Dracaena Morgan Leffoy (dracaena) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-09-04 23:01:00 |
|
|||
Current mood: | hopeful |
Early Tuesday morning, 15 September 1942, at Malfoy Manor in Tintagel...
Dracaena Malfoy rose early Tuesday morning, kissed her lover Nicodemo Zabini without waking him, and managed to complete her ablutions and dress before their usual morning coffee and pastries arrived. Nicodemo was up and getting dressed himself when she came back into their bedroom. “I used the other bathroom,” he said, and grinned at her. They never slept in the master bedroom; the last time she’d slept there had been with Ercole. But once in a while they used the tub.
Dracaena kissed him lightly. “No pastries?”
Nicodemo shook his head. “No Prophet,” he said. “Guess they’re still cleaning up. They print it not far from Odd’s Lane.”
Dracaena frowned. “Let’s go downstairs and eat with the children,” she said. “I think they need us.”
“I think you’re right,” said Nico, and let her adjust his tie to her own satisfaction before offering her his arm.
Dracaena wasn’t surprised, somehow, to see that everyone had turned up: Yvon, Alessio, Charis, Marco, Melina, Alastor, Jenny, Valeria, Endymion, Bella, Lucius, Aelia, Steren, Keresek, Moruith, Ximena…even Liane. Only Mercutio was missing, and everyone knew where he was. There was a need to come together at times like these, she supposed, and let Nicodemo pull out her chair and fill up her plate without fussing. Lucius walked up to her and opened his arms, and she hugged him, hard as she could without hurting him, face buried in his hair. “My little man,” she breathed into his hair, and her heart managed somehow to ache for his lost innocence while swelling three sizes with pride in him.
“Not yet, Mamma. Please,” Lucius whispered.
Dracaena sighed and kissed the crown of his head, just as she’d done when he was a baby. “I’m sorry, caro,” she said, and patted and stroked his back.
Nicodemo just smiled at them, a bittersweet expression; Charis waved a servant over to help rearrange the table so that Lucius could sit next to his mother and finish his breakfast.
Dracaena let him go, a little reluctantly, to his seat beside her. She felt like she ought to say something, but she didn’t know what. It was enough that they were all there.
Nicodemo looked at everyone awkwardly, and finally smiled, shaking his head. “I just want to thank you all for your support,” he said, “and for pulling together. We will get through this. We will survive and win this thing, and we’ll create a better world, a safer place for ourselves and our children. I promise you that. As long as we continue to stick together, I really don’t believe we can lose. Our family has always been everything, the basic unit of any society, on either side of the mists, and this family—these families, which have become one family—has always survived by taking care of each other and taking care of the world around us.”
Dracaena smiled at him gratefully, though she suspected that his words would mean more to some at the table than others. They meant a lot to her; she knew he could call them up easily, but she also knew that here, and now, with these people, he really did mean them.
“Speaking of families becoming one,” Alessio began, and then swallowed, his face flushing as he glanced at Yvon, his expression clearly asking for something a lot like permission.
Yvon gave him a fond, wicked, sidewise glance, and then nodded. “So, in the middle of all the confusion last night, we forgot to tell you all something.”
Alessio returned his glance, smiling crookedly at Yvon, but he kept quiet.
Dracaena raised an eyebrow. “Did you,” she said, with a wry little smile, and glanced at Nicodemo. “By all means, go on being mysterious.”
Yvon grinned at Alessio. “I asked Alessio to marry me. And he said yes.”
Lucius cheered loudly from his seat at the other end of the table, then ran around the table and hugged them both. Valeria snorted loudly, and Endymion shook his head at her.
“Are we supposed to be surprised?” Dracaena asked, but she was smiling. “Congratulations and good luck. We should do this quite soon, I’ll talk to Lavinia about an appropriate date…”
“Definitely soon, I should think,” Nicodemo agreed with a nod. It would be good to get them settled, he thought, settled and taken care of, and even if he didn’t always like how Alessio acted with Yvon, at least Yvon would keep him stable.
“We’re making the arrangements ourselves,” said Yvon. “Amadeo has agreed to do the ceremony. I don’t want to be married in a pagan ceremony, Maman, you know that, and we’d rather not put on a spectacle. Most of the people we want to be there are here already, except for our friends from work, and from school.”
Dracaena heard the first sentence and the first two words of the one that followed it before she was deafened with shock. “Amadeo…what? Amadeo Luna?”
“Wait, what?” Nicodemo echoed her.
Yvon smiled and shrugged, speaking slowly and clearly. “I talked to Amadeo about it while I was at the hospital yesterday with Alessio. He said he’d do it. They can only excommunicate us once. It doesn’t change what we believe.” He shrugged, glancing up and down the table. Why had he expected them to be pleased about this? “If we have to go out and say something over the stones to satisfy the country cousins, then fine, but you’re not bleeding a bull over my head.”
Alessio made a face at the very thought of a taurobolium, but he remembered Nico’s wedding to Portia all too well. “Please, no.”
Dracaena sighed heavily. “We wouldn’t make you do that, Yvon,” she said in a soft voice, shrugging her shoulders a little. She glanced at Nicodemo. It mattered more to him, she suspected, than it did to her.
Nicodemo was frowning. “It doesn’t have to be a spectacle, but are you sure? No occasion at all?”
“It’s not ‘no occasion’ if it’s just the people we love,” said Yvon in a soft, firm voice. “I don’t want it in the papers ‘til after, I don’t want people sending us curses, I don’t want it to be political. I don’t want people there whose names I don’t know.”
“Everything this family does is political,” Nicodemo replied, though his voice was not unkind. “It’s just a fact of life. That’s part and parcel of all of this. It’s not exactly a choice.”
“Everything we do has political ramifications,” Yvon corrected him. “You’re right. That’s not a choice. But it is our choice whether or not it is a political event, with negotiations and deals going on in the background, and we aren’t choosing that. You’re not going to take this from us and make us perform for the people you’re trying to impress on a day when all we should care about is each other. This is a sacrament, and I don’t want any moneychangers in the temple, thanks.”
Dracaena frowned. She didn’t know much canon law, but what she did know had stuck. “It’s not, you know, not really. Unless Alessio’s converted. And become not just a Christian, but a woman.”
“It is for us,” Yvon retorted, “and it’s up to God if he blesses us, but Amadeo thinks he does.”
“Can’t we just do this the way we want to do it?” Alessio asked very quietly. “Please, Nico? Just…let us have this thing.”
Dracaena looked up at Nicodemo, wondering what she should say. She could end this with a declaration. But she didn’t want to, not if she didn’t have to. Her heart was with the boys, despite her misgivings about having a Catholic rite, no matter how irregular, conducted under her roof. They were taking something she’d have liked to have for herself, and knew that she couldn’t.
“I’m sure they won’t say no to a cake and a dinner,” Endymion said dryly, and gave Nico a meaningful look. “But intimate dinners for three hundred haven’t been going so well around here, you know.” He glanced at Dracaena. “Not that it’s my business, of course. Ma’am.”
Dracaena snorted at him, but she took his point.
Nicodemo shook his head. He had the distinct impression that he was outvoted. Besides, he had never been able to say no to Alessio when he sounded like that. “All right, fine. If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’ll have.”
“Thank you,” said Yvon, with a sigh of relief. “I promise you there will be other occasions at which you can politic to your heart’s content. Probably more than you really care to think about. And it might be nice for Lavinia and the Dux Bellorum to just…come to a wedding and watch, instead of her having to officiate, and both of them wondering who might want to attack half the Ministry gathered in one place.”
“That’s probably a very valid point,” Nicodemo allowed.
“Maybe Liane will get married,” Yvon said after a moment, wondering if it was all right to tease the niece he’d just met. “Have you someone in mind?”
Liane looked up from her plate and stared at him as though he’d just suggested something akin to selling her into slavery, then laughed, once, with a tone that was trying to be sarcastic but just came out bitter. “I think not.”
“Don’t look at me,” said Charis, and threw up her hands.
Endymion shrugged. “When Hadrian and I get married, you can throw us as big a party as you like,” he said agreeably. “You and the Kytelers, of course. But I might need a lead-lined hat.”
“Dylan and Alastor!” Lucius suggested cheerily, sliding back into his seat. Dracaena didn’t mind him wandering about, collecting hugs; not today.
Alastor blinked. “Not that I object to a wedding, or even a party, but I can’t even imagine the guest list.”
Dracaena laughed. “I’m sure that Mrs Mulciber would have a lot of names to add, you’d almost certainly best get used to the idea of a large wedding.”
“Dylan has a lot of cousins, after all,” Bella supplied helpfully. She was fairly hopeful that she and Jamie would have one of the next weddings, but it seemed unkind to say that in front of Lucius.
“Better him than me,” said Liane, and stared at a piece of bacon as though she thought it might answer her.
“Well, I shall have the largest wedding of all,” said Lucius grandly. “Assuming we all live to see it.”
“You’re so full of yourself,” Jenny muttered under her breath. Aelia glared at her.
Dracaena sighed—what to do about Jenny—and looked down at her plate. Somehow she’d managed to eat half a plate without tasting any of it.
“Bella should be married soon,” said Melina, after a moment’s thought. “Have the Macmillans written back to you yet, Lady Dracaena?”
“We’re still working it out,” said Dracaena between bites of toast, “but it’s going to happen; it’s what Bella and Jamie both want.”
“Once he’s back from the front,” Bella said happily.
Marco didn’t say anything, but looked down at his toast as if it had personally offended him. Melina sighed. “Marco,” she said, “it’s advantageous to the family; we need Laird Macmillan. And Lucius is free to negotiate, too, now.”
Ximena flushed red and glanced down at her plate.
Dracaena sighed, remembering that that was what Ximena’s father had hoped for in sending her there. “Negotiate. I…no. He’s eleven,” she said wearily.
“There’s plenty of time for that later, anyway,” Nicodemo agreed.
“Ah,” said Yvon, “but that’s the sort of place you end up when you start from the thesis that everything this family does is political.” He sighed. “Of course you’re too young to be engaged,” he told Lucius.
“I was before. To Bella,” said Lucius, frowning. “But she loves Jamie, so it’s fine with me that she marries him.” He beamed at Bella. “I want you to be happy.”
Yvon stared at Dracaena. “You didn’t…?” He remembered this ‘betrothal’ from their life in Rome, but he didn’t think anyone still took it seriously.
“It was the only way to get her away from Carmela,” said Dracaena, giving him a frank look. “Julian and St John invoked it while I was…away. And apparently the situation was such that Gabrielle agreed to it.”
“Oh,” said Yvon, and sighed, glancing down at his plate. He could tell, sometimes, just looking at Bella, how bad it had to have been. But he hadn’t really wanted to have it confirmed so solidly. “This fallen world of ours….”
Dracaena snorted. “If the world is fallen, darling, who dropped it?”
Alastor grinned. He’d always enjoyed watching his auntie take his father on in religious debates.
Liane buried her face in her napkin and tried very hard not to crack up, at least not visibly. It was the sort of thing she would have said herself, if she’d been brave enough, and it would have made everyone laugh back home, although it would have earned her a stern look from Papa Félix…no, she wouldn’t think about that.
Yvon’s lip curled slightly, and he squeezed Alessio’s knee under the table. “I respect your views,” he said tersely.
“Not when you say things like that, you don’t,” said Dracaena. “It was the land that kept you alive for us.”
“Fine,” Yvon said wearily, his face red. “I didn’t mean it as a slur against the land. Only that in a world where the Garcías think they represent the will of Christ…” He groaned, and shook his head.
Alessio shook his head a little, his hand slipping into Yvon’s. “Don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter what’s fallen and what’s risen or any of it, so long as you’re all right and still here, with us,” he said softly. “That’s the important thing.”
Yvon smiled at him gratefully. “Forever,” he said to Alessio. “Always.”
Alessio smiled back, the corners of his eyes crinkling.
Endymion managed not to laugh at that the idea that it didn’t matter what rose or fell; he knew what Alessio meant, couldn’t help knowing—but he’d never have phrased it that way, with a lover. He glanced at Alastor to see if he was tempted to snigger as well, but apparently watching that little exchange had sent him into rapturous thoughts of Dylan, which Endymion didn’t care to grace with his attention.
Yvon kissed Alessio’s cheek, then glanced at Bella. “I am glad you’re all right and here with us too,” he told her. “Are you sure you’re ready to marry Macmillan?” There were things he’d noticed in her responses to being touched that made him wonder if she was fully prepared to handle physical intimacy.
Bella nodded. “I think I am. It’s not going to be right away, anyway, it can’t. He won’t leave his men, not Jamie.”
“If you’re sure,” Liane blurted out, “you should do it! In times like these, you never know…” She shrugged, then glanced back down at her plate. “Especially if he’s at the front. Do it on his next leave. You never know.” She frowned, because she really didn’t know these people, but it had to be said. “People disappear, and you never know when it’s going to happen. You can’t afford to leave anyone with an angry word, these days. It might be the last thing you say to them.”
Endymion looked at her, curiously. “Who?” he mouthed at her.
Liane rolled her eyes at him. She’d never been in love. Thank God, because if love felt worse than this…
Endymion shrugged, and tried not to wonder how Hadrian had fared during the drills. They were only drills, after all.
Bella made a thoughtful little face, looking down at her breakfast. It always made her heart go cold to think about Jamie not coming home. She swallowed, hard, and took a determined bite of her scone.
Dracaena sighed. The girl had a point, but you had to wonder who it was that she had loved, and quarrelled with, and lost. “I’ll write to Laird Steaphan again if you like, Bella. There is a certain amount of merit in what Juliana is saying.”
Bella nodded, looking up again. “Please, Mamma.”
Dracaena nodded, smiling a little uneasily. “As long as you continue to live with us until he’s home for good. He can come to you here as your husband.” She flicked another glance at Liane. She really knew almost nothing about the girl. Did she scoff at the notion of marriage because her sweetheart had died in the war? Had she already known, and lost, true love, at her age? People of their lineage who lost true love could be dangerous.
Charis cleared her throat. “You never told us about the Governors, Mother. Are we going to go back to school?”
“I hope not,” Dracaena said firmly. “It’s not closed yet. But we have permission to remove people with skills that are needed for the war effort—don’t worry, Endymion, not like Patil.”
Endymion smiled at her. “I would never have thought such a thing.”
“In that case,” said Liane, “I have a thesis I began at Beauxbatons that I want to submit to whatever college or guild is appropriate here. I need more training.”
“We can do that,” Nicodemo said with a nod. “What’s it on?”
“Advanced arithmancy—harmonics of gating and teleportation,” Liane said briskly. “I told you I could take down that Floo, Lucius, but I understand why you wanted to wait.”
Lucius shrugged. “I would have rather waited on a lot of things,” he said, ducking his head a little. “But thank you for offering.”
“Does that go to Lavinia, then?” Dracaena asked Nicodemo.
“Yes, I believe so,” Nicodemo replied.
“If not she’ll know where it does go,” Dracaena told Liane.
“Good,” said Liane. “I want to go back to school, go to work, or do both. I hate sitting idle when others are doing so much.”
“I understand,” said Dracaena, a little embarrassed at not being ready to trust the girl yet. “I do. I’m the same.”
Endymion glanced at her. “There are other people from Beauxbatons here,” he said, very gently. “If there’s anyone you want to ask after, you might be surprised. I might even…know someone. I have friends who attended Beauxbatons.” Reynard and Colette Saint-Germain were hardly among his intimates, but he knew them, and he knew they knew people.
“I doubt it,” Liane said quietly, and glanced at her plate with a solemn face. “I really do. My friends were Jewish.”
“Oh.” Endymion winced. It was hard, sometimes, not to know what Alden Goldstein was thinking about, or Elie Frankel—and Rachel Zeller was loud.
“Do ask when you’re ready,” Dracaena said gently. “You must wait until you are sure you can bear the worst, but the news is not always so terrible.”
“Thank you,” said Liane, although she clearly didn’t believe it. “I think I’m finished; may I be excused?” She glanced at Yvon. “And congratulations, my very best wishes, I mean that, Uncle. My father may have hated you, but I don’t.”
“Of course you may go,” Dracaena said mildly. “If you have the thesis with you, Nico can take it in for you when he goes to Londinium. If not, I’ll tell you when your other things arrive.”
“Thanks,” said Liane as she rose from the table, barely managing not to bolt.
“I know you don’t hate me,” Yvon told her as she passed. “I don’t bear you any ill-will. Your father…”
“Is another matter entirely, I know.” Liane shook her head. “He’ll have to make his own amends, I’m done with it.” She glanced at Nico. “I’ll get the manuscript, it’s never far from me; it’s in my bag, disguised as back issues of Vogue.”
Nicodemo smiled at her a little. “Excellent, I’ll get that over to Lavinia today, then.” She was upset, he could tell; but given the upheavals in her life, how could she not be? He dimly remembered seeing her at the Parkinsons’ house a time or two. Why had it never occurred to him that she might be related to Dracaena? It was obvious, seeing them together. He frowned. Maybe they had affected his mind somehow.
“Thanks.” Liane breathed out slowly. “Yes, thanks.” She nodded to everyone else. “I’ll be down again shortly.”
Jenny glanced after her. “She’s nice. She was nice to me.”
“She is kind,” said Endymion, “and apparently rather patient as well. I imagine she is not always ‘nice’. Don’t make a pest of yourself, or you might exhaust her patience, too.”
“She does maths like Aunt Hortensia does,” said Jenny. “I saw a little of it.”
“Mrs Abbott,” Dracaena corrected her, making a face. “We do not know yet if she is still your aunt, Gentian.”
Jenny scowled at her, but knew better than to answer her back.
“I miss Theo,” said Lucius noncommittally. “I hope they come round on it, Mamma.”
“So do I,” Dracaena mused. “Perhaps Frank will speak to Lavinia, and she’ll set him straight.”
“I don’t miss Fran,” said Endymion, looking sternly at Jenny.
“Neither do I,” said Alastor.
“Oh, if Frank does try to make amends to me, we will have words about her,” Dracaena assured Endymion. “I haven’t forgotten anything anyone’s told me at all. That girl is a positive disgrace—”
Jenny’s eyes widened. “Fran isn’t so bad! If you and Dylan didn’t—”
Alastor glared and turned on her. “Didn’t what?”
“You were mean to her about Johnny,” said Jenny.
“She was telling him things he didn’t need to know,” Alastor countered.
“He’s a large, infected pimple on the collective arse of humanity,” said Endymion.
“Don’t be disgusting at table,” said Charis, and glared at him. “Just because he’s a Muggle—”
Endymion glared right back at her. “He threatened me just because he thought I was Mulciber.”
“He won’t be bothering you again,” said Keresek, grinning at Endymion, whom he had grown to like.
“What?” Dracaena glanced at them all very sharply. “Has one of the Muggles been wandering about in the Bois? I know Endymion didn’t go down to the village…”
“It won’t happen again,” said Keresek firmly, and Endymion turned rather green, so much so that Dracaena wondered what would come next.
Keresek shrugged. “His new eye’s made of wood. Since he likes the Bois so much, he can carry a part of it with him forever.” He favoured Endymion with a wicked little grin.
Endymion looked up at him and smiled a little weakly, reminded of the kitten at the Kyteler house and its habit of presenting Lavinia with freshly-killed mice.
Alastor was speechless. He could still remember when Johnny and he had been mates, when Johnny had defended him against some of the other boys in the village; but he also remembered what Johnny had wanted to do to Dylan, and he couldn’t help but think that it had likely been fully deserved.
Jenny was horrified. “You put his eye out?”
“This is exactly the kind of thing that gets us talked about,” Yvon muttered under his breath, folding his napkin.
“Yes, my prince, and?” Keresek shrugged. “Let them talk. Let them talk and stay far from us.”
“Where does he live?” Yvon asked Dracaena. He knew he didn’t dare restore the Sight that had allowed the Muggle to wander into the Bois unaided, but that didn’t mean he needed to have an orb of wood that did God knew what wedged into his eye-socket.
“No,” said Dracaena, “don’t. Priscilla hasn’t cleared you to go back to work, but even if she had—he apparently threatened a guest on our land! He’s Rosen Toms’ grandson. She knows to take him to Jadis or Maddie, and she will, when she thinks he’s repented enough to deserve it.”
“Maman,” said Yvon sharply.
“No,” said Dracaena, in a voice that brooked no argument. “Just…don’t, Yvon. Let Rosen handle her own family. Let’s see if my so-called father can handle this.” She frowned at herself for being so petty, but she couldn’t think of Rosen Toms without thinking as well of Abraxas. And Aristotle, whom she owed a letter, who was probably still with Miss Gardiner… Dracaena sighed. Her head was beginning to ache.
Endymion watched Nicodemo squeeze her hand, assured that she was in good hands, and then turned to Yvon. “That Muggle would like to see you and Alessio rotting in gaol. Just for loving each other! You don’t owe him a damned thing.”
“It’s still cruel,” Alessio said quietly.
“It was meant to be, little falcon,” said Keresek, leaning over to grin at him. “I will protect you and your prince whether you like it or not.”
“Let’s not pluck the eyes out of unsuspecting Muggles more than strictly necessary. It might be effective, but it’s problematic on other levels,” Nicodemo said, swallowing the last of his third cup of coffee. He was going to need at least two more before he faced the rest of the Ministry.
Dracaena started to say something, but after a moment she laughed, a little wildly, and settled against him. “What happened, Keresek?”
“We caught him last night, during the fighting,” said Keresek, and turned to Yvon. “The enemy had turned him against us, not that I think it was difficult. He didn’t know who he was, or what he was doing there, but he almost choked the life out of Elowen. If he’d threatened the shiny one within sight of me, I would have killed him. You know that. That bothers you less than it does that I took his eye. But I took his eye so that he could not come here again.”
“You could have taken his Sight without shoving a piece of wood in his face!” Yvon threw up his hands. “Maman,” he said, “these kinds of things cannot go on!”
“Or what? You’ll go back to Londinium? Yvon, I love you, but you’ll do that anyway, and the Court is what it is. People like that cannot go wandering here, or worse things will happen,” Dracaena said, sighing. “I know you abhor it.”
Yvon swallowed. “Why will you not let me—?”
“Because you are not yet cleared to work,” said Dracaena, “and because it should not be you who deals with this. Because Keresek does what he has to do. Because I am going to have to deal with Frank over this. Because he’s Rosen’s kin, not ours, and I am tired of cleaning up Abraxas’ messes. If Rosen wants to take him to Maddie, she may. Maddie will fix it, I’m sure, but he cannot be cured immediately, nor can he ever again have the Sight of us. You know it will just drive him mad.”
Lucius sighed heavily. He did not know what he thought of all this, and he hoped the day when he had to make decisions like this would be far, far away.
“Well,” said Yvon, “we are going into Londinium, though we should be back before sundown, and yes, Lucius, sometime today we will play music together.” He smiled at his younger brother, and tried to think about his violin and Lucius’ harpsichord, not Keresek’s grin and bronze knives. “I am not cleared to work on patients, but I have a meeting today at St Mungo’s, and Alessio needs to be seen again, and we need to speak to Priscilla about his career. We can talk about this when I come back, I suppose, Maman.”
Dracaena sighed heavily. It tempted her to say that there was nothing to discuss, but she valued her relationship with Yvon rather more than that. “All right,” she said. “I love you both. Don’t stay in the city any longer than you have to; I don’t think the danger is over.”
“Of course not,” said Yvon, although he hoped the townhouse would be ready soon; he did not like it at all that Keresek was so short with Alessio, on top of all this, but he embraced Dracaena, because he loved her anyway. He even loved the Bois. He just didn’t like Keresek much, in the heat of the moment.
Dracaena looked up then, and saw Liane, who had been staring at them all, but quickly looked away. She hoped Liane hadn’t witnessed the conversation about Johnny’s eye, because she had no idea if the girl would be capable of understanding it as anything but savagery. “Come in, dear,” she said to the girl.
Liane thrust an armful of manuscript out to Nicodemo. “This,” she said softly, “this is my life. Please do not let anyone who can’t be trusted near it.” Her face was very red.
“You have another copy, don’t you?” Nicodemo asked, his voice gentling. There was something desperate in the girl’s expression and he knew she meant every word.
“If I do, I will not speak of it,” Liane replied, and shook her hair back over her shoulders.
Nicodemo looked down at her thoughtfully. “Am I carrying something that’s going to end up being classified?”
Liane shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, and glanced down and away, her blush a flare on her pale cheek, almost as though she’d been slapped. “I hope not, for it is useful knowledge for the world, and I detest the damnable circumstances that require such limitations on intellectual life. But it may be so.”
“I will be careful with this,” Nicodemo told her, looking into her dark blue eyes. He wondered if Dracaena had looked like that, at that age, and then laughed at himself, because Dracaena had been a boy at that age, at least on the outside. But maybe that was how she should have looked, at least to herself.
“Thank you,” said Liane, and sat back down.
Nicodemo glanced at Dracaena, who shrugged. After a moment, still carefully carrying the manuscript, he leaned over to kiss her. “I should go in with the boys,” he said. “If you have to leave the grounds for any reason, let me know.”
Dracaena nodded. “I won’t leave Lucius alone here again for a very long time,” she promised him, and glanced at her youngest.
Lucius flushed. “It’s all right,” he said. “You can, if you have to.”
Dracaena nodded again. “I know. But I won’t, unless I really, really do,” she assured him, and reached for his hand. It would be all right. She would make sure of that.
aeliana, alessio, artisson, bellissima, standingwave, fairlight, gentian, guywiththeeye, lamerveilleuse, luxserpentis, myr_avallenau (Keresek p’Steren), nicodemo, paladina, tactician_raven, thanatopsist, ximena and dracaena