Chapter 34
A Desolate Duo
E li finished tying her black shirt with quick, tight movements. The smell of the freshly lit fire in the room gently coaxed her not to rush out into the night, as the promise of a cozy, quiet room all to herself beckoned with all the inviting comfort of a mother’s voice to her newborn.
The comforter on the low wooden bed had been fluffed and warmed in the sun that day. It was a wonderful weighty thing, and Eli hadn’t been able to enjoy such a luxury since she was a child.
But she was only getting a taste of such luxury thanks to the very man she needed to go find.
The crescent moon had almost crested the peak of the night sky, and the air was colder than it had been the past few evenings.
She was wearing black pants that she had managed to stow away from the keen eyes of Ms. Haewon, and while her hair was growing rapidly, it was still too short to fully tie back. Luckily, she managed to keep it out of her face successfully with a thick black ribbon she tied like a band to hold her bangs back.
Everything was set, but while turning toward the ground-level balcony that she intended to leap over to escape the house unnoticed, Eli halted in her tracks at the sound of the door being slid slowly open.
Her heart leapt to her throat as she expected Tam to appear…
Only it was Luca instead.
At dinner, he’d asked where his father was and had been told only that Tam would be away studying for a while, but he’d come back as soon as possible. It had been obvious that the boy had wanted to ask more, but despite his young age, even he had noticed the grim atmosphere that hung over Jeong, Bong, and Eli.
Eli had barely eaten the entire meal.
Bong and Jeong still left that evening, and though they didn’t say what they were doing, Eli knew Bong was going to continue to make an impression on the local nobility and build a reputation, while Jeong would look more for Tam.
But Jeong had returned not long ago, and if Eli strained to listen, she could already hear the Zinferan man’s snores echoing down the halls.
Despite the deepness of the night, Luca proceeded into the room, and closed the door behind himself. Then, in the dull glow of the firelight, he saw Eli awake and dressed.
“Where are you going?” he asked fearfully.
“I’m going to see your father.” Eli faced the child and answered quietly, already listening to see if Bong or Jeong were aware that Luca had snuck out of bed.
Luca stepped forward. “Can I go with you?”
Eli shook her head. “I am sorry, Luca, but your father would want you to stay safe. I’ll be back soon.”
“Is… Is my dad lost?”
In the faint light, the assistant could see the tears glistening in the boy’s eyes.
“He isn’t studying… is he?” Luca whispered.
While she debated lying to Luca again, a foreign ache in her chest stopped her. Until she reminded herself Tam would most likely ask her to try to be honest, but not to the point of revealing anything worrisome.
“I don’t know. He might be.”
Luca blinked quickly, forcing his tears back. “Can I wait here until you get back?”
While she wanted to say no, Eli discovered her compassion had entered a rapid growth spurt. “Fine. But sleep in the meantime. Your tutor is going to start lessons with you tomorrow.”
Luca’s face wrinkled, making him look more like his usual self.
“Do you promise, Luca?” Eli folded her hands behind her back as she waited sternly.
“Yes… I promise.”
Satisfied with his word, she turned on her heel and strode toward the balcony door.
“Eli?”
She stopped and looked back over her shoulder.
“You won’t leave me, too… right?” Luca looked shy, but the way he set his chin showed her he was determined to hear her answer.
Eli let out a breath, her eyes moving to the floor before facing the child again.
“One day I probably will, but not today. Most likely in a year.”
“Why can’t we all stay together?” Luca was unable to keep his true emotions from his face any longer.
“No one stays together forever. Not even families.” Eli was unaware there was a streak of pain and bitterness in her tone.
“But… why not stay together as long as possible?”
A funny old memory was stirring in Eli’s mind. One where she was screaming at her mother, begging her to not make her leave for the palace, insisting that she wanted to stay home. And then her mother had turned away from her without a word as the emperor’s men grabbed her arms and hauled her away.
Eli had escaped the lavish inn where she had been dropped off by her father only that one time. She never tried again.
The day she had been officially made a princess, she’d been unaware it was happening. She had simply thought she was on a fun outing with her father, and had naively started to think that her parents were going to forgive her for what she’d done in her mother’s quarters when her magic had surfaced…
Eli shoved the memory aside. “Life isn’t kind, and everyone is doing what they believe is best to survive. Being together and relying on people, family or not, is hard.”
“My dad is kind.”
Unable to say otherwise, Eli nodded. “He is.”
“And I won’t leave you ,” Luca promised. “You’re—you’re my mom now. I mean, I have a mother back home, too, and I know with you it’s pretend, but still. Even if you are my dad’s assistant, you talk to me a lot nicer than my mother did anyway.” Luca looked away. The hurt in his young eyes rattled Eli to her core. She knew where such a look came from: rejection and apathy from someone you loved more than anything.
Some small instinct told Eli that the right thing to do was to hug Luca, but that was for someone who was willing to love others and rely on them.
“I’ll be going now. Get under the blankets. It’s cold tonight,” was the only stiff farewell she could manage, and so she slipped out into the night, trying to pull her thoughts from her horrible past and onto the present.
◆◆◆
The moon had lowered in the sky, and a bird or two chirped in question as a sprinkling of stars started to fade while Eli snuck back into her room.
It had been a frustrating night.
For one, it had been years since she’d used her magic, and letting it loose once more was very disconcerting. She counted herself lucky she hadn’t really felt an urge to use it. She’d never had the troubles Tam evidently did, or the way his sister was rumored to.
That said, it had twinged a few times since Tam had been missing.
Eli blamed the fact that she was so focused on finding a witch just like herself, which automatically made her think about magic.
But she now doubted that using her magic would make much difference in finding Tam. When she used her magic in the street where he’d vanished, she could sense him, but she could also sense that he wasn’t quite in their world anymore.
Then his presence would suddenly disappear. Eli would wait silently, and sometimes he would flicker back, but no matter how hard she looked or flexed her abilities, she was left clueless and frantic, trying to find some shred of Tamlin Ashowan.
Undressing herself quickly and slipping back into her shift, Eli crawled into bed and almost yelped when she felt the small body there.
Then she recalled she had told Luca he could wait in the bed. With her hand still clamped on her mouth, she stared down at him.
He looked so helpless.
His mouth was open, his face slack, and his dark lashes sharp in contrast against his pale cheeks…
Eli finished climbing into bed beside him, and lay staring at him.
“I’m sorry I can’t be a better mother figure for you, Luca,” she whispered. “I just… didn’t have a good mom either.”
Swallowing down the lump that had formed as she spoke, Eli cleared her throat and turned onto her back to hopefully get a bit of sleep.
Surprisingly it was easy to slip into oblivion for the start of the sunrise. But even more surprising was when Ms. Haewon came in later to wake her up, she found that Luca’s hand had been holding her own as they’d slept deeply beside each other. It made Eli’s heart twinge, and oddly, when she sat up to resume her daily tasks, she found it harder to let go of Luca’s hand than she thought it would be.
◆◆◆
The night of Lord Guk’s party, Eli continued scrawling down her summary of the day’s events, her eyes heavy as she struggled to stay awake. The evening wind rustled the plum tree and slid across the back of her neck, making her reach up and gently scratch the spot. She had started logging everything that happened while Tam was gone. That way it would be easier for him to catch up once he returned.
Eli had been forced through a day of skin care and massages in preparation for the party. Of course, Jeong and Bong were of no help when she had insisted she didn’t need it. Really, she just wanted to keep trying to track down another witch in Junya to help search for Tam.
Three days had passed without any sign of the future duke. Despite this, every day, Jeong and Bong scoured Junya for him, and at night, Eli snuck out and looked for him herself using her magic.
Unfortunately, she had yet another motive driving her dogged attempts to track down her employer: She couldn’t stand it if one day she had to tell Luca that Tam wouldn’t be coming home.
And so she’d dreaded going to a party, of all things, and seeing Luca’s slim shoulders sag as he was left alone once more.
While his initial foray into formal lessons and homework wasn’t really helping his spirits much, remarkably he didn’t seem to be holding this against Eli. Which she was grateful for, though she’d never admit to it.
She couldn’t quite explain what had changed between them in those three days since Tam had vanished, but she did know that she had come to expect returning to her room to find Luca asleep under the feather-stuffed duvet. If he had one foot sticking out from under the blanket, she would make sure to get it tucked back into the cozy warmth. One night she gently rested her shin against his toes because they felt cold.
“Eli?”
She jumped. Had she been sleeping sitting up?
Blinking rapidly, Eli realized the last sentence she had written made no sense, and so she cursed softly to herself.
“Eli.”
She startled a second time, and then belatedly recalled that someone had to be with her to be calling her name.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw Bong and Ms. Haewon. She was not obtuse or sleep-deprived enough to miss their disapproving expressions.
“You should try to sleep before we go tonight,” Bong suggested softly.
Eli made a disgruntled noise that she knew was unlike her usual polite self. Haewon shifted backward subtly.
“Fine. I also won’t stay long at the party. Just until we make the proper introductions.” Secretly Eli intended to slip out again to keep searching for Tam later on.
As she stood, Bong waved away Haewon and fixed his somber gaze on her. “I know you’ve been going out every night to look for Tam.”
Eli schooled her expression as best she could with burning eyes.
“You need to take better care of yourself. I know you’re worried about Tam—”
“Pardon me, my lord, but I should go sleep.” Cutting Bong off curtly, Eli excused herself.
Nothing had really improved between them since Eli’s outburst the other day when shopping.
Not needing yet another reason to stress, she abandoned any troubling thoughts of the rift between herself and Bong as she entered her room and hungrily eyed the fluffed blankets. Without bothering to change out of her day dress, Eli crawled onto the bed and fell unconscious almost instantly.
As always since her employer had gone missing, her dreams were filled with blackness and images of Tam wandering and calling out in the vast empty space. Sometimes he was talking to a peasant man, sometimes he was pulling on something, sweat pouring down his face as he struggled.
Seeing him in this dark world alone, Eli jerked and tossed in her sleep. This time a certain boy wasn’t there to hold her hand through the dreams. And so, as her frustration rose, from the depths of her subconscious she uttered, “Tam… come home.”