With This Ring
By: ChocolateEclar
Disclaimer: I do not pretend to own Chrestomanci or the Related Worlds. I only own the random children that appear to mess up things every once in a while. Everything else but the plot is the property of Diana Wynne Jones.
Dedication: For my fellow DWJ book fanatic, Artemis Obscure, aka Mel. (Yes, I know I need to be locked up, Mel, but then there wouldn't be any more Millie/Christopher-ness.)
Summary: (Takes place 3 years after Conrad's Fate) Betrothals with psychotic Japanese enchantresses, silver allergies, gold rings, and children running amok in Chrestomanci Castle. When all Millie wants is some peace over 'the hols,' she gets a multi-world struggle for Christopher's lives and her own. (Of course, it will be Christopher/Millie, Elizabeth/Antonio, and Gabriel/Throgmorten…just kidding on the later of course.)
A/N: You will notice that a lot of characters – pretty much as many as I can – are pulled into this story. You also will notice that the main people in Chrestomanci Castle that are here, aside from Christopher, Gabriel, and Millie are a bunch of older teenagers and young adults by the names of Conrad, Bernard, Jason, Elizabeth, and Henrietta. That would be because of this quote from the POV of Conrad from the end of Conrad's Fate:
"… I spent six blissfully happy years at Chrestomanci Castle, learning magic I never dreamed existed and making friends with all the other young enchanters being educated there – Elizabeth, Jason, Bernard, Henrietta, and the rest…"
"The rest" became the children you see all over the castle getting into things. As for Elizabeth, she is obviously Tonino Montana's mother Elizabeth, who is in The Magicians of Caprona and obviously knows Christopher quite well by the way she greets him, so I figured out that she was the same Elizabeth that was taught with Conrad and Christopher and such.
Bernard is the man in Charmed Lives that is described as a "small man with large eyebrows and a loud voice" that talks about stocks and shares.
Excerpt from The Lives of Christopher Chant: "I am in the middle of arranging with the Ministry to bring a number of young enchanters here to be trained. At the moment, you know, I am only able to employ them as domestics – like young Jason the bootboy over there – but this will shortly change."
So that explains who Jason is.
I hope I got those three right, or at least what could be probable as them as young adults.
I couldn't who Henrietta is, so I have given her a personality of my own choosing. If anyone does spot her in the books though, let me know and I'll see if I can fix things. Now go on and read and review.
Chapter One: Mama Knows Best
Millie entered the bedroom to find Christopher lying on the bed on his back worrying the gold ring that hung around his neck from a chain between his thumb and index finger with his eyes shut. He gave the distinct impression of one who has just tripped and fallen to his current position and then not bothered to get up.
"Hello. Where have you been that you're so tired?" Millie asked with a faint smile. She was sure he was not too worn-out. It would take quite a bit more than a little trip to another world, if that was where he had gone, to wear down Christopher Chant completely.
The future Chrestomanci did not open his eyes to reply. Instead, he blew a long stream of air and sighed, "Series Seven."
Millie's eyes widened in surprise before she said, "You touched their silver?" Series Seven silver had the oddest effect on Christopher of all the Related Worlds. After a little while in contact with it, he tended to look like death.
"Yes, Conrad would have had a time levitating me out of a silver mine," Christopher remarked. "Too bad he was here. He could have been of use in that maze of silver."
Millie smiled slightly. It had taken quite a bit to get Christopher to stop calling their friend Conrad Tesdinic from Series Seven by his uncle's last name, Grant, which he had used in Stallery Mansion as a disguise. "Grant isn't even his real last name," Millie had hissed. It was Conrad who always made Christopher see sense though. He calmly threatened to call Christopher by the plain false last name Christopher had used when he was looking for Millie in Stallery Mansion, at the same time Conrad was there, because she had run away from school and he did not want Gabriel to find him.
"What induced me to choose Smith?" Christopher had said in disgust, but after that he had called Conrad by his proper first name.
Christopher's words finally sunk in. "A silver mine?" she repeated with alarm.
"Yes," said Christopher with a wry smile. "I must say I was at least not as ill as I was when I was trying to be back in Stallery."
"Are the effects gone?" Millie asked. "And what in Ash – I mean, why were you called to there of all places?"
"I am the official field Chrestomanci since Gabriel is getting on in years," Christopher sighed. "I'm the one they call now for these stupid tasks. It's just my luck that the one on Series Seven had to do with a disturbance coming from a silver mine."
As it was her first day back from school for the holidays, Millie was surprised Christopher had left his new position out of his letters to her. She had strictly ordered him to tell her everything that went on at Chrestomanci Castle, even if it was only to tell her that their fellow magic students Jason and Bernard had had a cake eating contest and gotten terribly sick afterwards.
"I'm sure Gabriel could have sent someone else after you realized that," Millie noted.
Christopher gave her a bland look that said quite plainly what he thought about asking Gabriel for help. "You would rather be sick?" Millie asked with her hands on her hips. Her straight brown hair had been piled on her head in some sort of fashion she had learned at school that term and her dress was neat and prim and full of petticoats, but she could just imagine herself as the little girl again in the Asheth temple with her many bangles and jewels and feet-sticking spells staring down Christopher in much the same way as she did now.
Christopher shut his eyes again. The ring dropped from his fingers, and for a moment Millie thought she imagined his hand shaking. "I will let you know when the room is quite done doing its silly dances around my head," he groaned.
"But there isn't any silver in here," said Millie. "Why are you still sick?"
She went over to his bed and brushed the dark hair away from his forehead and then smoothed her hand against the skin. There was a little crackle of magic, in which Christopher swore and Millie cried out and snapped her hand back to cradle it in her other one, and then there was a knock at the door.
Christopher waved at her to get the door, while he went to look at his forehead in the bathroom. He managed not to trudge his feet much, Millie noticed, though she could tell he was almost too tired to stand. She wondered about that as she opened the door, calling to whoever was outside, "Yes?"
"Oh, Millie," said Bernard said with a smile as if he expected her to be there. "Is Chris there?"
Christopher poked his head around the bathroom door looking a bit greener than Millie remembered from a few seconds before and said, "Good Lord, don't call me that. It's almost as bad as your calling Henrietta 'Little Red Hen!' Now what is it?"
"Elizabeth and Con are entertaining two folks downstairs," explained Bernard. "Do the names Miranda and Cosimo Chant mean anything to you?"
"Oh God," said Christopher among other things. "I think I might actually be sick now."
Millie watched from her place into one of the peepholes looking into the Little Drawing Room beside Elizabeth and Conrad with mild surprise as Mr. and Mrs. Chant greeted their only child. Christopher seemed to have hair as glossy as his mother's and to be as tall and dark-haired as his father, even though Cosimo's hair was streaked with white. It was very apparent where Christopher had gotten his handsome features by the smooth, wrinkle-free skin of Miranda Chant.
However, Millie found that she did not like Christopher's mother at all. She could not place why even later when she was discussing it with the two other older girls in the castle, Elizabeth and Henrietta. There were a handful of other young magic-wielding girls in Chrestomanci Castle, but none that Millie got along with so well.
Christopher had on his vaguest look, one that Millie had begun to call his I-am-pretending-I'm-in-a-world-far-away expression, as Cosimo Chant asked him questions about how his studies were coming and how much work Gabriel de Witt was giving him.
"No one has the right to be so pretty and over forty," whispered Henrietta, as she appeared and looked over their shoulders into the room at the three Chants. She was red-haired and petite with very wide blue eyes behind big spectacles.
"We came to discuss the family, darling," Miranda Chant said, as she sat elegantly in a purple armchair with her white skirts spread out around her.
"Yes," added Cosimo. "As you know, your cousins Francis and Caroline are getting married – "
"Against the family's wishes – " interrupted Miranda with a scornful grimace.
"We don't agree with their decision, but we do agree with the result," said Cosimo. "I've checked the horoscopes – "
"Even though those things are so unreliable – " sighed Miranda.
"And we have decided that it's time you married as well – " Cosimo continued with a weary glance at Miranda.
"To keep up the family name, you know, darling," Miranda said.
Millie saw Christopher's shoulders tighten slightly, but otherwise his I-am-pretending-I'm-in-a-world-far-away expression stayed in place. Millie felt rather as if she would ignore everything she had ever learned in finishing school and hitch up her skirts and run screaming at Miranda Chant if she said "darling" again.
Instead, she turned from the peephole. Bernard and Henrietta were whispering out farther in the hallway. She could hear snatches of "Chris…stupid lad…trying…" from Bernard.
"Do you think…what if he…Millie – " Henrietta abruptly cut off her sentence when she saw Millie. "So what is going on in there?" she asked, while indicating the Little Drawing Room with a nod of her head in its direction.
"I think Christopher's been betrothed," said Millie with a bit of effort. At the horror-stricken looks on Bernard and Henrietta's faces, she added, while trying to reassure herself as well as them, "Isn't that great for Christopher? I mean, he'll finally be out of our hair, and we should be happy for him for that too. Well, I should be happy for him, but..." Millie trailed off and finished her sentence in her head, Drat! Why am I thinking like this! I don't like him that way
"They can't think Chris would – " began Bernard when he had gotten over the shock at the same time Henrietta gasped, "Why on Earth would – "
At that moment they were interrupted by a boy sliding down the banister of the main stairway towards them shouting, "Look at me!"
When Millie was sure he would crack his head open if she did not help him, the boy vanished and reappeared at her side. She let out a relieved sigh at the same time as Bernard. Henrietta just smiled and said, "You naughty boy, Peter."
"You three are just no fun, sissy," said the boy with a grin. He then vanished again.
Millie shook her head. It was such a change to have so many magic-using children in the castle. When she had appeared in the castle cold and wet with only a kitten as a companion so many years ago, she had been quite sure that nothing could make the castle come to life. It had been so stiflingly and forbidding, but now she could easily call it home with children like Henrietta's five younger brothers (all of whom had just learned transportation and were using it every chance they could as long as Gabriel was not around).
"Millie!" hissed Elizabeth, as she made motions with her hands to come back to the Little Drawing Room peepholes.
Complying, Millie was met with the sight of Christopher arguing with his mother. "I am not marrying her," Christopher said with a tense set to his mouth that showed he was repeating himself. Later, Elizabeth would explain to Millie that Miranda and Cosimo had met a distant second cousin of the emperor of Japan and his daughter, Gin Leiko. The daughter had been arranged to be Christopher's fiancée.
"Christopher, you must. I have already arranged for her to visit you here," Miranda insisted. "She is just the nice, pretty, well bred girl you need."
Millie could have sworn she felt Miranda's eyes on her then, even though she was hidden behind a wall and only her eye was visible if you squinted right at the peephole, but when she searched the pretty face for any sign of this, there were only a sweet smile playing on Miranda's lips that was directed at Christopher imploringly.
"She's almost as bad as the Countess, well, Dorothea Brown, I mean," sighed Conrad with a slight grin. Millie nodded in agreement. She found Cosimo Chant not much better. He was standing behind Miranda's chair looking firm.
"You will be married to the woman we have chosen, son, just like my horoscopes show," Cosimo said.
For a moment, Millie thought Christopher might just lose his temper, but instead he stared coolly at his parents with an expression that was not in the least bit vague. "I'm sorry I'm going to disappoint you both so much," he said. "I thought that maybe you had given up with worrying over my fate since I'm going to be the next Chrestomanci. I guess that isn't quite high enough of a status for your darling, right, Mama?"
Millie was sure there would be screaming next, but all there was instead was Miranda giving Cosimo a look that told him to talk more sternly to Christopher. Cosimo gave Christopher a placating smile and said, "Come now, son, your mother and I only want what is best for you."
Christopher did not reply. He simply vanished in much the same way as Peter.
Millie found him much later. Miranda had wondered aloud for hours what Gabriel and his horrible, stiff people had done to her respectful little baby to make him talk to her insolently, while Cosimo had explained the engagement of Christopher to Gin Leiko to Gabriel de Witt. By the extra pinched set to Gabriel's lips, Millie was sure that he highly doubted that Christopher could be forced into an arranged marriage.
Millie doubted it too. When she found Christopher, he was worrying the gold ring on the chain around his neck in his hand again, while he stared out the window of the tower he had furnished for her when she had snuck into his room from Series Ten. He did not look so much vague as anxious, she noticed. When he realized she was there, Christopher quickly tucked the ring and chain under his shirt and turned to face her.
Even with his vague look, he still appeared troubled, as he asked, "Have my parents vanished to Series Eleven and now having a battle of stubborn wills with the Dright?"
"It's a good thought," said Millie, "but I'm afraid it's just one of your daydreams."
"I don't just daydream when I'm thinking," Christopher protested. He seemed to be cheering up though.
"You could have fooled me," said Millie. "Half of the time I swear you're off on Series Nine lost in some hot jungle when we're trying to talk to you."
Christopher gave a wry smile and said, "Never with you, Millie. When you're around I swear I am at full attention… unless you one day have a large tome of Magical Theory and are therefore in cohorts with Gabriel. Then, I would wash my hands of you."
Millie found herself grinning at him. She felt like an idiot. It was just that she liked bantering with Christopher, if only because it made him act a bit more like he was present and attentive. She was about to reply to him when Elizabeth appeared at the top of the stairs. She was leading a young Italian man by the hand that she had told Millie just that morning, upon Millie's return for the holidays to the castle, was Antonio Montana, a member of a spell-house in Caprona, who was visiting England on holiday.
Elizabeth froze at the sight of Christopher and Millie standing side-by-side at the window looking at her and said, "Oh, Millie, this is Antonio, remember? Christopher, meet Antonio Montana."
"It's a pleasure," said Christopher. Millie could have sworn that as his grin grew, Elizabeth's face became redder.
Antonio was thin and dark-haired. He smiled at Christopher and Millie and said, "Elizabeth just wanted to show me the view from up here."
Even Millie did not believe him. She had taken to reading the young adult volumes of the Millie books, such as Millie of Lowood High, Millie and the Boy Next Door, Millie and the Passionate First Kiss, and Millie of Lowood University. Christopher had gotten her the last one and several others as a beginning of term present for her when she had returned to school in the fall that year. He had sent it to her dormitory with a card that read:
I was looking for something lacking in slush for myself, when I stumbled upon these. Think of this as another payment for Throgmorten. See you during the 'hols.'
Yours,
Christopher
The signature had nearly blinded her. She supposed he had been practicing it again or had made it that way just to surprise her.
The young adult Millie books had taught her that girls and boys sneaking off together tended to be more than friends. Though, I am alone with Christopher a lot too, she thought suddenly. But that's totally different!
"Well, you two get on with that star-gazing," Christopher was saying when she was attending again.
Millie followed Christopher out of the tower and down the stairs. She glanced back at the last moment to see Antonio and Elizabeth at the window in the same spot she and Christopher had been, but the difference was Antonio had his arm draped over Elizabeth's shoulders and she was leaning her head on him.
Smiling, Millie reached the bottom of the steps a few moments later to see Christopher vanish before her eyes. She was surprised before she realized he must have been needed on another world. He had looked so tired, but she did not muse over it for long. Several screaming girls ran by her just then.
They were not as loud as they could have been if the castle spells had not been in place, but she still felt it her duty to keep them from disturbing the peace of the castle so much. She held up her hand to freeze all of them in whatever act they had been in with their feet stuck firmly to the floor just as one had been preparing to cast a spell on another girl that would have made the girl's skin green.
The caster, a pretty ten-year-old named Rachel with a very strong gift of physical manipulations, such as skin color changing spells, had been about to jump as she had been casting, so she was now caught with one foot stuck to the ground and the other in midair. Millie smiled and said, "Come now, Elizabeth is up there wooing a man, your disturbances are more of use together to bother her than to bother each other. Is that clear?"
Several of them, being young enchantresses, tried to fight the thick netting of spell holding them in place to nod their heads, but you did not fight a trained enchantress's magic. Millie unfroze their bodies and unstuck their feet. She grinned as they raced quietly up the stairs to the tower.
A chorus of "Eww! They're kissing!" came from upstairs with a shriek from Elizabeth, followed by "Elizabeth and Antonio sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
Feeling much better about her first day back in Chrestomanci Castle then she had at hearing Christopher was to be betrothed, Millie strolled down the hall. She did not even mind much when later that evening Elizabeth found out it was Millie who had set the children on her and Antonio and furiously scattered Millie's book collection throughout the castle and put strong misdirection spells on them so that Millie could not use magic to find them.
A/N: Now that you've read this, let me know what you think in a review please.
Next chapter: Meet Gin Leiko, Christopher's 'fiancée.' Millie gets jealous when Gin uses some of her strange foreign spells to impress Christopher, while Henrietta, Bernard, Conrad, Jason, and Elizabeth try to get Millie to take action.