Moonlight Binding Magic

by Charlotte Munich

  “What I do doesn’t feel like anything special. The other day, when I arrived at Dora’s, I thought I was just doing what everybody else does.”

  “But you didn’t even have an invite,” Tristan said. “It shouldn’t have been possible for you to get there.”

  “A woman explained to me how it worked, and I tried doing what she’d told me. At first it didn’t lead me anywhere, and then suddenly, I was there with Dora and with you.”

  I thought about the laundromat. “But maybe I teleported to you, not to Dora.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, it only worked when I started thinking about you.”

  He tilted his head, surprised. “Really?”

  His cheeks, normally marble white, were now a livelier shade of pink, a color even paler than the pastel cake I was eating, but I could have sworn he was blushing.

  “Yeah. Maybe I summoned myself to that place, just as I’d summoned you before. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe my superpower is to find you. You know what we should do? You should go somewhere where you’re invited and I’m not, and I’ll try to find you like I did the other day. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  He didn’t seem to think it was a fun idea. In fact, it seemed to freak him out a little.

  “Victoire, I don’t know. As I told you, going somewhere where you’re invited is easy. But if you’re not, the energy waste is just staggering. Until we know where all that magic comes from, I wouldn’t advise…”

  But I held my ground.

  “Listen. We could prove it once and for all. It wouldn’t be wasting time and energy if we just do it once. Don’t you want to at least make sure? Just go somewhere. Don’t tell me where it is, and we’ll see if I can follow you. Please. Just this once. Tristan. We need to know.”

  He sighed, and finally, he caved.

  “Okay. If you haven’t found me in ten minutes, I’m coming back. And if you’re not here, and I have to summon you to find you, you’re never, ever to try that trick again. Understood?”

  It was my turn to freak out. “Could that really happen? Could I get lost in limbo?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s hope not. But you’re right, we need to know.” He looked at his watch. “It is now five o’clock in your world. You have until five ten to reach me. Good luck.”

  And just like that, he was gone, and I was left alone in the room, facing his empty seat and desk, with my half-eaten slice of cake I suddenly had no interest in finishing anymore.

  Holy cacophony. We were really doing this.

  I stood up, warming myself up as a reflex, loosening up as though getting ready to sing. It had all just been a hunch, and then a theory, up until now. Now it was getting real, and I was getting cold feet. Would I really be able to find Tristan anywhere? Somehow, it was a heady idea. And a frightening one. It forced me to face everything I’d learned, or not learned, about the nature of that thing that we had going. I’d been resisting it, and testing it, and playing along with it, and I still didn’t know what it was exactly. Marianne hadn’t exactly been crystal clear about it, either. The only thing I knew about it was that it was real and that probably I should really stop doubting it.

  Focus.

  What had I done exactly, the other day, at Dora’s? I remembered stripping in the laundromat, closing my eyes, thinking about Tristan. I’d wondered about that exact same thing, the nature of the affinity between us, and suddenly he’d been there. A strange sensation had accompanied the…teleportation. It had felt like a weird massage. Everything had been rearranged in my body. Could I do it again?

  And what a curious mission had just fallen into my lap. His sister wanted me to protect him; how crazy was that? Even glossing over the “why,” how was I even supposed to guard this guy? I knew next to nothing about the threat we were fighting, had no defensive skills, and no offensive skills, either. The only competences I’d ever honed were all about music.

  I frowned, eyes tightly shut now, and getting annoyed with myself for taking so long, and for being so unfocused, when all I had to do really was think about Tristan. I was finding I couldn’t really do that on command. I couldn’t pick a way to think about him and meditate along that line. When I thought about him now, all I could think about was how he’d blushed. I smiled.

  Marianne said the forest had picked me because it had thought Tristan would like me. I wondered if it was the case. He’d called me cute, but he’d also called me a pet, and everything about the situation was so confusing.

  And yet, all I wanted to do was find out what our relationship was made of. If it wasn’t kinship, could it just be a magical or mythical link? Or was it friendship, general empathy? Or was it going to be about more than that? Did I have feelings for the guy? I imagined trying to kiss him, just for kicks. Wouldn’t it be kind of fun to try and slide my fingers into that thick, glossy black hair? I bet it was very soft. And if my lips touched his, would he like that? If he was in one of the “realms,” I was pretty sure his skin would be hot, not ice cold like it usually was in stupid Dompierre.

  The more I tried to imagine it, the more it was starting to feel entirely too real. I could almost touch Tristan’s hair with my fingertips, the solid mass of his body as he leaned into mine. I could feel the crush of his arms as they closed around me. And the soft contact of his lips, very warm indeed, as they welcomed mine.

  By all of rock ’n’ roll’s discarded male T-shirts, I was kissing Tristan now, I was sure of it. My eyes were still shut but this fantasy was spinning out of control, and I was sixty percent certain at least that if I opened my eyes now, I’d find myself face to face with him. Yet I didn’t really want to deal with this. It was just too bizarre.

  And so, I kept kissing him, really pushing into it now, the complete experience with groans, teeth, and grinding.

  In fact, it took him breaking the kiss and calling my name for me to open my eyes at last. Which confirmed what I’d already known. I’d done it. I’d teleported myself into a searing hot kiss with Tristan.

  And now we were staring at each other, breathless. He wasn’t smiling. His face had gone slack, and his eyes were so huge I couldn’t quite determine if he was only surprised, annoyed, or completely freaked out.

  I took a step back.

  “Oh, wow, I’m sorry.”

  He coughed gently.

  “It worked,” he croaked, his lips still flushed and wet.

  When he didn’t comment on my technique (my teleportation technique, you idiots), I took it upon myself to try and reach some sort of conclusion.

  “This, unh, tends to prove I could find you pretty much anywhere, don’t you think?”

  Oh, but my drums, had that come out wrong. Was he wondering now if I was going to barge in on him at all times and let my predatory instincts loose on him?

  “I think you’re right,” was all he said, though.

  “Where are we?” I asked, looking around at last.

  I’d already gathered that we were inside a building, but of course, it was not any generic building. We were standing face to face in some sort of dark gray stone chapel of the gothic era. It was dimly lit by the moon shining from outside through high stained-glass windows. We’d kissed in front of an altar, on which the white marble statue of a woman was lying peacefully, hands joined on her chest as if in prayer. How tacky of me, I thought. Staring at the recumbent figure’s profile, I found it looked familiar.

  “This is my sister’s tomb,” Tristan said, visibly perturbed.

  “Oh, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to…”

  But I had wanted it, even though it had been just for kicks, and now, I was making everything a lot worse. Tristan stopped me with a brisk hand gesture.

  “No, it’s okay. As you just said, we proved you can find me anywhere, with a minimal price to pay, even if you don’t know where I am, have never entered that realm, and are not invited into it. It’s a…good thing.”

  A minimal price to pay. Gee, that was flattering. Sobering up qui
ck now, I nodded, trying to catch up and be the good student.

  “Shall we go back?”

  Shall we forget everything about this incident?

  “Yes.” He nodded absently. “I’ll send you first, if you don’t mind. Dora was supposed to meet us at my place at five or so. She must have arrived by now.”

  I nodded. Dora. Great. Yes. Must not misbehave in front of Dora. Of course.

  “I’m ready,” I said and remembered to close my eyes this time before he flicked me gently on the forehead, sending me back through time and space.

  25

  I reached my destination without puking and only stumbled back into my seat with minimal loss of face. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Dora had indeed arrived. She was in Tristan’s chair, sitting opposite me at his desk.

  She had ditched her usual charcoal power suits for party attire again, but this time, she wasn’t headed for the opera; she was ready for opening night at the bar. She’d crossed her legs on the desk, probably in order for anyone present to admire her mile-long stems in snug black leather pants and high-heeled low booties. Her top, an elaborate construction made out of artfully torn shreds of black cotton, managed to make her look easy-going and casual while actually displaying a lot of cleavage. Her dark curls were loose, and her dark eyes shone in her flawless face. She would have made any supermodel feel self-conscious, and I wasn’t a supermodel, not by any standard. After waking up before dawn, I’d thrown on the pair of nondescript jeans and the sweater Linus had bought for me. My hair was probably held up by a pencil, although I wasn’t going to check that in front of freaking Dora.

  “Hi, Dora,” I mumbled. “Long time no see.”

  “Where’s Tristan?”

  “He’s right behind me.”

  I could still feel his lips against mine, and half my mind was still hung up on that stupid kiss I’d tricked him into. That, I decided, had been quite stupid on my part. Talk about a breach of trust. It could never happen again. Sure, he’d responded, because he was a guy. I’d definitely jumped him. I needed his trust, and I couldn’t let things get weird between us.

  It was taking him a while to come back, and I wondered what he was doing. Talking to his dead sister? I bit my lip.

  There he was at last, at some distance, in front of the fireplace, hands deep in his trouser pockets. He looked flushed and ill at ease.

  “Oh, hello, Dora, thank you for coming,” he said, so absently that she quirked an eyebrow.

  “You do remember my appointment with Hughes tonight, and with sweet pet face here?” she asked him. “Not to forget your fancy bar opening.”

  He nodded while I fumed. She’d called me pet face? She was going to pay for this someday. But for now, it was good training. Could I keep my persona as a human pet, faced with snobs who insulted me, and focus on the long game? You bet I could.

  I looked at my watch.

  “The bar opens at six thirty,” I pointed out. “Even if everything’s more or less ready, I suggest we get cracking.”

  Tristan nodded. “I’ll open the bar. You two should arrive together. When’s your meeting with Hughes?”

  “At seven,” Dora said. “We’ll be there at quarter to.”

  “Good,” Tristan said, before looking at me dubiously. “Can you help Victoire get ready?”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Dora promised with a sarcastic smile.

  “Don’t forget I need to go up on the stage after talking to Hughes,” I reminded her. “And not have people throw tomatoes and rotten eggs at me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Dora told Tristan, not even looking at me. “Your pet will make you proud.”

  Grrr. I was regretting this already.

  “You remember our agreement?” Dora said.

  Tristan nodded, and I wondered, again, what they’d agreed upon. Not that it was my place to ask. Frankly, I had no right to care. He’d said they were old friends, and I needed to put my curiosity on a leash. But it was really gnawing at me.

  “We’ll talk later,” Tristan said to no one in particular.

  Without even a glance in my direction, he disappeared, leaving me with Dora. Oh, phlegm. I’d seriously messed up.

  Dora swung her legs from over the desk and stood up, all business now.

  “Come on, pet. I’m sure we’re going to find a dress for you somewhere. Let’s go through Marianne’s things. Despite her holier-than-thou personality, her taste was actually okay. I’m sure you and her must be approximately the same size—short and flat.”

  “Who’s Marianne?” I asked, because I really didn’t want to let on that I knew her already. That would lead to all kinds of awkward conversations, not to count awkward thoughts on my part.

  Plus, I had to distract Dora, because Tristan had left his golden heart pendulum on the desk, and I really needed to steal it now.

  “A girl who died,” Dora said with a hint of sadness. “Come on. Let’s go to her rooms.”

  I took my time standing up, and when she’d passed me on her way to the door, I grabbed the pendulum.

  “Are you coming?” Dora asked, turning back to me.

  “Yup,” I said, the pendulum still cold against my palm.

  I got up and followed her.

  The cleaning crew obviously liked everything very tidy in the castle, which must keep them extremely busy. But when I walked the corridors, there was no soul in sight. No one had lit fires in Marianne’s rooms, and it was eerily cold and dark. Dora didn’t seem to mind as she strutted her way through a series of moonlit solars, boudoirs, and studies.

  She led me to a vast bedroom. Judging by the round shape of the room and the number of windows overlooking the forest and letting the silver moonlight in, we had to be in one of the corner towers. It was a gorgeous room, with a big canopy bed made out of dark carved wood, crowned with antlers, and with sheer white veils half-hiding the bed itself. Marianne must have had good taste and been a very sophisticated person. I thought about the woman I’d met earlier, in that cabin deep in the forest. It was hard picturing her here in these luxurious chambers.

  “What kind of woman was she? Marianne?” I asked Dora, because I found her silence a tad creepy.

  She huffed a short laugh.

  “Oh, she was a princess through and through. Rich, cold, and cruel.”

  Her judgment did not match my own experience, but I couldn’t tell her that without conceding that I’d actually met Marianne in person.

  “How so?”

  “Well, she was Tris’s big sister, and she wasn’t very nice to us when we were kids.”

  “Oh,” I said, “so you and Tristan were childhood friends?”

  “Yep. We’ve known each other our whole lives.”

  She’d gone to a tall white armoire made of carved and painted wood, and she was sorting through Marianne’s clothes. She took out a piece of clothing, looked at it in the moonlight, and then put it back with a grimace.

  “What should I look like?” I asked. “What do pets wear at bar openings?”

  She made that short laughing sound again and shook her head.

  “Not what you’re currently wearing, that’s for sure.”

  “But why is it so important?”

  “Because your appearance and behavior reflect on the person you belong to, on your master,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Inwardly, I cringed. I belonged to no one. That undercover pet business was starting to really make my skin crawl. Obviously, Tristan and his people really considered humans as inferior beings. I hadn’t gotten too much of that vibe from Tristan himself or from his sister, but it was quite strong with Dora. I was beginning to wonder what they’d bonded over as kids.

  “Ah,” she said at last, taking something out of the cupboard that brought an approving smile to her moonlit face. “That ought to do it.”

  She gave me the coat hanger with a dress on it.

  “Put it on, then we’ll look for shoes.”

  I was prepared for pretty much anything, b
ut the dress was actually okay. For starters, it was a modern dress, not a medieval princess getup, and for that alone, I was thankful. It was even season-appropriate, at least to a point. It was a sweater dress in a light color that I couldn’t really make out, short but warm enough. Sure, there were cutouts along most of the sleeves and in the back, but all in all, it would be okay at the bar, and I wouldn’t look like too much of a clown when I got onstage.

  When it was clear that Dora was not going to turn around so I could have some privacy, I just stripped to my underwear in front of her and slid into the dress without much of a thought. I wasn’t shy about my body. I didn’t like the way she looked at me, appraising me, but I couldn’t let myself care too much.

  The only problem was, there were no pockets to transfer the golden stag heart to. So, in the end, I just slipped it into my bra. Dora saw me do it and frowned. But she couldn’t know what it was I’d just stuffed into my underwear, and I wasn’t going to explain it to her.

  Since I was focused on that little act of not-so-subtle slight-of-hands, what she said to me next struck me completely out of the blue.

  “You know you can’t have him, though, right?”

  For the love of music, what was her problem? It was humiliating enough that I had to get half-naked in front of her. Was she also going to stoop to that level of girl catfighting?

  I decided to play dumb.

  “Who are you talking about, Dora?”

  “Who do you think? Tristan, that’s who.”

  I shook my head. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m just helping you tonight because I struck a deal with Tris, but this is all highly irregular. I never go around my clients’ backs. Tris shouldn’t even have asked me to do this for you. He tolerates you, and he takes good care of his things, but don’t mistake this for anything else. You’re just a pet; know your place. I’m dressing you up in Marianne’s clothes, but you’re never going to be a princess in this castle, understood?”

  I was gaping at her, completely dumbfounded. Well, at least she didn’t seem to know anything about Tristan being Hughes’s real target. Maybe she was on Tristan’s side, however misguided and irritating her words.