And it was cleansing, a clean so thorough,
I’d never, not once in my life, felt so pure.
“I wish I had magic like you do,” he said
into the top of my hair. “I’d wipe away the scars that mar your
beauty with ugly memories and remind you that you were never
allowed to be happy. Doing this making you believe you have that
right and you should reach for it.”
“Y-you…m-must…stop,” I stammered through my
weeping.
“For you, Franka, I will stop.”
And he did as promised, holding me as the wet
poured forth. Years of tears I was not allowed to shed, I did so,
letting them leak into my brother’s shirt, dousing it, giving him
the privilege for once, of returning the favor and absorbing
my
pain.
When I quieted to unladylike hiccoughs I
didn’t have the energy to feel mortification over, his arms
tightened and he said quietly, “You give Brikitta and I what you
wish to give from your treasure, love, and we’ll accept it with
glad hearts.”
I nodded.
One of his arms left me so he could put a
fist light to the underside of my chin. He leaned back as he lifted
it and looked down at me.
“I shall call Josette to see to you. Would
you like me to share with the others that you’ll need to miss
drinks and will join us at the dinner table?”
This meant I looked a fright.
Gods.
I nodded again.
He smiled at me tenderly. Shifting his fist
so his hand cupped my jaw, he swept his thumb through the wet
there. Once he’d done this, he bent and touched his lips to my
forehead.
He straightened, gave me another squeeze with
his one arm and held me steady until I made a slight move to share
I was all right to stand on my own.
He let me go and went to the cord that would
send Josette to me.
He pulled it and moved to the door.
Stopping at it, he turned to me. “I’ll see
you at dinner, sister.”
I again nodded and replied, “You will.”
Another tender smile before he started to
close the door behind him.
“Kristian,” I called.
He stopped and tipped his head to the
side.
“You know I love you too,” I told him.
He stood solid in the doorway, eyes on me,
and I watched them grow bright with wet.
I also watched the one tear fall.
And I heard the hoarse of his voice that was
so beautiful, if it held healing power, the scars on my back would
vanish in but an instant, when he replied, “That, my beloved
sister, you truly must know I always, but always, knew.”
And on that, he shut the door, disappearing
behind it.
* * * * *
Averting my face from Noc (who was my dinner
partner,
again
) an hour later, with Josette’s assistance,
feeling and more importantly
looking
refreshed, I sat down
at the table as Noc held my chair.
Regardless, I averted my face, for I looked
refreshed but Noc had a way of seeing beyond the surface, and
tonight of all nights, this was something I didn’t wish him to
see.
I busied myself with my napkin, my jaw tilted
away from him as Noc took his own seat.
My efforts were instantly foiled when he
barely got his arse in his chair before his lips were at my
ear.
“Baby, what the fuck?”
Damn.
And he hadn’t even properly seen me!
I smoothed my napkin over my lap.
“Pardon?” I asked with an effort at
innocently, failing miserably because this trait was something my
parents stripped from me when I was five, so I had no idea how to
pull it off.
“Look at me.”
Oh blast.
I couldn’t demur, he’d force the issue. At
the dinner table. And it was safe to say I’d already endured enough
mortification at this dinner table.
I turned to Noc and he pulled his head away
while I did.
His eyes traveled my face and I fought both a
blush and shifting in my chair.
He looked at me and his repetition was this
time growled.
“Baby, what
the fuck
?”
“I’m returning to your world after Brikitta
delivers my future niece or nephew safely,” I announced.
Noc did one of those odd blinks that was slow
and included his eyebrows lifting.
“Say again?”
“I’m going to your world,” I stated. “And
when I shared this with my brother earlier, he and I had a…” I
struggled to find a word, “
moment
. I found it…” more
struggling, “
affecting
. I needed some time to collect
myself. I’m collected. Now I need wine.”
“Great. And now
I
don’t know whether
to go high five Kristian for pulling that off or punch him in the
face,” he declared.
My shoulders straightened with affront. “Why
would you punch him in the face?”
“Because you look emotionally wasted by
whatever was
affecting
and he was the one who did that to
you.”
“Noc—”
“But you’re goin’ home with me so I should
probably keep my shit.”
“There’s no probably about that,” I stated
tartly.
Finally, the harshness in his face
disappeared and he grinned.
That was worse.
Drat.
I moved past that and queried, “What does
‘high five’ mean?”
Inexplicably, he grabbed the wrist of the
hand sitting in my lap and lifted it up in front of me.
“Palm out, fingers straight,” he ordered.
I did as told.
He kept hold of my wrist, and with his other
hand, slapped mine.
I jumped in surprise at this
preposterousness.
He then slid the hand holding my wrist up so
his fingers were laced in mine and he brought both our hands down
to rest on the table, like we were lovers out at an intimate dinner
by ourselves, not sitting at a table in a palace surrounded by
royalty.
By the gods.
Bloody Noc.
“High five,” he declared.
“Pardon?”
“Five fingers, slapped high, high five.”
Oh.
Well that explained the name of said
maneuver.
But it did not explain the absurdity of
it.
“Why would one do that?” I asked.
“To celebrate,” he answered.
“You do know that’s absurd,” I shared.
He grinned again. “You’re comin’ home with
me, sugarlips. That means I’m gettin’ you into the Seahawks. We’ll
be in Saints country, but you and me, we’ll keep our allegiance
true. And when they kick ass, you’ll get the high five.”
“You do know that all those words are
understood by me and yet all of them are
not
.”
His grin grew.
I sighed.
“Wine, milady?” the footman asked, and I
pulled my hand from Noc’s to look over my shoulder at him.
“Absolutely.”
He nodded and poured. He barely got to Noc’s
other side before I had a healthy dose down my gullet.
I took the glass from my lips, drew in a
large breath, let it go and relaxed.
I ceased relaxing when Noc’s hand wrapped
around my thigh under the table and squeezed.
This was not bolstering, as Cora’s squeeze
had been.
It was something else entirely.
“Pleased as fuck you’re comin’ home with me,”
he declared, thankfully letting my thigh go.
“Mm…” I murmured.
“It’s gonna be culture shock, trust me,
huge
. But you’ll get over that and love it.”
I hoped so.
I said nothing and took another sip of
wine.
“Baby?” he called.
I looked his way and nearly downed the glass
at the happiness warming his face and making his handsome so much
more handsome it was almost unendurable to lay witness to.
“You made the right decision,” he
decreed.
“I hope so, Noc.”
“I know so, Frannie.”
I nodded.
He smiled.
Hesitantly, I smiled back.
* * * * *
Late that evening, after Josette had
prepared me for bed and gone to seek her own, I stood in front of
the mirror in the dressing room and closed my eyes.
It had been so long since I’d tried this—and
the last time I’d done it my mother had sensed it and punished me
for it—I was quite certain it wouldn’t work.
But I needed to do what had to be done and
I’d made a variety of decisions that day.
It was time to carry them all out.
Therefore I sought it and it wasn’t hard to
find, the quickening I felt in my innards, always there in truth,
but vague, and it having been there for so long, I’d learned to
live with the sensation.
And ignore it.
Now, I focused on it, and the instant I did,
to my astonishment, I felt it sparking up my spine, the sensation
like the light touch of a lover, stirring tickles of awareness all
over my skin.
I opened my eyes and saw the muted glow of
the one lamp I’d lit had a sapphire, hue and the mirror in front of
me had gone from clearly showing my visage to cloudy.
“By the gods, it worked,” I whispered,
staring at the clouds in front of me as they started to swirl,
those too, tinted blue.
I’d managed that, it was time to try my
next.
“I wish to speak to you,” I said into the
mirror.
I stood there and waited.
The clouds swirled languidly.
I waited longer.
Nothing but clouds.
Over time, I noted it was actually quite
mesmerizing in a relaxing way.
But after more time elapsed, I noted it was
also quite boring.
All right then, maybe it didn’t work.
I started to turn away, seeing the tinge of
blue in the room starting to dissipate when suddenly, the entire
room turned jade green.
My eyes flew to the mirror and I saw
Valentine’s reflection there, not my own.
“I’m impressed,” she declared.
I’d done it!
“This delights me, my sister,” she stated.
“It would seem you do have some instinctual understanding of how to
harness your power.”
It seemed I did.
Excellent.
“I’m pleased you’re delighted,” I
replied.
“Though, I have things to do,” she told me.
“And although I’m communicating to you on the astral plane, it is
taking my attention and I wish my attention on something else at
this moment. That something is very good at waiting. But I’m in the
mood not to do the same. So you had something to share with
me?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I’ve informed my brother
and Noc, and neither delayed in sharing it with the others that I
will return with my brother and sister-in-law to their home, await
the birth of their child and then journey to your world.”
This reminded me I hadn’t spoken of any of
this to Josette, including the fullness of understanding the
parallel universes (something I knew she understood, of a sort,
considering the twins wandering around the palace, something I had
not gotten into with her in any direct way).
Not to mention sharing with her I had
magic.
I needed to rectify that first thing in the
morning.
“But I must also note, where I go, if my maid
agrees to go with me, she goes as well,” I added.
“Of course,” Valentine murmured. “I’m pleased
this has progressed.”
I nodded. “And in an effort not to keep you,
I shall also share that I’m agreed to learn how to use my magic and
absorb what you stripped from my mother but only on the contingency
that you assure me it is not tainted with her malice.”
“Magic is never dark, Franka, only the bearer
of it makes it so.”
I found that most interesting.
“So you have no fears with that and I’ll set
up the ceremony as soon as I’m able,” she carried on.
That made me somewhat anxious.
Valentine sensed it, even through a
mirror.
“It will be glorious, Franka, and you will
savor the memory of it until your dying breath.”
I lifted my chin. “Then I look forward to
it.”
“As do I,” Valentine replied. “Is there
more?”
Outside of wondering what an astral plane
was, there was not.
I could ask that later.
“No, and I thank you for coming to me.”
“To receive this news, it was my pleasure.
Goodnight,
chérie
, and you know I feel this way, but I will
say it again, you chose rightly.”
With that, she faded from sight and her magic
receded from the room.
But I stood there staring into the mirror
that was now just a mirror.
And I did it hoping she was correct.
* * * * *
The next morning, first thing, before my
breakfast tray even came, incongruously and in a way that would
make my mother apoplectic and my father spit fire, I sat
cross-legged on my bed opposite Josette, who was in bed and
cross-legged as well.
I did this sharing with her I held magic and
informing her of how my future plans had changed and that I desired
her to change hers with me.
“It’s unlikely we’ll be able to bring Irene,”
I finished. “Though, it’s my understanding things are much
different there so it’s also my understanding we won’t need
her.”
Josette simply sat still and stared at
me.
“Josette,” I called.
She blinked but said nothing.
“Josette, my dear,” I called again, reaching
out and wrapping my fingers around hers.
The instant I did, hers twisted and captured
mine.
“We’ll not have an adventure, we’ll have an
adventure
,” she breathed. “And how exciting! You’re a
witch!”
There were many witches in our world so I
really had no concern she’d react badly to me being one.
But I was so worried that she would refuse to
undertake something infinitely unknown with me, the light I did not
see was budding in her eyes bloomed, and I fancied it lit the room
with its brilliance.
“You’ll journey with me?” I queried to
confirm.
“Anywhere, Franka.” Her hand held mine all
the more tightly. “Everywhere.”