"Robin, there's something I want to ask you."

Odette had tried all morning to come up with a graceful, gentle way into the conversation she was about to have, a conversation that would not be easy for neither her nor her niece. So when realizing that there was no easy way to have the conversation, she decided to speak plainly.

"We're going to have a lot of conversations that start like that, aren't we?" Robin asked, smiling a little.

For a moment, seeing the playful smile on Robin's face, Odette wavered. She considered not asking the question that she had been holding in all night.

"Robin, what happened to your mother? What exactly happened to her?"

Robin sighed.

"To be expected, that you would want to know, I suppose," she whispered, more to herself than to Odette.

"I guess I'll just tell you the whole story, but I've held it in for a long time, so bear with me. It happened late fall, last year, about a week after the barn was burned. I was going to leave for the city, where a friend of my father's lived. I was going to stay with him for a while, as my mother put it. The truth was that neither one of us knew when I would be back.

"I didn't understand why I had to go, but Mother was so adamant about my leaving as soon as possible that there was no arguing with her. She was like that sometimes, you know, a little stubborn. Once she made a decision, she couldn't be moved from it.

"That morning, she woke me up so that I could get ready to go. She planned to leave me with my father's friend and go back home, and then she planned to come back for me when she was ready. As much as I begged her to explain what was going on, she wouldn't. She never said a word, but I knew her intentions were good. Her intentions were always good, but it was hard, not knowing what she was thinking.

"Just before we were going to leave, a man on horseback, a lot like the one from the other day but taller and somehow more imposing, showed up. We saw him dismount and approach through the window. Before I could react, Mother told me to hide. I protested, but she was severe, which was out of the ordinary. She never raised her voice to me. I didn't dare disobey her that morning, although I wasn't quite sure why.

"There was something in her voice that I thought I'd never hear. Fear. She was scared, actually scared. I never before believed my mother could be afraid of anything, but, sure enough, she was terrified."

"Of losing you," Odette said, finishing Robin's thought.

Robin nodded. "As a child, I guess you don't really know what you mean to your parent, but that day, I caught a glimpse of how immense her love for me was. Anyway, I hid in a wardrobe in her room. It was just big enough for both of us to hide together, but, to my horror, she wasn't going to hide with me.

"'This has been my problem for a very long time,' she said when I asked her why she wasn't hiding. 'I cannot run away from it.' I don't know, to this day, what she thought she could do, but I think she would have done anything to save me. Then, not a second after she said that, the man came into the house. Through the crack in the wardrobe doors, I watched everything. I saw the immense hatred in his eyes. I'd never seen such malice coming from anyone.

"I knew, the moment I saw him, what he was going to do, and as scared as I was, my mother didn't flinch. She stood tall, like the hero stands before a dragon in those old stories she used to tell me, and she asked him one question: 'What do you want?'

"He asked her if it wasn't obvious already. She scoffed and told him that he was wasting his time. She didn't have what he wanted. He didn't care. Whatever he wanted, he wanted to take it from her by force. So, even though she didn't have what he was looking for, he had every intention on killing her. So he did.

"In his hands, he formed a red ball of fire. I was so frozen that all I could do was watch when he… Well, you get the rest. When he finished the deed, he left quickly, without another word, but I swear he glared at me while I was in my hiding place. The moment I knew he was gone, I ran to my mother, crying. I was surprised to see that she was still alive, but only just. We both knew that she wasn't going to make it, but she spoke to me in her last moments, and gave me the best advice I'd ever received.

"'I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, but Robin, you must know that I love you more than anything else in this world. So, as my last request, there is something that you must never do: hate. Don't hate, Robin. If you hate, you lose yourself. You lose your humanity. You become cruel and evil, everything your father fought against and everything that destroyed most of my family. Don't hate, little songbird.'

"Every bit of what little strength she had left went into those last words, and I've tried to stand by them, but it's hard now, as it was back then when I saw the light leave my mother's eyes."

Oddly enough, even with the tears rolling down her cheeks as she recalled everything, Robin felt better. It was like her heart had been relieved of a great weight. As a matter of fact, she forgot that she was telling the story to someone else. She thought she never would because it was too painful. However, talking about it, remembering how brave her mother had been made Robin feel like there was still hope in the world. When she looked to Odette, Robin saw that she too was crying.

"I'm sorry," Odette said, wiping a tear. "I'm sorry that happened to you."

"So am I. I miss my mother terribly, but… I don't think she'd want me to mourn forever, like I have been for the past year."

"But you were alone. All you had was her memory and those thoughts."

"But now I'm not alone," Robin said, reminding her. "And talking about her, telling somebody else how great my mother was… it makes me feel better, better than I have in a long time."

"Happy to oblige," Odette said, laughing a little.

Robin laughed too. She was sure that, somewhere, her mother was laughing too.

"So, why did you want to know?"

"I wanted to know more about the man who murdered her."

"He'll be coming for me soon, won't he?"

Odette nodded. "But he won't get you, I promise. I'm not going to let him have you."

"What will you do?"

"I'm not sure yet, but don't you worry about that. I'm sick of people hurting my family. I didn't know Gwen, but she was my sister, my family, and you, you're my niece, again, my family, and the only one remaining. He's not going to get you."

"You sound like her," Robin noted. "You sound as brave as she did."

"I'll need to be as brave as she was."

"I think you can manage."

"You certainly have a lot of confidence in me."

"How can I not when you sound so confident in yourself?"

Odette smiled. "Thank you. That means a lot, it really does."

No one, other than Derek, had ever shown real confidence in Odette before. Now, here was Robin, looking like she felt completely safe after Odette made her promise. It felt good to know that not everyone thought of her as just another pretty face.

"Well, uh," Robin started, breaking the silence, "since we're both pouring out our hearts, can I ask how this man is connected to you?"

"He used something called the Forbidden Arts, a type of magic that's so terrible that it drives people who hate one another. He worked with a man called Rothbart who, when I was eighteen murdered my father."

Odette told the rest of the story and then told her about Clavius and Zelda. Robin listened to it all without a word, and, like Odette had when Robin finished her story, she was crying silently too.

"Why?" she asked. "Just… why?"

Odette shook her head. "I'll never know. They were all taught to hate by Rothbart. I thought we had finished when Zelda died, but I was wrong. I wanted so badly for it to be over that I didn't really consider the possibility that there was another person like them."

"It's hardly fair! My mother didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. King William himself didn't do anything! Why are they coming after us?"

"I don't know what started it all, but I do know that it's not going to stop until everyone who uses the Forbidden Arts is dead. The trouble is, I don't want to fight, and I certainly don't want Derek to fight, mostly because it wasn't his fight to begin with. The only reason he fights is to defend me. So every time it comes up, we're on the defensive."

"I can see how nerve-racking that might be."

Odette nodded. "We're not going to look for these people. It would feel wrong."

"We'd be as bad as they are," Robin said.

"Right," Odette agreed. "And we're not lowering ourselves to that."

Robin smiled. "You really do sound like her."

XxX

Derek had been doing a lot of thinking about Robin and Gwen and Odette. Everything had happened so fast that, while Odette was talking to Robin, he was finally getting a moment to himself. Sometimes, however, a moment to himself wasn't what he needed. He needed to talk to someone.

So, he found his mother and Rogers, who were already talking amongst themselves.

"Something wrong, Derek?" Uberta asked as he approached.

"Nothing in particular," he said.

"Don't lie to me Derek, I know better," she replied, striking a motherly tone.

He smiled. "I suppose I am a little worried about Odette and Robin."

"Why?" Rogers asked. He, having only served Derek's family for most of his life, wasn't as informed about the Forbidden Arts as Derek was. In fact, not even Uberta knew everything that was going on with Odette's family's enemies.

"The day we brought Robin here, a man burned down her house. The same thing happened last year, a week before her mother was murdered."

"Gwen was murdered?" Uberta asked, surprised.

"You didn't know?"

"You didn't tell me. You haven't told me very much, Derek." Uberta wagged a finger at him, letting him know that she did not approve of his silence on the matter.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I don't mean to be secretive; I've learned my lesson from that, but I am worried because the man who murdered Gwen will come for Robin and Odette. Their family has been fighting the Forbidden Arts since before even King William could remember and he's just another link in the violent chain."

"And you're worried that you can't protect Odette again?" Rogers asked.

"I don't want to go through this a fourth time, but I'll do anything for Odette and Robin."

In many ways, he felt responsible for Robin's safety. She was family, more importantly Odette's family, and Odette loved that girl. So if Odette loved her, so did Derek, and he would protect her just as fiercely as he would protect Odette. He would, but he didn't want to.

Both Uberta and Rogers could understand why Derek would be so worried about fighting the Forbidden Arts again. Twice, he had nearly lost Odette, and once, he had nearly been killed, had it not been for Jean-Bob.

Uberta certainly didn't want to lose her son and daughter-in-law. However, she knew Derek would try harder than anything to keep Odette safe, and now that Robin was there, he would protect her too. Derek would place himself in immediate danger if it meant keeping them safe.

She knew this, but it was hard to know that her son was, once again, in danger.

Talking to him, asking him to be careful would do nothing. He was set on his goal to make sure Odette and Robin were safe. The man who murdered Gwen was coming.

The only question was when.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank my lovely readers for the nice reviews and for putting up with how long it took me to update. So, thank you.

-The Phantom