now.
While Alice accepted it immediately and completely, Alyssa accepted it with the expression of someone filing it separately from what she actually believed, for later review.
They left not long after. The room was quieter without them in it, and also somehow larger.
Dinner arrived at his door moments later, brought in on a tray by one of the house staff, and it was the kind of meal that made the academy cafeteria feel like a memory from a different life. He ate slowly and appreciated it without guilt.
After that, he heard another knock on his door. His stepmother entered and sat beside his bed. She looked composed now, the tears from the afternoon replaced by something steadier and more tired.
"How are you feeling now?" She asked with a tired smile.
"Better. I've also had dinner, it was good." He said.
"That's sweet." She said. She was quiet for a moment, the silence washing over them before she spoke again.
"If I did something," she began. "Anything that made you feel like you couldn't be here. I need you to know that I'm sorry for it."
She said it simply, without defence or qualification. Just the words, offered and left there.
"I won't leave again," Leon said.
She looked at him for a moment, reading something in his face that he wasn't sure he was showing. Then she nodded once, pressed his hand briefly within hers, and left him to the quiet.
Leon lay back and looked at the ceiling.
'Not an evil stepmother.' He had been wrong about that. Which meant the original Leon's situation was more complicated than a single convenient villain.
He thought about it for a while, then decided to let it go for the time being. He hadn't inherited the original's feelings, so there was no way he could relate deeply as it were now.
He thought about the dungeon next week, and then at the door and whatever it would produce that evening.
'I missed yesterday because of location, but now I have the privacy of my own room.' He said, bringing himself to sit up, so he could initiate a summon.
…
Down the hall, Alyssa sat on her bed with her phone to her ear, one leg crossed over the other, waiting for the line to connect.
When it picked up, she spoke immediately.
"It's me. About that green dungeon next week—"