Chapter 73
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 72
“I did, didn’t I?” He wraps his arms around himself for a moment- fighting his father?! Is that really what he decided? But… but he would, if… if he had to. For his… friends? Is that the right word? He isn’t family with Darcy like vision him was, but… but her and John are still really important to him. And Gregory, of course. Yes, for them, he’d do that, that’s bigger than just he himself not getting into trouble with his father.
~~~~
Seeing that gesture of… she tilts her head, probably wanting support, Darcy sits down on the sofa next to him and hugs him. “Yes, whatever you did, you won! You bested the trial!”
John agrees with that by reaching over and punching him on the shoulder.
~~~~
Arthur lets himself lean into Darcy, just a little, huffs out a breath of relief. “I did it? Oh, I’m so glad! And, um…” He gives her and John a shy look. “…If my father was being a threat to you, I’d fight him, too,” he tells them.
~~~~
“I’d be right at your side! You don’t ever have to fight alone.” Darcy proclaims while squeezing her arms tighter around him, then chuckles as John just nods only once, but strongly, with a serious expression.
~~~~
Arthur smiles at Darcy, then also at John. “Thank you.” He lets out another big breath, and relaxes. “But I am very glad that’s over! Um, did you get a good look at the symbol?” He looks over at the sketch pad, then to Gregory, because he’s being uncharacteristically quiet- only to see Gregory’s glazed over eyes. “Oh, maybe we should wait and see what Gregory’s is…”
~~~~
John internally has a few choice comments on what that likely would be, but once again, he doesn’t want to be petty, so he just grabs for the pad again and waits.
~~~~
That, uh, relationship between vision him and vision Darcy still is very strange, but Arthur decides he likes that she’s sitting next to him and is still hugging him, so he makes no effort to move away. And, well, Gregory’s in a vision, so he can’t tease him about it. Or have any opinion about it. “I’m really curious what my symbol means,” he tells the others, though, because just sitting around in silence watching Gregory do nothing is weird, too.
“Friend!” is Darcy’s opinion, blurted out, while John puts his guess on ‘loyal’.
That makes Arthur smile a little, at both of them. “You think so? I think either of them would great…”
~~~~
Before Darcy can comment more, there’s the by now familiar drizzle of glitter in the air and Llew reappears, wearing what looks to Darcy like a little dunce cap, but it’s all sparkly and decorated with frilly paper ribbons. “Everybody’s done it! Nobody failing and never waking up. I’m impressed! Party now!”
~~~~
Everyone’s done? Arthur looks at Gregory, confused, to see Gregory is indeed waking up. There isn’t any symbol, though?
~~~~
Looking just as confused, Darcy’s gaze goes back and forth between Llew and Gregory but Llew just waves a dismissive hand and instead steps in close to her, grin going creepy again and grabs her, announces: “See you down at the party!” and vanishes them both into glitter.
~~~~
Ugh, John, really some days doesn’t know which guy he hates more but he’s not stupid, he knows Darcy is on a mission, so he curbs every last urge to run downstairs to protect her, and instead gives her time to work that apparently trial-sanctioned charm of hers.
~~~~
Arthur manages to get out of Gregory that in his vision, they were all chasing down the evil vampire to save Darcy, but hadn’t found him yet when the vision ended. On Arthur asking what Gregory thinks he did to make it end, Gregory just shrugs and looks confused. But, well… introspection isn’t really Gregory’s strongest suit, so maybe Arthur shouldn’t expect anything else.
It’s weird that Gregory didn’t have a glowing symbol, but he’s awake and fine, and apparently if someone failed, they’d never wake up (which maybe he’s glad he wasn’t aware of…) so… So he decides to believe Llew if he says it’s over and everyone passed, symbol or no, and heads downstairs with the others- where downstairs, he wonders.
~~~~
The where turns out to be the nexus. As they walk down the spiral staircase, he can see a bench and a table under the trees by the pond. It looks idyllic as always, the branches trailing in the water and throwing dappled shade over the food that is heaped on the table. Despite the fact that they had breakfast not too long ago, Arthur realizes he’s really hungry. Eluned stands next to the trees, and welcomes them with a big smile and congratulations- Arthur guesses this trial is a big thing to fey? He can’t remember ever seeing her so… excited?
Darcy and Llew, meanwhile, are dancing together in the clearing- which really should lead to trampled grass, but Arthur supposes fey grass doesn’t get trampled, because it’s still soft and pristine-looking.
When Arthur sits down to heap himself a plate with food, Eluned slides in next to him and asks about their symbols, if they’ve figured them out yet. When Arthur admits that they didn’t really catch John’s, she winks, waves her hand, and a few objects appear on the table next to Arthur’s plate with a sparkle.
It looks like… a charm, and a pair of earrings? The charm is just a simple, small metal disk with one of the swirly fey symbols on it, a bit like a coin. The earrings have small, red stones, and then also coin-like pendants with a symbol- Darcy’s symbol, Arthur recognizes.
~~~~
“I’m not wearing any dangly bits,” John grunts, only marginally paying attention, as he was about to lean himself against one of the trees, but then nearly drops the glass of liquor he grabbed. Glaring at Eluned suspiciously, he cups a hand over the left side of his chest, where he could see glitter appear. Setting the glass down with a hard clink, he unbuttons his vest and shirt to take a look, then blinks and grumbles. “Okay, that is cool. Thanks, I guess.”
~~~~
Arthur looks around Eluned to John to see black lines of ink peeking out on his skin where he has pulled his shirt down. Apparently, he now has a tattoo, and Arthur has to agree, that’s pretty cool.
“So those are our symbols?” he asks, and Eluned confirms. He picks up the charm, which must then be his, and studies it. The house obliges with sending down the fey dictionary, or whatever it is, they’ve been using, and he goes look up what the symbol is. When he finds it, he starts laughing.
“Okay, you were right,” he tells John, shows him the entry where it says that that means ‘loyal’. Eluned asks him whether he thinks it fits, and on thinking about it… he decided if he had to, he would fight his father because of his friends, didn’t he? If it was just about himself, he’d be too scared, but if the others are in danger… he can’t let them down. Then he can’t be a coward, then he has to be brave, so… yes, it fits, he thinks. And he likes being loyal.
He attaches the charm to his watch chain, which Eluned seems to find a very fun idea, for some reason.
And she also stays around as they give Darcy’s symbol another look, because she chuckles when they read it as ‘charm’- they didn’t quite get all the swirls and squiggles just right. It turns out, it’s actually a very similar-looking symbol for ‘hidden in plain sight’, which… seems odd to Arthur? But Darcy is still dancing with Llew, so they can’t ask her about it.
Arthur copies John’s symbol down off of his chest so he can button up his clothes again, and they go searching for it, but can’t quite seem to find it, until Eluned takes pity on them and points out how it’s ‘protect’ with an extra squiggle that makes something a noun, so it’s ‘Protector’.
Of course, John only grunts, even when Eluned smiles at him and asks him what he thinks about it, but Arthur thinks it’s a pleased grunt.
Still. That was possibly the most fun he’s ever had with any of the fey? Researching things? It makes him suspicious as to what Eluned is up to or what she’s getting out of it, but whatever it is, he can’t tell. And when he asks how come Gregory doesn’t have a symbol, she just shrugs and says that sometimes that happens.
Right, Gregory- well, was more interested in the food than the research, of course, and seems busy watching Darcy dance.
Which, well, is a bit of a show, because Arthur has no idea what dance that is she’s doing with Llew, but it’s a lot faster and more athletic than anything he’s ever seen before.
~~~~
John’s not buying that smile, or any of the other attempts to get them talking more about their symbols. That fucking fey is up to something, and he doubts it’s one bit less predatory and exploitative than the shit Llew is pulling on Darcy. She likes dancing, he knows that, she even once in the very beginning liked him pulling an enchanted princess story where her dress would change colour while they danced, but this is different. He knows her, the only reason she’s laughing is because her drac isn’t a dolt, her drac knows full well that this is no harmless fun.
This is Llew showing off that he has power over her, and he wishes he could punch that fucker into the next century early. But he can’t, he’s as powerless as his girl against all the strings she has to dance on. He knows it only too well, he was meant to dance just as helplessly. It’s a woman’s lot in most marriages, and if he doesn’t get that thought away from himself he fears he’ll shatter the glass against the tree. So instead, he empties it in one go and goes to grab a refill. The first of several…
~~~~
Darcy’s been dancing for hours now, she thinks. Even her normally indestructible feet have started to hurt but Llew keeps on, growing only more insistent with each shade of emotion she finds herself descending into. At first, she had actually enjoyed herself. She likes dancing and dancing with Llew is like dancing with a spider. She knows she’s in his web, she knows that she’s staring at her own undoing as he twirls her round and round. Her drac is growling and snarling and the dances are like none she knows. They are much faster and much more daring. She likes it. She knows she’s not dancing at a social event, she knows she isn’t dancing to be polite.
She’s well aware this is foreplay, and as far as it goes, so far she’s having more fun with that than she normally has with Gregory. Not that he’s a big fan thereof anyway, it must be one of those silly girl things. Which is why John, who understands girls like no other man could, is much better at it. She likes that. It’s one of the many things she likes about John, and she has to grind her teeth admitting that she might finally have found something about Llew she likes. He’s intent on playing with his prey, playing it to death, and her drac is snapping in exhilaration at him for it.
But that feeling has waned over the last few hours. It flowed into suspicion, annoyance, and finally exhaustion. Of course, she’s well aware that’s all intentional on Llew’s part. Just as intentional as the dancing becoming more and more hands-on. He’s even gone so far as to use his magic on her clothes, she’s wearing something that is nothing short of outrageous even for a whore like her. The skirt hardly covers her hips, her heels have grown so tall that she is stumbling, and if she had larger breasts they surely would fall out of this single layer of cloth pretending to cover her chest and being held up by what looks like strings.
Nevertheless, she persists. She has to. She had to persist with keeping it at least somewhat couth while Arthur was still there. She has to protect him from her harlot ways. Then even John left, after one long look at her, and she wishes she could be sure what the emotion in his eyes was, but this close to Llew, she can’t smell the others. Not when her nostrils are filled to the brim with that weird hay and perfume smell of Llew’s. It’s not like any real person should smell, but then, his sister smells off, too, so it must be something fey. She doesn’t need to smell Gregory to know he’s there. Her drac can tell her just as much, and so can Llew’s glances. She reminds him that he said he can do her that favour. And reminds him again when he seems unconvinced. He shrugs, fine, little difference to him.
When her emotions finally brim over with anger, both Llew and Gregory react. Why does Gregory always seem to be right there when she’s angry? But they both are grinning at her and she can feel tears rising up. She’s so angry, but also so caught in both these men’s webs. It’s impotent anger, and that’s probably the one she hates the very most. She can’t lash out. She wants to, but she can’t. She’s helpless against her marriage contract, and she’s helpless against the deal she made with Llew.
She’s helpless to do anything but go along when Llew gets all of them to her bedroom. All she wants is to dive into her stuffed toys in the back-corner of her second wardrobe and hide. But the last time she hid from Gregory in a wardrobe, he yanked her out into the world, too. It doesn’t help, nothing helps. And she knows that all that impotent anger just keeps bubbling uselessly in the pit of her stomach. It stays there through each grin from them. Through Llew, if anything, being more eager to get at her clothes than Gregory.
Didn’t she do this for him? Hasn’t she been good? Didn’t she do well? Why is he hardly looking at her? Llew at least is eager, is running his fingers and lips over hers, is coaxing her for fangs. She knows that’s what he wants. She has to make sure that she upholds her promise to Gregory first. She doesn’t trust Llew not to vanish if she gives him what he wants before she’s really being good for Gregory. Maybe that’s it, maybe that’s why Gregory doesn’t seem happy with her, doesn’t seem proud of her. She’s not doing enough. That must be it.
So she talks to Llew like she’d never talk to any other man. It makes him laugh and waggle his eyebrows, but he actually behaves. She can’t believe he’s behaving. Until she realizes that watching him touch Gregory lances more emotion than anything before right through her heart, makes her drac growl and snap.
He’s hers!
Only that… no, he isn’t.
He told her over and over, wanting others is how it should be. She’s seen it through his eyes, now she’s seeing it through her own. And it hurts, which is of course exactly why Llew behaves. Emotion, it’s always emotion with him.
Her drac keeps snarling, it wants to fight, wants to get him off her man, wants to defend her territory. But she doesn’t, she knows that she isn’t meant to, no matter how much her drac insists and can’t comprehend her reluctance, her insistence that no, they need to be obedient.
She’s helpless, so all she can do is lean her head back so the mask’s weight on her face can crush the hope out of her, so that her tears don’t roll out of her eyes but rather inside. Inside where her drac laps at them and howls where she can’t.
After she gives Llew his reward for doing her the favour, and very pointedly ignoring the effect her hunting bite has on him (it’s far too similar to Gregory’s for her taste,) she keeps to the side. Gregory doesn’t notice. Or if he does, he doesn’t care. He’s busy with Llew.
When she can’t stand it any longer, when the sight and smells get too much even with her mask on as tight as she can put it, she leaves. Again, she thinks Gregory doesn’t care. And hasn’t he told her so many times ‘I don’t care’? She should long have learned that that’s what he always thinks. What he always feels.
When she crawls into John’s bed, he doesn’t ask any questions, he just holds her as she cries, and then takes her to a place where she doesn’t need to wear a mask. Where he always lets her know that he is proud of her, where she can be more than a whore, where she feels loved for her drac, not for how high a price she can bring her husband. Not that she felt loved when she did that for Gregory.
Not that he so much as acknowledges her with more than a grin when he slinks in during breakfast (she even got up early so that Arthur doesn’t need to sit there alone in case Gregory brags or teases about her getting him Llew). Slinks in from the gardens at that. She hates that that immediately makes her think of the time he teased her that Llew must have seen what they did in the gardens. For all she knows, he played with Llew out there. Probably in ways that he enjoyed more than what he did with her. She’s just wrong for him, a wife to be mentioned in a side sentence at the end of a story, a happily ever after acquired whore.
It’s too much. No, not even she can do that. No. Enough. Please.
So she gets up from the table and follows after him. He seems tired and for a moment her resolve falters. Maybe she should wait? Maybe he went patrolling right after? No… no. Obedient doesn’t mean mute. She told her papa her thoughts, too, didn’t she? He always listened!
Gregory gives her a look that borders on uncomprehending when she runs up to him and asks if they could please talk. Yes, now. She has to pull him into a parlour. She doesn’t want to just do this out in the corridor. Thankfully, he stays with her there, eyes fixed on her now. Good, that means he’s listening, right? Why does she suddenly feel like it’s no use talking after all, with his eyes on her? Those eyes smooth like crystal. Did they always make her feel like that? Anyway, with those eyes on her, it’s hard to formulate things out and she knows he doesn’t like talking.
Okay, she’ll make it short. That should be okay, right? Just one little request. One thing she wants her husband to promise her. That can’t be too much, right?
“I want to be good for you! I’m… glad that you enjoyed yesterday night so much. Just… please, always involve me. Make me part of our marriage even when you want to be in other people’s beds. Please, that’s all I ask of you.”
He keeps staring at her with those eyes that press the mask against her face so hard, with that faint smell of… It’s hardly a smell, more like a sensation of trying to inhale against something so smooth it refuses to smell. And why did her mind go there? Why does she find it so hard to hold his gaze? She used to look into those eyes and feel he’s hers, didn’t she? Why does she feel all small and powerless now?
And he’s not answering. That makes her cower. She must have been really bad. Of course she can’t change anything. Can’t ask anything. She should have known. She’s so stupid.
About to apologise, she hesitates because, no, he is answering. Now he’s answering, by beginning to laugh. She wants to believe he’s laughing because she said something that is terribly self-evident and obvious, but somehow that’s not how it feels. If she thought that was bad, his answer, the terrible words he chooses, are worse:
“Deal. Not as if I care.”
~~~~
If Gregory doesn’t care, then maybe, maybe it’s the right thing to do. She still feels like a harlot for it, but then, she’s not even a harlot, she’s a whore. Still, it’s not what drives her to take her mother up on her repeated offer. Well, more than she did before, she can’t say that she never accompanied Lucy hunting. But no, it’s not Gregory. It’s John. It’s waking up in his bed and feeling him hug her, still not questioning her, just making her feel loved and showing her that the world can be how she thinks it should be in a marriage. Waking up with each other and starting the morning (that dastardly time of day) with all the wonderful small things: Murmured good mornings and unspoken declarations of love and affection in a hundred little touches and looks.
She doesn’t love him the right way and he still makes her feel like this. She hates herself bitterly for this shortcoming of hers, maybe more than for all the other ones combined. She should repay him every kiss with a hundred more. Every only half-breathed ‘I love you’ with a shouted answer. Every touch of his heart and hands with her drac wrapping itself around him in comfortable mutual love. But she can’t, she doesn’t know why, but she can’t.
So she has to do better by him in at least one way. She has to make sure to never again repay him the sweet gift of his blood with obsession. No, she won’t, it means too much to her to be able to bite him again (after Lucy was aghast that she had held off for so long, and encouraged her to get back to it, he’s one of her sweethearts, obviously).
They’ve been careful with it, not too much, not too often. But still, she wants to make very sure. It means too much to her… to them. He means too much to her.
Her mother is hardly over anymore, she says they have a hot lead now. It’s early December before they find a night Lucy can stay long enough to take Darcy into town. They go to London, there are more people still out on the streets despite the cold there than in quaint little Whitby.