After tea, Liza appeared and teleported with Alice and Clark to what appeared to be a magical version of a mix between a craft fair and an indoor market. It was contained underground, as Alice could see exposed stone on the walls and ceiling. The isles were a little cramped, and some of the stalls looked like they had been carved out of the bedrock and then modified so the countertops were higher. Liza confirmed that this place had once been the home of a dwarven clan before they had moved to Otherworld.

There were spellbooks, potions and ingredients for them, exotic animals that she had only seen in books, cauldrons and phials, wands and other objects imbued with magic. There was quite a crowd too, as they were not the only ones trying to finish up some last minute shopping. While there were a few people in normal clothing, most of the wizards sported robes and most of the witches dresses.

Clark eventually settled on a handsome inkwell for Hieronymous. Alice was happy to find a witch selling crystal paperweights with various flowers encased in them, and even happier to find one that had bright yellow celandine—the flowers that spoke of joys to come.

After they returned to their grandfather's home, Liza promised to have the presents wrapped for them while they ate supper. The maid that took their cloaks informed them that supper was to be served momentarily.

Alice peaked into the library on her way there, and as she had suspected, her husband had gathered a respectable amount of books and had set them on the desk for his perusal. Hieronymous himself was floating in the air, looking over books on the top shelf. "Don't tell me that you are going to read all of those by the time we go back," she said, shaking her head.

Hieronymous nearly dropped the book he held before catching it. Apparently, he had not heard her enter. "I am merely choosing the selection I will be reading from; I am aware that I will not be able to read all of it while here," he said, floating down. After he took a second look at the fort of books he had built on top of the desk already, he did grin a little guiltily.

Alice sighed, thinking that her husband presently reminded her of Clark when she had caught him trying to eat all of his Halloween candy at once. "Well," she said, "if you figure out a way to stop time temporarily so you can read all of that, let me know. I could get some extra studying done."

After supper, they went into the sitting room with the large fireplace and decorated the tree. Alice and her brother took the lower half, while their grandfather and Hieronymous floated either themselves or the delicate glass ornaments up to place the decorations. While this tree did not have electrical lights, the light from the fireplace bounced off the glass and small mirrors within the ornaments in such a way that the tree seemed lit with tiny flames. She suspected that when the sun rose and shown through the eastern stained-glass windows, the effect would be different but just as lovely.

"It's beautiful," Alice whispered, admiring their handiwork.

Their grandfather nodded. "It is. Your mother and grandmother loved decorating the Christmas trees. I have not helped decorate one myself since…." He trailed off, but she thought perhaps the last time he had done so was the Christmas before he had lost them both. That next Christmas must have been a terrible one for him.

She looked over at her husband. "The servants put the tree up at home when I was a child," he was saying. "A couple of my better nannies managed to make Christmas a bright time for me, regardless of whether my father bothered to make an appearance or not."

"Well," Alice declared taking a hand from each man while still facing the tree, "it's time to make new memories, now. No matter what injustices or regrets occurred, you can only move forward." Both men squeezed her hand at that, as though drawing strength.

They spent the rest of the evening playing at the card table in the library. Their grandfather and Hieronymous taught the siblings how to play Whist, and a box of chocolates and tea had been produced for refreshments. When it was finally time to go to bed, Alice waited until Clark had shut the door to his room before turning to give her husband a kiss goodnight. He returned the gesture before letting her go to enter his own rooms. Alice grinned, entered her own room, and pulled the bell so Liza could help her out of her dress. With all those little buttons down the back, it was impossible to do so by herself.

...

Alice woke the next morning feeling well rested, but there was enough light coming through her curtains that she was certain that she had overslept. A quick glance at the clock confirmed this, and she tisked at herself. She assumed that her goose down bed with silk sheets was at least partially to blame for this.

After a quick shower, she rang for the Liza who came right up with a light breakfast on a silver tray with a pot of tea. As it was already ten o'clock, lunch would not be that far along. Alice ate in her robe while her maid selected a dress for her. After dressing, she let Liza put her hair up before going downstairs in search of her family.

"They went out on the horses and intend to be back for lunch."

Alice turned to see her grandfather looking at her from over the newspaper he held from his vantage point of the chair nearest the fireplace.

Alice smiled. "Something besides me managed to pull my husband from the library? I'm happy to see him branching out a little more."

Her grandfather abandoned his newspaper on a small table. "Your brother joined him in there after breakfast this morning. I flushed the two of them out not long ago with the suggestion that they needed fresh air and the horses required exercise."

Alice nodded. "I think they both see any library as a sanctuary of sorts. They both love books, and place a high value on knowledge."

Her grandfather nodded. "Apparently, they are not that different in some ways."

"It feels a little strange comparing my husband with my brother," she mused. "But they do have their similarities. I think that Hieronymous may have been more like Clark if he had had fewer difficulties when growing up."

Her grandfather grimaced. "I can see where Aloysius would have made a terrible father. On the other hand, I am not sure that I did much better myself."

"Hieronymous did not have a proper mother like Mom did," she reminded him. "At least you gave her that."

He was silent for a moment. "Would you like to come upstairs and see a portrait of her?"

Alice nodded and followed her grandfather to his private study. On one of the walls there was something covered in black velvet. He pulled a rope, and the curtain lifted to reveal a fine painting. It was a portrait of a young couple with a girl about Nancy's age. She stared at the young woman—it could have been a picture of herself. "I…I really do look like her."

He nodded. "The first time I saw you, my heart nearly stuck in my throat. Your presence brings her heavily to mind…but I know that you are not her."

"I don't want to cause you grief," she started before her grandfather cut her off.

"You don't Alice. It has been long enough that it no longer feels like I am being ripped apart when something reminds me of her. Instead, I relish the happy times we did have. And it is well that you do resemble her; it is proof that she left this world better than she entered it. That was one of her goals for her life, and I am happy to see it accomplished."

Alice blushed at the praise. "That is a rather high opinion of me for the time we have spent together."

"People may not always believe what you say, but they will always believe what you do," her grandfather told her. "I have been watching you grow in more ways that perhaps you realize, and Petunia has been informative as well. You accepted the responsibility of caring for your younger siblings when your mother was ill, and you were still a child yourself. Clark considers you of enough worth that he inconveniences himself by acting as your shield, and he respects you for the grace you have in handling your situation. The twins are less mature than he, but still see you as well-accomplished. Nancy sees you as a secondary mother, someone that nurtures and cares for her. Your parents have a great deal of pride in the daughter they have raised. And then we have your husband.

"You had the courage to try to save his life…even if you were under informed about what was actually happening. You had the integrity to keep the marriage secret as he had wished, and the tenacity to not let him chase you away when the situation became public. You turned a wounded bear into a considerate admirer."

"You make it sound easy," Alice sighed. "Hieronymous took…takes a lot of work."

Her grandfather raised an eyebrow. "I take it he still has some foibles you intend to work on?"

"Oh," she replied. "I've never met anyone without foibles, but the ones that he is most likely to keep are those I can live with. It's just that I think that he may not have moved on from what happened to Violet yet."

"Is that why he chose the career he did?" he asked.

"I think so. I know he does it to keep young people from making permanent mistakes," she said, thinking back to one of their conversations earlier in the year. "That was part of the reason he originally tried to keep me at arm's length after we were married. He had thought that, for various reasons, he would not be good for me and did not want me to become attached to him. I think that it was something of a 'defensive mechanism.'"

"You eventually changed his mind," her grandfather said smiling.

"I couldn't leave him as he was, and somewhere along the way I started to love him," Alice admitted.

Her grandfather was silent for a moment. "I know you said that he burns his father's letters, but do you know what Hieronymous has told him concerning you?"

Alice shrugged. "I got one letter from the man shortly after the wedding. He seemed to think that Hieronymous had fallen in love with me, and that we had married for that reason. He also said that he would be happy to help find retainers for the children, so I doubt he knows that I'm still in school."

He sighed. "Well, I'm afraid that I let slip that you two have a one-year contract marriage when he was telling me that his son had married early this year. The news appeared to come as a surprise to him."

"Why am I not surprised?" Alice said dryly. "And you did not say that I was your granddaughter?"

He shook his head. "No, I just said that Petunia informed my bank for legal reasons…he probably thought it was something that referred to a bank account. I left your history to his imagination."

Alice chuckled. "I wonder if it would have been more or less cruel to let him make up his own theories about me, or to tell him the truth."

"Well, you should probably have your husband tell him that you two are extending your contract to lifelong status. If he finds out that you are his daughter-in-law before you do that, he will probably assume that this marriage is some scheme on my end," her grandfather admitted.

"You mean like you using me as bait to get him to take his father's place on the Council?" she asked.

"Something of that nature," her grandfather said dryly. "People with a devious nature often expect their rivals to share their methods. Personally, I prefer being forthright when possible…it confuses the devious people. Speaking of which, at what time in the future do you expect your husband to allow his father to retire? Grabiner has impersonated his own descendants for several normal generations to account for his age in the normal political world, and has let slip to me that he would rather retire if he could."

So, mages that had to live and be noted in both worlds pretended to be their own children and grandchildren? She guessed that it made sense, since mages could live for hundreds of years. After all, they could not keep their own identity for that long of a period without the normals getting suspicious.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I told you about his reason for teaching, to keep others from making the mistake he did. I don't know what it would take to make him feel as if he atoned for what happened to Violet. I think he also wanted to get as far away from his father as he could. He resents him for not being around when he was growing up, for not approving of Violet. The fact that his father wants to retire might be enough to make Hieronymous drag his feet on the issue. There's also a chance he sees his personal problems as vulnerabilities he would not be equipped to deal with in the political world."

"I am hoping that will change," her grandfather noted. "I've been trying for some time to get the Velvet Curtain to include immediate family members of any mage and I could really use his help. Not to mention that the responsibility could fall to you if Aloysius dies and your husband refuses to take up his duties."

Alice blinked. "Really? How?"

"In the normal House of Lords, he could just take a leave of absence and that would be all that was required. But for the Council, if you have born an heir, or are even with child, you would stand in for that child on the Council if your husband and father-in-law were to die or abdicate their duties. It is a little used rule," her grandfather admitted, "but the subject has come up before."

She gulped. "I'm too likely to say exactly what I mean to be that good at politics. Why did you think I was happy letting Clark take that job?"

"I had thought that might be the case," her grandfather said. "And you would not be allowed to say 'no' either, just as Hieronymous would not have that choice if Aloysius died and you were childless."

Alice frowned. "But that makes it sound like he could force Hieronymous into his position right now."

"Once the position was accepted, Lord Grabiner became unable to abandon it without an heir that consents to take it up," her grandfather clarified. "Any refusal to take up those duties must be made public, and an absence of such is legally consent. An unborn, or very young, child would be unable to refuse, so consent would be implied, and the parent not in line for control of the House would serve as his conservator until he was legally of age. If Lord Grabiner dies, and your husband was his only legal heir, Hieronymous would not have the choice to refuse since House Grabiner must be represented."

"He better live until I get out of school," she whispered half to herself. She would miss her husband if he had to leave school to go sit in meetings all of the time. Even if the senior Grabiner did abdicate at the first news of a pregnancy…after she was done with school of course…she did not expect that her husband would make her take his political responsibilities. She knew that he would eventually end up on the Council whether he willed it or not. She would do her best to support him in any way that she could, but did not wish the task for herself.

"Is he really so old that he could expect to die soon?" she asked.

Her grandfather shrugged. "By wizard standards…no, he is not."

"Then why is he so set upon Hieronymous letting him retire? From what I do know of him, he doesn't seem the type of man to surrender power willingly," Alice wanted to know.

"He is not," Grandfather answered. "While due to his age it would be convenient for him to relinquish his seat in the normal House of Lords, this does not necessarily mean that he would also have to relinquish his Council seat. However, he seems to accept that Hieronymous would not undertake the first without the other as his cost."

"And he has some other pursuit to keep him occupied? Surely it is not simply convenience that motivates him," Alice replied.

Her grandfather smiled. "You are a sharp girl. Yes, I do know that he has other pursuits, and as I consider them useful I have nothing against him dedicating more time to them. However, due to an arrangement we have I am unable to specify exactly what those activities may be."

Alice nodded. "And these activities allow him some amount of power, or at least influence," she mused. "You would not be concerned about his gaining material wealth, so I can rule that out. Some sort of knowledge, such as covert research or information gathering perhaps?"

"He would be impressed if you figured it out for yourself," her grandfather noted. "In fact, it would be the fastest way for him to see you as something other than merely the potential mother of his grandchildren."

"And does Hieronymous know of his father's 'hobby?'"

"That I do not know," her grandfather admitted. "They have had very little contact since Hieronymous came of age, and it is not the sort of thing one would share with a resentful boy."

Quite possibly her husband did not know then. She decided to alter the subject. "I know that we're married in the wizard world, but do we need a wedding here or in America?"

"For your identity as a Carleton? That might be prudent," her grandfather noted. "You could wait on that if you like, or I could sign to give you permission to marry as your guardian since you are still seventeen. Anyone could find the records, though, so it would become public."

"Perhaps it might be better to wait on that," she mused. "I could see Dad getting suspicious about your story to adopt Clark if he finds that you have a granddaughter. And I think we might have to have another wedding after I graduate anyway. I think Mom would be pretty upset if we just 'eloped.' I can just use my English identity for that ceremony and get the paperwork done before they can see it."

"But if things remain as they are," her grandfather noted, "I would not be able to attend."

"You can't come to the one in January?"

"I am afraid not," her grandfather looked unhappy with that thought. "We are expecting an important delegation at that time, and I have already been placed in charge of it."

"That's too bad," Alice said. "If we don't announce it and don't publish a picture of me anywhere, will that keep it from Dad's buddies?"

"Probably. I should recommend a better White mage to be assigned to your family's case, though."

"It would be a good precaution," Alice admitted, "and for more than one reason. Every time I go home, Nancy has found something new to do. Can't she just be put on mute or something until she's older?"

Her grandfather sighed. "That is what is normally done with children until they get to school, but…. Given that it is White magic that blocks the flow of magic, and that that is what Nancy is using, it would be more like putting a magma stopper in the mouth of an active volcano than putting a cork in a bottle."

"She would just regurgitate the plug, adding to the problem?" Alice asked.

"Exactly," her grandfather noted. "Her situation is actually in a legal mess right now. She cannot be taken away from your parents for training because she is under the age of ten and nothing dangerous has happened yet. She cannot be placed with a tutor because of the Velvet Curtain. Her magic cannot be cut because she is too young to make the Choice. She cannot be held responsible for any showing of magic to normals because she is too young to control it well yet."

"So in the meantime the local authorities are sweating bullets trying to keep her under wraps," Alice guessed.

"I am afraid so," he answered. "Given that she is the granddaughter of an influential Councilman…they might be doing more than merely 'sweating bullets.' I am afraid that I have been monitoring the situation rather closely." His smile was almost a little evil.

"As long as they aren't so stressed out that they mess up," Alice decided, "I'm happy."