Part One: Terms and Conditions Nathaniel took his time dressing, meticulously going over each button, each stray strand of hair, making sure everything was perfect. He could see his own reflection - as pale and drawn as though he were walking to the gallows - in the tops of his shoes before he put them on, and the laces were carefully double-knotted, the loops twisted until they were exactly on center.
He was not stalling. He was putting on armor in preparation for battle.
For a few moments, upon waking up, he had tried to convince himself that the whole previous evening had been nothing more than a bad dream. Ultimately, however, it had been too horrific to accept as a creation of his own mind. Being chased by monsters through fog all night, that had been a dream, one which had caused him to wake up aching from head to toe from muscles staying knotted in one position for too long. His mother announcing she was going to marry a half-blood...his brother swearing at her...his uncle giving him and Jeremy an impossible choice - that was nothing he could have ever fathomed on his own.
It was, however, something he could fix. He knew he could. He had to. Now. While there was still time.
Time was of the essence. After Uncle Alexander had laid down his ultimatum, it had briefly been chaos, with Mother and Jeremy both making lots of noise, Sylvia insisting Nathaniel must stay with her, and Uncle Alexander and Aunt Avery hovering above it all. Finally, in the end, enough order had been restored that Uncle Alexander had made a clarification - that of course he did not expect Nathaniel and Jeremy to decide such a thing right then and there. Jeremy had seemed prepared to; Nathaniel had had more difficulty convincing Sylvia to let him go home with his mother so he could try to fix things this morning. He suspected, however, that he would be lucky to have even the full length of Christmas vacation to convince his mother to reverse her position and go beg Uncle Alexander's forgiveness - something that he didn't think was going to be easy. His mother had seemed furious with his aunt and uncle the day before, and she had clearly been in one of her stubborn moods, and they both knew that it was unlikely that Uncle Alexander would be so forgiving as to allow her to come home on anything less than terms that would humiliate her. He hated that - it wasn't fair! She couldn't help it that she was weak, and that she had clearly been manipulated - but he supposed Uncle Alexander couldn't help being angry, and wanting some payback for putting him in this position - people couldn't always be expected to behave fairly, and Uncle Alexander and Aunt Avery had had to bear a lot because of Nathaniel's parents. Nathaniel had already given up their home as a loss - she clearly couldn't be trusted to live alone anymore, so she would have to go live with Uncle Alexander and Aunt Avery, so she could be watched. They might have to literally sign the property over to Uncle Alexander, at least until Nathaniel was ready to get married and establish a household. But there was still time to turn back, and he was going to convince her to do that.
He was ready for protests. He was ready for her to take to her bed to avoid the conversation, and to for once in his life ignore her desire to retreat. He had even steeled himself against tears and pleading. He was not at all prepared to find her boudoir occupied by more than one person.
A man was sitting beside her on her backless sofa, rubbing her shoulder and talking quietly to her as she sat with her head in her hands. They both looked up at the same time when Nathaniel walked into the room.
"Good - good morning Nathaniel," said his mother, clearly trying very hard to sound normal.
"Good morning, Mother," said Nathaniel. He glanced at the man. "And...you are?" he asked, though he had a suspicion, one which felt as though it was turning his stomach to iron.
"Nathaniel, this is Franklin," said his mother, that mulish, defiant look from last night crossing her face again, though she sounded almost normal, surprisingly. "My fiance. Franklin, this is my older son, Nathaniel."
"I've heard a lot about you," said Mr. Elphwick, also in a surprisingly realistic term of simulated normality. "It's nice to meet you, Nathaniel," he added, standing up and offering Nathaniel his hand. "You can call me Franklin."
Rage flashed up through the lid he tried to keep on it, flushing his face. "I don't intend to call you anything," he said coldly. "I do not intend to speak to you, and I do not intend to ever acknowledge anything else you say to me. I would prefer that you not try to say anything to me, but it's not my concern how people I don't associate with use their time." His hands were curling into fists at his sides. "You can show yourself out. I wish to speak to my mother."
Mr. Elphwick glanced at his fiancee. "This is the nice one?" he asked.
"Get out of my house," said Nathaniel.
"Actually, Nathaniel," said his mother, "it's my house. And Franklin is going to stay in it." She visibly steeled herself, then extended her hand to draw Elphwick back to her side and added, "Whatever you want to talk about with me, you can talk about with us."
Nathaniel's lips curled all the way under as he took a moment to force the desire to scream back down and locked it away in the dark place where he almost always kept it safely contained. This was going to be harder than he had thought.