The Lost Girl, part twenty

"Miss Gillespie, may I have a word with your wolf?" Amelie Hargrave's face was set and unreadable, and Antoinette stiffened slightly before she nodded. 

"If you wish. Chris, or Elyssa?"

"Chris," answered the Materfamilias. "A minor matter, but I wish to be clear."

"It might be best if sat with you, then." Antoinette's voice was firm, though something in her posture suggested reluctance. 

Mistress Hargrave considered that. "Yes," she said after a moment. "Perhaps it might."

Antoinette turned to Elyssa. "Stay with Peter until we return. You may speak to the other girls, but only if they begin the conversation."

Elyssa swallowed, nodded, and moved away without another word. 

Mistress Hargrave waved them into a small study off to one side of the hallway. From the condition of the desk, it might have been where she was working when Peter used her Arcana to contact her. 

It was richly appointed, of course: dark wooden walls, perfectly clean; a wide rosewood desk with something that might have been a grimoire on top of it but was probably some sort of ledger; a group portrait of the Hargrave family hanging on the left-hand wall; shelves built into the right-hand wall, holding row after row of identical, hand-bound ledgers. 

Antoinette stepped aside and waited, and Chris followed her example, but the lady Hargrave didn't move to seat herself behind the desk. Instead she remained standing, studying Chris as he composed his own expression into the blankness of waiting. 

"You are not afraid of me," she said after a moment. "You should be, but you aren't."

Chris hesitated. It would be incredibly awkward to say, I'm pretty sure I could destroy you and everyone in this house if I had to, I just don't want to because it would be extremely inconvenient. Casting around for a different approach, he said: "I know you could make things very difficult for me in any number of ways, ma'am. I'm trusting the reputation of your House, though."

Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head slightly, but she didn't touch the Grey. "What reputation is that, pray?"

"Honor," Chris said simply. "I'm trusting that you won't punish me without provocation, without cause."

It was a hunch, based on what he knew of the Old Families from studying alongside their children. They might be arrogant, high-handed, and even cruel -- but they wanted people to think well of them, to reinforce their view of themselves as the better people. 

"A subtle flattery," Amelie Hargave observed, "but well-taken. The issue I wished to discuss is simple in this light: I wish to make myself clear so that you do not offer provocation to my House."

Chris bowed his head. He felt Antoinette shift beside him, not quite sighing with relief but not quite hiding her response either. 

"It is dangerous and unnatural for there to be any sort of liaison between a proper magus and an outsider such as yourself. A brief tour of the market with the shadow-walkers is simply an innocent outing, no matter how long it lasted here in the Mundus; it is not worthy of further discussion. But any attempt on your part to... ingratiate yourself with the young miss Carterhaugh will be judged in the harshest terms. Is that clear to you, Wolf?"

Chris nodded. "Perfectly, ma'am." He hesitated, then added: "I don't believe she is interested in any such thing -- her opinion of wolves does not seem even slightly positive -- but I give you my word that I have no such interest myself."

Amelie Hargave turned her head, studying him. "Would you swear it by your tribe?"

"No," said Chris immediately, "but only because they no longer exist."

Her expression went from deliberately inscrutable to something else that he couldn't read; he'd startled her. "As long as you understand me," she decided. 

"I believe I do, and would give no offense," he said carefully. "The Ministry has little patience for mischief."

"So I see." Amelie glanced around and said, "Jacques?"

A figure emerged from a corner that Chris would have sworn was empty. He was male, younger than Amelie but not by much, and wearing a swallowtail coat over a button-down shirt and vest. "Here, Ma'am."

"Conduct our guests to their quarters, and see that they're settled. Likely our guest will want to dine with them in the morning, in the company of my daughter and her shadow; I will serve as their chaperone myself. Return to me here when they are in their places."

"If you would, magus Gillespie?" Jacques was almost mechanically polite, but Chris was okay with that; all he had to do now was follow Antoinette's lead. 

"Of course," said Antoinette. "Lead the way."