Chapter 25 #4
Maeve attended without complaint.
Before their return to Vaukore, Ambrose Obscured them to the city to purchase school books for their final year and new uniforms and cloaks. Ambrose insisted on buying Mal a tailored set of Serpentine attire from? Wizard’s Wears, the most expensive Magical Shop in Paris.
Maeve knew Mal would have secretly liked to decline, but Ambrose’s love language was gift-giving, and Mal was wise to gratefully accept.
Ambrose also purchased them both new cauldrons and vial sets. Mal eyed a black leather-bound journal in the window of Hobs and Hyde Bindings. Ten minutes later, Mal’s name was burned across the back cover in gold inlay.
“Ambrose!”
They turned, and one of Ambrose’s colleagues was striding towards them.
“Maeve,” he said, nodding at her curtly.
He then turned to Mal with the most excited look on his face.
“Malachite, my boy,” he said, extending his hand.
“Hello, Mr. Beaux,” said Mal, shaking his hand with a smile.
“I cannot tell you enough how amazed I was at your dueling skills,” said Mr. Beaux. “And your dancing.” He nudged Maeve with a wink.
Maeve pressed her lips together and avoided her father’s gaze.
“Thank you, sir,” said Mal. “That’s too kind.”
“And London,” said Mr. Beaux, “hasn’t stopped talking about you either.”
Mr. Beaux looked at Maeve and laughed. “I told her, as her husband, it was making me a little jealous!”
Maeve smiled softly at Mr. Beaux. They were already falling for him. And they didn’t even know the greatest secret of the century yet.
He was their salvation.
On their final summer evening before returning to Vaukore, Maeve had a surprise for Mal. They saddled up two horses and began a journey north. They rode a few times over the summer, exploring cliffside caves and the forest, but they had never traveled as far as where Maeve was taking them.
The ride was just short of an hour, and they took turns setting the pace. Sometimes they traveled quickly, wind blowing violently around them. Then Mal brought them to a slow trot, where they admired the cliffside sunset and talked about their final year at Vaukore.
Mal decided that until the Human War conflict was resolved, and his studies at Vaukore complete, he would be making no claims as The Dread Descendant.
Maeve understood. There was too much happening. The Orator’s Office was occupied. The Magical Militia was now fighting in a human war they were never supposed to be in. But as civilian death tolls rose in the spring, Ambrose felt he had no choice but to lend his army to protecting the innocent.
Mal’s secret protected him too.
There was still so much they didn’t know.
And Kietel was becoming violent, rash and out of control. With an army to back him.
“Did you see the paper this morning?”
Mal nodded.
“Kietel is calling for the Orators Office to surrender power to him within a fortnight. He called my father by name.”
“Your Father has the entire Magical Militia at his command. Not just the British. He isn’t threatened.”
“I know,” said Maeve. “Still, I worry.”
“He worries about sending you back to school.”
Maeve looked over at him. “Oh?”
“It’s to be expected.”
They rode in silence for a moment. The sounds of the North Sea slamming against the cliffside and the horses’ hoofs against the grass were the only sounds.
“I had that feeling again,” said Maeve quietly.
“It’s been weeks since you felt that,” he said.
Maeve nodded. “But I felt it last night. Late. It woke me up.”
“Anything different?”
“It felt. . .close. And then suddenly very far. It was like cold slime trailing down my back, moving farther away with each inch.”
“Have you told your father?”
“Merlin no. I know he doesn’t want me going back to Vaukore right now and I’m not about to give him a greater reason to lock me in that house.”
They reached the tree line of the woodlands at twilight. Sinclair Estates was far behind them. Mal raised a brow at Maeve, and she nodded him along and took the lead. They moved into the forest slowly and quietly.
“It’s the perfect time of year to see them now, as it’s getting a little cooler,” said Maeve in a hushed voice.
“You still haven’t told me what we’re seeing.”
“That would ruin the surprise.”
They had not traveled far into the forest when Maeve grabbed Mal’s arm, silently pointing ahead of them.
He followed her gaze in between two trees. There, in the opening, was a bright white and gleaming unicorn. Its silvery hair was silky, and its horn was long with a pale peach color.
Maeve was delighted with Mal’s amazed expression.
“Do they ever leave this forest?” Asked Mal.
“Not usually,” said Maeve. “But father’s Aunt told him there was one who she gained the trust of and that she would come close to the house and eat out of her hand.”
They watched as a second, smaller unicorn joined the first.
“They travel in families,” she whispered. “Father says their blood is incredibly powerful,” said Maeve.
“Drinking it prolongs life,” stated Mal.
“Not just that,” replied Maeve. “When Father was a child, my Grandfather Alyicious slaid a unicorn with the sole purpose of curing Father of a nasty case of Black Cat Flu.”
“He gave him unicorn blood?”
Maeve nodded. “Grandmother says it worked. She said she’d heard many stories of the Sinclair’s using unicorn blood to live longer lives.
Though, it’s considered a heinous act to kill something so pure, an act of dark magic to corrupt something so beautiful, especially when there are so few left.
Not that any of that stopped my ancestors from hunting all kinds of magical beasts.
But these were brought to Earth by the Sinclair’s that fled the Dread Lands three hundred years ago. ”
“They brought others,” Mal stated plainly.
Maeve nodded. “They did. And some dark creatures slipped through as well.”
They watched the unicorns for a few minutes until something spooked the beautiful creatures, and they took off running. Maeve and Mal left the forest and stopped, overlooking the seaside.
His eyes burned a hole in the side of her face. He spoke suddenly.
“What do you know about The High Lord?’
“Not much. He’s a Senshi Warrior. And he’s been on the throne since shortly after the Shadow War. Which he inherited, power and all, from his father. Father says eventually he will pass that power onto his own inheritor, and he will die. That is the way of their Magic.”
“And how long has your father know him?”
“The Immortals were not our allies until my father made it so when he was first elected as Premier over a decade ago.”
“Because they refused the Magicals entry when they sought refuge from the blight three hundred years ago.”
“Where did you read that?”
“Hummingdoor told me so.”
Maeve looked out over the seaside. Reeve had insinuated that she needed to read up on the Shadow War. Maybe she did.
“He holds the Power of the Gods. Every man in that room the other night knew he was the most powerful of us all. And at any moment, it could belong to another, and his existence gone.” Mal’s face was stoic, perfectly poised and held, not a hair out of place.
“For now,” said Maeve. “He is the most powerful for now. That shield you made around the orphanage? It blocked a bomb, Mal. Father said a single bomb is the strength of a thousand Magicals. And that Magic came easy to you. So, for now, Reeve is the most powerful.”
Mal took the reins on her horse from her hands and pulled her horse closer. She looked up at him.
“Do you know that entire evening I was consumed by the thought of you in that lavender dress?”
Maeve breathed deeply. “You did look distracted in your dueling.”
Mal grinned softly. He pulled her forward and kissed her forehead with a chuckle, then released her reins.
“Would you like to race back?” Asked Maeve.
“Only if you’d like to lose,” said Mal.
The final night of summer was traditionally an intimate dinner party among only the Sacred Seventeen families, a celebration send off for those returning to school on August 1st. Roswyn’s family was hosting them in their mountain side villa.
Ambrose bought Mal another tailored suit with a new set of black robes. Maeve could think of no one that deserved nice things more than the boy who grew up with nothing but a name.
She delighted in seeing him woo the crowds once again. Irma and Peitro Mavros, Alphard and Astrea’s parents, were so happy to see him that Irma was beside herself with joy when Mal asked her for a dance.
Maeve was having a delightful evening. She and Abraxas were seated above the garden on a settee, giggling over Mr. Iantrose knocking over an entire statue and mistaking it for a party guest in his drunken state.
Maeve was the only one not drinking, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. Alphard was cracking jokes with Roswyn.
The mountain air was cool and thin. Refreshing.
“Look, look,” crackled Abraxas, “he’s trying to help it up.”
He grabbed Maeve’s arm and tried to calm his breathing. Arianna appeared and snapped her fingers for Maeve’s attention.
“Mother wants you to come inside for the cake cutting,” said Arianna.
“Why,” grimaced Maeve, laughing. “That sounds terribly boring.”
“As the women of Sacred in the Sinclair household-” started Arianna, but Maeve cut her off.
“Yeah, not going.”
Abraxas swirled around the ice in his drink, looking up at Arianna. She huffed and walked away, muttering under her breath.
Maeve and Abraxas turned their attention back to Mr. Iantrose.
“You should go,” said Roswyn.
“What?” Maeve said, turning towards him.
“To the cake cutting,” he said in an affected voice. “Where the women belong,” he spat.
“Shut your mouth,” said Alphard calmly.
“What the hell, Al?” Asked Roswyn, clearly thrown off.
“Nothing to get worked up about,” said Alphard, “just can’t have you talking to her like that.”
“I don’t need you to defend me,” said Maeve, cooly. “You’d think after Mal’s last warning to him that he’d learn to keep it to himself.”