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1741

Fifty-nine years had passed. Fifty-nine years since Sylvie had knelt between her sister's thighs. Fifty-nine years since Alexandria Ricci had taken her first breath.

Life was not easy for anyone, and it was certainly harder for her. On average people only lived forty years or so. In spite of the fact that she had long since fled her homeland she knew that most if not all of the children she had played with in her youth were dead.

Ever since that night she had run. She knew she would continue to run for a long time. Eventually people clued into the fact that she was not aging; that her face never changed.

Her mother had not visited her dreams again. Lexa wanted to believe what she had said but it was difficult. She had spent thirteen years running. Her days were spent seeking an answer to her predicament; her nights were haunted by the ghost of her dead love.

1743

If ever there was a place to lose oneself it was the Highlands of Scotland. They were a suspicious people, but luckily for her most of the animosity was often angled towards the English.

It was a bad time to be an English man or woman in Scotland. Tensions ran high between the two peoples despite being united under one flag.

That wasn't to say they didn't distrust any foreigner. Lexa might have found herself in a real spot of trouble if she hadn't discovered a hidden talent she'd not realized she had. It took her a few months being immersed in the language, but with practice she was able to adopt the accent of the region. It was rare her voice would slip, and when it did she'd blame it on a cold; not an uncommon occurrence in the highlands.

Lexa smoothed an errant curl back into the coif at the base of her skull. An autumn breeze lifted the fall leaves to swirl in the wind and sent a chill down her spine. The skeleton of a desiccated leaf crunched under her feet.

The silence of the forest path was disturbed by the wail of an infant.

Lexa's head snapped up sharply at the sound. It tugged at her heartstrings and pulled her feet over the grassy knoll. She slipped on her path up the hill and tripped over some gnarled tree roots. The heavy wood was enough to give her pause. From the other side of the hill voices reached her ears.

"It's a baby," the refined accent drifted through the trees.

"Claire," Geillis Duncan clucked, "that's a fairy hill. That baby is no human child. That's a changeling."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Lexa's own eyes narrowed. She kept one ear on the conversation while attempting to tug her skirts free from the tangle of roots.

"When the fairies steal a human child away, they leave one of their own in its place." Geillis explained. "Ya know it's a changeling because it doesn't thrive and grow."

There was a slight pause. "That's just superstitious nonsense."

Lexa couldn't help but agree; if only she could get her skirts free she could climb the rest of the hill.

"Claire," Geillis sighed in exasperation, "if ye leave a changeling overnight in such a place, the wee folk'll come and take it back and return the child they have stolen."

"They won't," Claire's voice rose sharply. "This is not a changeling. It's just a sick child, and it might very well not survive a night out in the open. I have to go."

Lexa heard Geillis wishing her friend luck. She just managed to get her skirts free when the baby started coughing and Claire began to sob. Lexa's breath caught in her throat when she saw Mistress Frasier cradling the dead child; she took solace in the knowledge that there hadn't likely been anything she could have done.

Quietly she slid back down the hill and took off at a sprint for Castle Leoch. Luckily she didn't have to go far before the horse crossed her path.

Geillis Duncan might not have been good for much, but at least she had found Claire's husband.

"She's up there," Lexa pointed round the bend. "Ya'd best get her down before the parents return."

Perhaps propriety had jumped out the window when she did. As a young woman she would have never dreamed of approaching an agitated man pounding on the door of the magistrate's house. Then again, as a young woman she would have been unlikely to wander the streets at night; it beat sleeping though. She had grown to dread the night. The only way she could get a descant night's sleep was to ingest a concoction she had spent a decade perfecting. It worked but it left her with an overwhelming feeling of weariness the next day.

She fingered the vial in her hand and took a deep breath before approaching. He turned in the moonlight so that her breath caught in her throat. Of all the people to pound on Mistress Duncan's door in the middle of the night James Frasier was not on the list.

"She's not in this evening," Lexa swallowed when her accent slipped.

"Damn," he swore.

"Is there a problem?" She tightened her shawl around her shoulders. Her thumb pressed into the cork of the vial concealed in her palm.

"Dougal's received some dire news," Jaime shook his head. "He's not taking it very well. Colum wants him calmed with a sedative, but Claire has run out."

"She meant to restock before the fairy hill?" Lexa whispered.

"Aye lass."

Lexa chewed her lip and dropped her gaze to her fist. After a moment, where she could feel his eyes on her, she came to a decision and held out her hand.

"Give him a few drops of this," she nodded to the slim vial, "he'll be out like a snuffed candle."

Jaime accepted the clear liquid and frowned. "Where did you get this lass?"

"Sometimes I have trouble sleeping," she smiled sadly before turning on her heel. She heard the hoof beats of his horse as he rode back to the castle.

Perhaps it was a bad idea to give young Jaime a vial of magic, but she sensed that his uncle needed it more than she did. It was just about time to move on anyway.

Lexa took a deep breath before securing the bag over the horse and tightening the straps of the saddle. The smell of leather helped to calm her nerves. So far two years had been spent in the area. Two years she had stayed where the world seemed to stand still.

It had been peaceful, almost. A large part of the reason she had stayed was Geillis Duncan. Since fleeing Spain she had only heard of one witch. She'd remained in the highlands, biding her time, looking for any sign that the rumors were true before approaching.

Geillis Duncan was not a witch. She was something though, but Lexa had no clue as to what that was. She knew that Claire Frasier shared a similar past as her friend.

However, since neither were witches and neither could offer her any help or knowledge it was time to move on. There was no point remaining any longer; it was only a matter of time before someone questioned the potency of her sleeping agents.

She swung into the saddle with a soft grunt and froze. Fear curled in her stomach. Her heart drummed and stuttered in her chest as the raucous cries grew closer. She felt her lungs constrict and fill with phantom smoke.

"Witch!" Drums banged from the direction of the square.

It took everything she had to climb off her horse and tiptoe around the corner of a building: her heart plummeted when she saw the two women being dragged out of the thieves' hole.

She'd always had a talent for getting herself into trouble. She made bad decisions all the time: getting married, remaining upstairs out of sight, kissing Milo and subsequently throwing him with magic. The only smart decision she had made was running from the burning building.

She wondered idly which list this decision would make. Would it go down in history as an epic failure? Would it lead to her death?

What she did know was that she could not leave without attempting to at least help. Geillis might have been a murderess, but Claire was innocent.

She barked to a young boy and called him over.

"Where is Jamie Frasier?"

"Gone, mistress," the boy murmured. "He's accompanying his uncle home."

Lexa pressed her lips together to stifle the frustrated groan that threatened to spill from her lips. She drew in a shuddering breath and exhaled.

"What about Ned Gowan?"

"He's in the hall."

"Run and fetch him," Lexa ordered. In the back of her mind she wondered if there would ever come a day when women were not dependant on men.

Somehow she had known that the lawyer would not be enough. With that in mind she had inquired after the party that had left Castle Leoch and set out after them; she rode as quickly as her horse would go and caught him.

She'd barely finished explaining the situation to Jamie before he'd taken off for the town he had just left behind.

Lexa watched him go before turning away for her own journey. Perhaps somewhere warmer; her aunt had once spoken of coven's in the south.

1801

Weeks, months, decades… an absurd amount of time had been spent running. She'd had far too many close calls to be comfortable. The longest amount of time she had ever spent in one place was nine years.

She didn't know why she bothered to look in the mirror anymore. She had long since memorized her features; they hadn't changed in ninety-nine years.

She had discovered many things about herself over the years. She had stopped aging. Her body healed when broken. She had suffered mortal wounds when accusations had flown. She had been stabbed and shot multiple times; the rapid healing spurned those who have done her harm. She'd spent years practicing spells that allowed her to disappear when backed into a corner.

She could hear things she should have never been able to hear. Standing within several meters of anyone her ears were often assaulted with a steady thumping; it had taken a while to figure out she was hearing their hearts beating. Once she had started listening she discovered that the heart skipped a beat when someone was lying.

Lexa had come across a few vampires, but they usually left her alone. It was the witches that proved to be a problem for her. They were a suspicious people by nature and often distrusted those they didn't know.

She had all but given up on her own people; they never had any answers. Surely this coven in Athens would be no different.

"There is something that might explain your circumstances," Agatha motioned for her to sit before the fire.

Lexa's eyes widened. She had explained the bare minimum; people tended to react poorly when she told them the truth.

"You can explain why I can do things I shouldn't?"

"I think so," Agatha smiled. "You said it happened after a love affair. Suddenly you could do things that you had never done before, but came easily to your lover."

Dumbfounded Lexa could do nothing but nod.

"There is a rumor," Agatha leaned forwards, "rooted in our mythology. Humans were originally created with: four arms, four legs, and two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts; condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves."

"How does this apply to me?" Lexa tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.

"When the two halves come together again they share in everything," Agatha gave her a pointed look. "Witches around here they spend their lives searching for their mates. When they find them they share power and abilities; my sister found hers years ago. She could speak to the dead, and he had an affinity for the earth; suddenly they had each other's power in addition to their own."

"He was my soulmate?" Lexa's eyes grew round. She turned to stare at the fire.

"I can think of no other reason," Agatha nodded. "Maia's soulmate died last year; she lost his affinity for the earth when it happened."

"Are you sure she's not just lost in grief?" Lexa closed her eyes. She had watched him die… he couldn't be alive. "Perhaps she'll find the power over the earth again when she's had time to move on."

"Perhaps," Agatha nodded.

She had seen him turn ashen and grey. Vampires only did that when they died. Agatha had to be wrong about the last bit, didn't she?

I'm thinking the next chapter will skip to a very specific few days in 1821.