“His confidence in himself is foreboding,” Charlotte pointed out. “We’re moving, and Moriarty’s completely rattled. And do you know why? Because they both think that the only think Ash can do is offer himself up in my place—and he wants us to live beyond the Citadel because he won’t be here to protect us anymore.” She crossed her hands through the air firmly and ranted as the crossed back into the foyer. “And if he thinks I’ll let him, he’s got another thing coming! I’ll put dragon-crystal cuffs on him if I gotta!”
“Charlotte,” a deep, no-nonsense voice said crossly from the landing. “I need to meet with you in the study.”
Knowing that he was only going to chide her for having an opinion about whose demise—his or hers—was more tolerable, she shook her head. “No, Ash. I know what you’re gonna say, and the answer is no. You always talk about me taking responsibility for what I’ve done, and I’m starting today!” She stomped her foot, trying to get him to realize how stubborn she was going to be about the matter, but his glance darkened.
“We’re frightened,” Alice implored on her sister’s behalf, before Ashcroft could make any threats towards Charlotte in effort to get her to abide by him. “Tell us what you’re planning?”
“Contracts are very difficult to get out of,” he reminded, his tone and expression softening. “Sometimes the best thing to do is to try and implore a negotiation—provide Lachlan something else he wants. And he has wanted me dead for a long time. If I am very lucky, he’ll believe my offer to share information with him. Not that I truly would, but I am not above lying to a liar…”
Alice glanced over at Charlotte, whose lip was visibly trembling.
“No, Ashcroft,” Alice finally said. “We won’t let you.”
He shook his head. “Don’t you see? It’s my fault, Alice.” He grimaced with regret. “If I had only made her my servant, and not just my apprentice… He wouldn’t have any legal rights over her, then. She couldn’t have signed herself to another master … But I couldn’t make her thus, since she was the head of her faction.”
“What do you mean? I thought she was your ward…”
“Well, I did not have her sign herself to me as fully as Lachlan had her done for him; I had her sign me over as her protector and teacher. I would never consider a faction-head as my servant, and sign her under me as if we weren’t of equal rank and title… I thought it would be rude, to say the least. But if I had, it would have given me her rights…”
Suddenly his face screwed up, as if a thought had physically landed onto his brain and was drilling into him. But in the next moment, his eyes opened wide. “Aha!” he cried, and rushed up and into his study with nothing but leaping movements.
Alice and Charlotte exchanged confused glances until Charlotte shrugged apologetically. “I love him even though he’s a little crazy,” she assured. “Or a lot crazy…”
“Aha!” Ashcroft cried from his study once more.
Alice and Charlotte quickly shuffled up the stairs and into the study, where Ashcroft had made an absolute mess in seconds and was now reading a heavy book in front of him on contract law. “What?” Alice asked, unable to quit from grinning simply because Ashcroft was suddenly so… animated. His smile was so wide, so open, it was almost cartoonish, and seemed so alien amongst his scars.
“Charlotte’s never had her own rights to sign over! Her foster parents never had rights to sign me her protection, even!” he cried, and rushed to the window and opened it up with a forceful BANG. “Moriarty, dash it all! Get up here immediately!”
The girls heard Moriarty’s voice, which was saturated with confusion say, “What are you going on about?”
“Get up here now or I will change you into a hound, and don’t you think I won’t!” Ashcroft threatened loudly, unable to help but grinning all the while.
Ashcroft closed the window again and clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Excellent! Lachlan has himself in quite the predicament now, that old bastard!” Ashcroft looked positively maniacal. “This has quite worked out in my favor, indeed!” Suddenly he looked bashful as he looked up at Alice, “If you’ll do me the honor, that is, my dear girl.”
“What honor?” Alice asked, squinting.
“The honor of your exemption… for having privileges with your sister,” he replied, but Alice still had no idea what he was talking about.
Moriarty was already walking through the doorframe, having gotten to the door with unnatural speed. “What’s all this about, Master?” he asked dubiously.
“Charlotte has no rights at all!” Ashcroft chimed immediately.
Moriarty looked slowly over at Alice with questioning eyes, who shrugged and admitted, waving her hand back and forth, “No, we have no idea what he’s talking about, either. Just—” she snapped her fingers “—like that, and he went completely bonkers.”
“You see, Charlotte’s signature meant nothing. It NEVER meant anything, because she is not her own. She’s YOURS.”
Chapter Fourteen
Charlotte’s brow furrowed. “Hey—!” she began, both annoyed and startled.
Ashcroft ignored her and spoke right over her head. “You’re her elder blood sister, Alice, making you her official guardian until she reaches immortality. Until then, she has no more rights than a child. She’s not the head of the faction—she’s not pre-born into rights like you were! And you never bestowed her rights back onto her. By all means, she is your possession, and by implanting a contract curse upon her and by changing her mental state, you can challenge Lachlan for attempting to usurp your control!” He stifled some of his enthusiasm to add, “Of course, you’re a woman and cannot duel. You will choose me to fight in your stead, and Moriarty as my second.”
Alice’s mouth fell open. She had no idea how this was interpreted as good news. The last thing she wanted either man to do is challenge Lachlan.
She looked up and over at Moriarty, hoping to see a look of horror on his face, but instead he stepped forward, shaking his fist with approval. “This is what we’ve always waited for, Ashcroft! He’ll have no choice but to fight us man-to-man. He can’t hide behind his damn army or guards for once! Not this time!” He was grinning in a way that showed his fangs. “Oh, we’ve got him, now! I can’t wait to see the look on his face when we throw down the gauntlet! The Wizards Circle would enforce it. Contracts are contracts, rights are rights!”
“Nobody’s fighting anyone,” Alice decreed firmly. “I’ll protest, if you’d like. I follow you—the Wizard’s Circle will view the matter like he tried to steal her out from under me. Which is fun and fine and all, but if you think I’m offering that man some sort of challenge to a duel that will get one or both of you killed, then think again!”
Ashcroft rolled his eyes as if she was arguing something futile and ridiculous, and only frowned when he looked over at Charlotte, whose lip was violently trembling again, and was blinking back tears. “Oh, my dear thing,” he cooed, stepped up and putting his hands on the side of her face. “Whatever is the matter? Don’t you see how good of news this is? I have been looking to have a fair fight with Lachlan since I was not twenty-and-eight. I have challenged him hundreds of times, but he was always able to duck out of the duel…”
Although Charlotte could tell that it wasn’t all that bothered her, Charlotte replied, “I gotta bad feeling about this, Ashcroft,” she choked. “I don’t want you to fight Lachlan. And definitely not because of me.”
“Well, we’re going to have to fight him eventually,” Moriarty added firmly, probably because he could see Ashcroft’s resolve starting to waver. “Do you want to wait until he does something with your children? Successfully?” He turned to Alice, “Or ours? Because we are his enemies, girls, make no mistake. He doesn’t make mistakes often. We have to seize this opportunity. If we’re lucky, we can get the Wizard’s Circle to bear it witness—that way, he couldn’t call his whole army to get out of a scrap.”
Alice’s horrible feeling clung tightly to her h
eart, and she swallowed.
“I’ve personally been in about a hundred situations far more dangerous, and have lived to tell the tale without a scratch that wouldn’t heal up within a fortnight,” Moriarty assured her with a very confident, very proud air.
Alice shook her head slightly. “No, I need time to think…” she said, and actually gestured for the hand of Charlotte, accidentally showing that she wanted Charlotte to make the decision for her.
Ashcroft lightly pushed Charlotte farther out of Alice’s reach and said, “My dear girl, there’s no time. We must get underway to get that contract annulled before Charlotte starts to suffer.” He looked up at Moriarty and nodded, “Get us ready. I’ll send word at once to the Circle.”
* * *
“Are we close?” Alice asked Ashcroft, probably because Moriarty had taken off early on the fastest horse to seek information from the Wizard’s Circle.
Ashcroft had been dosing, or at least had been so in his own thoughts that he realized that he hadn’t been paying anyone any attention at all for the last few hours. He looked straight at Alice, and then glanced out the window. “Yes,” he said, realizing where they were. “Very.” He glanced down at Charlotte, who had fallen asleep and now had her head in his lap. He smiled softly and petted the back of her neck.
“It’s very important you survive, you know,” Alice mentioned in a queenly way that was unlike her. She lifted her chin. “God knows what would happen to us if something happened to you and Morry… She’d lead me right over a cliff.”
“You are in control of her,” he said, referring to her title.
To this, she made a pfft! sound with disbelief. “Maybe in name, but not in action. She’s more of a leader than I am. She doesn’t take orders lightly… She doesn’t take recommendations or advice lightly, either… And one thing she did not like at all was when you told her that I was her ruler.” She had digested what was so wrong with Charlotte after Ashcroft realized her contract was going to be considered by the Wizard’s Circle to be invalid, and she realized that through it all, Charlotte did not like to be anyone’s underling, even if being so would save her ass.
“Guardian,” he corrected despite the fact that they both knew he meant ‘ruler’. He frowned. “It’s true enough. And thank God it’s true—by now Charlotte and I would have been saying our goodbyes if not for that. It was a good turn of fate that Moriarty took a shining to you—for us, at least. Though even if you weren’t,” he added kindly, “Moriarty would have chosen very well. Congratulations on your betrothal.”
“Thank you,” she said with an embarrassed grin. “Now let’s see if it happens. Same with you and Charlotte—when do you plan to marry her, by the way?”
“I guess I have your permission then?” he replied teasingly.
Her green eyes twinkled with amusement, and she looked very like Charlotte for a moment. “You need my permission?”
“Technically, I’ve been quite out-of-bounds,” he admitted, and lowered his eyes with shame for a moment. “I was supposed to be her protector, her teacher… And then I ended up bedding her. Still, I couldn’t help but love her. She pulled me towards her like gravity… That’s the only way to describe it. Gravity—it seemed unnatural to resist it and took too much of my energy when I tried.”
“Well, you have, had, and will have, my permission. Not that I think you need it.” She winked and glanced out at the weather as it began to rain. She couldn’t help but let out a giggle. “Oh,” she said, “poor Moriarty!” She glanced back. “So why else aren’t you marrying Cholly?”
He sneered at the nickname slightly, but then smiled. “I want her immortal before I do,” he simply said. “And then I will marry her promptly when she recovers from her change. But I’m sentimental. I want to start my family on my wedding night, and it’s better for appearances, anyway… Politics.” He gave a tortured sigh. “You’ll see what I mean when you meet the Wizard’s Circle. Half of them are men that would make your toes curl and the ones that are tolerable are as gossipy as a woman’s sewing circle… And she’s not at an appropriate age. I don’t want our relationship under scrutiny for the rest of our days; it will not do.”
There was a long beat of silence. “Do you think Lachlan will abide the summons? Will he even show up?” she asked.
“He’ll show,” Ashcroft said for certain. “He cares about appearances, too. He would love to supplant me and take my place. He’s been trying that since we were children. Never did set well with him being the younger child. I constantly had to watch my back. Sometimes when I did I got dragon on my snout.”
“Is that what happened?” Alice said with interest. “Moriarty would never say what happened to you. I figured it must be private.”
Ashcroft puckered his brow, and consciously tried not to touch his face. “I should be used to the scars by now,” he apologized for his meekness. “But I liked the looks of my face before. I was quite vain in the day.” He gave a wry chuckle. “My brother disappeared when he was eighteen from the citadel. I thought he was just going to get some adventuring in. Instead, he fell in with a sky demon—who he killed off not a century later when he had learned everything he cared to learn from him about harnessing lightening and controlling whole armies of dragons… And I got in his way when this village I was visiting stood in the path of his destruction.”
“Why doesn’t the Wizard’s Circle do something about him?”
His eyes brightened slightly, happy to relate the several reasons. “Because he has contracts on the most of those who would care about his threat… And most of them don’t even care… Their factions mainly live on Earthside or within another WorldRealm. They could care less about the troubles of the Otherworld and particularly the Halcyon Plains of it, which is essentially the hemisphere of the world where we live.” He shook his head, “No, no. We must rely that they care about the law, at least. They would care about our contract, but they don’t see what he’s done otherwise as illegal within our order.”
The carriage slowed down to nearly a halt and the very, very wet Moriarty came in, looking like he had been saved from a flood. He was panting heavily. “Damn rain… Damn horrible bloody weather for a duel,” he grumbled as he sat down next to Alice.
“What have you heard?” he asked, as Moriarty should have already ridden ahead at the wizard Gwrtheryn’s Palace down by the Hatchet Cliffs.
Moriarty rubbed his hand over his wet face. “Well, almost everyone has come at your request. They’re all stirred up and a-titter,” he assured.
“Did Johns make it?” Ashcroft said, hoping to have at least one wizard who agreed with him about the dangers of Lachlan present.
“Johns is doing most of the tittering,” Moriarty said with an eye roll. “But I have it on good authority from him that he saw Lachlan’s party approach near at hand, coming from the West Gate. He seems to have gotten your message.” He grinned and his fangs glinted with mischievous delight. But then he looked down at Charlotte, who was facing away from him and her head still rested entirely on Ashcroft’s lap. “Is she ill?”
“No, sleeping,” Ashcroft assured.
It was as if the world wanted to argue, for as soon as the words left his mouth, horrible, deafening thunder roared so heavily and sharply around them that Alice and Moriarty put their hands over their ears. Ashcroft’s whole body winced.
And Charlotte didn’t wake.
Moriarty noticed immediately; his body going ridged with concern as he looked at her, and then he looked up with nervous worry at Ashcroft, was so alarmed that he was sure he felt a tightness in his chest.
Ashcroft tried to roll her body quickly over so that her face was peering at the carriage’s ceiling. “Charlotte?” There was no response from her. He opened up her eyes and instead of any sign of color—either white or her iris’ blue, nor the large blackness of her pupils, all he saw was silver.
“Charlotte?” he cried, worried. He knew that Lachlan’s curse would do this—it was what happened
with Lachlan’s kissing poison. But he had never seen it work this quickly, and so quietly. Normally the dying would die miserably and very slowly. It was as if Lachlan quickened the poison on purpose.
He put his hand over her mouth, and lo, he felt she was at least still breathing. He checked her pulse—it was nearly non-existent.
“Is she…?” Alice asked, sounding like she was trembling.
“No, she’s alive,” Ashcroft assured with a growl. “Barely.”
“We’re just over a mile away from the Palace,” Moriarty assured, swallowing. “Do you think she can make it?”
“I don’t want to find out,” Ashcroft said, and barked for the driver to stop the coach. As soon as it stopped, he jumped out, clutching Charlotte in his arms, and got her up on the fastest horse, who didn’t look too happy about another ride at all, and kicked his heels into it.
He was going to kill Lachlan. He never had such passion to do it in all his life—although he came close when Lachlan clawed most of his face off. But all he could think about now was what must have happened. How alone and frustrated Charlotte was probably feeling—tired and weary and trapped… And how Lachlan surely approached like a handsome, mysterious stranger willing to save her from her plight…
Surely, Ashcroft didn’t feel too bad about having punished her from not reading the contract she so willingly signed, but he could understand the appeal Lachlan must have had. What he didn’t understand was how Lachlan could look at a young girl as innocent-looking and harmless as Charlotte and delve into her mouth and then forsake her to such a horrible fate.
When he reached the palace, he grabbed Charlotte down with him and rushed her through the doors. “Johns!” he yelled, knowing that Johns was one of the better healers who he was strongly allied with.
Johns, who was sitting down with a mug of ale, jumped up from his seat when all the other twenty-some-odd wizards gazed at him with interest as Ashcroft came into the room and pushed everything off of the first table he came across to lay Charlotte upon it, since all the couches had bodies seated in them. He’d broken several ornaments by doing so, but then he didn’t care. He checked Charlotte’s vitals again. Still, she was alive.
Otherworldly Discipline: A Witch's Lesson Page 25
