“This way, please,” he said, indicating a door some distance away on the right from the huge front entrance.
Fishing a key out of his pocket, he unlocked the much smaller door, and I followed him in, almost devoured alive by curiosity. What was I going to find inside—chandeliers of epic proportions, gigantic spiral staircases, endless hallways guarded by ancient armors, weaponry, portraits of long-gone kings who followed you everywhere around with their painted eyes? A pharaonic throne room? I was prepared for anything but the reality of it.
Once through the door, Tristan threw his keys in a plain glass bowl sitting on an old farm table. I followed him inside and found myself in a tiny room pretty similar to the old entrance at the barn. The floor was black and white tiles chipped in places, and the window overlooking the graveled driveway was tiny and garnered with white granny lace curtains. He offered to take my coat, and since it was warm inside, I handed it over to him with a smile. He stuffed it into a huge country armoire that occupied a whole wall of an adjacent corridor. He then gestured for me to come through the narrowed hallway and into what looked like a modest but scrupulously clean farm kitchen, with a big fireplace and an overpopulation of pots and pans.
The lighting was on the dim side, probably because Tristan’s eyes were so sensitive, but other than that, it was just your warm, cozy, run-of-the-mill farmhouse kitchen.
Tristan didn’t live in the castle. He lived in the caretaker’s apartment.
“Fancy a cup of something warm?”
I nodded, a little stunned, until he explained.
“The house itself is too big for me, and full of ghosts. I get nightmares, and I don’t like it. I much prefer to stay here. And I have an office in the main building for business matters.”
I wondered if he was referring to actual ghosts and then decided getting side-tracked by this subject, however fascinating it might be, wasn’t a good idea. Tristan went over to an old farm stove that took up half the kitchen and, opening a latch on its belly, revived the fire inside from its embers. He took the antique kettle that had been sitting on the stove and filled it at a gigantic stone sink fitted with modern stainless-steel plumbing before setting it back on the cooktop. After which he proceeded to rummaging the cupboards until, with a tiny sigh of relief, he located a tin box of cookies. I watched him go through all these moves in stunned silence. He put the biscuits on a small plate—they were obviously handmade—and set it on the table before pulling a chair for me.
“Don’t stand on that wounded ankle. I’m sorry I couldn’t heal it completely for you yesterday. It would have looked suspicious.”
I blinked. “No, you’re right. And thank you for that, again. If it weren’t for you, I’d have a broken leg right now, and who knows what else. Well, I’d probably be lying dead among the rubble. How did you even do it?”
“I just talked to your body and persuaded it to heal,” he explained while I sat down with a groan. “You resisted at first, and then you accepted my gift, and your injuries healed themselves.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
After all, he had indeed ordered me to heal. I looked at the biscuits. I was very hungry, and they looked yummy, like elongated, golden madeleines.
“My great-grandmother called them wolf teeth,” he said, smiling. “That recipe is an heirloom.”
I tried to imagine Tristan baking and came up with nothing, so I just bit into a pastry. It was crusty on the outside, buttery on the inside, and delicious all over.
“If I eat something here, I’ll still be able to go back to my world, right?”
“Sure. It’s not like that.”
I munched on the cookie, and soon, the tea was ready, and Tristan seemed to know there wasn’t anything else he could do in manner of procrastination.
“So,” I said, going back to the conversation we needed to have, “this is the land fairy tales were created after, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“But you were summoned to Dompierre…”
“You did that,” he interjected.
“…and you take these things seriously.”
“Yes. Especially when I don’t understand them very well. You shouldn’t have been able to see through my disguise. You shouldn’t have been able to summon me.”
“But how do you know it was me?”
He grinned. “Trust me, I know.”
“Okay,” I summarized. “Lots of things I shouldn’t be able to do.” Including, but not limited to, surviving falls in elevators. “So. Magic is real, and you live in another plane of existence. No problem. Although I don’t really get how I fit into the picture. You said I summoned you and you don’t know why or even how. And then, there are the boxes. What’s the story here?”
“You met Dora,” he began.
“Yes. Your friend Dora.”
“Well, she isn’t my friend, per se. She’s more of a long-term acquaintance. A fixture in my life.”
“She told me the two of you were together, did you know that? At least, she said you were…‘on and off.’”
“Did she, now?”
I rolled my eyes. “Tristan, your private life is no business of mine. I don’t care.”
That seemed to displease him.
“Yes,” he admitted, “Dora and I have history, but it’s been a really long time. What’s relevant here is she’s a businessperson. She provides services, takes missions from highly placed people in the realms, and generally…sorts things out.”
“Wow. Could you be any vaguer?”
“Sorry.”
“I thought she ran a self-storage business. Anubis.”
“Well, her business takes on many forms, and Anubis is a handy part of it.”
“So, why do you think she called me?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think maybe she did it because she heard that I was working for you?”
“Maybe, but then again, maybe not.”
I thought about it.
“She looked surprised the other day, when she ran into me at the bar.”
“I thought so, too,” Tristan said.
“So, let’s chalk it up to coincidence for now. She hadn’t heard you and I knew each other. But how did she know you were in Dompierre?”
Tristan bit his lip, thinking.
“She could have talked to someone on my staff here. Or to one of the artists I’ve been in touch with for the bar. I’ll ask them.”
“Artists from yours and Dora’s world?” I supposed.
“Yes.”
“Huh. Are they going to be there on Saturday?”
“Yes. Some of them. And on the other evenings, too.”
Interesting. I was going to be working at a fae dive. Or something.
“So let’s say Dora heard about your bar through one of your common acquaintances, she decided to swing by just to see you, and this is when she bumped into me. What do you think is in the boxes? Why don’t you want me to open them?”
He sighed again and put his hands around his mug of tea.
“Well, let’s just say that some of the services Dora provides are…not very nice. She’s been known to act as a hitwoman. Or to deliver bad news. The boxes could be some sort of message, and not the happy kind.”
“You mean like they would say ‘you’re dead’ and thus convince my body to die?”
“Yes. For example.”
I thought about it. “Dora has been insisting that I open the boxes.”
“I know. And I’d much rather you didn’t, at least not before we know more.”
I frowned. “But why would you care?”
His eyes did that eerie thing again, where the deep blue seemed to fade and the red beneath glowed in an almost supernatural way. Well, strike that. Considering how unsettling the rest of everything was, I supposed using the word supernatural was in order.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “You summoned me. It’s n
atural that I should care about you, very much.”
Huh.
“You mean, as would a…well, if not a demon, maybe a genie?”
“I mean, as would someone you called through time and space, Victoire.”
I looked at him, stunned, his words finally sinking in.
“Did I really, really do that?” It was completely mad. I didn’t summon people like that.
“I’m positive. If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s knowing when you’re being summoned by someone. I guarantee you that.” He laughed.
“But what does it mean?”
Tristan shrugged. He didn’t look glad about this summoning thing, but the concept in itself didn’t seem to disturb him all that much.
“It couldn’t have happened if there wasn’t a very strong link between us. Maybe you’re my lost little cousin, which would explain your being immune to my illusions. Maybe we’re destined to do something important together. Maybe some witch just decided to play a joke on us. Either way, I do care, and I think you noticed me, too.”
Heat crept into my cheeks. Of course I noticed him. I mean, you didn’t get much more enigmatic and enticing than Tristan. He would make any normal woman curious. You only had to look at Dora. It was clear she wanted him very much, and I could relate. But this wasn’t what he was talking about. He was talking about a magical mystery of some kind.
And we were in it together in some way. We just needed to figure out how, and why.
15
The grandfather clock in Tristan’s kitchen started striking midnight, and I jumped in my chair. So late already? My tea had gone cold, and I couldn’t really make sense of what I’d heard, seen, or learned this evening.
Anyway, it was time to set myself back in motion.
“What do you think we should do, then?”
Because I, for one, intended to go find Dora Vinok and squeeze some answers out of her.
“Let’s admit the fact that Dora doesn’t know I’ve been summoned to your neighborhood. I managed to let her think I’d bought the theater because it had magic,” Tristan started.
“And it does,” I murmured. “Can you feel it, too? Or does it feel magical because you’re there?”
I was blushing again.
“No,” he said, “it does have magic. Places of summoning usually do, for some reason. They’re portals.”
“The Victory Bar is a portal?” It was hard not to laugh.
“In my experience, it is quite literally a portal to Victoire,” he answered with utter seriousness. “Hence the name. It’s not very subtle.”
Huh. So he had named his bar after me. It was really weird and maybe I should be worried, but I was too tired for that.
“And how did we get here tonight? Through another portal?”
“I can get home from pretty much any place in the world,” he explained.
What a strange concept.
“Like turtles,” I joked.
He grinned. “And snails.”
“You can really teleport anywhere?”
“No. But home is special. And I wouldn’t call it teleporting. It’s just…going back to my normal realm of existence.”
What a concept. I tried to rein my mind back in to more immediate questions.
“So, Dora is probably working for someone,” I supposed. “Any ideas as to who that could be? Could it have something to do with my accident four years ago? The date on my so-called contract with Anubis certainly suggests so.”
I told Tristan all about my elevator crash.
“Maybe it does have a connection with your freak accident, yes,” he murmured, thoughtful. “But still. We need to know why anyone from the realms would seek you out like that. Or why you would summon me, for that matter.”
I saw two possible lines of investigation from there: Anubis and Dora on one side and my accident in Paris four years ago on the other.
“Plus, let’s not forget about the house fire. I’m starting to wonder if it was really an accident.”
Tristan shrugged. “Maybe it was a warning of some sort.”
“You mean, from Dora? You think Dora would have set the house on fire?”
“Maybe. It’s nothing she hasn’t done before.”
I was liking this Dora character less and less.
“At the risk of damaging the boxes?”
“They weren’t damaged by the fire,” Tristan objected. “Maybe the one who set fire to your house knew they wouldn’t burn. They must have been protected by something.”
“But my bandmates and I aren’t fireproof.”
Tristan nodded. “Maybe that someone just wanted you dead, yes.”
How charming. We didn’t have half the clues we’d need to come to any sort of good explanation, and I was crashing fast now. My eyelids felt heavy, and I’d started to yawn.
“We need to get you home,” Tristan sighed. “We have two things to do before I drive you back to the bar. We need to swear you to secrecy, and then before we leave, we’re going to get some things from the main house.”
Exhausted as I was, I first thought I’d misunderstood. “Swear me to secrecy?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I need you to keep silent about this place and everything we just discussed.”
“Oh. How are you going to do that?”
“Just a plain old binding spell,” he said very matter-of-factly. “It’s simple moonlight magic. I have everything we need somewhere around here. I think it’s in one of the drawers.”
He got up, and I did, too.
“What do you—are you going to cast a spell at me?”
“A charm, actually. It’s pretty harmless.”
“So I don’t talk?”
“Yes.”
My hands went to my hips. “How about you just trust me?”
I’d trusted him, hadn’t I? How about some reciprocity?
“I do trust you,” he said, “but I can’t take any chances. I’m responsible for this place and everything connected to it.”
He’d opened a drawer in a big buffet by the kitchen table. After poking around in it, he took a small red leather pouch out of it and brought it back to the table.
“Sit down.”
“No. Not until you’ve explained yourself.”
“It’s just standard procedure,” he explained in a patient tone that I didn’t like too much, either. “Whenever someone from the outside world comes here, we use this charm to make sure they remain silent about it. It’s better if you’re sitting down, because people tend to lose their footing the first time they’re charmed.”
I pursed my lips. “Oh, so it wasn’t in the cookies, but there was a catch after all.”
He looked at me with those strange blue-purplish eyes, as if he didn’t understand my reluctance at all. There it was, I thought, the cultural gap I hadn’t really felt, up until now, despite the fairy tale setting and despite the weird conversation about Dora, the boxes, and people summoning other people. We weren’t from the same world; there was no doubt about that. I’d made the mistake of forgetting that, and now he’d just reminded me.
Tristan sighed.
“Please, don’t take this the wrong way, Victoire. It’s not personal. And okay, maybe I need to get back at you for summoning me, just a little. You have no idea what it feels like.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose. Assuming I did it at all.”
“I can assure you that you did summon me.”
“Well,” I said, sitting down but crossing my arms, “maybe I’m not going to trust you either. Okay. Do your thing, and then you can take me back home.”
It was a shitty situation. He was my boss, and the whole band slept at his place. He thought I had a problem of a magical nature, and I’d believed him up until now. And now I just felt…lost.
“I’m really sorry,” he said quietly, sitting back across from me. “Your hand, please. No, the left one.”
He took it gently and turned it
palms up. His hand wasn’t cold, it was warm, but the contact still made me shiver. I bit my lip and rolled my eyes. From the leather pouch he’d opened on the kitchen table, he took a pinch of something dry that could have been herbs or sand or ash and dropped it into my open hand.
“Hold still, please.”
He opened another drawer, hidden beneath the wooden table. It was full of plain cutlery, old bent spoons and forks that didn’t match. He picked out a matchbox, took out a match, and lit it.
“You know you’ll need a name for that band of yours,” he said before dropping the burning match into my open palm.
I yelped. There was a sharp sting as the powder burned against my skin, and thick gray smoke rose, giving off a mixed smell of lavender, dry rust, and snakeskin.
“It’s done,” Tristan said. “You won’t be able to talk about this world with people who don’t belong in it, and you won’t be able to talk about this place, my home, with people who are not welcome in it.”
Grimacing, I rubbed the inside of my palm. The skin had turned an angry red, and it hurt. I grunted.
“You couldn’t just make me sign a simple NDA, you had to burn it into my skin?”
“I don’t like law magic,” he said, scrunching up his straight nose. “And lawyers let me down one too many times.”
I sighed. All this fuss about confidentiality and trust had kept me awake for a moment, but now I was sinking again, quickly. Disappointment didn’t help keep me awake and chipper.
“Sorry about that,” Tristan said, not very truthfully, I thought, before he got up to put the red leather pouch back into the buffet drawer. “We can go now. Come on, I want to show you something else. It’s inside the house.”
Moonlight Binding Magic Page 8
