Chapter 12 #2
Almost everyone took seats at Kendra and Nelda’s direction, leaving Wilona and Hallie still standing in the kitchen.
Morgana refused to sit down, but somehow persuaded Magnus to leave her.
Along with Morgana, Rosalia took up a post in the open doorway, a glass of deep red liqueur in her hand.
It made Hallie want to smile, pride filling her.
She had never thought of her friend as a warrior before, but that’s what Rosalia was just then. Guarding her people.
Wilona’s anger had banked down a little with all the moving about, but she was still bristling with temper as she stared at Hallie. “You have forgotten the respect due to your Magravine.”
“By no means,” Hallie said, all at once feeling the weight of the travel and stress of the past days.
She moved across to the table and turned a chair sideways, settling on it so she could still keep an eye on her mother and everyone else.
“But you are no longer my Magravine. I have no place in your family or your vine. You yourself made that decision, and I accept it.”
“Based on lies,” Wilona spat out, colour rising in her face. “You concealed your abilities from me.”
“You never asked,” Hallie said. It was true, but it wasn’t completely honest. Hallie had actively concealed her truth sense from everyone - not just her mother.
She had never actually lied about it. She’d only recently learned that she had other abilities with magic, but the question of whether she had magic or not had never come up in any conversation with her mother, or, it seemed, in any of the negotiations about severing Hallie from the vine.
“What abilities?” Morgana asked, with apparently genuine curiosity. She lifted her brows at Hallie. “This is news to me.”
“She concealed her magic,” Wilona snapped, and turned on Morgana. “And if you had done your job, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“I did my job, Magravine,” Morgana said, her voice cool and controlled.
“You required me to draft a severance of Hallie from the Talbot vine, much as you required me to draw her severance from the blood family a decade ago. There were no conditions or codicils on that. You didn’t want to discuss any other options, just a simple severance.
As I advised you at the time, the only way that Hallie Talbot could rejoin the Talbot vine, or even the Talbot family, was with her express consent. ”
“Don’t talk back to me,” Wilona snapped, glaring at Morgana.
“I am speaking in my capacity as your lawyer. Or, at least, that is the capacity I was in when I drew those documents for you,” Morgana said, still cool and outwardly calm.
Hallie could see the tension in her half-sister’s shoulders and knew by the set of her jaw that Morgana was battling her own temper.
Morgana was in a difficult position, still a member of the vine and subject to Wilona’s control.
Hallie admired her half-sister’s self-control.
“You have not involved me in the current discussions, so I cannot offer you any advice on those, other than to say that the document I drew up was flawless.”
Whatever Wilona might have said was interrupted by the front door opening again, swiftly followed by two people coming into the kitchen area. Hallie was glad she was sitting down as relief made her legs weak.
Lady Cotovatre swept into the room, dressed in a formal, floor-length dress of what looked like deep ultramarine velvet trimmed with silver thread.
Hallie didn’t have the right words to describe the dress other than its overall effect was regal.
It was fitted to the lady’s torso, then spilled into a wider skirt that flowed with her as she walked.
She’d added a heavy silver necklace that sat in the dipped neckline and a pair of silver earrings to match the necklace.
Her hair had grown since Hallie had seen her last, teased into apparently careless curls around her head and she was wearing make-up, which Hallie had never seen on the lady before, making her dark eyes enormous and enhancing her strong bone structure.
The overall effect was that Cotovatre looked like the powerful and wealthy hochlen that she was, self-assured and comfortable in her own skin.
Behind her, Emmet Lowery was in his habitual disguise as one of the hochlen, wearing a formal jacket in deep, midnight blue with narrow lapels embroidered with a sinuous design in the same blue colour.
The jacket fell to his knees over narrow trousers of the same fabric and a white shirt and bow tie.
Hallie had a moment of confusion when she saw him, as she always did, because she could see both the hochlen disguise he wore and his true form of the green-skinned, white-haired sinisir.
It didn’t matter what face he wore, he brought with him, as always, a deep sense of calm that came from a very long life.
Cotovatre paused, eyes moving around the space, travelling over the group settled in the living room.
Hallie saw the tiniest movement she made when her eyes landed on Kaherdin’s face.
Cotovatre had borne a half-human son, many years before, who she’d named Kaherdin.
The name had been carried down the line of her descendants.
After her son had died, as far as Hallie knew, the lady had not met any of her descendants in person until one night a little over a decade ago when the lady had saved Hallie’s life.
Hallie could only imagine the shock the lady felt seeing her many-times-great-grandson.
But the lady had spent several lifetimes in hochlen politics and moved on at once, hiding her feelings.
Cotovatre took in Rosalia and Morgana standing guard in the doorway, Wilona Talbot, and finally looked across at Hallie.
Her face softened a little, then she turned to Wilona, expression hardening into displeasure.
“Magravine Talbot. You are in breach of our agreement.”
“There’s no agreement,” Wilona snapped back.
“We agreed that neither of us would bother Hallie while our discussions were continuing,” Cotovatre said, her voice a flat slap in the charged air. “And your lawyers have already advised you, several times, that you will not succeed in your efforts.”
“If you are so sure of that, then why are we still talking?” Wilona asked, a sharp and savage edge to her voice that Hallie had not heard before.
Worry tightened her chest. Her mother had been backed into a corner.
Whether she would acknowledge it or not, even in her own mind, Hallie couldn’t be sure.
But she could be sure that Wilona was on the defensive, put into a position she had never been in since she became Magravine of facing someone with more power than her.
The contrast between the two women was remarkable.
It wasn’t just the quiet and obvious wealth that Cotovatre displayed, or her much greater age, but the light way that Cotovatre carried her authority.
Wilona wielded her power like a blunt instrument, forcing people to follow her will.
Cotovatre had no need of any such weapons.
She asked, and things were done. Hallie remembered Vertiger, Cotovatre’s country house, full of people of all ages and races who had all seemed to admire and be in awe of their lady.
It wasn’t through fear. There was loyalty and love and mutual affection.
And the knowledge that Cotovatre would also do her best for her people.
Whereas Wilona was interested only in herself and her own ambitions.
There was a foul taste in Hallie’s mouth as she thought it through, and she couldn’t help but be grateful, once more, for her father, who had shown her a kinder and gentler side and who had, somehow, never lost his compassion.
A hint of that compassion showed on Cotovatre’s face now as she looked back at Wilona.
“We are still talking in part out of respect for your position, both as Magravine and as Hallie’s birth mother.
And out of concern for Hallie’s well-being.
As I have told you, more than once, my only concern is in Hallie’s well-being and in making sure she never has to deal with this again.
” Cotovatre paused, and her voice hardened a little as she went on.
“When we came to our first agreement about Hallie’s severance from the vine, I had understood that to be absolutely final.
The fact that you would go back on your word after so short a period of time leads me to have some concerns about what you may do in the future.
And that is the rest of the reason why we are still talking. ”
Wilona’s chin came up, colour burning high on her cheeks and in her expression Hallie could see a great deal of stubborn pride.
As well as her love of power and money, Wilona had also always taken pride in the fact that her word was her bond and she never broke a contract or agreement.
Hallie could see the struggle on her mother’s face as Wilona wanted to rage back at Cotovatre, to protest that she was not a deal breaker.
But she could not. Because she had broken her word.
Twice. Once to Hallie, and now to Cotovatre, in trying to claw Hallie back into the family vine.
“I expect to be compensated for the insult,” Wilona said, voice a low, furious hiss.
“There is no insult, only fact,” Cotovatre said, outwardly calm and collected.
In that moment, she reminded Hallie very much of how Morgana had faced Wilona only a short time before, the lady and the lawyer each hiding their feelings behind a professional front.
“The goodwill payment that was offered through your lawyers will make up for any insult you may feel.” It was said in a cool tone but with a razor-sharp edge that no one, not even Wilona, could fail to hear.
Hallie felt her jaw drop and snapped her mouth shut.
She’d never seen her mother so masterfully dealt with before.
It didn’t make her happy, though. It made her feel unsettled and faintly sick that it had come to this point, that Wilona had not been able to accept that her youngest child, and unwanted daughter, was no longer in her control.
“This is not over,” Wilona said, and took a step forward, as if heading for the exit.
Cotovatre moved. Just a fraction. But enough to be in Wilona’s path.
There was steel in her voice now when she spoke.
“As far as any interference with Hallie, or any of the other people in this house tonight are concerned, it is over. You or your lawyers may contact me or my representatives to conclude our bargain, but you will not deal with anyone else on this matter.”
“You cannot enforce that,” Wilona said, fury burning in her face again.
“Do not test me further, Magravine.” And in those words, Hallie could hear every one of Cotovatre’s years of life and the weight of the power and authority she carried not just as one of the hochlen but as a member of the Conclave.
Wilona’s chin came up. She met and held Cotovatre’s eyes for a long, long moment before the Magravine looked away, expression pinched. Wilona’s eyes landed on Hallie, still sitting in the chair at the dining table, and her face pinched still further.
“Nothing but trouble and disappointment,” she said, then turned on her heel and headed out of the house, punctuating her departure with the slam of the front door, leaving the air thick with her fury and dissatisfaction.