Eric & Fernanda, 1219-1220 CE

by The Modern Typewriter

Eric de Clermont has spent the last fifty years overcoming the losses of his human life and coming into his own as the young son of Hugh de Clermont. Back in the 21st century, Addison has spent the last six months trying to make sense of her mind and the world around her. Finally getting back on her feet, the last thing she wants or needs is a trip to 13th century Spain.

8. Winter, Needlepoint

Chapter Eight: Winter, Needlepoint

Once, when they were boys, Sorley and Lindon found themselves at the mouth of a cave. They were on the coast of their island home in the Hebrides where the winds were rough, and the tides were fierce.

And as they'd ventured across the length of the beach and faced the mouth of the dark and mysterious cave – an entrance to some unknown world – they determined that they were just as rough and fierce as the land that had birthed them. They were the sons of Vikings. And their clan had long lived as one, inseparable from the violence here that nature wrought.

With the weight of their ancestors at their backs, and their own youthful thoughts on pride and valor, the boys had pressed on.

Pressed ever forward into the dark of the cave.

They ventured in just to see, really, how far they could go. And to prove they were stronger and fiercer and tougher than all the other boys of their village.

What they hadn't anticipated in their hubris and their youth was the rapid rise of a high island tide. What they hadn't anticipated in their shortsighted adventure was the crash of white water on the rocks above them and the swirling flood of black seawater that rolled in after them and chased them further inside.

They were meant to die that day. Even in his next life. Almost eighty years on, Eric would swear by that fact.

A rat had run past them and Sorley – quick on his feet even then – was fast to follow the cunning creature. He could still hear the desperate screech of the animal as it fled the waves. Could still hear the echo of his own footsteps ricocheting off the rock walls of the cave, and Lindon's frantic breath over his shoulder, barely reaching his ears over the roar of the vengeful waves.

He watched the rat and followed it, until it scurried up the smooth surface of the cave wall, and disappeared through a hole high above them, a cavern in the rocks. It was just big enough to squeeze through, but too high to jump. The water had reached their knees before Sorley had stopped his frantic leaping, taken a deep breath and told Lindon to step up. Told him place a foot in his own shaking hands where he clasped them and held them low.

Even if he was meant to die, it did not mean his friend had to die too. Lindon had only paused for a second. But when the current near swept him off his feet, the blonde set his jaw and allowed Sorley to give him a boost.

Sorley had strained under the weight of his friend, but pushed on anyway, lifting him higher until he caught a firm hold. He watched as Lindon disappeared into the cavern, straight in after the rat. And then he turned and watched the tide surge in again. Pushing and pulling him and threatening to steel from him his footing as the water grew higher and higher still.

Try as he might, he could not resign himself to the fate he was surely meant to meet that day, and then there was a hiss.

A shout.

And the pelt of a pebble on his head from somewhere above him.

He flinched and jerked his head up to see Lindon hanging halfway out of the hole.

"What are you doing ye radge wee shite?" The blonde had shouted down at him, face twisted in exasperation and fear. "Jump and grab on."

Sorley had stared up at him in shock, before shaking himself and doing exactly that.

He jumped three times. And he could swear he felt the cold breath of Satan at his back. He could swear he heard a voice chanting in the language of God, but he knew not the words they spoke or their meaning.

And then his hand met Lindon's and their skin slipped from each other, cold and wet and unstable as they were. And each boy dug their nails into the other's unmarred wrists, fighting with all their might to stop the drag of Sorley's body back down into the swirling tide below.

And then, by some surge of strength that should not have possessed him, Lindon let out an animal yell, and hauled Sorley up and through the hole.

They laid there, listening to the pounding of their hearts and the rolling of the waves and the frantic screeching of the rat as it ran around the only dry place in the flooded cave, scratching desperately for a way out. And they breathed, the two boys and the rat that saved them, breathed because they didn't how long left they had to do so. And they didn't watch the waves as they crashed in and rolled away. Refused to watch as the water continued to rise. They did not speak or cry.

They simply made their peace with whatever fate was bound to come their way. And the boys prayed. Prayed that whatever was to come for them, wouldn't come on this day. Prayed that their efforts had paid off.

Sorley didn't know how long they stayed there, trapped together in the hole in the cave. There was no way to know how much time had passed or, in the darkness, whether the water level had risen or fallen, but eventually even the rat settled. And it found a place to lay beside them. Sorley and Lindon and the rat survived that night, somehow, stuck in a hole in the sea flooded cave.

For as long as humans have walked the earth they have been drawn to such places as caves – equally fascinated and reviled by these portals to the underworld. These entrances to the place beyond.

They served as a reminder to all who were living that one day there would be an end, and their bodies would return to the mysterious earth and their souls would be unbound.

And caves served, in their way, as a reminder to him. Served as a reminder that while the ground upon which he stood was his to command, there was always something else beyond him that cared little about the power of his reach.

Eric's mind often turned back to that moment when he was young since he'd become who he was meant to be. He thought about it during his change. When Hugh and Fernando had dragged him to a cave much similar to the one before, on a beach on an island off the coast of the land that had birthed him. Just a day's sail away from his ancestral home.

Never in so many years had he been so close to his birth mother and father than in those days in the cave when he gained a new father and a new name. And he had grieved for himself and for those he left behind. Had raged against this new life he had been given, and the man who had done the giving.

He didn't know about the rest of the world around, but he had seen enough to venture a guess, that all humans everywhere were tied by the happenings beneath their feet. Were tied to the land underneath that went untouched and unhindered by the civilizations that resided above.

Caves, Eric thought, acted often as the bridge between the land above and the land underneath. They were the gates to another realm, the bridges between what you thought you knew and all you had yet to realize.

Now he stood at the mouth of a cave. Balder at his back. And a bad feeling weighing down on his mind.

Caves were places of half death in the mind of Sorley Maclean, and now, as Eric de Clermont, he felt that sentiment would remain very much the same. Behind him was his family's mountain home. To his front was the great gaping void that had faced him and taunted him and tempted him since he was a boy.

He no longer had anything to prove. He no longer felt the same urge for adventure, for adventure's sake. He had lived long enough to know how to be wary. He had lived long enough to know not to tempt fate.

They had tracked Benjamin here. And yet here is where he evaded Eric's men most of all.

There were no tracks. No scent. Nothing at all to indicate the presence of a living being.

And yet, each knight had come to him and told him of the cave. With their own eyes and ears and nose, separate of each other, they determined that there was a significance to this place. That Benjamin had been here.

Idir had told him something stirred there in the night, and he had heard the sounds of a woman's voice speaking earnestly to a man.

Balder said he had smelled blood, but when he'd pushed in there had not been a single drop, nor a single body.

Guillaume had simply told him he had meditated for a time and God had spoken to him of a cave. And so, he had gone off into the wilds and there just up the mountain, in almost perfect alignment with the northeastern wing of the manor – Fernanda's chambers – he found one.

Three men – who were more than men – all on their own came to this conclusion here. And they had ventured in, together and apart to see what the cave would bring. And it brought nothing.

It was barren of all life.

And that was it, wasn't it? The thing that brought Eric here now.

Every manjasang knew what it was to be the creature other creatures feared.

Every manjasang knew what it was to stand still long enough in place that the birds ceased their song. Every manjasang knew what it was to be the thing that sent the small creatures scattering. That made them still their own breath, while the large prey of the valleys and fjords, mountains and hills, all raised their heads to look in whichever direction they sensed the danger came.

The cave was barren of all life, in a brutal winter, that never ceased its wind and snow.

Where were the hibernating bears? Where were the woodrats and the foxes?

No one was here, but neither was Benjamin.

The skin on the back of Eric's neck prickled. He turned.

Someone was watching them.

"You feel it too?" Balder asked him in a low murmur.

Eric scoured the bleak mountainscape. Eyes methodically picking and unpicking every rock and every tree while Balder moved further into the shadow of the cave.

This was the perfect place for Benjamin to hide.

Just there in the distance was La Ithuriana, and with his vampire's eyes Eric could watch the world of the manor house as it ebbed and flowed. He could see as a maid tied back the curtains on Fernanda's window, and a flash of heat spread through his chest and burned its way down into his hands. He itched for his blade, and let out an inhuman snarl at Benjamin's chosen view.

He had been here. And now—

A flash of black and Eric tracked the movement with his eyes. There, down the mountain, a cloak billowed and disappeared from view as its owner made his rapid retreat

Benjamin.

Before Balder could turn back around, the de Clermont made his move.

---

What is justice? In the Platonic teachings, justice is inherently tied to the soul. It is a matter of knowing your place and doing your part. It is the matter of a social contract, and the idea that one must not do harm. In the Platonic teachings justice is neither an eye for an eye, nor a hangman's noose.

Hugh had been a student of many philosophies in his lifetime, and he knew how to twist his mind into all manner and pattern of thought. But the world was more complicated than a philosopher's existential thinking. The world was more complicated when you factored in creature dynamics, murder, those who have been stolen from the world and their surviving kin.

Every morning when the sun rose, Hugh de Clermont spent a short time gazing into a small mirror he kept in his pocket. Considering himself and all the lives he has lived, and all those he must one day live.

Every morning Hugh asked himself who he would be that day.

He was a man of many faces and names. Today would he be a student of Plato? Or would he be the son of Philippe? Would he be the placid witness to human suffering, or the purveyor of justice as the king's law commands? Would he dole that justice with a bite as done in the world of manjasang, or would it be the gallows' pole as human law dictates?

For every moment of every day, with every new person, and every new complex set of circumstances, he begged the question. Again and again, he consulted the mirror, and he took stock of his soul.

Two men dead and his land was roiling in blood and snow. Two men dead and his son's response would have been a siring. Two men dead, and a scarf clenched in each fist. Fernanda's scarves, of which they had now received four.

Four scarves, no Benjamin.

He had pieces of her, and he sent them back to the family one by one – a stark foreshadowing of what was yet to come.

Another knife twisted into the imagination of his son, and held to the throat of his lover's daughter.

Each scarf was a threat to another human child. Another living being. Each scarf was a threat to the de Clermont.

Each death, an insult to Hugh.

He sneered and snapped shut his mirror. Tucking it away, back out of view.

Justice was not the same as law and order. One could not always live in a just world.

Benjamin had robbed them of four lives. And he sought to rob them now of another. One that would cripple his son for eternity. One that would—

"Father," Eric said, as he strode into the room. "I lost him."

---

When in doubt Hugh tended to err on the side of those who had been harmed. How could he do right by one person at a time. It was not a flawless ideal. It did not always place him on the right side of history, but he contented himself in those moments to at least know that he tried.

Now, he stood at the mouth of a cave with his son and Balder and a heavy weight on his shoulders, a heavy look in his eye.

Benjamin was erratic. And the trail he'd left them was deliberate. It made no sense. He had them running in circles. And still they were none the wiser to what he was up to aside from murder.

They needed to make a move. He grew quickly tired of the other man's games.

Hugh weighed in his mind how he could do right by those who needed just an ounce more of rightdoing. He considered how he could do right by the farmer's grieving family – by young Master Peiro and the widow Lorencia.

And then he considered how he could do right by Fernanda. By his son. He juggled the interests of his family against the interests of his mate and sought compromise and balance in every way that he could. How could he do right by his guests and his staff? By the king and the pope and the village and the rest?

First, he tracked his mind back to the original vein, the farmer.

He must bring Benjamin into custody.

He must end the violence the other man had wrought.

What he would do with Benjamin when they caught him, he would have to determine at another time, but even then, part of him already knew what must be done. He'd do in the end what his father had ordered. He would do here what Matthew could not do in the past.

He would end this madness before the madness ended them.

For a time, hereafter, they would appreciate a wave of peace because of it. There would be peace as a result of this mimicry of justice he now resigned himself to serve. He would relish the success of having done right by another, and for temporarily appeasing the balance of the world.

It would not be flawless, it never was, but the farmer's family would be at peace. Peiro would not live in shame. Lorencia would be able to heal in whatever way she could.

Fernanda would no longer be hunted.

Eric's honor would no longer be in danger.

And Matthew could rest his weary head.

The balance of the world would be restored. And then, one day again, madness would come knocking. The violent calls of violent men. And he would be there to meet it when it did.

---

He stood in the small, snowy cemetery, with Fernando and Eric and the families of the murdered men.

He bowed his head as the priest murmured the final prayer and extended his condolences once again to the family.

They thanked him profusely.

They were still confused by the kindness of their noble lords. It was not often the high born resigned themselves to grief for the common folk and villagers.

Hugh had simply bowed his head as mothers, and widows, uttered to him their tearful thanks.

He did not want their gratitude, though he accepted it with practiced grace. He did not want their shock. Their awe. Their self-deprecation and disbelief.

He knew who the killer was. His family was responsible for every death. And now Benjamin slipped through their fingers once again.

Eric had seen Benjamin. Just briefly as the other man fled. He had given chase. But even with Balder's superior nose and Eric's keen eyes, they lost him in the snow.

Blood rage did not kill these people. For Hugh this was plain to see.

He crossed himself at the grave and parted with the family. Fernando and Eric lingered behind to speak with the priest, before they too followed him back to La Ithuriana. He did not listen as his son and mate murmured at his back.

They spoke of a plan.

Of his plan.

He let them make sense of it as best they could.

His mind was on Benjamin. Benjamin and his blood rage and the failure of his family to stop him in his tracks.

The killer himself may suffer from a disease, and his frenzy may have been to blame in the past, but not now. These people died by way of another man's calculated efforts. Calculation and the clinical pursuit of something. Something he did not know.

Oh, he could guess, but Hugh did not lean heavily on the weight of conjecture. There was truth in the world if one sought to find it, and no other reasoning would do for one such as him.

What he did know, what he relied heavily on as the weight of the world settled down on him in the dawning mornings and the evenings' twilight hues, was this. If these were the frenzied ravagings of a sick manjasang, the eldest de Clermont son could be persuaded into sympathy.

He had seen the tortured years his younger brother spent, and continued to spend, trying to reconcile his soul with his own frenzy and chaos. Matthew was forever haunted by his fight for control, his lack of it and his subsequent penchant for the kill.

Hugh saw the guilt-ridden castles, built by blood and sweat. Built almost entirely by hand. He saw the church scaffolding from which the Matthew had fallen, when he was human and stricken by grief. He saw the murmur of his lips after every battle, the stiff way he held himself, covered in the gore of those who fell by his blade – or his teeth – and uttered over and over again his silent prayer. As he stood there after every death, praying to his God for a mercy – for a forgiveness – he would never grant himself in this life after death. Hugh could take all of these things and find a space in his heart that understood them. A space in his heart that held compassion for them.

Blood rage could be a vile thing. It could make beasts of many a fair-minded man. It could drive a sane man into madness, and a merciful man into cruelty. But it did not an evil man make. Not every time. Not everyone.

Blood rage was simply the mirror held up to the man who made himself. For some were victims, some survivors and others were twisted into the horrible something more.

In Matthew he saw penance and manipulation, and that sick creature-lust for the kill. This made him neither good nor bad.

But in the murders of his people. In the killings of the villagers Hugh was bound to protect and provide for—

Well, Hugh had lived many lives and seen many things the human eye could barely fathom and would never see. He could look on the happenings in the village now – the suffering and the violence, the fear, and the cruelty – and he understood those things too. Understood them in the way a lesser man could never admit to.

And because he understood them, he also knew without even a shadow of doubt, that they were wrong.

Benjamin's actions were wrong.

They were too calculated, too methodical, to garner Hugh's mercy. His sympathy. There was no guilt. No rage. No frenzy.

There was only a man choosing to do the wrong thing. And doing it again and again without remorse.

No, Benjamin may suffer from the disease, but the disease did not kill the farmer. The disease did not kill the farmer's child and leave her to freeze out in the cold. The disease did not tear at the miller's throat nor at the throat of the apprentice.

That was Benjamin.

And so, Benjamin had to pay for his actions. Whether it was justice or not, Hugh couldn't pretend to know. He supposed that was between the man and his God. And if the man had no God to speak of, then Hugh supposed the darkness that greeted Benjamin at the end would be as bleak and uncertain as Hugh was now on whether or not this would be justice.

---

As one does, Addison fell into a routine of her own.

Separate now from the rest of her household, she was firmly placed under Prudhomme's knowledgeable care. At least, that's how the others saw fit to describe it. She had a few choice words for the men who had inexplicably tied her to the watchful eyes of Satan's Mistress.

In the mornings she rose to the sound of curtains snapping forcefully back and the harsh cold of her covers being ripped from her body. Though a lady should always wait for a lady's maid to attend to her needs, it was also the gravest of sins apparently that Addison was always sleeping when Prudhomme came to wake her.

To be honest, she didn't think this was the same treatment Hugh's sister Lady Louisa had been treated to. In the way that one sometimes realizes distantly, and never really knows how to voice aloud in the moment, Addison got the distinct impression that her treatment by Prudhomme the Terrible was more than the simple tutelage of a young girl by her lady's maid. No, she believed this was a matter of her humanity and her melanin. This was a matter of the proprietary emotions of one traditional vampire servant for the venerable and mysterious de Clermont. And Addison was not quite making the grade.

Addison, with her dark hair and voracious appetite; her inability to speak the common tongue; and her almost heretical ignorance of Catholicism, did not measure up to Prudhomme's hopes for Eric and his family. And so, she was scrubbed harshly. Braided fiercely, with an excess of rough pulling and harsh pinning. She was reprimanded for breathing too loudly, for slouching, and for mispronouncing the series of prayers she was meant to say in several languages every day before breakfast.

That was her routine. Wake, wash, dress, pray.

Then there was eat, greet her household in the drawing room with practiced curtsies to Hugh, Fernando, and Eric, but not to Idir, Balder, or Guillaume. Then the table in the great hall was moved once again as it had been every day.

Addison had once meekly suggested trying another room so as to spare the servants an unnecessary chore, but Prudhomme didn't need to use the switch anymore.

She silenced her with a look.

Addison would then spend some time walking the length of the Great Hall. With her hands clasped in front of her, and then with her arms folded behind her back. The length and speed of her steps were measured and corrected. Her posture was often a point of contention, and on more than one occasion Prudhomme had stalked up to her, jerked her shoulders back to their desired place, and then stalked away, calling behind her a stern, "begin again!" as she did.

She didn't mind it so much though. At least in deportment, she could keep her body in motion and let her thoughts space out with the rhythm of her steps. She counted wood panels and studied grandiose paintings. She made mental notes of where the paint on the walls had begun to chip in one corner and wondered if that was something she should mention to somebody.

There was one loose floorboard that creaked when she stepped on it. And Addison had quickly and quietly turned this into a game, silently trying not to hit the floorboard without altering her pace or gait in a way that would attract Prudhomme's attention. She wasn't very successful at it. Prudhomme was a vampire after all and saw even the most imperceptible of things, but it kept her just this side of sane. So, the game stayed.

Art, it turns out, did not mean drawing and painting and fun stuff like that. She had excitedly asked Prudhomme about such things and, true to form, her tutor's lips had twisted harshly in their displeasure. She had shaken her head down at her student, scandalized, and uttered a long stream of words in Occitan that Addison did not yet understand.

"A woman?" she had gasped incredulously. "A woman learning the trade of men. You'll not speak such nonsense again," she had snapped. "I'll not be hearing it."

And Addison thought for a moment that beneath her disapproval the maid sounded tired.

At any rate, she hoped Satan's Mistress was tired. She wanted to exhaust the woman and make her as miserable as she seemed to make everyone else who did not meet her impossible standards. But Addison was careful to keep the smirk off her lips when she imagined Prudhomme exhausted and wailing to Fernando and quitting on the spot.

No, art was not sketching or painting. As apparently in this day and age, those were the sacred arts of educated men. Art for a young lady like Fernanda Gonçalves essentially meant handwriting. Calligraphy, to be more exact.

At first, they were unsure if Addison knew how to write. She had quickly demonstrated, proudly and a bit defensively, that she knew how to write and write well. She didn't know what had horrified Prudhomme more – the sight of her bubbly twenty-first-century lettering or the fact that her 'f's were 'h's on paper too. That she deliberately spoke and wrote Castilian the wrong way, and that the way she spoke was no speech impediment at all.

So, after deportment she was sat again and again at a small table in the middle of the Great Hall, tied to the back of her chair with a scarf, and forced to write lines. Over and over again.

They started with her name. And then her father's name. And then the names of every member of the de Clermont family. Then they moved on to geography, the names of places that were significant to her and her new family. Places she would be expected to know how to spell in the event she ever had to send someone a letter.

Addison didn't anticipate ever having or wanting to send a letter in this day and age, but she endured the lessons anyway, filing as much information away as she could. She was like a little, eavesdropping sponge these days, and had completely forgotten what it was like to learn without deception. Prudhomme told her what she needed to know, and Addison gladly took in every minuscule fact and rule she could get. And then gleaned the good stuff off of others when they didn't think she was paying attention.

She wrote in Castilian and Occitan primarily, and occasionally Portuguese. While they delved into Basque and Gaelic, Prudhomme seemed to stick her nose up at these languages quite a bit. Addison would learn them for their ties to the de Clermont, but Addison got the impression that Prudhomme saw these much like she saw Addison herself, uncouth and heathen.

She had a quill that was difficult to write with and prone to blotting ink all over her page, her fingers, and her dress. She swore up and down it was defective, but Prudhomme insisted on blaming her. Despite the difficulty and the unpleasant company, Addison had to admit... she liked using her brain. She'd missed it.

She liked the activity. She had been terribly bored before.

Then came luncheon, which she ate alone. She only ever had dinner with the family anymore. She didn't know if this was by their design or Prudhomme's, but it often made Addison frown. There was a hole in her chest most days where her sense of belonging had been only a few weeks before.

After curtsying to the family in the mornings and murmuring an appropriate greeting to the others who resided at La Ithuriana, Addison rarely caught even a glance of the people she lived with anymore.

She felt like she existed on another planet entirely, with a different rotation and orbit and atmosphere. And dinners had become increasingly more awkward affairs. With more to do than she had before Prudhomme arrived, Addison was uncomfortable to admit that she had significantly less tosay to everyone else when she finally was allowed to see them.

She still had the uncomfortable urge to fill the silences the group sometimes fell into around her, but what could she say? She didn't know what to talk about with them. And it made her heart feel heavy, and her skin prickle with some emotion she could not name.

After luncheon, came needlepoint. She started by learning a basic flower. But then had quickly moved on to ivy and vines, a fleur-de-lis, and the sun. By now she could probably sew an entire landscape scene if she really wanted to.

Addison had become quite proficient. Prudhomme had been more than surprised.

Addison; however, was not.

She had done plenty of mending as Malvina and had learned to enjoy the way she could lose herself in the motion. The give of the fabric, the pluck of the thread, the way it dragged through the tiny hole she had pricked in the fabric with her needle. She lost herself in it these days too.

It was the one thing Prudhomme thought she did right, and often left her alone for.

So, naturally, after this one tiny victory, Addison had to go and fuck that up too.

"What on earth have you done?!" Prudhomme cried out in horror, snatching up Addison's most recent cross stitch patterns and staring down at them with scandalized eyes.

"Heathen child you— you—"

"Forgive me, Mistress Prudhomme, I—" but Addison's heart leapt into her throat at her mistake.

She stopped and snapped her eyes up to Prudhomme, praying to God that her tutor hadn't noticed. But, as it turns out, God still wasn't on Addison's side.

Livid eyes rose slowly up to meet her over the handful of cross stitch patterns that had been snatched from Addison's lap.

Addison shook her head, eyes fluttering desperately for a way to remedy this mistake. But she already knew there was no remedy for this.

Addison, with her newly re-stimulated mind and her moments of alone time with only fabric and needle to keep her company, had also taken to thinking in French. It hadn't been intentional. But she was learning all these new languages and writing in them as well, and well... Occitan did have quite a few similarities to modern French.

She hadn't heard Prudhomme come into the room. Hadn't seen her until she snapped at her in her rough disbelief, and Addison, who had let her mind wander, had not thought to censor herself in her shock.

She had spoken in French. Not Occitan. Not Portuguese. Not Castilian. Or Gaelic.

She had spoken her French, the one she learned in high school.

The language they did not know she could speak. The language she had lied to them about.

Prudhomme's lip curled.

---

Hugh de Clermont was perched on the edge of his lover's desk. Fernando poured over a map of the mountainside, carefully picking out by memory every place Benjamin could possibly be hiding.

Hugh had just reached over to mark a spot his mate had missed, when a sharp knock sounded at the door, and Bourgine de Prudhomme shoved in.

Behind her, she dragged Fernanda by her wrist.

Hugh narrowed his eyes, both at the interruption and the rough handling. Prudhomme, seeing his displeasure, quickly released her charge.

He stood from his perch and drew himself to height behind the still seated Fernando.

"My lords," Prudhomme said.

Her face was at once twisted and self-satisfied, and Hugh quietly thought to himself that the woman had spent far too much time in Louisa's troublesome company.

She ducked low into a curtsy and sent a sharp look behind her to her student.

Young Fernanda looked nervously up at them.

She could barely meet their eyes as she ducked into a short, practiced curtsy of her own. She was up and standing tensely long before Prudhomme, herself, rose back up from the ground.

"I'm afraid I must inform you of some troubling news."

Hugh was careful to keep his face blank, but he could practically feel Fernando's frown as his mate leaned back in his chair, covering the map subtly from view, and feigning patience.

When neither of the men said a word, Prudhomme blanched and held up a handful of fabrics for them to see. Neither man looked down at the proffered objects, choosing instead to watch the lady's maid and wait for her to tell them what she insisted they need to know.

"Lady Fernanda," she said and shot a look at her tense little charge. "Has been partaking in heretical behavior, deception, and lies."

Hugh's face remained carefully composed. He suspended all response until he could fully understand the accusation and its veracity. Fernando's eyebrows, however, shot into his hairline as he studied the pair.

"Is this true, Fernanda?" he asked her.

The younger girl had turned to gape at her hissing maid, but snapped her face back to him when he spoke. Hugh watched as Fernanda visibly paled. She brought her hands in front of her to twist nervously.

In absence of an adequate response, the child looked up at him hopelessly and shrugged.

Fernando's face darkened, and Hugh fought hard to suppress a laugh.

---

Addison didn't know what to make of Fernando's displeased face, the words Satan's Mistress was hissing into their ears, or the gleam in Hugh's eyes as he regarded her from across the room. She brought a hand up to rub at her wrist where Prudhomme had dragged her and just as quickly dropped it when Fernando's eyes narrowed at the action.

"Here—" Prudhomme thrust Addison's cross-stitch patterns out to them, almost breathless as she spoke to them about her newfound revelations. "—is her needlepoint."

Hugh reached out and accepted the items from the lady's maid, Fernando did not move or acknowledge her.

He was watching his daughter. Sharp eyes cut into her and saw all the truths she hid under her skin. Addison fidgeted and wondered what it was he was looking for. Wondered what it was he could see, and whether or not she measured up.

She jutted her chin, and straightened her shoulders, focusing on the wall just past his head as she suffered the older man's scrutiny. In her periphery, she saw him arch an eyebrow and turn toward Hugh when the man held out one of the many pieces of evidence that had been brought against her.

"As you can see," Prudhomme continued. "She has sewn into her patterns heathen messages among the flowers."

Their eyes passed over the patterns and the odd words Addison had sewn into them in modern English. She had to hold back a snort when, despite the seriousness of the situation and the maid's accusations, Hugh murmured to Fernando, "her roses have become quite proficient."

Fernando cast a dry look up at her and nodded his agreement with his mate. She bit her cheek to keep from smirking as Prudhomme gaped.

She knew neither of the men understood the words she had written there. She knew the language they were written in didn't exist yet. And she'd go to her grave before she said some of those things out loud to them now.

How could she look them in the eyes and explain why she had inscribed You're never worthless, organs go for a lot on the black market, into a pattern of ivy and roses? How could she explain why I never finish anyth— was a personal masterpiece and the one she had been most proud of.

Hugh paused on one and held it up for her to see, looking both impressed and morbidly curious.

"An ouroboros?" He asked.

Addison cringed.

At the center of that one she had sewn a simple, You're fucked.

At the time, it had seemed appropriate given her circumstances. It had come after Prudhomme had dragged her through a hall of portraits, pointing out and naming every de Clermont family member and their significance to both herself and the western world.

It had been... interesting and educational to say the least. And she felt in her heart of hearts that this new world she'd stumbled into would quite literally eat her alive.

The next was a farm scene. A wheat field to be more exact. That one was a personal favorite, but as Fernando looked at it now, she couldn't help but cringe. There was no way in hell she could tell him to behold the field in which she grew her fucks, and she definitely couldn't tell him to lay his eyes upon it and see that it is barren.

She'd quite literally rather die.

No, she couldn't say that to the man who had adopted her as his daughter.

Next came the forget-me-nots with an eloquent, Girls just want to have fun-damental human rights.

And then another with a swallow clutching a snake in its tiny little claws with the words, Peace was never an option.

No, she couldn't tell them. She shook her head and couldn't stop the way her face twisted under their scrutiny of her work. She'd take every single one of these to her grave.

Subversive cross-stitch like this would be much more palatable with age. Like a fine wine, they'd learn to appreciate it with time. But now was not that time. Addison cringed. Now, she just needed to make sure her stupidity didn't land her in some sort of hellish medieval prison. Or a convent. That's what they did to girls these days, right?

Addison shuddered.

Nuns would eat her alive. She was not nun material. Not nun material at all.

She felt her stomach churn at the thought of whatever medieval interrogation tactics were reserved for girls like her who did not go to church and spoke in, what she was sure would be interpreted as, tongues.

Like a dream, she remembered Prudhomme snapping at her once. Remembered her saying that she was lucky Fernando hadn't bitten her yet for her insubordinance and Addison felt a wave of horror wash over her anew. It was easy to put it out of her head that they were vampires. They were practiced at hiding it and Addison was practiced at ignoring the precarious situations she found herself in these days.

But Prudhomme – she had no reason to lie when she told her vampires bit their young to force them into submission. That it was common practice to discipline the unruly in such a way. She felt her heart plummet when Fernando's frown grew even deeper still.

She averted her gaze from her father, eyes snapping up to catch Hugh's.

He was watching her, but he didn't seem upset.

Addison jolted when he shot her a wink.

Fernando shot the other man a dark look and fixed her with a stern one of his own.

She didn't know whether to shrink away from her father or smile up at the ever-indulgent Hugh. It appeared she had an ally.

Maybe.

Prudhomme, being the ultimate de Clermont fangirl and comportment extraordinaire, had not noticed these quiet exchanges among the members of the family. She continued on, reminding them of Addison's ignorance of Catholicism and her previous lack of prayer. She reminded them that Addison had worn her hair inappropriately and had run around the house like a childish savage until such time as they had begun to correct her. And then the death knell—the one Addison had known was coming but cringed around nevertheless—the piece of information that made even Hugh frown.

"—And just moment's ago, she spoke un langue d'oïl—"

"Un langue d'oïl?" Hugh asked in disbelief, eyes snapping back and forth between Addison and Prudhomme, sharp and curious. "Which?"

"Francien, my lord," Prudhomme sniffed. "She swore to both your lordships, and to me, that she knew no other tongue but Castilian, but now as we can see she has lied. And she has disgraced herself and your home—"

Hugh held up a hand. Prudhomme fell silent.

"Leave us," he said, and his voice was sharp. Prudhomme curtsied before turning for the door. Addison, uncertain, curtsied as well and turned to follow the lady's maid but Hugh's voice cut the silence.

"No, Fernanda" he said. "You will stay."

Prudhomme closed the door behind her. Hugh looked at the floor, lost in thought before glancing up and nodding at her.

"Have a seat, child," Hugh said.

And though she knew he was old, she found herself wondering just how old he was, and how he could sound so grave.

Fernando had yet to speak; he just watched silently their exchange. The room was flooded once again with the stench of Fernanda's fear, and he knew not what to say or what to think.

She was in trouble. She had to be, of course. But he wished she would not fear them. He wished—

"Tell me," Hugh started when she sat, only to shake his head and furrow his brow. "Or, perhaps, let me tell you..."

He leaned back against Fernando's desk and crossed his legs in front of him, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at her like the child she no longer felt she was.

"—how this situation appears to those on the outside, those like Mistress Prudhomme. Let me tell you how this appears to me."

Fernando watched him as he altered his approach. Addison sat there cowed before them, and she was reminded once again of the brooding classics professor she never had, but that Hugh most certainly would be in a different life. She was reminded of visits to the principal's office when she was a kid and felt scolded before he even truly began.

Hugh stood tall above Fernanda, even as he casually leaned on the desk behind him, and it was one of the rare times that Fernando himself could not tell if Hugh was acting in the capacity of a father figure or a de Clermont.

He frowned but didn't intervene.

The girl needed to hear how these things would be perceived by the rest of the world. She was playing a dangerous game, whether she realized it or not. And she seemed none the wiser about the world that would one day come knocking on her door. If he were to release her out there on her own as she was now, they'd burn her or drown her or bury her alive. They would see her foreign ways and cry heresy. They would see her foreign skin and cry savage. They would eat her alive. And that was the last thing anyone in this household wanted.

"You arrive here out of the blue, with no family or money to your name," Hugh said and ticked the items off on his fingers as he spoke. "You have an odd manner of dress. You walk like a man. You eat in an uncouth manner. You do not go to church, nor do you know how to pray. And now we learn that you have lied to us. You lied about the languages you speak, all the while listening to us speak on private matters in the very language you lied about."

With each piece of evidence brought against her, Fernando watched the young Fernanda sink lower and lower in her chair. She reeked of shame and discomfort. Her eyes shined with unshed tears and her skin flushed under the weight of Hugh's words. He could smell the shame and the salt, and he could hear the shallow breathing and rapid heartbeat that accompanied her discomfiture.

He pushed his chair back, stood abruptly, and regretted that the girl was startled by the sound and sudden motion. Hugh paused and looked back at him, in his eyes was the resignation that he needed to do what must be done for the sake of their family, for the sake of Eric, for the sake of the girl in the chair.

Fernando shook his head imperceptibly and Hugh ducked his head in silent acknowledgement. Drawing back from the exchange and allowing his mate to take over.

"Fernanda," he said, his voice stern.

She was hunched low in her chair now, chin tucked into her chest in such a way that her breathing was restricted by her fillet. He brought his hand up to tap at her chin with his fingers. "Sit properly please, before you faint."

With a steadying breath, she did as she was told, watching him with guarded eyes.

"What Hugh is trying to say, is that we want you to understand how to move through this world safely."

She frowned.

"Or at least, that's what he was working up to, I suppose," he grumbled and shot his mate a look.

The de Clermont merely raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Fernando sighed.

"And we know very little about you and your world, cariña."

She drew her lip between her teeth and gnawed on it viciously in her nerves.

"Eric mentioned that you are not of this place and time," he said.

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, and he wondered if she'd known that they knew.

"He told me that we would talk about it later," she said, and her eyes jumped from his face to Hugh's and back again. "He told me he believed me."

"He does," Hugh said.

She looked at Hugh.

"And that you..."

"We believe you too," Fernando said.

"We never talked about it again," she said.

Fernando frowned and pulled up a chair. Sitting down across from her, he brought his hands up to rub at his temples. With the arrival of Balder, Guillaume, and Bourgine de Prudhomme; the murders in the village; Benjamin; the theft of Fernanda's belongings; and the day-to-day the running of the estate, Fernando was only just realizing that they had not, in fact, spoken directly to her about the confounding circumstances that brought her here.

Oh, it had been discussed, to be sure. But aside from the night she confided the truth to Eric, it had completely slipped his mind to bring to discussion back to her.

Fernanda was a young, time-spinning human girl.

She was not of this place.

Not of this time.

And she was sprinting to keep up with a world and a family that were outpacing her by leaps and by bounds.

He met her eyes and she gazed up at him fearfully.

He shook his head once again – struck by the vulnerability he saw in her. She was alone in this world but for him. In the wake of her recent discoveries, and the many rapid changes the household was struggling to keep up with, he had forgotten a very important piece that came with being a father.

He had forgotten to reassure her.

"Fernanda," he said and reached for her hands. "Do you remember what I told you when you first arrived?"

She looked down at his hands which covered hers and looked back up at him in confusion. Her face scrunched as she racked her brain.

"I'm sorry?" She asked, shaking her head.

"When I asked you to be my daughter—"

She looked down at their hands and her eyes flooded with an overabundance of emotion. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were tired and full of tears, and she shook her head.

"I—I don't remember. I'm sorry." Her voice was rough, he ran a soothing thumb over her knuckles.

"I promised myself to your well-being, Fernanda," he said. "And to your happiness."

Her eyes dawned in realization, but her lips pursed, and she pulled her hands away. He watched her do it but kept his sadness to himself.

"You have been through more than most girls your age, I imagine," he said.

She refused to meet his eyes. Someday he'd ask her to tell him about her world, and about her time as Malvina but for now—

"In the last few months alone, you have journeyed through time—" this part he said with a pause, waiting for her nod of confirmation.

Her lip wobbled but she confirmed it. He continued.

"You have been reunited with a man you married fifty years ago, only to find he has a different name, family, and role in the world now. You have acquired a father—"

This part he said, and his voice was a bit teasing, and a bit self-deprecating too. Her lips quirked just barely, and he was graced with the sight of one barely suppressed dimple. Fernando smiled.

"And of course, most recently, you discovered the existence of vampires— The man you thought you knew to be twenty-six years old is now nearly eighty, and you are only—"

"Nineteen," she supplied for him quietly.

Nineteen, if that didn't just knock the wind out of him. Fernando sat back, rubbed a hand down his face and shot a look at Hugh.

But his mate appeared just as distant, and contemplative and imperious as he always seemed to be in matters that defied his depth of reason. He gazed out the window as he listened to their conversation, and behind his eyes a million puzzle pieces were sifting into place. Fernanda was a puzzle Hugh did not yet know how to solve.

Fernando attributed some of that to their own fatal flaw. Neither he nor Hugh, nor even Eric for that matter, had thought to discuss any of this with her personally. Not with any real effort. They were trying to solve a story they did not yet know.

Hugh, though, seemed for some reason to maintain his restraint. They could have that conversation now, but still his lover stayed back. Remained distant and contemplative.

Fernando, in the past, would have mistaken this for his mate being out of touch. Would have thought he needed to guide Hugh in the ways of mere mortals, as the de Clermonts oftentimes slipped into the stoicism of gods amid matters that perplexed them or left them questioning. In the past, he would have tried to bring Hugh back down to earth by initiating the much-needed conversation with his daughter now.

They needed what she knew, however much or little that may be. Fernando was well within his rights to learn it. But in the centuries he had known and loved Hugh, he knew that the look in the other man's eyes signified more than the aloofness he once would have thought it to mean.

Hugh was not being absent and discerning by accident. This was not a lack of social awareness, Hugh suffered from. There was something on his mind he had not yet unraveled. A concern he had yet to express. And his reticence, now, was indicative of something more.

Fernanda's situation was butting up against the de Clermont in a potentially dangerous way.

Fernando realized this belatedly and felt all the pieces fall together. A spike of concern pierced his chest. He fought the urge to scoop her up and run with her to a far-off place, safer than the one they had here.

Hugh's silence was protective.

Circumspect.

He was looking for a loophole. He was looking for a way to protect the de Clermont without compromising Fernanda. He was looking for a way to learn about Fernanda's situation without compromising the de Clermont. Without compromising his son.

And Fernando suddenly understood their predicament with a fresh wave of fear.

She had lied to them about the languages she spoke. He watched his mate. For the first time in too long Hugh's eyes drifted back to his, and Fernando fought hard not to blanch at what he saw. The look in his mate's eyes was far too grave.

Fernando shook his head. She had lied, and the de Clermont could not suffer such things. Even if they were done in innocence.

Hugh had not yet made up his mind about the girl in the chair. Hugh had not yet made up his mind about Fernando's daughter.

And Fernando fought the urge fidget under the weight of what had been revealed here.

Had his mate already told Philippe? Did the de Clermont truly already know? Would the de Clermont himself come to assess the status of Fernando's new daughter?

Would Hugh truly let him?

Stricken, Fernando stared at his lover in horror. For the first time in a long time, unsure of how he was meant to proceed.

Whatever Hugh saw in Fernando's face cut him down a bit from his contemplative mood. A flash of hurt passed through the fair man's eyes, and he drew his eyebrows together and shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak to Fernando but then he remembered the presence of the girl in the chair.

Instead of addressing Fernando's suspicions, Hugh turned back to Fernanda.

"Is that how you knew?" he asked her.

"How I knew?" Her voice was hoarse from fear and disuse.

"Yes," he said. "That we are what we are. You recognized the word manjasang?"

Fernando's eyes widened and his mouth formed a disbelieving 'oh.'

She shook her head and then paused. She nodded. And then shook her head again. Finally, Fernanda shrugged and looked guiltily up at them. He suppressed a laugh and noted that even Hugh had begun to smirk. He didn't know what on earth that display meant but—

"I thought I recognized the word, but it didn't make sense. I knew manger, but it took until I found the goblet of blood on the desk to realize that you were saying sang.

Hugh raised his eyebrows at this bit of information and nodded a short form of thanks. When no one said anything to that, Fernanda continued.

"You're not angry that I lied?"

Her voice was small. Fernando frowned.

"Well," he said, looking her over thoughtfully. "Perhaps not angry, but... I also don't understand why you did."

Her eyes drifted from him to Hugh, and the arch look the other man gave her suggested he felt much the same.

"For the same reasons Hugh listed," she said, and though her voice was earnest, her face twisted into an angry, resentful thing. They traded looks but remained silent. "You say those things like I don't know, but I do. I know that I'm different. I know that I'm—I'm—" she sucked in a breath. "I just wanted everyone to stop looking at me. To stop studying me and cataloguing all of my differences all the time. I just wanted someone to talk to and I was tired – I'm so tired of having to explain every odd little thing that I say or do. If all of me is odd and foreign, then I will spend the rest of my life explaining or disappearing. I can either erase those parts of me now or forever be scrutinized for them."

She shook her head.

"I hated being Malvina, but sometimes I miss her. At least when I was her no one expected me to speak. At least then I had a clear purpose. Even if it was only to clean. I knew exactly all the ways I was likely to be die here in the past, when I was her, and I wasn't important enough for it to matter or to draw attention. I'd just be another dead serf girl in the road. Not—not—a fucking lady like I am now. Somehow significant and insignificant all at once, disappearing in plain sight only until I do something wrong. Until I do something as unforgivable as writing in my native tongue or—or—I don't fucking know."

Silence.

"It would have mattered to Sorley," Hugh said. "It did matter to Sorley when you died."

She sniffed but said nothing. The silence stretched long between them. Neither vampire moved to speak or offer any response whatsoever to her words, and the young lady Fernanda was too upset to care. Her breathing was harsh in the quiet of the study. She wiped at stray tears with bitter fists as though she resented each one for falling.

A knock on the door and someone shoved in. She didn't care. She didn't turn around or look back at the intruder. Fernando and Hugh looked up, but Addison didn't move.

"Father," Eric's voice cut the silence. "Balder, and I have finished our— mo chridhe?"

But she found no comfort in the sound of his voice or his terms of endearment. Not today. Not now. She kept her arms crossed. Her eyes stared resolutely at the wall past Fernando's head.

A gentle hand on her shoulder, and then piercing blue eyes and a wild shock of tawny hair blocked everything else from view. Eric knelt before her and took back the world for her and him. He was there and nothing else existed but for the two of them. He brought a hand up to wipe at the tear stains on her cheeks, frowning a bit, eyes flicking about her person searching for the cause of the harm that most certainly had been done.

"Tell me," he rumbled and she pressed her lips tightly shut. Addison sniffed.

"It's nothing," she said and offered him a smile that fooled no one. "I speak French, and I lied about it."

"French?" he asked, unfamiliar with the word.

"I believe Prudhomme called it Francien?" She clarified, her voice easy and bright as though she had not only moments ago been caught in an emotional free fall.

His eyebrows lifted at this revelation, and he turned to look back at Hugh and Fernando who studied their exchange shrewdly.

"How do you know this language, mo chridhe?"

"I don't really know how to explain in a way you'd understand," she said. "I was taught when I was in high school."

"High school?" He asked and she frowned at him.

She didn't want to find a way to explain this. She wanted to be Malvina. She wanted to keep her mouth shut and her head down. She wanted to clean. Her hands itched for a brush and bucket even now. She could scrub this whole floor clean. He was still looking at her though, so she shrugged.

"Yes," she said. "Another thing I don't know how to explain. When I was younger, I learned... Francien."

"Indeed," he said with a contemplative frown. "And why would you not say so?" he asked her earnestly.

Her frown deepened.

"Leave her be, Eric," Fernando murmured quietly from behind the hulking gall óglaigh. Her eyes snapped over Eric's shoulder to meet Fernando's. "She need not explain every little thing at this moment."

Eric studied her a moment before nodding. "Very well," he said, reaching up to tap at her chin and offer her a small smile.

"You may go if you wish, cariña," her father said.

Addison stood, trying not to feel scrutinized. Hugh was staring out the window, appearing unbothered and totally relaxed in the face of the awkwardness of before. Fernando was looking down at his hands. And Eric—well Eric was watching her in concern, but she found she didn't mind his attention all that much in any circumstance.

"I—" she started when she stood. "I just want to say—"

Three pairs of eyes looked at her now.

"I just want to say that I didn't mean to lie about it," she said. "At least, I would have said something eventually. I didn't remember most of it to be honest and I still can't speak it very well. I knew when you were speaking... Francien..." she said, using the name they used for modern French. "But I never knew what you were saying. I wasn't trying to deceive you or..."

She trailed off and shrugged at them.

"I assumed whatever you were talking about was private, I would have told you if I thought I understood too much."

"Thank you, Fernanda."

It was Hugh who spoke, and his voice and eyes seemed genuine enough if a little firm. She nodded, still uncertain, before turning and leaving the room.

She felt raw. And tired. And—she had just made it into her chambers, seriously contemplating a nap, when she caught sight of Prudhomme scowling over her dinner dress, and a series of ribbons.

She paused in the doorway and stared at the woman across the room. Prudhomme had heard her coming of course and now stood watching her with shrewd eyes and a frown. She knew she must look a wreck with puffy eyes and a raw nose and a worried lip that had broken and begun to bleed.

"Come," Prudhomme said. "You will recite your devotionals while I dress you for dinner."

Addison sighed and eyed her bed with no small amount of regret. She felt as though she could sleep for days, and in her belly, she felt that deep, unexplainable pull to lock her door and hide away from the rest of the world as she had done before. Prudhomme snapped an impatient finger and drew Addison back out of her reverie.

Those days were gone, Addison thought mournfully.

No more hiding.

No more locking doors.

That could not be the way of Lady Fernanda Gonçalves forever. The world expected her to move on.

With nothing else to say or do, she went to her maid and lifted her arms to be undressed and redressed for dinner.

---

That night after dinner, Fernando and Hugh retired to their chambers.

The fire glowed warm in the hearth, and Fernando sat down heavily in his favored chair. Hugh came to kneel before him, pulling off his mate's boots one at a time and setting them aside. He took Fernando's hand and pressed a kiss to his palm.

"Do you doubt me?" He asked after a long moment's pause.

Fernando looked at him a minute before sighing and rolling his head back against the chair.

"You? No," he said. "But the de Clermont..."

"We are one and the same," Hugh countered gently.

"That is a very old argument I will not be dragged into this night, my love."

Hugh's lips quirked at Fernando's words, but he nodded his acquiescence.

"All I will say then," Hugh said. "Is that despite my concerns, the girl is part of our family. And she will meet no harm under my watch. And none will come for her so long as I have any say in the matter."

"None?" Fernando arched a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Shall I swear an oath? Perhaps on my blade?" Hugh asked wryly, reaching for the hilt of his dagger as he did so.

Fernando snorted, waved him off, and the fairer man arched an eyebrow, dropping down to sit on the floor. Hugh leaned back against Fernando's knees and closed his eyes as his mate's fingers combed through his hair.

Both men content to let the silence wash over them, as the night settled on the mountain.

After a time, Hugh murmured for Fernando to come to bed. And when he did, Hugh gestured to the mark on his chest meant only for his mate and silently urged him to drink his fill.

Fernando did, without hesitation. Relishing in the give of his mate's skin beneath his teeth, the warm rush of blood in his mouth, and the flood of thoughts and memories that unraveled for him now.

Hugh's mind was a miraculous web, the likes of which Fernando had never seen. And he was always astounded to experience his lover's inner workings every time he pressed into the mark on his heart vein. He was astounded even further still, to witness the thoughts that had preoccupied his lover's mind on this heavy winter day.

---

The next day found Addison tied to her chair, practicing her calligraphy before luncheon, when Hugh walked in. He paused just inside the door at the sight that greeted him.

She didn't know what he had expected, but Addison got the impression that it had not been to see her bound to a chair like a high-born prisoner. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from sniggering. She was a prisoner in all but name under the watchful eyes of Prudhomme the Terrible.

The arch in Hugh's eyebrow was a touch unamused, but he turned his eyes from the spectacle of Addison's 'lady training' to the spectacle of her tutor curtsying low to the ground, and as always refusing for too long to rise back up again.

Her deference was intense, but Addison grinned. If she had to be tied to her chair every time she wrote lines, or ate her lunch, then Prudhomme could spend all of eternity kneeling there on the floor as far as Addison was concerned.

"My Lord de Clermont," she said.

Her voice was deep, and reverent and pompous and— Addison had to suppress a chuckle. Hugh's face was as considerate and imperious as any high-born man would be in the face of a loyal subject. He waited patiently for Prudhomme once again to rise.

"I meant to speak with you on the matter of Lady Fernanda's needlepoint," he said.

He looked nearly bored as he spoke. Hugh had lost some of the flighty spark he always seemed to have in the presence of family and friends, and Addison felt in her gut that he was not acting in the capacity of Hugh, father of Eric, but in the capacity of the de Clermont.

This was a formality; this was the face that he presented to the world. This was the extension of an invisible hand.

Addison narrowed her eyes curiously at Hugh's display. And she knew he noticed her scrutiny though he did not show it. He definitely didn't seem to care that she studied him now.

She was beginning to understand what he and the others meant when they told her of the things she must learn. Here was the mask they hoped she would one day wear. It was imperious and cold and detached and... wholly displeasing.

She grimaced.

She did not like it in the slightest, but she was beginning to understand it in a way she hadn't anticipated.

"Of course, my lord," said Prudhomme at the mention of her student's heretical behavior. "I anticipated I would hear from your lordship on the matter and am eager to learn how you wish to proceed."

And she did look positively gleeful. Fucking groupie, Addison sneered and turned back to her letters when she accidentally let out a scoff that had the other two looking sharply in her direction.

"Yes," he said finally after a time. "On the matter of her needlepoint, I believe there has been a misunderstanding."

"A—a misunderstanding...?" Prudhomme stuttered. "My lord?"

"Yes," he said again, and Addison's eyes snapped up to watch the exchange, equally surprised. "The fault is mine, Mistress Prudhomme."

Addison's jaw dropped. Prudhomme stammered. Hugh had an all too accommodating look on his face. The tutor struggled to collect herself but did a piss poor job of it. Still, she closed her mouth before she caught flies, and nodded her head at him deferentially.

"I'm afraid I assigned young Fernanda a task of my own to complete," he said. "See, we do not speak of this so often to others, but you being one of our most trusted... well..." he smiled. "I know that I can put my faith in you."

Addison rolled her eyes and shot him a look that he didn't acknowledge. Prudhomme looked positively chuffed.

"See, my family communicates primarily in coded language these days," he said. "As a precaution of course."

"Of—of course, my lord."

Prudhomme nodded at him with a look of dawning realization.

"So," he continued. "I asked Lady Fernanda to complete a series of tests for me, to see if she was up to such a task."

He reached for the cross-stitch patterns that Prudhomme had presented to them the day before and held them up with a smile.

"And I see," he said. "That she has exceeded, in both execution and... creativity."

He graced her with a smile and Addison preened.

"She—" Prudhomme gaped, and Addison thought it was rather lacking in decorum. "She has—"

"Exceeded, yes," Hugh said. "I am most pleased."

"Indeed?" The tutor said, turning from him to look at Addison. Her face was pinched, her voice tight. For once, the other woman was at a loss for what to say or do.

Addison wondered if vampires could have aneurysms. If they could, she thought perhaps that's what was happening to Prudhomme now. She arched an eyebrow but kept her hands primly in place in front of her. Prudhomme's shell shocked eyes narrowed at the younger girl before she fixed a proper smile back onto her face and turned back to Hugh.

With nothing else to say on the matter, Prudhomme curtsied.

"Very well, my lord," she said. "I am pleased to hear of Lady Fernanda's progress. We have worked most diligently to correct her more..."

She paused, unsure of the word to use with his lordship present. Addison filled in the blanks for her, in her mind, from her weeks spent in Prudhomme's loving care.

Heathen. Degenerate. Heretical. Loose. Whorish. Uncouth. Savage. Despicable. Mixed. Half-breed. Savage—

Addison could go on, but Prudhomme stuttered around for the proper adjective and Hugh's eyebrow steadily rose higher into his hairline with his displeasure.

"Free spirited?" He supplied for the maid when she failed to find an accurate descriptor.

Addison smirked as Prudhomme stumbled to accept the lifeline he extended her.

"Yes, my lord, her more free-spirited qualities."

"Indeed," he said, his voice flat.

When they both turned to look at her where she still sat tied to her chair, Addison cast her eyes demurely to the ground and hoped they didn't notice how her lips had twisted into a smirk.

Hugh de Clermont was full of shit.

She cast one final glance back at him as he announced that he would leave them to their lessons. He met her eyes as though nothing was out of order. As though she hadn't been writing in proverbial tongues, and he had not just told a lie for her sake alone.

He nodded and turned toward the door, toward the rest of the house, and his excess of duties. Leaving Addison in the hands of her tutor for the rest of yet another miserable day. But for once, with Prudhomme standing cowed in the middle of the Great Hall, and Addison sitting still bound to her chair, she thought that perhaps she didn't mind.

He had lied for her.

He had humbled Prudhomme the Terrible by way of his presence alone. And for the first time in a long time, Addison felt like the universe might actually be on her side. And even if it wasn't, Hugh de Clermont was her damn hero.

---

In the courtyard, Fernando watched as Hugh descended the steps two at a time to reach him.

He strode purposefully across the snow-covered ground, cutting a path through the crowd of servants and workers that gathered and milled about while they completed their daily chores.

When his mate reached him, Hugh brought a steady hand down on Fernando's shoulder, leaning in to press his forehead tightly against his.

"All will be well here," he murmured and pulled away.

Fernando pulled him back just as quickly, catching his hand in his own and pressing a kiss to his knuckles before turning to mount his steed.

Malachi snorted and huffed, and his breath puffed out in the air around them, thick in the winter cold.

Fernando nodded down at his mate one last time. There was nothing to say that had not already been said, and they often parted in these ways without need for speaking. He turned toward the northeasterly road, in the direction of the cave and the pass that led to France.

Last night, laying there in bed with Hugh, having exchanged their marks and their thoughts on the events of the last few days, Fernando decided they needed a change. And his decision perfectly complemented the details of Hugh's plan.

With no need for words, they had looked into each other's eyes and silently agreed.

No more cat and mouse. No more games. Benjamin was hunting his daughter.

Eric had moved things into place. The board was set. Now, it was time to move.

Hugh would stay.

The de Clermont must always stay.

Fernando would ride out today. Idir would leave the following day. And like Benjamin, they would disappear.

This was their way.

No predator was meant to sit out in the open waiting for some other creature to come along and make him their prey. And Fernando was disinclined to partake in such folly now.

If Benjamin wanted so badly to toy with a Gonçalves, he could leave the girl out of it.

Fernando was more than happy to oblige.

---

Dinner was a quiet affair. Hugh had personally delivered Fernando's short letter to Fernanda, detailing that her father had made a quick departure and they knew not when he would return.

She hadn't taken it well, Hugh decided. But she hid that disappointment with astonishing ease. He'd almost respect that quality in her if he didn't feel so bad that she had to employ it now when things in their family were still relatively unsettled and new.

Fernanda did not know that Hugh and Fernando were mates. She did not know about the concept of mates, to be sure. Some things were better left unsaid until things calmed down, and Fernando didn't want to scandalize the child. Not after all she'd been through.

They needed answers for her, before they added more questions.

But Hugh hoped she still felt she was among family, though Fernando was gone.

When she arrived at dinner, she acted in the proper decorum. And the conversation carried on around her, a quiet murmur of polite things and unimportant topics, as the girl stared solemnly at her plate and the men around her traded looks and exchanged glances about the state of the world outside La Ithuriana's walls.

They were itching to move.

To follow in the steps of the solitary Gonalves and put an end to the matter of Benjamin.

But the plan was set, and dinner was on the table.

Food was much easier to palette now that Fernanda knew the truth. They could accommodate their diets and hers with less duplicity now. She had her own dinner, and they had theirs, and though sometimes she stared at their goblets with suspicion, everything went smoothly.

And the world simply carried on. The night was just beginning for the manjasangs, though Fernanda's day came quickly to an end. Her tutor waited for her just outside the Great Hall with a stern look and a tapping foot and deep curtsy for Eric and Hugh.

Before Prudhomme could sweep her away, Eric caught her hand in his own and brought it up to his lips. She offered him a half smile that didn't fully reach her eyes and stared at him as though she wished she could stay.

Instead, came a stern comment from the maid, and Addison's eyes shuttered. She dropped Eric's hand and turned away. He watched her go with a chagrined look on his face, and Hugh settled a hand on his shoulder that was partly for restraint.

Addison had followed Prudhomme to her chambers like a prisoner followed a guard to their grave.

Then, Eric gathered Balder and Guillaume and they departed for the stables. They had their own work to do.

Hugh nodded to Jean Luc, and his most humble manservant set to work gathering the household staff. Particularly, those staff members who were creatures like them.

The de Clermont stood tall in the entry, with his back to the great oaken doors that barred the rest of the world from entering in on his humble home.

He watched as the handful of vampire maids clambered in, as well as two of the four footmen, the page and Señora de Medina. Then came a couple wine bearers and servers, two undercooks and a handful of others. They lined up, patiently waiting for the de Clermont to address them.

He'd known most of them for centuries. A handful were younger and could only claim decades in service to his house, but he nodded at them all like they were old, welcome friends.

Then he pulled a scarf from his pocket and handed the item to Jean Luc. The squire began to pass the item around.

"I'm sure you've heard of the murders in the village," Hugh began and watched as each manjasang accepted the scarf and inhaled the scent. "That is the scent of the killer who runs loose on the mountain still."

There was a murmur, an alertness overcame the people of his home. A pair of sharp honey-colored eyes snapped up at his in alarm, when the scarf passed over to her. Hugh nodded a silent acknowledgement to the young Jacqueline and moved along.

The maid handed off the scarf with a frown.

---

"What are you looking at?"

Addison yelped and whipped around to face Eric who stood behind her, shoulders shaking with quiet laughter With her back pressed against the bars of the iron library gate and her mouth agape, Addison resembled more a startled fish than a curious human girl.

Looking both directions down the corridor for the arrival of Prudhomme, she quickly brought a finger up to her lips to indicate that he needed to keep his voice down.

"She's hunting," Eric said with a smirk.

Addison blanched at the idea of Prudhomme the Terrible somewhere out there in the snow with her tight bun and immaculate dress, tackling Bambi and draining him dry. Eric, watching her face fall into a shocked pallor, cringed at her expression before deciding it was best to just soldier on.

"So, what is it that you were looking at then?" He asked again, sidling up next to her and gazing into the locked library of books, tomes, and scrolls.

"Just the books," she shrugged.

She could feel him studying her from the corner of his eye, but she didn't turn to face him. Instead, she pressed her face back against the cool metal bars.

"I'm not sure if you are aware," he said gently, if amusedly. "But such an admission is highly irregular."

Addison hmphed but kept her thoughts to herself.

All-the-more intrigued, Eric continued. "Libraries are not often thought to be acceptable places for young ladies, Fernanda."

At this, she did snap her eyes up to his. He was no longer looking at the books but watching her with curious eyes.

"Just the same way maids do not become ladies, and humans do not travel through time, and men do not become vampires, libraries are not meant for ladies," she snapped, averting her eyes back to the bars and jutting her chin.

When he didn't say anything, her eyes flickered back up to his, and Addison was startled to see that a wide grin had stretched across his face. They watched each other for an extended moment – her in her indignance and him in blatant curiosity, before he dipped his head in a small nod of concession.

"Of course, mo chridhe."

She nodded back at him, feeling ruffled for some reason, and missing him beyond belief. She opened her mouth to say something, to ask him where he had been and what he had been up to but was interrupted by the sound of boots thudding down the corridor and the deep baritone of Eric's surly friend.

"You are needed in the stables," Balder said to Eric when the de Clermont met his eyes.

Addison's mouth was still open around the conversation she once again wouldn't get to have. He turned back to her just as she sealed her mouth firmly shut. His face was apologetic, hers twisted into a forced smile.

She bounced awkwardly on the balls of her feet and gestured for him to go with Balder. There was nothing she could say now to keep him here.

There was obviously something important going on. Something they weren't telling her once again. She missed him but she wouldn't press her luck.

He had places to be.

He passed a hand gently over her arm as he moved by her to follow the other knight down the corridor, and Addison turned, reluctant to watch him go.

When he disappeared from view, she turned back to the library but found even forbidden books had lost her interest for a time. Prudhomme was apparently off on the hunt, and Addison didn't know how long it would be before Satan's Mistress returned to collect her charge. She could go back to her chambers – Addison frowned, growing tired of always finding herself alone.

Fernando had left yesterday morning without telling her. She didn't know where or for how long. He'd been even more curmudgeonly than usual before he departed, but the letter Hugh had delivered from him promised that he would return as soon as possible, and that they would discuss her predicament more thoroughly when he did.

She didn't know if she should be comforted by that or not. But she thought it kind of sweet that he'd written her a letter. No one had ever written her one of those before. And it made her feel, for a brief moment, as though she were someone special. Someone important.

Hugh was Hugh. He tried to engage her, but she could tell his mind was not fully here these days. And he had become even more unreachable in the last few weeks.

It seemed as though she was surrounded by a bunch of people who she saw at least once every day, and yet somehow, she missed them all terribly.

There was a wall of servants, rules, and duties that stood between her and the two remaining members of her household now – who stood between her and Eric and Hugh. Even Idir, though she saw him during dinners, had all but disappeared from public view and was near impossible to reach out to.

Things were not like they had been in the fall when Hugh went out of his way every day to make her feel welcome. Or when Eric would offer to walk with her through the gardens. Addison cared for the flighty de Clermont. And she more than cared for Eric. She appreciated Hugh's help the other day with Prudhomme, but she couldn't help but feel a bit like he'd passed her off onto Fernando and completely wiped his hands of her.

And Eric seemed to just have other problems that needed his attention even more. His eyes still lit up when he saw her, and his hand still reached for hers when the opportunity allowed. But he was never home, and Addison was never really permitted to leave.

Eric was—well—he was busy.

Addison sighed and felt her mood sink as she stood there in the corridor. She eyed the door that led to her stairwell. The one that climbed up to her lonely bedroom and frowned.

---

The stablemaster was an old, by-the-book man with a sharp tongue and a kind demeanor. He was one of the first of his father's loyal servants that Eric had met in his life on the other side of death, and the youngest de Clermont had quickly learned he was the kind of man you always kept in good graces with.

He was loyal, tough, and he didn't suffer any fools.

"Milord," came a gruff voice from one of the stalls as they entered the stable.

Eric made his way toward the sound, Balder on his heels. A head popped over the door and he was greeted with the blue eyes, and salt and pepper beard of the stablemaster in question.

"Alaric," he said with a nod.

The older man regarded Eric for a second before acknowledging Balder as well.

"I hear talk Lord Hugh gathered the servants in the entrance hall during the night," he said. Not one to beat around the bush.

"Aye," Eric said, watching Alaric drape a blanket over an orphaned foal. "Just those of our kind."

He produced another of the scarves now and offered it to Alaric who leaned over and took a whiff, whistling a bit at the stench of the blood rage and death that had seeped into the fabric.

"Do you recognize the scent?" Eric asked him.

The older manjasang clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"I'm afraid not," he said. "I'd recognize that stench anywhere."

"Well, keep alert," Eric nodded. "You know who it belongs to?"

Alaric regarded him a moment longer before offering a reticent nod. "Aye, I have a few guesses."

Eric nodded and cast a look around the empty stable.

"We have need of you, I'm afraid."

"Oh, aye," Alaric said eyes intent on the task now of feeding the warmed little animal.

Eric marveled, as he often did, at how the little creature could be so brazen, so lacking in fear in the presence of three manjasangs. But his tail flipped about in contentment, and he made anxious grunting sounds as he suckled at the burlap sack of milk Alaric now held high over his head.

Eric tucked the scarf away once again and leaned on the door of the stall where Alaric was working. Balder moved to stalk the perimeter of the building while the other men spoke in hushed tones, not wanting anyone to overhear the plan they were about to set in motion.

---

Instead of her chambers, Addison found herself in the servants' quarters. She'd given a handful of them a fright when she'd first descended the stairs. A kitchen maid dropped a bowl, and the cook came screaming, only to choke on his angry words at the sight of the lady of the house standing in the entry to his kitchens. A stuttering apology and a deep, nervous bow, but Addison had smiled a small smile at them and waved off their apologies and their embarrassment.

Nowadays, she was able to do so in flawless Basque and Occitan. And felt herself preen a bit under the weight of their pleasant surprise. She spoke the servants' language now, and she hoped she had gained a bit of their respect for it in the very least.

Part of her felt bad. She hadn't meant to disrupt their day.

But she was bored, and alone again, and this was the only part of the house she had left completely unexplored.

She moved deeper into the corridor – drawing eyes and whispers alike as she passed – and had quickly begun to wonder if this had been a terrible idea, but Addison felt unable to return upstairs so quickly now that she had descended. To tuck tail and abandon the servants' quarters so soon after arriving, without having accomplished anything, would have been embarrassing and left room for gossip.

She didn't know if she cared, but she didn't know how much she didn't care either. It would be embarrassing to be talked about by even more people than she was sure already did talk and whisper.

Addison knew she was odd.

And now she was important, and odd.

She passed the laundry, and a quick glance in told her that for the most part, the method was relatively unchanged.

Steam wafted from the room in question, and she could see the strong hands of the laundry maids churning sheets about in a great big basin. The fresh smell of herbs they'd mixed into the water greeted Addison like an old friend.

She itched to join them. She itched to sit down next to the maid in the corner with her pile of mending and take up a needle by her side. She itched to pick up a bucket and scrub a floor—

"Would you care to join me, Lady Fernanda?"

Addison jolted and turned around to face the speaker.

Sir Guillaume.

Her hands dove to her skirts in nervous habit, twisting the fabric anxiously at having been caught downstairs. She tried to remind herself that she was the lady of the house. This was not against the rules, but she felt guilty, nonetheless.

Guillaume was sitting cross-legged before a crucifix; his shoulders were sloped in an easy manner that suggested he had been quite relaxed when she stumbled upon him. He was seated in an open room, empty but for himself and the crucifix in question.

"Join you?" she asked him.

"Yes," he said. "In meditation."

"Meditation?"

Addison knew what meditation was, of course. She was a modern young woman, born into a globalized world. But she was shocked to hear that this Christian man – a knight of all things – knew what meditation was. She was even more startled to see that he practiced it.

"Yes, it is a devotional exercise," he said in clarification.

Guillaume was an odd man she had found, but not one she disliked. He was kind and thoughtful. He seemed like the kind of guy that would really enjoy philosophy... or Woodstock. Addison offered him an uncertain smile.

"I wasn't aware that it was a Christian practice as well," she said softly to him so that they would not be overheard by nosy servants.

His eyes flickered up to hers, head quirking curiously.

"And do you know of others who practice, my lady?" He asked.

She nodded.

"Where I grew up it wasn't uncommon," she confided, making her way further into the room and sitting down beside him.

She carefully fixed her skirts around herself and crossed her legs beneath them, taking a deep breath and straightening her shoulders before releasing it in one long exhale. She'd never meditated herself, but she understood the gist of it. It couldn't be that hard to sit and breathe for an hour or two.

"And one of my best friends from—"

Well, she was going to say high school, but they didn't have that here. And she didn't know what Guillaume knew of the odd predicament she'd landed herself in.

"—when I was young," she said instead. "She was Buddhist."

He let out an intrigued sound and she could feel his eyes regarding her from his periphery, but Addison simply hummed in response and closed her eyes. Taking another deep breath in.

At first, she thought it would be a breeze. A few deep breaths. Some long thoughtful sitting. Easy. But the first minute stretched as long as eternity itself, and then her right foot started to tingle. Addison scrunched her toes, but when the whole of her leg fell asleep, she scrunched her nose and began to fidget.

Guillaume beside her was silent. And meditative. And wholly devoted to the act of contemplation.

But Addison felt her stomach begin to get all jumbled with the all too familiar feeling of her own anxiety. She brought a hand up to scratch at her nose which had developed an itch.

"It helps, I have found," Guillaume said, his voice only half with her as he continued his meditation. "To find something to meditate on."

Addison opened her eyes a fraction to steal a glance his way. His eyes were still closed. His lips were quirked just barely as he sat there, still as a stone.

"Eyes closed, my lady," he gently reprimanded. Addison snapped her eyes shut before sucking in a sharp breath and letting it out in a huff.

"What do you focus on?" she asked him.

There was a long pause, but Addison knew the knight wasn't ignoring her. Far from it. He was considering how best to answer her question. In the short time she'd known him, he always took an eternity to answer even the simplest of things. Where Addison was a rambling, jumbling, mess of a human. Guillaume was a fluid, tranquil, peaceful vampire. More so than any other she'd met so far.

After a long silence and more impatient fidgeting, he spoke.

"I meditate on the state of one's soul," he said.

"The state of your soul?" she asked.

Another long pause.

"Yes," he said. "And no."

She waited for him to say more, but when he didn't, she shifted and sucked in another breath.

"Well," she said. "I don't know what to meditate on."

Another long stretch.

"A worthy subject," he supplied.

"What is?"

She opened her eyes fully and turned to look at him. He graced her with the smallest of glances and an amused grin before closing his eyes once more.

"Never mind, my lady," he said. "Perhaps, just your breath would suffice for now."

"My breath?"

"Yes," he said. "Just meditate on the breath that you inhale and exhale. Perhaps that is all one ever needs to contemplate in this life."

Addison stared at him, confused and disbelieving, impatient and a bit disgruntled. Why the hell was he so calm?

"My lady," the warm voice of Jacqueline met her ears, and Addison turned toward the maid with a look of surprise.

For such a small world they lived in, Addison hadn't seen Jacqueline in weeks. And even then, it had been weeks since she'd been able to share more than a glance with the girl who had once been the person she saw most in a day. Addison's heart lurched a bit at the familiar way Jacqueline approached her now. Leaning half through the doorway, like they'd never stopped talking at all.

She was wiping dust from her apron, and she looked almost harassed. Addison imagined if Jacqueline had been human, she would have been out of breath when she spoke. But for the most part the maid just seemed to have hurried to find her, and now stood there looking rather composed.

"Mademoiselle," a serene voice said, and Addison's eyes snapped to look at Guillaume in surprise. His eyes were calm as always, his lips quirked up in the barest of grins. Jacqueline's lips turned down a bit at his acknowledgement, and she pulled herself off the door frame to stand straight again.

"Sir knight," she said, tersely. And Addison snapped her eyes back to Guillaume curious to see his response to the usually sunny maid's frigidness. But she was surprised when he only relaxed further into his seat on the cold stone floor and regarded the maid with affection.

She looked back at Jacqueline who sniffed and turned her nose up at the man, before turning back to Addison herself.

"My lady," she said, and her voice regained the urgency of before. "Mistress Prudhomme has returned, and she will be looking for you."

Addison blanched. Heart pounding, she moved quickly to stand. Bracing herself against the floor. She hissed. Her foot was still asleep. Addison gasped in surprise when a strong hand came out to steady her. She was startled to see Guillaume's sharp gaze on hers. His eyes searching for something in her that he seemed to already know.

He stood before she could blink and offered her a hand, pulling her up off the ground just in time for Jacqueline to utter an almost silent, "hurry, my lady."

She muttered her thanks to Guillaume before turning back to Jacqueline.

"Where is she?"

"Just climbing the steps to the entrance hall," Jacqueline said and held out a hand for Addison to follow her out of the room. "She wouldn't like you being down here. She won't think it proper. If you'll follow me, I can have you back upstairs before she even knows you were gone."

Not needing to hear any more, Addison scrambled out the door, tossing a quick look to the ever-curious Guillaume and disappearing up a back stairwell she hadn't known existed until now.

---

After she'd gotten Lady Fernanda settled in her chambers once again, Jacqueline made her way back downstairs. She nodded at another maid who passed off a series of empty buckets and then made her way out the back entrance of the house and into the courtyard. Stopping in at the stables before she continued on to the well.

"Father?" She called out a greeting as she pushed in, relishing in the warmth of the stable and the scent of fresh hay.

"In here, ma mignonette," her father, Alaric called out, and she followed his voice to the tack room in the back.

There Lord Eric and Sir Balder sat, sharpening their blades, and murmuring quietly to each other. She paused when she saw them, and they fell silent at her approach.

"My apologies, sirs," she said and ducked into a practiced curtsy. "I did not realize you were here."

"Nonsense," her father gruffed and waved her in. She spared Lord Eric a small, awkward smile, and he nodded kindly for her to do as her father bade her.

"Señora de Medina was wondering if you had any twine to spare," Jacqueline asked and set her buckets down when he gestured for her to do so.

"I'll have to check my stores and bring it up to the house this evening," he said.

And Jacqueline gave him an understanding nod.

Her eyes flickered back to Eric, and she felt herself overcome with a bout of nerves. She had been puzzling all day about the curious scent on the scarf Lord Hugh had passed around the night before. She knew she needed to speak up, but she did not believe she had anything of much use to say.

"My lord—" she said and stalled.

Her father looked up from whatever he was doing in the corner, and Eric and Balder once again ceased their whispered conversation.

"Yes?" Lord Eric asked her kindly.

His eyes were patient but also a little confused. They did not know each other well. Jacqueline was far closer to Lady Fernanda than to any of the men of the family.

"I didn't know if I should say anything—" she said. "But... the scent on that scarf Lord Hugh passed around yesterday evening..."

"Yes?" His voice took on a tone that would have scared a human maid, but Jacqueline was not so easily cowed by the passionate instincts of male manjasang.

"I recognize it, my lord," she said and watched as the de Clermont's eyes widened in shock and then darkened.

She didn't know why or where from, and she told him as much. Beneath the hints of Lady Fernanda and the death of some unknown man from the village, Jaqueline had been shocked to realize that the sharp, almost putrid scent that lingered on the scarf was one she had encountered before. It was one she had encountered recently.

Eric gestured for her to sit, and she obeyed. All too aware of the watchful eyes of her father, the gravity of her exchange with Lord Eric, and the heavy silence of Sir Balder as he continued to check his blades.

She answered their questions and was sorry to say she had not much more to say. Eventually, satisfied with the information he was able to glean, Lord Eric had nodded at her kindly and sent her on her way.

She left them with a promise she would tell them the moment anything changed.

---

The next day for Addison was very much the same.

Wake, wash, dress, pray.

A passing glance at Eric as he left to begin his day.

Then, eat, greet, walk, write.

Balder and Guillaume bowed promptly to her as they passed by the open drawing room door.

Then sit, sew, memorize, recite.

Out the window she saw Idir mount his horse and depart. The animal made a racket as he snorted and galloped his way out into the cold.

Then came dinner.

The men of the household had stood when dinner was announced and waited for Addison to stand as well. Then Hugh led them from the drawing room to the Great Hall, where everyone sat at the table and waited for their meal to be served.

The manjasangs ate rare cuts of meat with berries and nuts. Their goblets were full of the darkest of red wines. Addison was presented with a perfectly cooked cut of roast beef, a plate of figs coated in honey and served with goat cheese, and brioche.

Her mouth watered as her eyes flitted over all the food across her table, plates piled high as far as her eye could see. She itched to snap up the roll of brioche and shove it in her mouth, but according to Prudhomme such things were no longer allowed. She eyed the venison with disdain, but quickly swept over to the bowls of berries and walnuts and resisted the urge to reach over and grab some of those as well.

When Hugh cut into his venison, she picked up her own fork and knife and cut tiny strips of roast beef for herself. She took a bite, chewed slowly, and closed her eyes as a world of flavor exploded in her mouth. Salt and butter and pepper covered her tongue and Addison swallowed down every savory morsel as slowly and politely as she could.

Then came the figs which were sharp and sweet against her tongue, the honey stuck to her fingers and her lips and Addison couldn't lick it off, so she reached for the brioche instead and used the bread to soak up the mess the fruit had made. Delighting in the way the goat cheese and honey and bread all mixed together to make the most delectable mess.

And then for her wine, she reached and took polite sips, and kept her eyes down and stayed silent.

When the servers came to collect their plates, she sat back and let them. And the conversation still soldiered on around her without any need or want of her contribution at all.

This was fine.

The more time she'd spent in the company of mistress Prudhomme the less she'd known what to say to the other people in their household anyway.

She had forgotten what it was to feel connected to the men of her family. She'd forgotten what it was to feel like she belonged.

She had her own world now. Built and maintained for and by her alone. And her own room, in its own wing, with its own stairwell.

What was it she'd called it in the fall?

Built for a queen?

And she wondered if this was how all queens felt across the lonely world. On an island of their own. With no one to talk to and no one to understand.

Her eyes met Eric's – sweet man.

She offered him a smile, but she thought it was more to wipe the look of hesitant concern from his face and less because she genuinely meant it. He offered her a smile of his own that did not fully reach his eyes, and she wondered if he was doing the same for her. Or if perhaps felt less like smiling when he saw her these days.

Hugh stood.

The table followed suit.

Just outside the doors, Addison knew Prudhomme would be waiting to sweep her away. Hugh made his way to the doors. Balder and Guillaume followed. But Addison didn't move.

She couldn't move.

Her eyes were on Eric.

His eyes were on her.

And she felt something strange bubbling up inside her now. It was almost like the urge to cry really, but she felt no tears. There was a bubble in her chest, and it was expanding like a balloon. And then it was in her throat and her hands shook a little bit too, but still Addison couldn't bring herself to move.

Eric watched her, curious at first and then concerned. He was quiet as he treaded slowly around the table to the place her feet had taken root.

He was next to her suddenly, and she had not really registered that he had moved.

His hand came to her elbow.

"Fernanda?" He asked.

Addison felt frozen. Her eyebrows had drawn together, and her eyes felt like they were about to droop. And her mouth had opened to say something she didn't know how to say.

She couldn't look at him.

"Fernanda," he murmured, this time a little more forcefully.

She turned her face to him. He was closer now than he had been in so long. Her eyes came just to his chest, and she had to look up to see the strong outline of his jaw, the scruff of his beard, the lion's mane he called his hair, and the piercing blue eyes that cut straight to the very heart of her.

Even now.

She opened her mouth. Then she closed it. And then she—

She couldn't speak. Her voice—it was—it was gone.

With a sharp breath she shook her head up at him. Her vocal cords wouldn't move.

She was mute. She was—

She was mute.

His eyes registered her panic, her grief, her sadness, and two strong hands came up to cradle her face. The callused pads of his thumbs rubbing gentle patterns into her cheek bones – the rest of his fingers barred from tucking into her hair by her wimple and veil.

"Malvina," he whispered, finally, with understanding and concern.

She sucked in another breath and her eyes stung with the burn of unshed tears. And she shook her head at him. She shook her head, and she couldn't stop and she held onto his forearms and her cradled her for a while there and—

"My lady," came the most terrible voice in all the world. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, and Eric saw it all, but she couldn't say anything. She didn't know what to say.

"Eric," came Hugh's voice not too long after Prudhomme's.

And Addison didn't let him go, but Eric sighed and did as his father insisted. His hands fell away from her face. And then quite gently he freed himself from her grip.

And Addison opened her eyes to see the regretful ones of the man she had married once fifty years ago. Stared into those eyes as he stepped away.

His hand slid down to hers, and he lifted her knuckles to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss there.

And Addison stared at him in shock when he drew back and walked away. Leaving her standing there in the Great Hall quite alone.

"My lady," Prudhomme said, and Addison could tell she was speaking kindlier for the presence of the men in the room. "It is time to retire for the evening."

Addison sniffed and nodded, folding her hands politely in front of her and turning to face the room.

Hugh and Eric lingered just outside the doors, watching and listening to the exchange.

Prudhomme had a hand extended and looked to all the world the picture of kindness and care.

Addison took one step and then another. And was reminded of another life, in another history, when she did the very same thing to get herself up and out of her bedroom. When she'd put one foot in front of the other over and over again, day after day to keep her wits about her in the presence of the other vicious little maids.

She straightened her back, corrected her gait. Addison set her jaw and stopped her mouth from trembling. She did not sniff or cry or linger for a second longer.

She walked out of the room.

She kept her hands clasped firmly in front of her, and when she was changed into her shift and dressing gown, clenched them in fists at each of her sides.

It wasn't until Prudhomme had gone and left her for the evening, tucked up tight in her bed fit for a queen, that Addison finally let her fist uncurl.

She stared down at the small, torn piece of parchment Eric had passed her when he kissed her knuckles in silent goodnight.

She stared down at the small, torn bit of parchment and couldn't help the smile that overcame her, the bubble of laughter that escaped her throat. And she unfolded it with shaking hands and a spool of thread in her belly that had begun once again to stir.

Blue for patience, mo chridhe. I have missed you more than you can know.

---

The next day, Eric was gone too, and Addison was tired of the secrecy and evasion. She wanted to know what was going on. And she was sick of being kept in the dark.

The day started as always.

Wake, wash, dress, pray.

And then again.

Eat, greet, walk, write.

Maybe it was the subversive messaging she diligently stitched into every fabric she got her hands on when she was left alone to sew, but this time when Prudhomme left her alone with her needle and her thread and her embroidery hoop all set up and ready to go, Addison decided a bit of jail break was in order.

She waited until Prudhomme closed the door and went wherever she goes when she leaves Addison alone.

Then Addison tipped her fabric off her lap, dropped her needles, and made for the door.

She cracked it at first, peeking out into the darkness of her lonely corridor. With no one around, she took her chances and slipped out of her room. Addison padded down the hall, picked her way down the stairs, and startled a maid who gasped and dropped an armful of furs.

Addison caught them before they hit the floor, pressing a silencing finger to her lips and urging the maid not to speak or make any noise. Wide eyed the poor girl could only nod as Addison bundled her furs back into her arms and skirted around her, down the hall and then down the stairs that led to the servants' quarters.

---

"What's happening, Jacqueline?" Addison asked.

The maid's eyes widened. This time it was Jacqueline who held up a hand to quiet Addison rather than the other way around. She glanced around them with a hand pressed to Addison's mouth. Noting the presence of only human servants, she looked back at the young lady of the house and ushered her backward into a broom cupboard.

And Addison was all too willing to go.

Once the door closed behind them, with only the barest crack of light filtering in, Jacqueline breathed the quietest response Addison had ever been on the receiving end of in her life.

"There have been more murders, my lady," she said.

"More mur—" Addison started but Jacqueline cut her off, quickly bringing a hand up to muffle the sound of her voice which was apparently far too loud for their current conversation. This even though they were two grown women hiding in a broom cupboard underneath a set of stairs, talking to each other under the clamor of the kitchens and the bustle of servants loudly passing through as they completed their daily chores.

Even still with the clamor, Addison was astounded to realize that the vampires upstairs could still hear their conversation if they caught her voice above the din.

She shook her head, eyebrows high in her hairline, as Jacqueline studied her astutely with sharp eyes and a worried lip. This household was in desperate need of a privacy overhaul.

"Yes, my lady," Jacqueline confirmed without letting Addison finish her question. "You heard me correctly. First was the farmer who you found in the maze."

Addison nodded but pressed her lips together to keep from speaking.

"Then," the maid said. "There was a little girl. She was..."

Jacqueline looked down and Addison scrunched her forehead, taking a breath to ask but the maid looked up with a small frown.

"The farmer's daughter was very young," she said finally. "Next, I have heard whispers, there were two men. The miller and his apprentice."

Addison's eyes had grown wide at the list of people who had died in such a short span of time. All of this had been happening since that day in the maze. Since the day she'd stumbled on the farmer's frozen body in the maze. She shook her head. Didn't know what to make of all she was hearing. How could she not have known? How could no one have told her?

Is this where everyone had been?

There was a serial killer on the loose. She had known that someone somewhere had killed the farmer, and it had made her sick and nervous and edgy to be sure. But in the wake of her other discovery, the one where she found out that vampires were real and that they were apparently everywhere, she had conflated the horrors of the two.

Not only had she assumed they knew who had killed the man, Addison realized rather guiltily, she had decided the members of her family had condoned what the killer had done. She worried her lip and found she couldn't quite meet Jacqueline's eyes. She had grouped her in with them as well, but now –

"Worse even still, my lady," Jacqueline continued, unaware of the guilt Addison was weighing in her mind. "There has been no progress to speak of. They know who it is, I think. At least, that is what I have heard from my father—"

"Your father?"

"Yes," she nodded. "My father is the master of the stables, my lady. He has served Lord Hugh for many centuries."

Addison nodded her understanding and gestured for Jacqueline to continue.

"As I said," the maid continued earnestly. "They know who it is, but they cannot find him."

"But I don't understand," Addison whispered back. "Do you know who it is? If they know, have you heard them mention a name or—or—"

Addison gnawed anxiously on the inside of her cheek as she tried to collect her thoughts."What else do you know?" She asked finally, looking back at the maid who was already shaking her head.

"I do not know who they think it is, my lady," she said, and her shoulders drooped at the confession. "But I do know he is dangerous. Very dangerous. And I know that—"

At this she did hesitate. She glanced at the door, then back at Addison, and for the first time Addison could see that Jacqueline's mind had filled with doubt. But Addison gave her the most imploring look she could muster, gripping her hand tightly with her own and bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet. She glanced at the door too and turned back to Jacqueline. Begging her with her eyes, mouthing the word please over and over again until the maid let out an imperceptible sigh and gave in.

"I will tell you," she said. "But your ladyship must promise me not to feel any fear."

Addison was slightly taken aback by this, but she took a deep breath and nodded her head. Looking far more resolute than she felt at the maid's words.

"I know for a fact that no one dangerous has been in your chambers, my lady," Jacqueline said, but paused. Still eyeing her nervously. "I have been in your chambers many times and I have a very good nose."

Addison quirked her head at the odd quality Jacqueline boasted and wondered what it had to do with her bedroom.

"It seems that the killer has somehow managed to obtain a number of your scarves."

Addison dropped Jacqueline's hands at that and withdrew a bit into herself at this odd, unsettling bit of information.

"My...scarves?"

"Yes."

"But—" Addison sputtered for a second. "But why would he—"

Again, Jacqueline looked at the door, but this time she also held her finger to her lips and stared at Addison, her eyes looking upward to somewhere above them. Addison didn't need to, but she found herself holding her breath until once again Jacqueline began to speak.

"I could not say for certain why he would want them, my lady," she said. "But I can guess..."

Addison was nodding adamantly before she'd even finished talking. "Guess then, please."

Jacqueline pursed her lips in a wry manner but continued.

"Well, he leaves them with each of his victims," she said. "It is not so uncommon for certain members of our kind to... display their cunning when they are on..."

Jacqueline couldn't meet her eyes, wringing her hands nervously and worrying her lip.

"The hunt—" Addison said for her, eyes wide. She felt as though the world had begun to spin a bit where she stood, and her chest felt suddenly as though a weight had settled on it and wouldn't leave her. With each breath she sucked in, it got even harder to take another.

A cold, steady hand wrapped around her wrist, and Jacqueline's sun-like face came closer then. Her eyes were honey brown and wide in her concern.

"You must exhale, my lady," she said.

And Addison did as she instructed. Letting out a long, sputtering exhale. "He's hunting me?"

Jacqueline shook her head, eyes concerned, face desperate. "You must not feel fear, my lady. If they smell it on you now, you and I will never see each other again. Please, my lady. You must breathe and calm yourself. I beg you."

Addison nodded, but she found the execution of such a thing was much easier said than done. She sunk to the floor, hand clutching at the pounding in her chest. Jacqueline sunk with her. Eyes wide and concerned, and warm and knowing, and a little desperate too.

If Addison was cowering in panic, Jacqueline was a supplicant in prayer.

Both girls were on their knees. Both were at the mercy of beings more powerful than themselves.

Somehow, by some miracle neither girl would ever question or claim to understand, Addison calmed herself back down. She rid herself of her panic, and the rest of the household remained blissfully unaware.

Jacqueline sagged in relief, and Addison sagged against the wall in solidarity with her.

"I promise you," she said. "It is all speculation, my lady. I do not know. Only that I—"

Addison held up a hand, and turned her finger over in a hasty circle, begging her to move along from the topic that had nearly sent Addison into a spiral and Jacqueline out of the household for good.

"Well... what I mean to say, my lady, is that even if there is a threat to you, I would not fear too deeply. Just the other evening, Lord Hugh called the manjasang staff into the entrance hall, and passed one of the recovered scarves around. We all know the killer's scent now. We all are on the lookout for him, whoever he is. He's not breached these walls. And I do not think he ever will—"

Addison's voice was tired, and void of any other emotion when she arched an eyebrow at the maid and said, "you cannot possibly know something like that."

At that, Jacqueline smiled, and Addison suddenly wondered how old the other girl really was. For she had the same sort of smile Hugh had the day Addison had told him much the same thing. No one could be sure of their safety, ever. And the promise that La Ithuriana was some sort of impenetrable fortress did nothing to comfort her, but now here she was hearing it again from someone wholly less scatterbrained and imperious than Hugh de Clermont. Jacqueline had no reason to say such a thing if it were untrue.

She studied Jacqueline as the maid wracked her mind for a way to explain to Addison what she did not yet understand.

"Lady Fernanda," she started. "I know that the world is very uncertain, and that there are very few places of true safety in it—"

Addison fixed her with a withering look that had lost some of its affect post panic attack.

"—but," Jacqueline said with an arched eyebrow of her own. "We have, in this household, some of the best warriors known to the world, my lady. And they are more than fighters for they are powerful in other ways too. The world is on their side, because they say it to be so. And the world will thusly be on your side all the same. You are not alone, my lady. And you are a de Clermont in all but name what with your connection to Lord Eric."

"What does that mean though?" Addison grumbled even though she had a fair better understanding of things now – after her lessons with Prudhomme – than she'd had at the start.

"It means that even if there are those who would try to hunt you," she said. "You will find that in all of history, the de Clermont has never been the prey. You will find that even if others try to make you so – human or not – my lady, you are not destined to be anyone's prey."

Addison sat up a bit straighter at that, pushing off the wall to look at Jacqueline with curious eyes.

But the maid was resolute. Her honeyed eyes had hardened before her, and her lips were pressed into a firm line.

"Ever," she said, and it was like a final punctuation on their conversation. Jacqueline spoke the words, but it seemed to Addison that even here the de Clermont had the final say.

With nothing else to do, Addison shrugged and nodded her acquiescence. Fine, she thought. Jacqueline could win this one. There was a serial killer on the loose. A vampire serial killer. And he was hunting her in some way. But she was not meant to feel fear, and even if she did, a de Clermont was not meant to show it.

This was the second time someone had tied her to Eric in a way that felt bigger than she knew what to make of. The second time someone had roped her into the de Clermont family even though the name she took on and bore every day was that of a Gonçalves.

Addison frowned to herself as she and Jacqueline hauled themselves up off the cupboard floor. She knew she and Sorley had been married fifty years ago. She knew that she cared for him and loved him in the ways that she could. She knew that promises had been made. But with all the chaos that was happening around them, they hadn't the time to discuss what all of this meant for the two of them.

She had a role in the world that she was meant to carry with grace and strength and a bravery that she did not currently feel. She had ground beneath her for the first time in a long time, and she liked how it felt.

But the outside forces of the world were already threatening to tear that away. She was part of something bigger than herself and she had yet to find anyone who would properly explain that to her. It felt like more somehow than the coldhearted, omnipotent institution Prudhomme lectured her about day after day. This thing she'd fallen into it was more. It was bigger than manners and decorum. It was all encompassing, and it had tied her to Eric in a way that others seemed to sense.

There was a spool of thread anchored low in her belly, settled there in a place where no one in the world could see. And it unwound itself these days, bit by bit, from time to time. It felt calmer – less desperate – than it had felt in her past life as Malvina.

But it was still there. Weaving itself around Eric. Intertwining her and him. And sometimes, with the words and looks of others, she felt as though the vampires around her could see that thread too. Or at the very least that they could sense it. That they understood it in a way that had not been explained to her, and now they were skirting around the subject altogether. Like they were avoiding her sometimes because of it.

She was a Gonçalves by name. But she was a de Clermont too. Or so everyone seemed to say. She was Eric's... something. And it was enough to make Jacqueline avert her gaze. It was enough to make Prudhomme stutter and look. And as time went by, she was getting curiouser and curiouser to what that thing may be.

---

Addison climbed the stairs to her lonely corridor, mind stuck on all that she had learned from Jacqueline and all the questions she had now too. She had just made it to her chambers, when the latch on her door turned from the inside, and someone opened the door to her rooms.

Addison drew back in shock at the intrusion. It was too late in the day for the presence of any of the maids, and she could have sworn Prudhomme was temporarily away.

The girl in front of her was a mousy thing, in a cheap linen dress that had a hole at the bottom, and a mouth that was gaping wide at her like a fish.

"M-milady," stuttered the girl and Addison felt herself at a loss for what to say.

In Addison's silence the other girl continued to stutter.

"I'm ever so sorry, milady," she said. "I'll just be going—"

"No," Addison said suddenly, startling both herself and the other girl. She quickly tried to recover. "Don't rush on my account. Did you do all you needed to get done?"

The scullery maid gaped at her and finally shook her head no.

"I've still got the hearth to do milady," the younger girl said. "I usually open the door and the windows to do it, so that the burnt smell carries out with the breeze."

She said this with her eyes cast down and her hands nervously twisting, and Addison frowned.

"Well, come back in then," she said, and she breezed into her room. Waving the other girl in as she grabbed up a robe for warmth and sat down at her vanity. "Don't let me stop you."

"Oh, I couldn't possibly—" the girl started but Addison silenced her with a smile and a gesture to the hearth.

"I insist," she said with a half-hearted shrug.

"Thank you, milady," the younger girl stuttered. "I'll not be but a moment."

"Take your time," Addison smiled.

She undid her wimple and fillet, sighing in relief as she freed her braided hair. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as the scullery maid set to work scraping the ashes from the grate and pouring them into a burlap bag.

"What's your name?" She asked.

The maid stuttered and watched as the lady of the house stripped herself of her bracelets and rings, discarding them in the box of jewelry that sat in front of her mirror.

"My name, my lady?"

The maid had frozen where she still kneeled by the grate. She had her sack of ashes still clutched in her nervous hands and eyes that were wide and eager to leave.

"Yes," Addison said with a smile and shrug. "Your name."

"I—I don't—" The maid froze around whatever she was going to say, panicked still at having been caught by one of the few people in the world she was never meant to speak to.

Addison waited patiently for her to continue, when her latch on her door turned, and Prudhomme's unpleasant shadow filled the doorway.

"What on earth are you doing in here, girl?" She growled and strode forward, grabbing the scullery maid by the ear and giving a violent tug.

The maid cried out and began uttering her apologies profusely – loud, and desperate to be unhanded as quickly as possible

Addison sprung from her seat. Chest hot and heaving from weeks of pent-up emotion and resentment. Her hands shook and she flinched a bit when Prudhomme's terrible gaze flashed her way.

"Let her go," Addison bit out.

"Excuse me? I'll not have any—"

But Addison was done with the abuse. She was done with all of it. Prudhomme may have been able to get away with it with her, but Addison wouldn't stand for abuse of the maids.

Not today.

Not ever.

"I said let her go," she spit out. "Now."

"You forget yourself—" Prudhomme exclaimed, and the scullery maid watched them with wide watering eyes. Clutching at the ear Prudhomme still kept firmly in her grip.

But Addison didn't let her speak. She cut her off before she could hurl anymore abuse.

"Forget myself?" She asked in disbelief. "I think it is you who have forgotten yourself, Mistress. I am the lady of this house. I make the rules. You will release her at once, and you will leave my sight as soon as she is gone."

"Young lady, when your father hears of—"

"Hold your tongue!" Addison snarled. Her face twisted to match the horrible feeling churning deep down inside of her. Her fists shook but she did not wipe at the tears that rolled down her face. She swallowed a couple times; afraid her voice would crack when she spoke. "You will do as I say."

Prudhomme opened her mouth, but Addison silenced her with a look.

"Now."

---

The next morning Addison woke with a gasp. Prudhomme entered her room with a bang, the door bouncing off the walls of her chambers and swinging closed with the force her entrance. Prudhomme ripped the covers back and before Addison could even open her eyes dragged her from the bed.

Prudhomme stripped her naked and deposited her into a bath of ice-cold water. She had not warmed it before she poured it in.

Addison gasped. Her breath coming in sharp with the cold and shivered. She brought her arms up to wrap around her chest as Prudhomme tipped her head back and poured the ice-cold water down her hair and over her face. Addison's throat spasmed from the shock of the cold and she spluttered around the water that flooded her mouth. Her bones were so frozen they hurt as Prudhomme subjected her to a bath made entirely of melted snow.

Prudhomme scrubbed her roughly and hauled her bodily from the tub. Addison hissed when her foot caught the edge and dragged. Her skin lined with a row of thick splinters. There had been no cloth draped in the basin today.

Prudhomme dressed her roughly.

Addison watched her from the corners of her eyes. She had not spoken yet.

And Addison recalled unpleasantly the day before when she had snapped at her tutor – her maid – she reminded herself forcefully. Prudhomme was a servant. That was all. She couldn't do anything to Addison that Addison didn't condone.

And yet... Addison flinched when the maid pinched her arm and twisted.

"Come," Prudhomme said to the girl and turned toward the door.

Addison rubbed her arm, but she did not move. She stood there by the giant windows that once brought her so much joy, but now felt more like the clear glass bars on a beautiful cage. She watched Prudhomme's back as the maid came to halt, her face turning just enough that Addison could glimpse the glare that creeped from the corner of the other woman's eyes. Just enough that Addison could study the curve of her prominent nose and watch as her thin lips curled in displeasure.

"You will come," she said again.

Her voice was hard.

It promised something terrible if Addison didn't comply.

And Addison felt a long-forgotten wound open up inside her, gaping from her throat to her belly. She felt like she'd been cut open wide for all to see. She brought her still hurting arm up to wrap around the invisible wound, desperate for anything to staunch the flow that poured out of her now. Not wanting Prudhomme to see her bleed. Not wanting Prudhomme to witness how close she was to defeat.

She thought of the hungry months she spent as Malvina. The smacks to her face and hands to get her to obey. She thought of Rupert and the things he almost did to her. And those things he got away with when Sorley wasn't around. She thought of Prudhomme the Terrible and her pinches and her switch and her baths of melted ice and the splinters in her foot.

And her heart thudded harder and harder at all of it, but still somehow her feet would not move.

"Come," Prudhomme snapped again, turning around to face her head on.

Her eyes were darker than Addison had ever seen. Her hands were on her hips. Her hair was done up in a tight bun. And her face was an ugly thing to behold.

And for the first time in too long, Addison felt in her body what she already knew in her mind. Prudhomme was a vampire.

Prudhomme was a vampire.

Addison's heart stuttered in her chest and her throat closed up around some long-dreaded fear. Not like she had before. This wasn't the fear of an idea. This was a fear of the real, cold, unblinking thing, that lingered like a shadow over her shoulders and creeped through her room when she was asleep.

There across the room was the monster that haunted her dreams at night.

There was the monster between her and her door.

Keeping her in. Forcing her out.

Addison's breath shuddered out of her body and stayed out as her lungs seized.

There was no way out this.

She was trapped.

Who was Addison to stand up to that woman across the room? Who was Addison to hold her own against a vampire?

That little voice that lived in the back of her mind. The one that kept a checklist of all the ways she was likely to die here in the past spoke up then. Quiet-like, it voiced the essence of all her fears.

Stay alive, it whispered. Whatever you do. Keep your head down and stay alive.

Addison was suddenly aware of the true danger Prudhomme was to her. She was suddenly aware, that aside from words, Addison had nothing to defend herself with against the woman across the room.

Prudhomme seemed more spectre now than woman. With dark eyes. Unblinking. In the cold blue morning light, they looked almost bruised. She had fallen still at Addison's challenge, and now Addison suddenly felt less like a lady and more like the other woman's food.

The invisible wound gaped even wider in her chest, and Addison could swear she felt something tear. She hugged her arms more tightly around her body. Wishing she could retreat like a turtle back into her old protective shell.

She averted her gaze under the stern watch of her terrible tutor.

And after too long a deliberation, Addison did as she was told.

Her arm throbbed from weeks of pinches, and her body shivered still from the cold, and her hair was wet and dripping down her neck, soaking through the wimple and veil that the maid had secured tightly around her hair. The fillet felt like a hand wrapped tightly around her throat.

Her eyes felt suddenly heavy, and Addison longed for her bed.

When she arrived in the drawing room to greet everyone a good morning, as she had done every day since Prudhomme arrived, Addison was startled and dismayed to see there was only Hugh.

Under her tutor's watchful eyes, she curtsied all the same. And smiled as she had been taught to. Though he did not notice, and her smile didn't feel the same. It felt clunky and heavy and entirely wrong on her face. And she wanted to drop it the moment she started but she held it there for perhaps a little too long.

Prudhomme's eyes narrowed, and Addison took that as her cue to drop her lips back into their natural frown.

Hugh had been reading over something important looking. A long scroll of parchment paper in one hand. He had been leaning over a map. And his hair and tunic looked so rumpled she wondered how long it had been that he'd stood like that in the room.

He looked up but for a second. Muttered to her a halfhearted greeting before turning back to the matters he had at hand. She wondered though what Hugh would have said had he looked up and truly seen her. She wondered if he would have let her stay with him, if she asked him to. She wondered what he would have said if he had truly seen her as she was, standing there shivering, holding an arm to her abdomen to quell her invisible bleeding wound.

She wondered what he would say if she pushed back her sleeve and showed him every bruise.

She wondered what he would say, but she didn't ask, and he hadn't really seen her. So, she followed Prudhomme back out of the room.

They went on with their day. And Addison felt hollow and cold. For the first time in too long, she remembered home.

She remembered bus rides to Meadowbrook. And reading for days on end. She remembered cleaning the floors and the counters, scrubbing the tub and vacuuming and sweeping each room. She remembered the forget-me-nots in her back garden. And her cozy couch, and her bathtub that did not splinter. And water that always came out warm.

Addison went without breakfast that day. And then she went without luncheon too.

Prudhomme told the cook the lady of the house was not hungry. But Addison knew, this was penance for acting frantically. For acting uncouth.

---

That night when Prudhomme left her, Addison tore quickly out of bed, she grabbed her letter opener and got down on her belly as she had done every night since the night she arrived. She scrambled underneath her bed and sighed.

This was her domain now. In the absence of her maid, in the absence of her increasingly distant household, in the absence of all her questions and fears, Addison could crawl underneath her bed and find once again her sense of reason. Her sense of self control.

Here she kept a tally on the wall. One for every day she had spent here in this new life – in this daydream world she was drifting through.

Here was the count of every day she had been here. She ran her fingers gently over the markings on the wall. Here were her attempts at reason. Here she had written the word vampire on the wall. Here was the place she had hidden when the world became too terrifying and too large. When the shadows across the room had taken shape and morphed into the creatures she feared one day would be her end. This was the place that had covered her. The place that became her sanctuary from the eyes in the trees, and the men downstairs, and the time that evaded her and made her question her sense of mind and sanity. When bad dreams woke her and left her trembling alone in the night, here she came to calm her fears.

Beneath her bed now was also a dagger, fifty-years-old but well cared for and barely worn.

It had been a gift to her in another life when she was someone else. A gift from a man who had hoped one day for something more with her. Addison turned the blade over in her hands and suppressed a snort. She wondered if this is what Sorley had expected when he'd asked her for her hand.

Now, beneath the dagger, lay a letter. A note, really. The one he had passed to her after dinner that night when she had frozen, and Prudhomme and Hugh called for them to go their separate ways. The one he had passed her before he'd kissed her hand and turned away.

Blue for patience, mo chridhe. I have missed you more than you can know.

She smiled sadly down at the note and ran her fingers over his neatly lined scrawl, before carefully folding it back up again and returning it to its place beneath his blade.

She took her letter opener and carved another tally into the wall. Then she grabbed a bit of parchment and the quill and inkwell she kept hidden under her bed as well, and she wrote as neatly as she was able using the cold stone floor as her desk rather than the vanity that sat waiting on the other side of the room.

Gallowglass –

You cannot possibly have missed me more than I've missed you.
I don't know where you've gone, or when you will return,
but I wish you had said goodbye before you went.
Maybe, when you come back, we can find ourselves a tree in the woods,
and spend our days there. And tell each other things like we used to.

Do you ever miss the little village at the edge of the woods?
I know I shouldn't, but sometimes I do.

- Fernanda

She folded the letter up and placed it carefully atop the note he had passed her, beneath the dagger under the bed. Then she crawled back out from her little sanctuary, dusted herself off and climbed back under the covers. She'd have to find a way to slip it into his rooms when no one was looking. She doubted she'd ever be able to manage passing it to him in a manner subtle enough that didn't give her away to the entire household.

Feeling nervous and giddy, lonely, and tired, Addison let out a long sigh and rolled over onto her side. Tucking her arm beneath her pillow, she closed her eyes.

---

Addison was in the Great Hall, practicing her lines. She was tied to her chair as she always was, when Prudhomme was suddenly called away. Addison watched, shocked as the lady's maid retreated at the behest of a footman. She watched as she disappeared down the corridor before the footman once again shut the door.

Addison frowned, set down her quill and looked around.

The Great Hall was empty, as it always was in the middle of the day. The table had once again been pushed against the wall, and the chairs had been stacked neatly in the corners of the room. She was just contemplating what to do with herself now that she had a rare moment alone when the doors to the Great Hall drew open again.

Addison hastily snatched up her quill and set back to her lines, hoping it looked as though she hadn't stopped working, but paused when she heard the hiss of a familiar voice.

"My lady—"

Jacqueline.

Addison looked back up. The maid hurried over to her.

"Don Fernando has returned."

She said this and her eyes gleamed. Addison felt her chest fill, and she too began to work at the knots Prudhomme had bound her with.

Fernando was back, and Addison was tied to a chair.

Fernando was back and she needed to see him at once.

"What about Prudhomme?" Addison whispered to Jacqueline.

"Señora de Medina has called her away, my lady," the blonde told her with a secretive grin. "They could be there all afternoon."

Addison's jaw dropped at the other girl.

"Was this your—"

But a hand came up to silence her, and a small reprimanding hush had Addison snapping her mouth dutifully closed.

"Don Fernando is in his study," Jacqueline continued, as she worked hastily at the final knot that kept Addison stuck in her chair. "Go now, no one will stop you."

Addison didn't wait. Before Jacqueline had finished speaking, the scarf fell, and Addison was gone.

---

"I want Jacqueline to be my lady's maid."

Addison burst through the doors to Fernando's study without even bothering to knock. She was out of breath. Addison had run the length of the house to get here, and she couldn't slow down now. This couldn't wait another second.

Fernando was seated at his desk, face as curmudgeonly as always, but this time he sported a scar above his eye.

When he'd left La Ithuriana days before, his face had been unmarred.

But now—

He arched an eyebrow at Addison's abrupt entry, and she watched as his forehead tensed to accommodate the unforgiving tissue of his still healing wound.

"You have a lady's maid."

But Addison didn't let his lack of good humor affect her now. She couldn't suffer Prudhomme's company any longer. She only had to convince Fernando that the horrible woman Hugh had hired needed to go.

"I want a new one."

"Miss Prudhomme is a perfectly capable lady's maid, Fernanda. She is loyal to our family and has served for many centuries as a companion for Hugh's sister, Louisa."

"I don't care how capable she is. Or how loyal. Or how old. I don't know Louisa and I don't care to know her, and I don't want her maid."

"Whatever issue you take with the laws of this land, or the duties of the fairer sex, are your own to contend with, Fernanda. You will not blame Mistress Prudhomme for being saddled with the impossible task of teaching you some manners," he snapped and smacked his hand on the table to emphasize his point.

He seemed thoroughly exhausted from the conversation at hand. Addison jumped at his tone, at the impact of his hand on his desk and his complete lack of patience.

Her heart pounded up into her throat and her hands shook a bit, but no—no, Addison needed things to change. She didn't know what had him in such a bad mood today. She didn't know where he'd been or what he'd been doing. And she didn't know what gave him that scar.

But none of that was her fault. None of it had anything to do with her. And he didn't know – he couldn't possibly know – how horrible Prudhomme had been to her since she arrived here. He was being rude. He was the one that wasn't listening. Addison was doing the best she could.

She bit down on her lip to keep it from curling in her anger. She felt hot all over and—and—

"I have plenty of manners!"

Fernando scoffed, rubbed a hand down his face, and set down his quill. He shot her a look of contrition and opened his mouth to speak but Addison cut him off.

"I do. It has nothing to do with manners or decency or the stupid laws of this stupid land and it has everything to do with the fact that I want Jacqueline."

He studied her a moment and sighed.

"Jacqueline has her own duties."

But Addison stood firm.

"She can have different ones."

"She is a maid to this house. She has been for many years. She is good at what she does and so she will continue to do as she does."

Addison shook her head. He had left without saying goodbye. He had left. And the whole world had moved on without her, and she couldn't – she wouldn't – be dismissed again.

"She has already agreed! She wants to be my lady's maid."

Fernando shook his head, looking up at her in wonder and disbelief.

"Well, she should not have. If this were any other household, she would be cast out of service for such presumption."

"Presumption? How is that presumption? Surely you wouldn't cast her out for agreeing to my idea. How anyone could punish her for something she did not come up with is beyond me."

"It is entirely presumptuous. And ambitious. And unbecoming. She should not have agreed. And you are correct, she should not be punished for your childish impulses, that alone is the reason she may stay."

"Childish impulses? How are these childish impulses?"

"You cannot simply decide to follow every whim and folly that entertains you, Fernanda. These are people's lives you are affecting. You would cast Miss Prudhomme out of our home in the middle of winter to do what exactly? And you would implicate Jacqueline in an unbecoming fantasy of ambitious social climb, and for what? So that you may avoid your daily lessons? So that you may try somehow to skirt your way around wearing your wimple and veil?"

His scar started to bleed a bit, and Addison watched him reach up a hand to wipe the blood a way. It tracked down to his temple and stained the tanned skin there, collecting a bit in the edges of his hair. She opened her mouth but closed it again quickly when he held up a hand and gave her a tired look.

"Fernanda, I beg you a moment's peace. Go back upstairs and make amends with your tutor. She has taken on quite the task by agreeing to serve you. You still have so much to learn."

Addison's lip wobbled a bit at Fernando's words. He wasn't getting it. He had left her here without saying goodbye, and now he was back, and she needed him and still he refused to understand.

Angry and tired and feeling belittled like the small child she no longer was, Addison was ashamed to admit that she began to cry. She could feel her voice fading even as she stood there. If she opened her mouth now, she wondered if she'd be able to manage anything more than a croak. Addison had spent months wishing once again to be Malvina, to once again be the mute girl that no one spoke to or listened to and now—

She sucked in a harsh breath, trying to close her mouth around a lonely sob.

She should go.

She should go, but she couldn't.

She couldn't move. She looked down at her feet and willed them to move but she was frozen there in the doorway to Fernando's study. And he wouldn't listen to her and now she couldn't move. Her body wouldn't move.

Like the other night at dinner, she had frozen. But there was no Eric to cradle her face or wipe her tears.

He had let her go too.

He had walked away and left her frozen in the middle of the room. All because of Hugh.

Because he had been ordered to.

Addison couldn't breathe. She brought a hand up to rest over the space in her belly where she could feel the weak barely-there tug of an invisible spool.

Her nose ran and she gave a giant sniff as though to draw all the emotion that escaped her back into her head where it was safe from scrutiny. But it was too late.

Fernando watched this display with an unreadable expression. Addison couldn't look him in the eye, so she averted her gaze.

After a moment with the two of them stuck in the silence – broken only by Addison's hiccoughing breaths – Fernando sighed and looked away.

She saw his jaw working as he collected his temper and she hated just a little bit the impact of her tears. No matter what he said, she was not acting like a child. Her tears undermined everything.

"Fernanda," he said and stopped. He was avoiding her eyes, but she could tell by the set of his shoulders he was gearing up to deliver the final nail in the conversation. A stern parting phrase to restore order to his once again disrupted home. But she didn't want to let him.

"What happened to 'your happiness is my happiness?'" She asked him. He did look her in the eye then, and he seemed impossibly weary.

"I believe I also made a promise to your well-being."

"They are one and the same," she jutted her chin.

A small grin flashed across his face, and just as quickly, it disappeared. He studied her for a long moment.

"I agree. That is why I must insist that you do as Miss Prudhomme instructs you."

"And if I must insist that she go..." Addison trailed off and sucked in an anxious breath.

It was embarrassing to ask it. Uncomfortable to acknowledge her fear of him – her fear of the unknowns that came from being in his family. They had come so far after the night she'd locked herself away in her chambers. They had come so far since the days she had hidden herself away, afraid that they would drink her blood and leave her dead on the floor of her bedroom – a rotting corpse abandoned forever on the cold stone floors.

She knew now that Fernando cared for her. She knew now that he did have her best interests at heart. But she didn't know if her best interests – in his mind – condoned biting her. Ailios had cared for her, and Lorna had too in her way and both of them had struck her in moments when they had lessons to teach.

She did not know where corporal punishment fell in this day and age. She had a feeling it was terribly allowed. And everything Prudhomme had told her suggested that vampire families were even more brutal in their pursuit of obedience.

Addison brought her hand up to rub nervously at the pinch marks on her arm.

Fernando had tilted his head. And she almost wondered if he could smell her fear. Her heart pounded and her face grew hot. If he could, she probably reeked of the stuff now. Addison looked down at her shoes.

"If I insist that she go," she continued. "If I swear to you that I cannot bear another moment in her presence..."

She wrung her hands in front of her before burying them in the folds of her skirts, clenching her fists around the soft fabric.

"Will you really bite my neck to make me obey?"

She hated how her lips trembled as she spoke every word. Hated how her hands shook and her heart beat wildly inside of her throat. She twisted her hands more tightly in her skirts.

Silence.

He met her question with silence.

It stretched long between them and looking up from the ground became near impossible for her to do. Shame coursed through her veins, and it burned hot under her skin.

A bird flew past the window and landed, chirping, on a low swaying branch.

Unable to bear it, and yet terrified of what she would find when she did, Addison looked up.

Fernando stood frozen on the other side of his desk.

The parchment he'd been holding when she came in was still suspended in the air. He was staring at her. Mouth slightly agape. Eyes very dark as he took her in. She jolted at the intensity in them and stepped back.

This seemed to shake him out of the stupor her question had jarred him into.

He set the parchment down. Turned so that he could fully face her and spread his hands wide between them in a universal gesture of peace.

He seemed sad.

"Cariña..."

Fernando shook his head. Defeated.

"I would never. I—" he studied his hands for a moment before he looked up again and met her eyes. "That would be a very despicable thing to do to you."

He moved around the desk, and she felt her breathing quicken a bit despite his words. He stopped where he was and looked down.

"Fernanda," he said. "I swear on my life that I would never bite you, or raise a hand to you, or in any way incite a single violent thought or act on your person. Ever. If there is anything I have done to indicate— If I have— Has someone said something to suggest such a thing? Have I done something?"

Her voice shook and she rubbed her arms with trembling hands, she could still feel the sting of the pinches there on her skin. Her mind reeled from the weeks of daily reprimand. She was trying so hard and still, she couldn't seem to please them. Unable to look him in the eye, she simply shook her head.

"I want Jacqueline to be my lady's maid," Addison said.

And her voice was a very small-sounding thing.

"She's nice to me, and I like talking to her. She doesn't treat me like I'm odd even though I know that I am odd compared to everyone else who lives here. She's my friend."

More silence. Addison ducked her head away and turned to leave him. Resigning herself to life in the terrible care of Mistress Prudhomme.

Before she could make it very far, Fernando's soft voice followed. "I'll see that it is done."

She stopped. Meant to turn back and thank him or—well—she meant to turn back, but found she didn't quite know how. She climbed the steps back out of his study and made her way out the door.

She turned as though to disappear down the corridor. To do what, or go where, at this point she wasn't sure. But she was very tired, and she didn't much want to stay here.

"Fernanda?" He called and she sighed.

She looked back through the doorway at the man she now called her father.

"If there is anything you need to tell me, I will always listen with an open mind," he said and searched her face for understanding.

She nodded, but she felt a bit blank. She waited for his permission to leave, but he continued speaking instead.

"And if anyone has harmed you..." he trailed off. "You can tell me about that too."

She swallowed around that horrible feeling that crept up into her throat again. Then she bade him goodnight.

The next morning, Prudhomme was gone.

Addison woke up to the bright face and twinkling eyes of la belle Jacqueline.