Chapter 13.
The Eldest Sister, Camille

I.

With Mordaunt having departed, the last of his magic that had been active in the suite dissipated as well. The black magic enveloping the windows retreated and cleared, and his many autonomous weapons all fell harmless and lifelessly to the floor. Wilmore had been correct in his assumption that Mordaunt had set up some other surprises, and it was only after Ali had reached a slightly more stable condition, his strange mute attendants having applied medical and magical care to both his and Louise's more grievous wounds, that he was able to magically disarm the small anti-personnel explosives from a safe distance.

"Would you perhaps be interested in keeping one as a souvenir?" The young man said casually holding up a now useless claymore mine.

"Thank you, but I don't know that it really fits my aesthetic." Louise replied with a good-natured tone.

Ali shrugged and smiled genuinely at Louise as he set the inert weapon back down.

"This might seem an odd time to bring this up considering everything that has happened but..." Louise started as everyone continued picking their way through the damage. "Didn't you call me here to discuss something originally?"

Ali's face scrunched up in thought momentarily, his eyes rolling around as if searching for something before lighting up suddenly as he started laughing. "Yes, haha, yes I suppose I did. You'll have to forgive me for forgetting amongst all this. "He gestured wildly to the damaged room as he spoke.

"No, it's fine. I agree to having been rather distracted as well." Louise nodded in genuine ascent of what Ali had said.

"As for why I had originally called you- well, sent a letter. Might it be possible I could actually have your phone number in order to expedite any future communication?" Ali's face had an inquisitive but also mildly embarrassed look. "That is if it's not too presumptuous of me to ask." He added quickly on perceiving Louise's surprised features.

"Of course, Monsieur." Louise responded after a moment, forcing politeness into her awkward tone.

"Excellent!" Ali said, clapping his hands together, the impact causing him to wince at some wounds he didn't realize were still bothering him. "As for why I called you here, I was mainly worried."

"Worried?" Louise was almost taken aback at the simplicity of the explanation. "Whatever about?"

"Well there did seem to be an awful lot of commotion on your side of the Seine which had me concerned." Ali stepped around to the back of the bar and placed a glass and bottle on its pitted and broken surface. "That and it seems Lord Wilmore dispatched an individual he took for a Master." Ali casually poured some of the expensive liquor into the glass as he spoke.

"He did what?" Louise asked sharply. She was completely thrown off by how cavalier Ali was being about discussing the death of another person.

"Now now, don't sound so upset. It seems to me he did you a favor." Ali replied right before sipping from the glass, his face scrunching up visibly showing he was still not completely used to the high end beverage.

"And just how has Monsieur Wilmore done me a favor by killing someone?" Louise asked sharply.

"Whoa now," Ali replied, his veneer of culture shattered. "My Servant finds a person swearing to kill you, eternal vengeance, blah blah, and kills them in order to protect you, on my orders mind, and all you can do is be angry with him? I must say Madame you're not being very grateful."

"And just who was this person? And how do you even know they were a Master?" Louise was made angrier by the further relaxing of Ali's tone, his regard for her feelings clearly matching what he had held for the slain individual's life.

"Because he mentioned having had Servants." Lord Wilmore chimed in. The Servant had chosen to sit passively on the balcony overlooking the rest of the sitting area until this point, Rider standing nearby. "I found him in the catacombs. He spoke of having lost his Servants and he seemed to blame you."

"And what were you doing there?" Rider asked incredulously.

"He was there on my orders." Ali replied, raising his glass towards Rider. "Really Madame you make some dangerous choices. You follow another Master into a place like that, filled with God knows what, with apparently zero sense of self preservation. It's a miracle you're not dead." Wilmore shot his Master one of his usual glances that communicated his disappointment in Ali's manner of speech. "Not!... Now. Lord Wilmore." Ali shouted the first word, but paused before finishing the sentence in a more restrained tone.

"So you had your Servant follow me?" Louise asked incredulously, more and more surprised and repulsed by Ali's behavior.

"A damn good thing too I'd say. Lord knows what would have happened to you if I hadn't." Ali, despite his earlier attempts at a calm and suave exterior, was clearly shaken by the attack on both his abode and his person.

Louise thought about the wording Wilmore had used. He had indicated the person he had killed had mentioned having multiple Servants. It dawned on her then that it had to have been Zoe who he had killed. "You killed a Master who no longer had Servants?" She said quietly. "You killed a man who no longer had a place in the Grail War? He was nothing more than a civilian at that point." Her words were dripping with disgust, making no attempt to hide her feelings.

"And yet he was far from harmless I'm sure." Ali said, slicking his slightly disheveled hair back as he poured another glass.

"Trust me, a man swears vengeance like that..." Lord Wilmore cut in again. "He means to follow through on it."

"I do not need your help or protection if this is the manner in which you offer it." Louise replied harshly. "If I recall, I don't remember asking for it in the first place."

Ali swallowed the second glass at a single drought before tossing the receptacle aside to smash into pieces, intermingling with all the shattered remains of the window Mordaunt had made use of as an exit. "Understand this, Madame Saint-Hermine." There was something in the way Ali pronounced the name, a tone that was impossible to comprehend the meaning of, a swirl of emotions and thoughts wrapped up in it. "That is twice now I have saved your life, and twice you have rebuffed me any gratitude. I thought you high and mighty types were taught some manners." He seized the bottle and took a drink, completely forgoing any glass at this point. "I have been attacked in my home, my belongings destroyed, and my own person grievously wounded. And all this happens the moment you arrive? I must say I can't help but attribute our enemy finding a way in to some manner of carelessness on your part. For you seem to be set on exercising that trait quite often."

"Monsieur Bertuccio!" Louise shot back, fully enraged at Ali's accusations. "It does not fall to me to take responsibility for your safety. As for your having saved my life the first time I did thank you and I even accepted your rather presumptuous offer of a cease-fire as recompense." Louise was keeping her cool better than Ali, her voice even and her face showing little emotion, but much like him she was boiling beneath the surface. "As for the second time you claim to have 'saved my life' I hardly think surprising and killing a man after he had been disarmed of his greatest weapon while stalking me qualifies."

"Oh doesn't it now?" Ali asked, his voice suddenly quieter and calmer. "And tell me, who is to blame for that man swearing vengeance like that? He seemed awfully convinced you were to blame for his loss."

"I was not." Louise was only one more accusation away from exploding.

"Then who was? You were down there. Enlighten me." Ali said sarcastically as he walked out from around the bar to stand closer to Louise.

"An enemy far more dangerous than he was, and that worries me far more than the ones we just drove off." Louise said coolly, her eye staring imposingly into Ali's.

"And what are you implying?" Ali's temper was very slowly cooling, and his veneer of the educated socialite was starting to reinstate itself.

"That, loathe as I am to continue it considering your recent behavior, I think for the time being our cease-fire would continue to be a beneficial alliance." Louise hated the way the words tasted, but Madame Fenix and Lancer worried her far more than Ali's selfishness and, if they were capable of what she thought they were, she knew she was going to need at least one ally to fight them when the time came.

"Well." Ali said, his tone suddenly far lighter and more cheerful. "It seems perhaps you have a bit more prudence than I was giving you credit for." He smiled as he slicked his hair back again. "I would still prefer a full on alliance, but as with last time, this will do. He turned his back to the other mage and crossed back behind the bar. His turned back and Wilmore's habitual silence were all the indication Louise needed.

"Let's go, Rider. I think Monsieur will need us out of the way in order to clean up." She headed for the door without any sort of physical signal to her Servant or even a look in his direction. Rider exchanged threatening but recognizing looks with Wilmore before hopping down off the balcony and following Louise out the door.

As the door closed behind them silence reigned for some time in the ruined suite. After a few more swigs from the bottle Ali looked up to see Wilmore looking down at him with an embarrassed expression. "Oh what?" Ali spat up to him.