Still, Ashcroft liked her asking questions so much that she was becoming very afraid that she had missed out on an experience of being his student. She didn’t realize how much fun it could be, or how excited he could get by teaching her if she seemed interested.
Besides, he knew well enough to suspect that she knew more than she should by now. He knew she was keeping something from him; that was clear enough, but he didn’t press her harshly about it, and she didn’t offer him any information. The idea of telling him that she had even met with Lachlan made her feel like her stomach was made of ice—she couldn’t handle how nervous it made her to think of Ashcroft’s reaction. It was better he’d never know, unless the fact became absolutely inescapable.
But he didn’t try to teach her as hard as he once did. When she did seem to know something he wanted to teach her, he would only frown with disappointment, and then would change the subject.
Charlotte warmed herself in front of the fire, looking up occasionally from her book to see what Ashcroft was doing, and asking if he needed anything.
But when she looked up and saw him at his desk rather than at the side of the room that acted as his laboratory, heaving heavy sighs, she asked what was wrong.
“You should probably go to bed, Charlotte,” he replied, rubbing his fingers pads against his crinkled forehead.
“I don’t sleep without you,” she reminded, standing up and walking over to him. “What’s the scoop?”
He sighed and then turned his body and offered his hand until he combed her into his body until she was seated on his lap. “Something impossible,” he replied. “Well, obviously not,” he argued with himself. “Because I’ve tested the fact several times and the result has been the same…”
“What have you tested?” she asked, looking over towards the pages he had open and one page, to her amazement, had a very old illustration of her own birth father. She had seen his pictures and portraits many a time, although it was odd to see one of him from the fifteenth century. “That’s my Dad, isn’t it?” She pointed to the man wearing pantaloons and a cape.
“Yes,” Ashcroft replied heavily. “This is from one of my older files of him. I kept all my correspondences with him together.”
She pushed past the portrait and, with interest, looked down at the page. “Ah, man!” she groaned with disappointment when she realized she didn’t know hardly a word on the page. “French?”
He chuckled. “You don’t know French?” he asked with amusement.
“I wouldn’t say I know English very well!” she admitted, grinning. “Way, way too many words.”
“Well, at least I’ll have something to teach you, then,” he told her, in a weighted sort of way that both of their smiles fade, just as they both recognized that there was something unsaid between them. He then patted his hand over her stomach and said, “Your father was very interested, after Merlin had cut down so many of your kind already, in creating a breeding program with another race. He didn’t ever feel the Byndian line was strong enough. They were too easy to kill, too physically weak, too defenseless. He tried to get others to start breeding with stronger races to carry on the Byndian line, which at the time was an idea that the Byndians treated as heresy. The idea made him several enemies in his own line, and for centuries he lived apart from the others. Your mother only allowed him admittance when it became apparent that he was all that was left. He was very, very unpopular.”
“Why?” Charlotte asked, scrunching her nose. Her father was handsome enough—he looked young, since he was immortal, and his features were flawless. Even the old painting of him suggested him as a man with ample charisma.
“Because they wanted to keep their line pure. Back then, matches were made among birth, and every birth of one of their line had a purpose, a match, to carry on the line further. They didn’t want too many of their own race; they kept their numbers low. Your father only came out of hiding just before you were conceived, when it was only your mother left and she was desperate to make a final attempt of carrying on the line. Of course, he was probably out of hiding for a month before he was killed. And your mother tried to go back into hiding, to no avail. Luckily, the Byndian enemies didn’t think you made it—they figured that if they killed the mother, they would kill the unborn child.”
“Why would they even try to kill me off?” she asked, biting her lip.
“Because you’re a powerful faction—magically, at least. One Byndian could keep dragons out of an entire realm and create the earth such that their realm could prosper with a wealth like no other. Those realms were very hard to take over during a war. Though secretly assassinating you one by one seemed to work. And then, of course, there were wars in your own faction since Merlin tried to take the faction forcibly—my own brother, I’m ashamed to say, put him up to that.”
“Lachlan?” Charlotte swallowed.
Ashcroft nodded. “Lachlan knew he could control Merlin, as Merlin had made a contract with him when he was a younger, even more foolish man, and Merlin wanted to control the Byndians. Hence, Lachlan would have had power that was dreamed impossible. He could have taken over whatever he wanted by having the Byndians under his thumb.”
Charlotte wrapped her fingers around Ashcroft’s arm, trying to make it look like she wasn’t upset by all this. She had never quite understood any of it before. She didn’t know enough names or events. She never pieced it together except that her kin’s enemies would rather have them be wiped out of existence if they wouldn’t succumb to the control of others.
And now Charlotte realized she had signed a contract with Lachlan as surely as Merlin had.
“Why are you going over all of this now?” she asked, biting her lip.
Ashcroft sighed again. “Because I fear your father sired a child in secrecy from his own faction shortly before he attempted with you… A child that fell more in line with his beliefs about cross-breeding.”
“Alice?” she gasped. Her stomach seemed to clench sourly on this information as she processed it. “Alice is my sister, then?”
Ashcroft frowned. “It’s the only thing that makes sense with the story, my dear. Only a Byndian could control the wind like that.”
“But…” She frowned. “A honey-nymph Byndian?”
“I could believe it more than not,” Ashcroft told her, gesturing to the letters. “He made a child with someone who wanted to have a powerful child even more dearly, one that would be a queen one day; a nymph Princess, second-in-line for her own thrown. Of course, the couple probably thought they could have hidden the pregnancy and birth of the child from the hive, and her mother certainly wouldn’t have told the queen who the sire was, for fear the queen would kill the child. When they disappeared, surely your father thought that the Princess and his child were executed, not just imprisoned.
“And so when his race was brought down to two a decade later, he rejoined your mother and sired you.”
She swallowed, her feelings steadily feeling more and more hurt. “As a last resort.”
“As a last hope,” he returned more kindly. He pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was about to decree something that was surely going to bring on a headache. “But Alice is your older sister…” He didn’t say anything for a long moment, merely looked back and forth over the letters on the table. “She needs to begin her training, then.”
“You mean… You’re going to take her as your apprentice?” Charlotte asked in a confused drawl, shocked by everything.
“Of course I will; I must. She is the head of the Byndian faction, after all,” he replied with certainty. “She will take part in the Wizard’s Circle.”
“But you said that there’s only one per faction in the Wizard’s Circle,” Charlotte reminded, her voice sounding childlike even to her own ears.
“And, as she is your faction’s head since she is older. That place is hers.” He squeezed her arm. “You’re quite off the hook, as you wished,” he told her, his voice suddenly lighter, as if he was
delivering good news. “You never wanted to be part of the Wizard’s Circle, anyway, is that not true?”
“Yeah,” she replied, feeling like she had just fallen down the rabbit hole. She was positive that just a few minutes ago, she wasn’t looking forward to hanging around with over bureaucratic, power-hungry old coots for her whole life. But now that he said she wouldn’t, she felt she would miss having the honor. She wasn’t even head of the faction now.
Charlotte wasn’t the last Byndian. She was just some run-of-the-mill Byndian, one her father took centuries to even be snookered into producing sperm for. She wasn’t wanted, she realized. Her father wanted Alice; a stronger immortal, one capable of healing faster and actually defending herself on both a small and large scale.
And Charlotte’s parents had always treated her like she was so special… Now, very abruptly, she realized that if Alice had been raised with her, they would surely have liked her better. Alice was prettier and more soft-spoken than she was. Seemingly even nicer, too—she had won Moriarty’s heart, after all, which was a feat no one else had done before with the infamous rake.
Charlotte had never felt so low in her life. And she hadn’t thought it was possible two moments ago, when she was recognizing that the only thing she had so far done under Ashcroft’s tutelage was steal all of his knowledge and sign a contract with his evil brother.
Ashcroft’s fingers were suddenly petting her cheek. “Charlotte, Darling? Are you alright? I would have thought you, at least, would be happy with all this news. It’s as if you got a sister as an early Christmas gift.” He smiled at her.
Charlotte nodded and forced herself to smile. There was nothing to be done, she knew, except try to make the most of her situation. “Yeah… Yeah, it’s awesome. Awesome news.” She swallowed. “Are… Are you happy about it, too?”
“Oh, very. Having at least two Byndians left is quite the blessing,” Ashcroft replied without a second’s hesitation. “I just feel very, very foolish that I could have missed your father’s plotting. He was a good friend of mine, you know. He taught me your faction’s spells when no one else would. But dash it all, he never was one to divulge his plots unless they turned out perfectly as planned.”
She felt his fingers tap against her stomach and then he rested his chin on her shoulder and eventually kissed the back of her neck. “I suppose we should go to sleep after all. No doubt the couple doesn’t want me to disturb them, and so we’ll have a lot to discuss over breakfast.”
She stood up from his lap and patted her fingers over her skirts, feeling out of place. She didn’t feel like herself—as if by taking away what she thought she was—the last Byndian—Ashcroft had taken away with it a part of herself.
In fact, she couldn’t see if what Ashcroft could still want in her. Surely, he would start comparing her to Alice, and then she was done for. Alice was going to have more political sway, more power, more control, more strength. And then Alice would actually learn from Ashcroft, and he would get to teach her, which Charlotte had quite robbed him of.
“Charlotte,” he noted. “You look so tired you’re going to drop over. I should have put you to bed already.”
She opened her mouth to protest the idea of him ‘putting her to bed’, but then didn’t. And not because she was afraid of adding to the already very burning pain still swelling her poor, punished bottom, but because she wasn’t as confident in Ashcroft’s affection as she had been… And even though she would sometimes assure herself it wasn’t the case, Ashcroft’s opinion of her had always been of the highest importance… And it would surely tend to drag down from here, with this news.
She grabbed his hand tightly with her own. “I love you, Ash.”
He frowned, maybe because of the desperate way she said it, like she would never see him again or something. “I love you too, Charlotte,” he replied, and then brought her knuckles to her lips. “What’s wrong?”
“I just want you to know that,” Charlotte replied. “And no matter how big of pain in the ass I’ve been to you—you should know that I wanted you since we met.”
He nearly looked suspicious with her, probably because she was never very upfront with her emotions, except promptly after a trashing. “What’s brought this on, my dear?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I just… I want you to know that I’ve really enjoyed being with you.”
He smiled softly. “Darling, if this is about your earlier thrashing, don’t worry yourself. It’s been handled, it’s done. I am in love with you as ever I was. Nothing would make me happier than if I get to enjoy your company every day.”
“You mean it?” she asked, looking up at his eyes, to make sure he was being sincere and not pedantic.
“Indeed, my dear. I look forward to every moment with you.” He kissed her mouth in such a warm, kind way that she felt her cheeks blush. “I can think of nothing better than spending my life with you in my arms.”
She bit her lip and grinned. “Me neither,” she agreed, but she secretly couldn’t wait until she turned into an immortal, where he would marry her, if simply because then he couldn’t change his mind about her. She didn’t think she’d ever looked forward to anything. The months ahead were going to feel long, and grueling.
* * *
“Darling, what are you looking at?” Moriarty’s voice said from the doorframe, which he was leaning against.
Alice hadn’t ever heard Moriarty come close or open the door. He was too light of foot—the man moved like a ghost.
She turned her head back slowly. “Nothing,” she said, in a distracted way. “Just… Just looking out the window,” she admitted.
“You can’t possibly see much at night,” Moriarty replied, stepping forward. Although the Winter Solstice was approaching very quickly. Alice had been at the tower for nearly three months already, the first snow long since passed them, and the days were only getting shorter and colder.
He put his lean arms around her waist and kissed her neck. She closed her eyes, delighting in his affection as much as she ever did. “I can’t explain it,” she told him. “Ever get the feeling that you’re being watched?”
She felt him chuckling against her neck. “You’re becoming like your sister,” he complained, tugging on her long, blond braid affectionately as he stepped away in order to tug off his boots. “Pretty soon you’ll be thinking all sorts of creatures are trying to sneak in here. You know, Ashcroft tells me she still can’t sleep by herself. She’s nearly twenty and still afraid of the dark.”
That was hardly gossip. She hadn’t known Charlotte to spend much time alone at all—no matter the time of day. Every now and then she would go off somewhere to play her violin, but she wouldn’t do it for very long at any time. It was almost as if she was afraid of not being around others. Even when Alice came upstairs that very evening, Charlotte had already fallen asleep on the floor, her body huddled up against Ashcroft’s legs from where he sat in his chair… The girl never went to bed unaccompanied. “I don’t blame her. There’s something unsettling about this place,” she admitted, spinning around. “Reminds me of that night I ran into Lachlan… Just how the small hairs stand up straight on the back of my neck…”
“I used to feel paranoid like that when I was a younger man,” Moriarty commented, wheezing as one of his boots took an extra hard yank before he was able to wiggle his toes in freedom. “But I’ve long since not been bothered by any sort of bump in the night.” He patted his knee, inviting her to sit on his lap.
She glanced back out of the window, towards the edge of the gardens, and then turned her body, making her way towards Moriarty’s lap, where she sat down and let him cuddle her body close against his. He kissed her passionately for a long moment before he parted his lips from hers and asked, “You’re not worried about anything, are you? You’ve seemed a little anxious lately.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know why,” she said, but she didn’t argue. She did feel anxious; there was almost a pricking of her th
umbs. She was constantly looking behind her back that week.
“Is it your new responsibilities? The future?” he guessed, because that had been a lot to take in after Ashcroft had told her that she was Charlotte’s half-sister and head of the faction, as she was the known eldest.
“I’m actually not too nervous about any of that,” she admitted, shaking her head. She squinted. “No, I guess it’s just a strange feeling. Paranoia,” she specified. “I can’t help it. It’s a creepy enchanted castle,” she reminded, waving her hands towards the door.
“Well, this is true. I imagine that sooner than not Ashcroft and I will have to start from scratch with our living arrangements. We were thinking of moving more nearby his faction’s citadel, past the Wastelands.”
Alice frowned. “Why?” she found herself asking. “There’s no way to get to Earthside from the Northlands, is there?”
“No,” replied Moriarty. “But that’s quite the point. Many orders of dark creatures are interested in the Earthside… And Ashcroft doesn’t really want to begin his family with so many enemies at his doorstep. And he would like to get as far away from the Western Gate as possible…”
“Why?”
“Lachlan is Ashcroft’s greatest enemy… And Ashcroft’s been getting a horrible feeling about him lately, as if the man was waiting to do something horrendous.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Ashcroft is excited to start his family as soon as possible, and he doesn’t want his children to get involved in his own past troubles.”
Alice made a thoughtful humming sound. “Does Charlotte know this?” Alice asked, because she was certain that Charlotte, who did not keep her distastes back at all, wouldn’t have been quiet about the issue of moving so far away from where she’d grown up.
“No,” sighed Moriarty. “I daresay not. But her opinion means little on the matter; she doesn’t quite understand that we’re not very well defended here if it ever comes to a war. She’s too young to think of things like that…” He groaned wearily and patted her off his lap until he could stand and walk over to the bed, which he fell on with a thump. “Personally,” he continued, “I think she’s too young to get married and start having children. I say just give her a puppy first. But Ashcroft has never been able to do things halfway. I think she’s happy enough being with him without all that, but he wants to go the whole nine yards.”
Otherworldly Discipline: A Witch's Lesson Page 22
