"Wait," Erika said, just as Arsenio was about to begin.
He looked at her quizzically, but closed his mouth.
Dominick turned to his wife, similarly puzzled.
"It's getting late," she said. "It must be nearly time for dinner. This can wait until tomorrow."
"Alright," he said, giving Arsenio a sidelong glance. "Is our guest going to stay here tonight?"
"I'll show him where he can stay," Sebastian growled, moving forward.
Arsenio stood up, bowing to the king, and swiftly left the room with Sebastian on his heels.
"I know you want to put me in the dungeon," he said quietly, once they were in the corridor. He stayed within the guard's reach, but kept moving. "But I must ward the castle. It won't take very long, I assure you."
Sebastian's eyes narrowed.
Arsenio sighed impatiently, wending his way through the corridors he knew were empty. "I could get out of the dungeon to do it, but I don't want to break your trust."
"You're assuming that I trust you."
"I do not assume that. Would you prefer I say 'So that you do not trust me even less than you already do, which is not at all'?"
Sebastian made a noncommittal noise, so Arsenio continued on his way until they were outside. The had just set, and the grounds were bathed in twilight.
"What does it even mean, warding the castle ?" Sebastian asked gruffly.
"It means this ," Arsenio said, touching the wood of the doors they had just exited.
"Nothing happened," he said, unimpressed.
"Magic doesn't have to be flashy, and watch magic usually isn't," Arsenio said, but he repeated the motion, this time allowing a subtle white shimmer to spread from his handprint and then fade. He usually hid the visible aspects of magic whenever possible, but if it helped Sebastian feel like he was actually doing something useful, then so be it.
As it was, Sebastian made a surprised grunt. Arsenio shrugged and began walking around the castle, touching the stone at strategic points.
"What are you even doing?"
He considered for a moment. "I'm purifying the building and the land around it, I suppose you could say. It should—and, I emphasize, should —prevent anyone who is associated with the darker aspects of magic from entering. This includes Reina, and hopefully Preminger, given that his powers would derive from her blood magic. It should have no effect whatsoever on any other humans."
"You don't know if it will work?"
"I know it will work on Reina , but as for Preminger, I have no idea. I have never specifically tried blocking anyone that she's bespelled."
"You could have tried it on that farmer. The one she swapped for Preminger."
"She didn't give Peter any powers. The only thing I could have done would be breaking the glamour she put on him, which wouldn't do any good."
"And why not? Why shouldn't Aurelia be on alert now that that treasonous bastard has escaped?"
"Because he didn't escape." Arsenio stopped and turned to face Sebastian. "He was let out! How would you begin to explain that, without magic? In a way that wouldn't make Aurelia's guard look incomptent? And besides, our one advantage right now is that Preminger doesn't know that we know he is coming. We are not sure where he will strike first, yes, but we are on alert. Hopefully, Reina is ignorant as well, although I am less optimistic about that. She knows much more than she ever says."
Sebastian lapsed into silence, so Arsenio continued on his way around the castle. He had covered nearly half of it by now.
"I still don't understand why Reina hasn't come after us herself," he said finally, and Arsenio's step faltered.
"I don't understand it either," Arsenio admitted.
"She must have something else in mind besides sitting back and watching you flounder."
"Maybe, maybe not. She sometimes tries to play mind games with me. The point could be that there is no point." He shrugged.
"Could she be trying to distract you from something else?" Sebastian suggested. Ever the strategist, he tried to puzzle it out. "If she knows how you operate, she could know that you would immediately come to our defense... which could leave something else vulnerable."
Arsenio shook his head. "The four of them—Anneliese, Julian, Erika, and Dominick—have been my focus for over twenty-five years. I think of little else. There is nothing she can distract me from ."
"So you say," Sebastian said, but he wasn't convinced.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, and when they had come around again to the front doors, Arsenio marched through them and then weaved the corridors until they came to the dungeon, which was empty and unguarded, as they had no prisoners at this time.
"Where would you like me?" Arsenio asked politely.
Sebastian chose one at random, taking its key from a hook on the wall and then opening it. Arsenio walked in and sat himself on the cot. Sebastian shut the door and locked it, although he knew there was no real point.
"Are you going to come and get me in the morning, or will you tell Dominick to come down here? I believe he will have some free time in the morning, after breakfast. He may be a little surprised to find me down here, but that all depends on what you and Erika tell him beforehand."
Sebastian wasn't listening; he was staring at the key in his hand. "You could really just unlock this door and walk out?"
"Yes." Arsenio declined to mention that he could also walk straight through the bars, if he so wished, or shrink himself to fit between them, or a number of other solutions.
"Then why are you letting me do this? Why are you playing along?"
"I want to make you comfortable. I can do little else for you." He shrugged.
"Why does it matter if I'm comfortable? I'm not your charge."
Arsenio blinked. "Well, no. But I still like you, regardless. You're Dominick's closest friend, his most trusted confidante. And you saved his life. I have been meaning to thank you for that, but I didn't know when to bring it up."
Sebastian's fist closed around the key.
"I was going to do it," Arsenio said softly. "I was going to teleport—appear here, in an instant, although I was in Aurelia at the time. I didn't know what the fallout of that would be, how I would ever explain it—to Dominick, to you, to anyone—but I was going to do it. I wish I had. I wish I had stopped Marisol from ever coming here. I should have. I knew that I should have! But I knew that Dominick was meant to be with Erika, so he would have to break up with Marisol eventually. I just... I never thought that it would come to that . I stood by and let it all happen, because I believed that destiny would sort it all out." He buried his face in his hands. "I know that you blame yourself, sometimes, when you lie awake at night." He raised his head. "You shouldn't. It's my fault."
Sebastian took a step back, and went he felt the bars of the opposite cell pressing into his back, he slid to the floor, flabbergasted. He had never said that out loud, not once. He had never even told Dominick, although he had come close once or twice. He had wanted to apologize for standing by while his king, his friend, his brother , had been so obviously in pain. But he didn't know how to bring it up, when Dominick so desperately wanted to move on and pretend it had never happened at all.
He had been furious, hearing Arsenio's story, hearing how carefully he crafted his manipulations while being so careless with his so-called personal life. But he was just a man, wasn't he? At the end of the day, no matter how magical, how powerful, how hollow, how much he tried to deny it... He was just a man, trying to do the right thing, trying to guide fate the way he had been bidden. He was as much someone's puppet as humans were to him.
Sebastian thought that, one day, he might grow to respect that.
But not quite yet.
Arsenio, for once, did not appear to be reading his thoughts, because he said, "I know that you were thinking about killing me. Unfortunately, there is nothing I know of that can accomplish that, or else I might let you. Maybe not yet, given the situation, but once everyone is safe, I'd give you the go ahead."
Sebastian shook his head. "Forget about killing you, is there anything that can kill Reina ? I assume she'll have to die before this will all be over."
This seemed to pull Arsenio out of his melancholy. "That... is a good question." He paused. "I hadn't considered that. May I have the night to think it over, or do you want my best guess as of now?"
"Think it over. I'll want an answer when I come back for you in the morning." Sebastian hefted himself to his feet. "And what about that weasel, Preminger?"
"Preminger is only human. She can give him certain abilities, but I doubt she will bother protecting him magically. He is easily replaced as an assassin and I doubt she will want to keep him as an ally."
Sebastian nodded, then exited the dungeon, pocketing the useless key.
"What do you mean, Marisol's father?" Dominick cried, looking between Erika and Sebastian.
They were in the royal bedchamber, after breakfast. Erika had sent Sara away again, telling her to go and learn from the seamstresses today. She was extremely concerned, but Erika had told her she had nothing to worry about. Dominick had been badgering each of them about the stranger all night, and into this morning, and Erika had finally answered him.
Erika and Sebastian looked at each other, not sure what to say.
"He really is Marisol's father," Sebastian said. "Either that, or a very convincing imposter."
"I don't think he's an imposter," Erika said quickly. "He knew too much to be one."
Dominick wrung his hands. "But what does he want ?"
"About that..." Erika explained about Preminger's escape, and Reina's involvement. Dominick looked like he was going to be sick.
"If this is a joke, it isn't funny."
"I'm not joking, Dominick," Erika said. "Arsenio is magical, and he can prove it. If he's magic... Then what he's saying has to be true, too. He has no reason to lie to us. Actually, he has every reason to lie to us, given—but the point is, I don't think he is. I think he's telling the truth."
Dominick looked at Sebastian pleadingly, willing it to be some cruel prank they were playing. Sebastian shook his head sadly.
"Then Preminger really is... And Reina... Oh God. Oh God ." He buried his face in his hands. "What have I done ?"
"You didn't do anything," Erika said fiercely. "This isn't your fault!"
"But it is , don't you see? I brought Marisol here, and now her mother wants to kill us all! You're in danger because of me ."
"I would like to see an assassin that can get past me," Sebastian scoffed.
"But a magical assassin—listen to me, talking about magic like it's real! It can't be real! I don't believe it!"
"We'll go and see Arsenio, and he can prove it," Erika said, standing up.
Dominick stood up shakily, and Erika looped her arm through his, holding onto him firmly. Sebastian walked on his other side, ready to catch him if he pitched the other way.
They made their way down to the dungeon, during which time, Dominick kept saying "Magic" under his breath scoffingly.
"If you're not ready for this, we don't have to do it," Sebastian said when they reached the door of the dungeon.
Dominick rolled his eyes and pushed open the door.
Arsenio sat on his cot, in the same position except reading a small book. It seemed to be making a ticking noise, but that faded when he snapped it shut and stowed it in his inner vest pocket.
"So," Dominick said appraisingly. "These two tell me that you're Marisol's father."
"That is true, unfortunately."
"They also say that you're magical ." He said the last word with great disdain.
"That is also true."
"Prove it," he demanded.
Arsenio looked at Erika. "Will the same stunt suffice, or would you rather I do something new?" She shrugged, so he performed the same trick, turning himself into a single blue rose and fluttering to the floor.
Dominick fainted, but Sebastian and Erika both caught him, lowering him gently to the floor. Arsenio moved forward, but kept himself from escaping his cell out of respect. Dominick blinked back to awareness a moment later, anyway. He looked around, and felt very embarrassed realizing what had happened.
Dominick raised himself to a sitting position, staring into the cell at the rose.
"Arsenio?" Erika said.
Arsenio went to answer her, but he didn't have a mouth. Oh, right, he thought, and he released, reforming into a person.
"How...?" Dominick said breathlessly. Erika dabbed at the sweat on his forehead with her handkerchief.
"Magic," Arsenio said simply, although it wasn't really that simple at all. But he wasn't about to bore them all with magical minutiae.
Dominick looked at Erika and Sebastian, and they nodded.
"Before we go any further, may I suggest any appointments the king and queen have today?" Arsenio said, trying to be helpful. "As you know, this explanation takes a few hours in its own right, and I have... rather more to say to Dominick than I did to either of you. You could say that you are ill."
Dominick stared at him, unseeing, for a long moment, and then nodded.
"But if I'm ill, people will wonder why I'm not in my bedchamber..." he said, almost to himself. His mind was somewhere very far away.
"We can go there," Erika said soothingly. She stroked his arm reassuringly.
"But—"
"He will not harm you," Sebastian said forcefully. He got to his feet, then helped the king and queen stand. He unlocked Arsenio's cell, and the procession began moving its way upstairs.
"I'll tell Sir Victor that we're sick," Erika said. "He can tell the council and the staff." She peeled off from the group in the foyer, and Dominick stared after her, unseeing.
Arsenio worried whether Dominick would be able to handle this. He was already reacting poorly, and he knew only a small piece of it. Maybe he ought to wait a bit? Or would it be better to get it all over with in one go?
They reached the royal bedchamber, and Sebastian deposited Dominick in a chair. Arsenio wondered whether he should sit, too. It wasn't as if comfort mattered to him, but would they be more comfortable if he did?
Sebastian looked at Dominick, slumped in his chair, and then to Arsenio.
"I think he's going to be alright," Arsenio supplied in an undertone. "But I don't want to begin until Erika is back to support him. She should be back in between seven and ten minutes. It depends on whether Wolfie comes in from the garden."
Sebastian nodded, pulling up a chair besides Dominick's.
Ten minutes later, Erika arrived with Wolfie in her arms. She sat beside Dominick, and Wolfie leapt from her lap to his. He startled, but as Wolfie began kneading at his leg, he smiled and scratched him behind the ears.
He looked up at Arsenio, then at Erika. She took his hand. He squeezed it, and said, "Alright, so... Tell me whatever it is you need to tell me."
Arsenio hesitated.
"I can handle it," Dominick said, sitting up a bit straighter. Wolfie jostled on his lap and meowed indignantly.
Arsenio nodded, and launched into the same story he had told yesterday, which realized he still had to tell—with minor edits—to Anneliese and Julian. He wondered how it was possible for him to feel so tired when he didn't sleep.
He explained about Marisol's powers, but skipped the part about the beginning of her manipulations, and moved instead to the beginning of his machinations in Dominick's life, of which there was really only one of note: his meeting Erika.
"But wait," Dominick said, speaking for the first time. "You said that you had no idea Preminger was going to kidnap Anneliese."
"That's right," Arsenio said. He had known that the man was ambitious, and that he was having his men steal from the mine, but he had never guessed as to what purpose.
"But then how was I supposed to meet Erika? I only met her because she was pretending to be Anneliese."
"There were a number of ways I considered. I thought of trying to get you to visit the town for some reason, or having Erika deliver a dress to the palace—usually, Madame Carp did that herself, but I could have easily given her some reason to pass the task off. In the end, it was unnecessary, because Julian ended up bringing her."
"But then how are you responsible for it?" Erika said, suddenly skeptical. She hadn't thought about that yesterday.
"I didn't say I was. I was only supposed to ensure that it happened; if it happened naturally, so be it, less work for me. And if you really want to get technical about it, I got Julian to the palace, and he got you there, so I am responsible, albeit indirectly." He tried not to sound offended. He wasn't exactly proud of everything he had done, but setting up couples to fall in love was as innocuous as any matchmaker, and he wanted that credit, as selfish as it was.
Neither Dominick nor Erika had any other comments, so he continued with his story— their story, really. He explained how and why Reina had let Preminger out of Aurelia's dungeon.
"But don't you care?" Dominick said suddenly.
Arsenio blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Aren't you angry at me, for sending Marisol away? Why don't you care about that, the way Reina does?"
Arsenio would have laughed at that, if he hadn't been so shocked. "I thought I made it clear that I... am not Marisol's biggest fan," he said carefully. "She told you as much, trying to gain your sympathy."
Dominick winced. "I thought... I thought she was exaggerating. Do you really hate her?"
"Don't you?" Arsenio said.
Dominick fell silent. Erika looked at him curiously, but squeezed his hand.
"More charitably," Arsenio began, "my feelings for her are... deeply complicated. She is both my biggest mistake, and my greatest creation. I wish, most often, that she had never been born, and that is a cruel, ugly thing to say about one's own child. But she has caused you such harm. And she feels no remorse. I know that you have wondered."
Dominick looked up, stricken.
"When I went to Spain to ward her prison, she asked if I was there to get her out. I asked her if she understood why she was there in the first place, and she laughed . She stopped laughing when I told her that I was not going to get her out, and I was in fact there to keep her in . Then she started screaming about how I had never loved her. And she may be right about that. I think I did my best under the circumstances, but perhaps she is right, and I never truly loved her, and it's my fault she turned out this way. But do you think that justifies her cruelty? Do you think that gives her the right to lash out at you when you wouldn't give her what she wanted?"
Tears pricked in Dominick's eyes, and he swallowed.
"I am so sorry, Dominick," Arsenio said, but that could not begin to convey the depths of his remorse. "I am sorry that I inflicted Marisol on the world, and that I stood by and allowed her to hurt you. I could have stopped her—"
"So could I," Dominick said miserably, tears slipping down his cheeks. "I could have sent her away the first time she hit me, but I... I just couldn't. I wanted her to love me. I thought she wouldn't do it again. I thought that every time, right up until—" He swallowed, pressing his lips together to keep from sobbing.
Arsenio began to protest, but suddenly Sebastian spoke up: " I should have stopped her."
Dominick rubbed his eyes, staring at his page. "What?"
"I could see the bruises," Sebastian said flatly.
"I told you—"
"I knew that you were lying. I felt it in my bones. But I let myself believe that feeling was false, and I tried to believe you, because I thought that if you were really in trouble, you would tell me. I thought that you trusted me enough to let me help you." His voice cracked. "Why didn't you let me help you?"
Dominick swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. "I... I didn't want to admit I needed help. I'm the king! Everyone depends on me! I'm not supposed to show weakness!"
"And I'm supposed to protect you! How can I do that if I don't know you're in danger?" Sebastian cried.
Dominick's lip quivered, and he finally broke down into sobs. Sebastian put his head in his hands.
Erika felt helpless, but she rubbed Dominick's back in soothing circles, just trying to be there with him. There wasn't much more she could do.
Arsenio stared at the three of them. This had not gone at all like he thought it might.
When Dominick seemed to have reached an emotional plateau, his sobs morphing into hitched breathing, Sebastian finally looked up. "I didn't mean to accuse you of—I just... I've held my tongue for three years, trying to let you move on. But I just... You weren't the only one feeling helpless back then. Your father entrusted your life to me when I was fourteen years old, and I've taken it very seriously ever since. It was— incredibly difficult for me to learn that I really had ignored my better instincts, and stood by while someone hurt you. I'll never forgive myself for it."
"Don't say that. It isn't your fault," Dominick said tiredly; all that crying had left him spent, and he didn't have the energy to fight about this, although he would have liked to.
Arsenio was about to agree, but Erika suddenly spoke up: "I don't mean to be rude, but I think you're all wrong."
They all looked at her, with varying levels of confusion.
"This is all Marisol's fault," Erika said. "You each keep saying you could have stopped her, but she could have stopped herself , too. She didn't want to. You said it yourself, Arsenio. You said she doesn't even feel bad about it. Why are you all tearing yourselves into pieces trying to take the blame?"
"I—" Arsenio, began, but she cut him off: " You asked Dominick if he thought Marisol was justified, but do you think that? Even if you did mess her up, even if you were a terrible father and you hated her her whole life, do you think that excuses her behavior?"
He fell silent.
"Well?" Erika said. "Do you?"
"That's different," Arsenio said.
"How is it different?"
He ticked things off on his fingers: "Because I have magic , because she wasn't even supposed to be born , because—"
"That doesn't sound different to me. You tried to help Marisol learn to control her magic, didn't you? You tried to get her to stop using her powers when you saw how they were consuming her, didn't you? Short of killing her, what else could you have done? She chose to keep using them. She chose to hurt Dominick, and not just once, but repeatedly . She chose. I'm sorry, but I don't think it matters if any of you three could have done anything. She made her own choices." She turned to Dominick. "I want to help you move on from this, Dominick, I really do. I want you to feel better. But I can't sit by while you go around in circles trying to blame yourself for something that isn't even your fault."
He gave her a faint smile, and she looked to the other two men.
"That goes for you two as well. Sebastian, you saved Dominick's life, don't forget that. And as for you..." She faced Arsenio. "Everything that happened is in the past; let's try to deal with the present, shall we? We have rather more pressing matters to attend to, like, I don't know, the fact that I could be murdered at any moment by an invisible assassin. Can we focus on that instead?"
Arsenio nodded.
"Now, Dominick, please don't be offended when I say this, but you look terrible." She smoothed his hair. "I think that you should take a nap."
"A nap? I'm not a child, Erika," he said indignantly.
"Will you at least lie down? You are taking a sick day."
"I don't think Arsenio finished his story," he said.
"He has said enough for today," she said dismissively.
Dominick looked to Arsenio, but he shrugged; his dire message had been delivered, and the castle was warded. There wasn't much to do now but wait for Preminger to show his hand.
"I'll lie down with you," Erika said enticingly, putting her hand on her husband's knee, and he smiled in spite of himself.
"Sebastian, will you take Arsenio back to the dungeon? I'm going to lie down for a few hours," he said, suddenly quite happy to change his tune.
Sebastian's mouth twitched, but he complied, leading Arsenio out.
As they made their way downstairs, Sebastian finally thought to ask: "What was that book you were reading, earlier?"
"My dossier. I was hoping it might update."
"I thought you weren't going to listen to that thing anymore?"
Arsenio shrugged. "I am still curious as to whether anyone is keeping an eye on me, or if I truly am getting away with all of this. But if I was watching me, I wouldn't tip my hand, either, so it really is quite hard to tell."
Sebastian nodded absently, not really wanting to think about who would watch the watches. "Did you think of a way to kill Reina?"
"I tried," he said apologetically. "But with her magic, she is effectively immortal."
"Well, can we take her magic away somehow?"
Arsenio missed a step and toppled down the stairs. Sebastian hurried down after him, but Arsenio hopped right up from the heap he had landed in, completely unfazed.
"Sebastian, you may be onto something! I think... Maybe ..." Arsenio tapped his chin. "It might just work! I don't know if I'll have enough time... Or if I even can ..."
"What are you on about?" Sebastian asked, bewildered.
"We'll need someone to do the actual killing," Arsenio mused. He looked at Sebastian appraisingly. "I suppose you'll want to do it?"
"I don't want to," he protested. He did not take any pleasure in killing, not even when hunting. "But if I need to, to protect Dominick and everyone else? I will. Absolutely."
"Good. I don't have the nerve, and my being there may not help anything, anyway."
"But how will I do it? You said she's immortal!"
"That's the brilliance!" Arsenio said excitedly. "Anneliese is going to help you!"