A/N: Hello again! How are you today?

Many thanks to everyone who has followed and favourited this story! *hugs everyone* It truly means a lot to me to see that even a person or a handful of people enjoy my writing or find it at least worthy of a little attention in the form of a view, review, follow or favourite. I have written a lot in the past, but I have only attempted to share my writing once (after which I deleted the story…).

As I worked out this story's plot, I realised that the first few chapters are not going to be as cheerful as I would have liked since they deal with the aftermath of the attack quite a bit. Sorry about that! We will get to Ciel and Astre's daily life in the next chapter.

I noticed that I forgot to add the disclaimer. Oops! The first chapter has been updated with a disclaimer and a small conclusion at the end as I felt it did not end well. If you read chapter 1 before this chapter was posted, you do not have to go back to read it if you do not want to as it is nothing important.

Oops 2: You might have noticed I updated yesterday, deleted the chapter, and reposted it. The reason is that I made one of the stupidest mistakes I have ever made: I forgot to mention how two people helped! I am so embarrassed! *crawls into a hole in the ground* And that is why you should not write and post when you are sleep-deprived. Please poke me with a stick when I make such ridiculous mistakes. *hides* If you read this chapter already, scroll down to the second paragraph as it contains a piece of information essential to the next chapter. I made some other very minor changes as well, but they are not relevant enough to read again.

Now, on to the second chapter (with hopefully no oops moments this time)!

The wooden and ancient grandfather clock which had been in the Phantomhive family for generations struck midnight. Rachel was in Vincent's study, checking if any documents were stolen from it when everyone was busy dealing with the commotion outside and trying to think of possible culprits. Normally, wives had nothing to do with their husbands' study and working areas, but that could not be said about the Phantomhive couple. They were both intelligent and Vincent occasionally asked Rachel for her opinion on things related to the Watchdog's cases in an attempt to shed new light upon them, a practice which proved itself useful more than once. As meek as she was, Rachel had a sharp mind and an enviable attention to detail. Counselling with his wife on work duties might not have represented the standard expected of Vincent, but he had always been quite the nonconformist and did not stray away from disregarding tradition when necessary.

Due to the altered invitations and smooth attack on the manor, the culprit could only be someone on the inside; someone with access to the invitations or who could persuade those who wrote or sent the invitations to change the hour on them. This made the Earl extremely distrustful of everyone besides the Phantomhives' immediate family and Tanaka at the moment. In consequence, the search of the manor was carried out by Vincent, Rachel, Tanaka, and Frances. Frances and Ann had insisted on helping, but since Ann was not entirely familiar with every single corner of the mansion, Frances looked for anything unusual around specific areas of the mansion while Ann was tasked with tending to the wounds most of the ones who fought off the attackers had. There was not a myriad of wounds to treat, but it was enough to satisfy her need to help and to make her stay put afterwards. Diedrich was also more or less forced to help by questioning the one attacker they captured alive in a basement cell beneath the manor. Granted, it was not exactly his dream to help them out with this, but Diedrich had always been a loyal man of his word. His only condition was to give him time, and by time, he meant the entire night with no interruptions. If Diedrich's interrogation yielded no answer, Vincent intended to question the captive himself.

From the corner of her eye, Rachel saw her husband coming out of one of the secret passages of the house. He had momentarily left in order to check them. The only living people who knew of the secret passages were Vincent, Rachel, Frances, Tanaka, Ciel, and Astre, and since two of them were children, any evidence of the tunnel being compromised indicated that either one of them was the culprit, which was highly unlikely, or that someone had discovered it.

'All done here,' Rachel stated as she finished going through a large bookshelf which contained important documents. 'Nothing is out of place.'

'Everything is in order on my side too,' Vincent replied and they took a seat at his desk, parallel to each other, in order to discuss the current matters. The entire house had already been looked through and absolutely nothing was missing or showed any signs of having been touched. 'Tanaka and Frances have not found out anything misplaced or missing either. That rules out the possibility of burglary as the motive for the attack, I suppose.'

'That's good to hear,' Rachel responded, though the unhelpfulness of that fact did nothing to aid them in figuring out what was going on. Something did not add up, though. 'Say, doesn't it seem odd to you? The culprit's modification of the invitations could suggest that he or she didn't want anyone outside the household to get hurt.'

Vincent measured her words carefully and deduced she must be right. Yet, he had no idea why anyone would even take care not to let any visitors die when they would be willing to kill the family and their servants. Most of all, those facts meant the attack was deliberate and targeted, not random, and specifically that its purpose was annihilating the household. Perhaps the culprit's intention was to make it look like an unfortunate accident? But how could that be if they clearly killed everyone in cold blood?

Rachel's words brought him out of his thoughts. 'Do you have any guesses as to who might have done it?'

The Earl fell into thought and considered his words for a few seconds before opening his mouth. 'Well, it's obvious that it's someone on the inside, who had access to the invitations or at least enough credibility to convince someone to edit them. However, the second option would be ignorant of them as it would be very easy to make the accomplice talk whether they knew the truth or not, because either they wouldn't want anything to do with an attempted mass murder if they were clueless or they would be willing to sell the main culprit out in order to save themselves. An arrested person might be willing to defect and blame everything on their accomplice in order to save their own hide rather than cooperate and potentially get both of them out scot-free, all because cooperation bears the risk of being betrayed themselves. In most cases, both people defect. Thus, having an accomplice in this case would be a most terrible idea and elementary mistake. That implies the person who altered the invitations most likely worked alone, so they must be the traitor. Since the invitations were printed and I sent the order for the invitations myself, that can only signify that someone told the printing company to change the hour or that someone in the company tampered with them. Then again, the company has no reason to do that, so I'll focus on the first variant.'

'So the next step is to figure out who modified the hour, but that has to wait until morning, just like the results of Diedrich's interrogation,' Rachel concluded and frowned a little with sadness in her beautiful blue eyes. She was not pleased with that at all since each moment the culprit spent free was a moment when he or she could plot another attack on the house, but there was nothing that could be done. She just hoped the next attack would not come soon so that they could get the twins to safety. 'Meanwhile, should we think of the reason and question the servants? They were the people who posted the invitations, after all.'

'My best guess is that the reason might be revenge or grudge against me or the family. It wouldn't be the first time it happened.' Vincent shrugged to indicate his guess was as good as any. He could not come up with any other reasons why anyone would orchestrate an attack on the manor. 'Questioning the servants is a good idea, but it might make the culprit suspicious if we let on that we already suspect the servants and the culprit is one of the servants. He or she might try to run away overnight unless they aren't here anymore.'

The woman caught on the meaning of his words. 'What you're saying is…?'

'Exactly. For tonight, we'll simply tighten up the security and put the servants' quarters under watch. Anyone seen going outside their room will be followed and questioned on the spot. If no servant tries to leave the house or acts suspicious before tomorrow ends, we'll question them all.'

'Sounds reasonable,' she said approvingly. Her increasingly short sentences and unfocused gaze made it seem like something was bothering her, but that she was reluctant to speak of it.

Vincent was not going to let Rachel dismiss her own ideas and suspicions before they were scrutinised. 'What's troubling you, my love?'

But before she could answer, a dark figure manifested itself in the room. It placed itself behind Rachel to her left and transformed into a black Borzoi dog with red eyes.

'Pardon the interruption, Master and Mistress,' the dog said telepathically, his voice ringing in their ears while his mouth remained unmoved. 'I've finished scouting the area outside the manor, so I've returned to report.'

'Hello, Sebastian,' the man greeted the dog. Sebastian was his familiar, given to him by the Undertaker, who claimed it would be a great aid in his job as the Queen's Watchdog. They were contracted for life; in return for being fed various things from bread and milk to meat and blood, Sebastian would serve and protect the Phantomhive family until the twins died or until his own death. Since it was risky to send any human outside, the dog was sent to see if anything was out of order there. 'Did you discover anything?'

'As a matter of fact, I did,' the familiar responded. 'Kerosene, my Lord. Full, heavy bottles of them outside the house, ready to be detonated by the smallest fire. I don't believe we stock such a huge amount of kerosene outside the manor, do we?'

'Of course not!' Vincent exclaimed, trying to stifle the panic rising in his mind. 'Sebastian, remove the kerosene from our premises immediately.'

'Right away.' And with that, the Bolzoi faded into darkness and got to work. He was going to use magic to get rid of the kerosene. After all, executing the order manually would have been too difficult in his dog form.

'I assume the attackers might have wanted to burn the manor down,' Rachel uttered the thing that was plaguing them both. 'Good thing we have Sebastian. Isn't that so, darling?'

'Indeed, my dear. At least that explains why they thought they could get away with murdering everyone,' Vincent answered. He made a mental note to thank the Undertaker for Sebastian once again. 'Now, what were you going to say earlier, before Sebastian showed up?' There was no way he was letting her get away without mentioning the thoughts running through her brain at such a critical time.

'I was wondering, should we send Ciel and Astre somewhere safer while we work out who the traitor is?' Even if there was a second attack and they perished in it, Rachel wanted to avoid any harm that might come towards her little boys.

'Funny that you mention it, I was thinking the same thing,' Vincent smiled in his usual manner. 'I thought I'd sent them to Frances for a few days and have them back here by Christmas. The Midford manor might be a safer place for them now, not to mention that attacking the leader of the British Knights' house is no easy feat. We could say they're just spending time with their cousins, aunt, and uncle.'

'Wonderful! I don't like being away from our kids, but it appears we don't have many options if we want them to be safe. When should they leave?'

'Tomorrow at the crack of dawn,' he said decisively. 'As sudden as it may seem, it should give them more than enough time to get to the Midford manor before nightfall and prevent them from suffering another night attack.'

'Alright,' she agreed, despite the abruptness of the decision. Silence occupied the room for a few seconds as her gaze dropped to the floor, her brain pondering on whether the growing suspicion in the back of her mind was significant enough to share or not. It could be nothing or a red herring, but maybe it was a useful option to record and reflect on. In the end, she reasoned there was no harm in voicing her thoughts, especially when their lives were at stake. 'And Vincent… There's something else I wanted to talk to you about…' The Countess said with a shy and contemplative look on her face, further convincing Vincent that she was unsure if her following words were even worth saying.

Regardless of what it was, Vincent was eager to listen to what she had to say. Who knows, it might have been something important and listening to some words is almost never painful. 'What is it?'

Rachel gulped down and her eyes bore straight into his. 'You know how you mentioned accomplices betraying each other and the possibility of the culprit not being here anymore?'

Astre could not sleep, no matter how hard he tried.

A dreadful feeling loomed over him. He felt that something was not right, that something different was supposed to happen. Perhaps he had had too high expectations of his and Ciel's tenth birthday? That could not be it as he had no expectations besides cake and presents in the first place and he got plenty of those. Was there anything their family or servants were hiding from them? He could not tell. The only things he knew was that he had a horrible and unfamiliar sensation in his body and that it would not go away. And of course, that it perturbed his sleep too much for him to get any rest.

Ciel was mighty fine, sleeping soundly next to him. Astre juggled the idea of waking Ciel up to tell him of his feeling, but he decided against it as he did not want his brother to be as sleep-deprived as him the next day.

For an unknown reason, Astre had the feeling that no matter what, he had to avoid going outside. The bad feeling brought alertness with it, making him prepare to flee if needed. He instinctively began to think of escape routes and stayed as close to Ciel as possible with the plan of waking him up and going into the bunker or hidden passage if he heard the slightest unfamiliar noise. Astre was really thankful that their room had a bunker underneath and it was connected one of the hidden tunnels which led outside. Their father informed them to keep quiet about them and that should they ever have to use them, they should not hesitate for a second and they should not exit them for at least 24 hours unless someone who was not an ally knew they were there. Luckily, the passage could be blocked from the inside and outside if they needed to get rid of any pursuers or some pursuers saw them entering it.

Besides the passage and bunker, there was also the window. If anyone was coming from the direction of the hidden areas accessible from their room, they could get out through the window lest there were more assailants outside it. Running around the manor to the servants or their parents was also an option, but it was out of question if anyone infiltrated the house.

'Why do I keep thinking of these things?' Astre asked himself. Maybe he was just paranoid and his paranoia resulted in his plans to escape the manor with Ciel. 'I should really go back to bed.'

As fruitless as it was, Astre tossed and turned for a good few hours, the sense of impending danger not helping at all. Eventually, his exhaustion got the best of him and he succeeded in dozing off.

He could swear he saw the hallucination of a pair of monstrous red eyes in the window before he succumbed to an uncomfortable and unrestful sleep.