(Liliana Vess-Beleren)

"Liliana! Lili! Open the door!"

Jace's angry voice said from across the wooden barricade. As angry as he was, I was more so. My thoughts were still boiling with frustration and malice from Jace's encounter with Josu. When I locked eyes with the man who was not my husband, I knew he was who he said he was. His eyes, though hardened with many years of insanity, which I knew that I had inflicted; anger and even more years of fruitless searching, they still belonged to my Osu. Jace had absolutely no right to try to take this away from me, because if I could give him—no, us—back Kallist, I would. In a heartbeat.

"Liliana! This goes against everything that we promised! Open the goddamn door!"

Jace had a point. It had only been around three months since that fated moment in our bathroom floor. Face flushed with anger, breath heavy in my chest, I cracked my front door open and let my husband into the home that we had built, together.

Jace flung his arms around me, crushing me to his chest. In the past two years, these arms and his chest had become my refuge; my safe place. He was very obviously scared of something, afraid that he had messed up and I hated that even after all this time, I still stirred that feeling within him.

"I'm fine, we're fine, we're going to be fine," I said to my husband, pulling his hood down and peppering the side of his face and neck with kisses.

"Lili! I know that you want him back, that he was the only person throughout nearly two centuries that you ever missed, but please don't be reckless! We can't afford it. Look at where being careless got us before. In trouble with Garruk. In trouble with House Dimir. We can't afford to be careless!"

"I'm not being careless! I know it's him, Jace! I just know!"

"NO! You don't know! There is a block so strong on the man's mind that I can't push through it without threatening his life, and if he is who he says he is by some chance, I know that you would never forgive me! And if he was who he said he is, why would he even have such a block on his mind," Jace fumed.

"B-because…" I sank down on the too expensive couch that Laurel had no doubt picked for this house. My mind was going to shambles, my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. I would never, ever be able to get through this story orally. Jace sinks down next to me, and I feel the soothing waves of his mind magic take over my brain. I just let him, and then let the story play itself out….

Her mind was beautiful, and it was complex. It was easy for me to lose myself in the melodic cadence of her, it was, is, and always will be the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. But Liliana is trying to tell me a story, because there was no way that she could tell me verbally, lest she already would have.

She was just a child, she couldn't have been older than sixteen. There was some faceless man, and no doubt about what they had been doing. One look at him, he had been taking advantage of her. My breath was angry, though this was centuries ago, that man long since dead. Someone rouses her, my wife, and she tells them she's in love with this man, without a bit of hesitation, which was very unlike the woman that I had grown to know. Love was not a word that Liliana threw around. I doubt it was then, either. She was being used. How very unlike her, I thought. She was usually the one doing the using, the one on the powerful side of a deal.

"It's Josu," the girl tells her, and the younger version of my wife, her face once serene, panics. You could tell that the name meant everything in the world to her. Just like mine did, now. She runs through the walls of this manor; it was a dark, dank sort of place, but she seems to know where she was going. This is where she lived. With that monster of a man, and her protector, her brother. Josu.

The picture flashes again, and there is a very harsh looking woman, maybe her mother. She didn't look very much like Liliana.

"JOSU! JOSU! PLEASE!" Liliana screeches at the man, who is lying there looking as if he's dead. The man is a very obviously a much younger version of the man that we met earlier.

"Why is he mute?!" Liliana demanded of the woman.

"It was a mage blade, Liliana, he's been poisoned…"

Liliana runs away, into the woods, desperate for anything to cure her brother of the ailment. It's not long until she runs into a dark stranger, promising a cure for Josu. And Liliana, in her young age, takes it. I wish I could go into her mind, slap her hand, stop it, change the past, but I know something has just went terribly wrong and it has not even happened yet.

As Liliana runs back to the desolate manor, it's all I can do to force myself to keep watching. I have to, we both know. This is the closest tat I can ever come to supporting her in what was no doubt the worst day of her life. Liliana gives him this concoction brewed up by this man, and I want to vomit. He utters something that I cannot understand and then his hands are around my wife's throat. Josu has obviously been driven insane, I cut the vision off right there. I don't need to see any more.

I feel Jace's magic leave my mind, and along with it, the calmness that he was bringing. I collapse against my husband in a heap of tears. I had never told the story to anyone, just that Josu had died and then I had been banished by our father. He didn't know the specifics until now. My brother had been the only thing- the only person- I'd ever cared for, until I cared for Jace, and then subsequently and almost by default, Kallist Rhoka. I know that letting anyone into our lives, especially given Jace's position of power on Ravnica could be risky- but I needed him to believe me.

"That's my best guess as to why he doesn't trust you; he's terrified of being driven insane again."

This man had been searching for me for Eternities knows how long and had finally traced me when I stayed somewhere long enough to be traced. He hadn't given up, so why couldn't I give him the chance. Somehow, I had to make this apparent to Jace. He obviously sees this on my face and hears my mind screaming at him and for him. He puts his head in his hands. This isn't going to be good; not when the clever crooked smile melts off of his face. It's always a sure sign of Jace getting ready for a fight.

"You realize that he could be out for revenge even if he is who he says he is. He could want you dead. If he is who he says he is."

"If the man wanted me dead he could have done it while I was telling you about the baby," I said, quietly. "Neither one of us were paying any attention to what was around us. And he was already there. If he wanted me dead, he could have tried to harm me. He didn't."

"He could be a wolf in sheep's clothing, just waiting, my love. Why are you so blind to that? Why are you incapable of seeing it. Use your perception, Liliana. You are so ruthless; especially when it comes to those you love, so please don't forget about the one that we created!"

"How dare you, Jace Beleren!"

"Liliana, I didn't-"

I had already taken off toward the back part of the house, I didn't want to see him right now. He was treating me like a child that needed to be babysat, just like he did after the attack.

"Remember you promised me that you would stop running! Stop abandoning this!"

"You implied I didn't care about my child, Jace!"

"That's not what I meant. I know you care about our child. I meant that you have to protect them over what you want or what I want. They are the priority, the most important. He could be everything that he says he is, but then he could be nothing, as well. Even if he doesn't want you, how many assassination attempts have there been on me? Too many to count, one too close to call. It would be just like one of the warring guilds, or even Nicol Bolas to try to infiltrate our family unit, the ones we call our family; Gideon and Chandra, Ral, Teysa, Laurel, even Emmara. If they could get someone that they knew that you would die for, that means they would be close to us all. What about the child that will be born a planeswalker? I'm sure many want him or her. And infiltrating our family seems to be the perfect way to do it."

"But Jace- I'm begging you to please at least try, try to see into his mind, anything, let me figure him out, put him in front of the council for all I give a damn! If that's him, and I let him go, I fail him again, then there's no hope for me as a mother, because if I can't be a sister, then how in the name of the Eternities am I going to be a mother?!"

"Liliana, please, my love, it's too much of a risk, the baby isn't worth the risk!"

"It's too much of a risk to you! Would you say the same thing if Kallist James Rhoka was standing in front of us instead? I know that neither of us would. I wish that he had never been taken from you, from us, but he was. And I was only sixteen when that man took my brother away from me! Jace, I know he is who he says he is. He's not going to leave this plane. And I won't either. My whole life is here, and you cannot shut me up in this house!"

All of a sudden, there was a sharp pain in my lower abdomen, much like the one in the maze. I gripped hard at the edge of our couch, I wanted to vomit. No, I thought. This wasn't happening again. I doubled over in pain; Jace rushed to my side. I thought that I would feel his the soothing mental magic wash over me, but it didn't, instead I could feel it manifest somewhere else. Right in my abdomen. Jace was, or was trying, to read the mind of the baby. His eyes grew to the size of silver coins, his breath caught in his chest.

"Lili, Liliana-"

"What?! Jace? Is it okay? Not again, no, no, no…."

"They-they're fine. There's two of them… Here, listen…"

"T-two-" I yelled at my husband.

"Shhhhh… L-let me…"

It was like a music, nothing like I had ever heard before. There was a rhythmic cadence, not quite thoughts, but not quite a song. And if you concentrated, just hard enough, there were two of them.. two songs, two babies, twins…

I put my head on Jace's shoulder with a smile, everything that was wrong had been erased, if even for a moment, it was just us, the two of us, that had became four. But then, like a chime against a quiet night, there was a wrapping at my front door, disturbing the moment that should have belonged to the four of us.

"Liliana! I know you're in there! And either you're coming out, or I'm coming in!" Josu's voice was strong, Jace's fist clenched. He could hold the door, sure. But he looked at me, my hand on my abdomen, and opened the door.