Several months later…
"I'm not sure about this, Jean," Halcyon told her as he fluttered anxiously around her, disturbing the leaves of the bush she'd been diligently attempting to prune while Jean fought the urge to sigh. Truth be told she wasn't sure, either, but something had to be done.
"Aren't you the one who's always looking for more excitement?" she answered him, trying her very best to cast their situation in a brighter light. "Just think of it as an adventure."
"Sailing to London would be an adventure," Halcyon protested. "This is scary, Jean."
It was, Jean thought, the scariest thing she'd had to face in quite some time. The very prospect of what she meant to do alarmed her, and carried with it the potential for disaster, but she could see no other way.
"We'll get to meet new people," she told him; Halcyon did so enjoy meeting new people, learning their stories, hearing about where they'd come from. "We'll get to find a new place to live, and decorate it however we want." To a point, she amended in her mind. Jean's savings were not insubstantial, but they would not stretch to purchasing a new home for herself. She would have to find a room to rent, or perhaps a little house, if one could be found, and likely her new landlord wouldn't approve of her painting the walls or laying fresh carpet or anything of the sort, but she could buy some new furnishings, dishware, that sort of thing. Most of her own belongings had been sold off when the boys left town and Jean moved into the Blake residence, and all that was left to her now were the things in her little bedroom and a few boxes stowed away in the attic. She'd no kitchen table, no chairs, no sofa. Perhaps she wouldn't need them; perhaps she'd only rent a room, or perhaps she could find a place that came furnished. Still, she thought, she could put some personal touches into her new space.
"It'll be a fresh start."
"I don't want a fresh start," Halcyon protested. "I like it here, Jean. This is our home! What will we do, without Mattie and Osiris to talk to? And what will become of Lucien if we aren't there to help him? Nemea can't look after him all on her own."
"Doctor Blake is perfectly capable of fending for himself," Jean said, a bit more sharply than she intended. Privately, she wasn't sure that was true. Privately, she feared he'd ruin himself the moment she stepped out the door. "And he can't be our primary concern. We have to look after ourselves, Halcyon."
And we can't stay here.
It wasn't that Lucien was cruel. As an employer he was indifferent at best; he let Jean do as she pleased, took no note of her comings and goings and never complained when she spent his money on the necessities for the running of the house. As a man, though, Lucien was...something else. He was wild, and unpredictable, and selfish, and lovely, in all the ways he shouldn't have been, and just being near him made Jean nervous. Everywhere he went he stirred up trouble, and he would not listen to reason, and his smile made her stomach flutter. The situation, Jean had decided, was untenable. Sooner or later he was going to do something to get himself fired from the police surgeon's position, or run off all his patients, or both. Sooner or later he was going to burn the whole bloody house down with his experiments. Sooner or later he was going to smile at Jean one time too many, and she had no idea what might become of her when he did. The ladies at the church had already begun to whisper, discreetly, about Jean living alone with such a notorious and handsome bachelor - they always seemed to forget that Mattie lived beneath his roof as well, or perhaps they did not think a young nurse who was busy seeing to her own affairs was sufficient as a chaperone - and Jean simply could not allow that to continue; if the talk carried on it might turn nasty indeed, and then his reputation would be ruined as well as hers, and then where would they be?
No, it would be best for all of them if Jean removed herself from Lucien Blake's proximity sooner rather than later. And if she felt a twinge of sorrow at the thought of not seeing him and his proud daemon each morning, if she worried endlessly what might become of him without her there to look after him, she was just going to have to suffer those disappointments. Her livelihood depended on appearances, and she could ill afford to get tangled up in Lucien's darkness. A new hotel was opening up in town and they had need of housekeepers, and would provide Jean with a steady income and perfectly acceptable working hours, and really, she told herself, this would be best for everyone.
Wouldn't it?
"I don't want to leave Nemea," Halcyon said, and by now he was very nearly pouting.
No, I'm sure you don't, Jean thought darkly. Truth be told, that worried her, too. The lion and the kingfisher had developed an affinity for one another that bordered on the outrageous, and Jean was loath to be seen in public with Lucien, lest Halcyon forget himself and flit too close to Nemea, lest someone see how their daemons were drawn to one another. Where the daemon goes, the man must follow, that's what people said, and if anyone were to witness the fondness between Nemea and Halcyon they would whisper about Jean and Lucien, too, and she could not bear it. It felt like the most shameful of secrets, reminded her of being young and wed too quick with her belly grown big too soon after, and the raised eyebrows and derision that had followed her in those days had left scars that lingered still, all these many years later. No, it would be best for all of them if Jean left.
"It'll be all right," Jean promised him. "You'll see."
I hope.
Lucien's mood was grim as he approached the police station. Anzac Day was looming, and always brought with it a host of painful memories. Two soldiers had deserted and every policeman in Victoria was on high alert looking for them, and that poisoned his mood, as well, for he knew what it was to be a soldier who had lost faith in his work, and yet could not cease it. To add insult to injury Jean had decided to leave him, and Nemea had been short with him ever since she'd made that announcement, as if it were somehow his fault that Jean no longer wished to remain in his employ. Maybe it was, but by God he'd no idea what he'd done, or how he could possibly go about setting things to rights.
Nemea stalked silently by his side, close enough for him to reach out and rest his hand on her great head, if he wished; oftentimes when they went out she remained glued to his side, brushing against him with every stride, her golden eyes watchful and wary, looking always for signs of danger, ready and willing to throw herself between him and whatever foe waited for them in the shadows between the buildings. Ballarat was hardly a dangerous place, but Lucien and Nemea had been separated once before, and they had neither of them truly recovered from the pain of it.
"Lucien," she said to him very softly as he walked. "There's someone watching us."
Every muscle in Lucien's body tightened; he did his best to carry on as if nothing were amiss, but he cast his eye around warily. There were a few people about, but none of them seemed to be paying him any mind, and no one at all stood on the pavement between him and the entrance to the police station. As he drew nearer the door, however, he saw it; two shiny black eyes were watching him from behind one of the brick columns out front. They were very low to the ground; whatever creature they belonged to, it must have been rather small, but the sun cast a long shadow behind the column, and he could not make out the creature's face. Those eyes, though, held an intelligence that made him think he was not looking at some animal; this, he thought, was a daemon. And where the daemon goes, the man must follow; whoever belonged to that daemon, they must have been close by. Hiding. Waiting.
As Lucien saw it he had two choices; he could pass close by that column and pretend nothing was amiss, or he could call out to the creature, and perhaps catch it off guard. Perhaps that would be best, he thought. Let man and daemon both know he would not be easy pickings.
"Hello, there," he called, looking directly at those eyes, and suddenly the creature moved, darted between that column and the next and then scampered easily up it until it was right at eye level with him, clinging to the brinks, and Lucien swayed to a stop just in front of that column, hardly daring to believe the truth his own eyes told him.
"Lilith?" he asked, thunderstruck.
"Hello, Lucien," the stoat answered. She was brown from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail, but her belly was white, from her chin all the way to the underside of her tail. There was a reddish scar beneath that soft white fur that marked her; he might not have recognized her at all, were it not for that scar.
"What on earth are you doing here?" Lucien asked. He looked around eagerly, but saw no sign of the man who should have accompanied her, the man who had once been as good as a brother to Lucien, though it had been more than a decade since they'd seen one another. Something grim and uneasy settled low in Lucien's belly as he searched for and yet did not find his old friend; wherever his friend was hiding he was much, much farther away from his daemon than he had any right to be. Oh, Nemea sometimes prowled the house at night while Lucien slept, ever watchful for signs of danger, but out on a public street like this she never would have left him alone. In fact she had stepped in front of him, positioning her heavy body between Lucien and the little stoat, looking up it with an unreadable expression in her eyes.
"Company business," Lilith answered smoothly. "What are you doing here? The last we heard you were on your way back to Paris."
"That was a very long time ago." And it had been; he'd gone to infiltrate a group of Malaysian expats, but the work had gone disastrously wrong, and he had been quietly let go from Army intelligence not long after, much to his great relief.
"Where on earth is Derek?"
Lilith wound herself up and down the column, moving sinuously and carefully avoiding Lucien's gaze. "Inside," she said. "He has business here."
And what business do you have loitering around outside without him? Lucien wondered. It was most unheard of, but beyond that it was dangerous; suppose someone came along and tried to hurt Lilith, or took off with her? What would become of Derek then? What was he thinking, letting her out of his sight? Why would he even want to?
"Can I go inside with you?" she asked. She'd arranged herself precariously on the column, little claws digging into the brick, and turned her head upside down to gaze at him curiously, the stark white under her neck almost alarmingly bright.
"Why of course."
Lucien thought she meant to simply walk in with them, but she scampered quickly down the column and ran right underneath Nemea's legs, so close to her vulnerable belly that the lioness bared her teeth and growled in distress, but in the next moment Lilith had found purchase on Lucien's trouser leg, and she scaled his body easily until she could settle herself comfortably on his shoulder.
There had been a time, once, when her willingness to be so close to him would have warmed his heart. They had slept on the jungle floor together, all four of them, Lucien and Derek and Nemea and Lilith, all of them holding one another, terrified of the dark. They had shared a bunk in Selarang, and Lucien's hands had stitched her belly as tenderly as they had done Derek's when a Japanese bayonet very nearly spelled the end of both friend and daemon. Now, however, the weight of her on his shoulder made his blood run cold.
Something was very, very wrong.
