Chapter 75: Chapter 75

Everyone took up residence at the Champs-Elysées Plaza hotel, whose staff didn’t hide their disappointment at the cancellation of the rooms reserved for the rest of our group. I then proposed to pay the bill without taking into account their absence.

“Carmichael owes me at least that!” I said in a voice softened by alcohol.

I reserved a table for four at 8 p.m., then we went to our rooms, which were all on the same floor. Once alone in mine, I took my phone and called the castle.

“Hello Estelle, how are you?”

“Great, Eve, how about you?”

“I’m a little tipsy, we emptied all the bottles of champagne from the jet.”

“Ah, you must be in a beautiful state!”

“It’s better than you think,” I replied, amused, “I assure you.”

“I heard you were angry with Carmichael.”

“Angry?!” I exclaimed, bursting out laughing as her expression seemed to me less than the truth. “Uh... yes, angry, that’s one word.”

“He’ll soon arrive with the castes of New York.”

“Everything ready to receive them?”

“Yes,” she replied. “We’re working on it with my mother and we have hired for the occasion. The work on the annexes is almost finished, some rooms are ready. I just need to take a quick look to make sure everything necessary is there for our guests. Some will have to stay in nearby hotels and we have contacted our usual caterer for meals.”

“That’s great, I see that you’re managing all of this superbly, as usual.”

“My husband is helping me. I think he’s finally got used to the strangeness of the place and its inhabitants.”

“So much the better. Tell me, Estelle, could you pass me on to Freddy, please? You know, he’s a guard from the Pomona room.”

“Yes, I know him. He’s very sorry for your brother.”

“I’m not going to yell at him. I want to understand what happened.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll hang up and go get him, okay?”

“Sure, Estelle. Good luck with the guests, sweetheart.”

Five minutes later, Freddy called me, and I knew immediately by the tone of his voice that he dreaded this call.

“Hello, my Queen.”

“Hello, Freddy, call me Everliegh.”

“Okay, Everliegh,” he said, more relaxed, “I know why you’re calling me, so I absolutely want to apologise on behalf of all the castle guards.”

“What happened?”

“We don’t know exactly, but one morning your brother woke up. But… we counted the vials, and it’s clear that we had too many. One of the guards wasn’t giving the sedative medicine as he should have.”

“What?! Who is it?”

“Christopher, my Queen,” confessed Freddy, who seemed not to be proud to denounce one of his guards, “but I think he was out of his mind.”

“Explain yourself.”

“He doesn’t remember anything from the past two weeks.”

“And do you know him well?”

“More than well, and I guarantee you he would never have committed such an act if he hadn’t been forced to.”

“You think his mind has been compelled, right?”

“Yes, I think so.”

A silence passed, during which I tried to think about the situation. There was a traitor again within the walls of Mortain and he had wanted Ethan to wake up. But why? For what purpose?

“What did my brother do after he woke up?”

“He was a little knocked out, but he managed to bend the bars of his cell and seriously injured two guards before knocking others unconscious. Then he disappeared, but we quickly tracked him down in Edinburgh. He caused a fight in a busy bar, and…”

“And what?”

“He used his powers.”

“Shit.”

“Witnesses spoke of an angry man with magic powers. But the police don’t understand the case. I don’t think it will go any further. We went to the airport, where he took a plane to Leuca, Italy. We have sent men there, but so far we have no news.”

“Okay. And when you see Henry Capshaw, please pass him a message. Tell him that training should start as soon as he arrives. Everyone at the castle must be trained without delay.”

“I’ll pass it on to him as soon as he sets foot in the castle.”

“Thank you Freddy, good evening.”

At the end of this conversation, I was completely sober, whereas I would have liked the effect of alcohol to last longer, in the light of these latest revelations. Refusing to be discouraged, I dressed for the evening, inwardly fuming at my brother as I went to meet my friends outside the hotel restaurant. As I had requested, we were seated at a table apart.

“Eve, I don’t want to sound like a killjoy,” said Johnny, “but how are we going to do tomorrow without Carmichael and the others? Are you really thinking of recruiting people without him by your side?”

“I was just thinking about it,” I said, tired, as the pressure was more present on my shoulders, “What are the plans for the evening?”

“After the events in New York, we changed location as a precaution. We have an appointment in an old hotel,” he replied, taking out his laptop where all the information was stored. “It’s the home of two castes who lent us the place for the occasion. It’s going to be super chic.”

“It’s never simple, anyway,” said Thomas, who, listening to him, was fed up with wearing tuxedos. “Carmichael called me earlier. He wanted to talk to me about tomorrow’s event. According to him, the fact that he’s not there won’t harm us. He’s leaving tomorrow for Hong Kong, and we’ll save time. He said that after New York, the tongues waggled and the castes who went to the castle told all their contacts what you did in New York, how you saved them.”

“Saved?! Many are dead!”

“Eve,” Eric called out to me. “You can’t save everyone in wartime. There’ll still be more deaths.”

“But I don’t want others to die. It’s unbearable.”

“What you did in New York was amazing.”

“Downright!” stammered Johnny, who was tasting his appetiser. “You tore off a girl’s head with your hands. Rip their heads off all you want, because it saved the lives of the vast majority of the guests present that evening.”

“And if they attack tomorrow, what am I going to do without Carmichael?”

“We must not tempt fate,” Thomas said. “You have to have a fallback plan for the castes in case of an attack, but it shouldn’t be difficult to keep them away if you flee. From the conversation I had with Carmichael about New York, they wanted you two, you in particular, and they wanted you alive. They mustn’t get their hands on you and we’ll do everything to make sure that doesn’t happen, okay?”

“Yes, okay.”

“I hardly dare speak on this subject, but your brother, do we know where he is?”

“I think he joined our enemies.”

“What?!” they said in unison.

“He fled and took a plane to Italy.”

“Italy?”

“For Leuca. And guess what, boats to the Greek islands leave from Leuca every day.”

“The motherfucker!” spat Johnny, his hand resting on mine. “Your brother really is a fucking crackpot! What’s he looking for there?”

“Death, I guess. And our mother.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes. When Blake revealed his betrayal to me, he told me that my mother was still alive and in the hands of the Six, well, the Five now. He also said that Ethan wasn’t her son, but that’s not true, I’m pretty sure. Blake’s passion for immortals led him to use every possible scheme to get me killed. As for Ethan, he couldn’t have done better for him to take care of himself.”

“So he left to join your mother?”

“Yes, just like Connor left to join his father. Ethan wants to die and thinks he can come back to life. He knows that I’ll never give up, so he wasn’t going to stay at the castle nicely. I should have known he would escape one day, but I hadn’t imagined that anyone would help him. A guard was mentally manipulated and didn’t inject the drugs during his shifts. That means there’s still a traitor in the castle. We’ll sort this out when we get home. For now, we have to focus on tomorrow’s event.”

“An ultra-chic event!” Johnny reminded us. “And I’ve planned an outfit for you…”

“Oh no, Johnny, don’t talk to me about fashion now!”

“Ungrateful that you are!”

I couldn’t help but giggle. The meal then passed in a lighter atmosphere. The simplicity of our exchanges, our laughter and the friendly atmosphere made me forget for a moment the pressure, the fights, the wedding, the coronation, my brother, the war and the betrayals, which, I had to admit, became unbearable by their frequency and by their effects on my nerves. We were finishing our desserts when the music of an orchestra thundered in the speakers of the dining room. From a distance, we had the leisure to observe the guests quickly moving to the centre of the room. I noticed men reaching out to their wives, fiancées or friends, inviting them to a perfectly respectable couples dance. A stare to my left caught my attention, when I was suddenly confronted with Eric’s burning eyes. He gave me a wink, then, without warning, stood up and held out his arm to me.

“Would you grant me the pleasure of this dance, Mademoiselle Burberry?” he asked, a smile on his face.

I realised at that moment how good it was to see him smile. I barely remembered the last time I had seen him in such good spirits.

“It would be a pleasure, Monsieur Panchak.”

My hand rested on his forearm, and he invited me to dance among the other hotel guests. His left hand grabbed my right hand, the other rested on my hip. The electrifying warmth of his body seized me. He suspected the phenomenon, and in turn felt the sensation when I read a smile on his face, a satisfied suspicion, if I were to believe my feelings.

“We haven’t talked much lately,” he said, breaking through the embarrassment of the moment.

“If I remember correctly, the last time we had a discussion was when I got married. It was in the library, where you told me we were cursed, you and me.”

“I always tend to overdo it,” he said with a smile.

“You weren’t entirely wrong. As soon as we met, we must recognize that we both encountered some difficulties.”

“I feel so sorry when I think of your death, I…”

“Say no more, please, Eric. We both know you had nothing to do with it, and that I never held it against you. However, I can barely tolerate a harpy like Carly Stanton at the castle!”

He burst out laughing. His head tilted back a little to watch me, and his eyes locked on mine. That piercing gaze had a way of throwing me off balance, and my dance partner was well aware of that. He put his lips to my ear.

“Carly has helped me a lot, and she’s nice.”

“That’s the most romantic speech,” I said, full of sarcasm. “You and Carly go well together.”

“We aren’t together! She’s a dear friend to me.”

His eyes locked on mine, and I recognized a mischievous smile. The situation amused him.

“So there’s another caste who has your full attention? That’s interesting.”

He smiles. I frowned, trying to think of all the women in the castle he might like, but there were so many lately it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“Okay, who is it?”

He burst out laughing. My eyes widened.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I owe her your smile tonight, and I can’t wait to get to know her. It’s nice to see you less… moody.”

“There are situations that facilitate healing. Sometimes, it comes down to so little, in the end.”

I no longer understood anything. The mystery in his words went beyond my capacity to lift the veil on this enigma which aroused my curiosity so much.

“After all these months, I admit I’m happy to be here with you. I missed you Eric, and I worried about you.”

“I wasn’t going to let Blake break me. And since we left the castle, I feel lighter.”

“Really?”

“Everything that happened in Mortain changed the way I looked at the castle and its inhabitants. Carly helped me get past that, but…”

“But you no longer feel in your place?”

“I have to admit no.”

“But you’re not going to leave?!”

He kept silent. I stopped dancing for a moment, as I realised that it was impossible for me to imagine my life at the castle without Eric’s presence. He looked at me with such intensity that I thought my heart was going to burst out of my rib cage.

He took my hand again and brought his body close to mine. Our chests brushed against each other as we danced.

The situation urged me to deliver my thoughts to him, or was it the wine? It didn’t matter, because I was already getting started.

“I was abducted, nearly starved to death and sick, then you and the others saved me. Then came the Six, and…”

“… finally marriage.”

“Yes.”

“Our relationship is punctuated by missed dates, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t say that, after all, I’m in your arms now, right?”

“But for how long?”

The music paused to resume on a more playful tune. We had no choice but to return to our table, which we discovered deserted.

“They must have gone to bed, and so should we.”

“I agree,” I said as I picked up my jacket from my chair.

We took the elevator back to our floor. Three hotel guests came up alongside us, but in the cabin, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Eric’s. When we got to the doorway of my room, he seemed to hesitate, took my hand, and finally let go. A moment of hesitation seized us and time stood still. I came to my senses and went to kiss his cheek. He put a hand on my shoulder, irradiating my whole arm, my chest and then everything else.

“Good night,” I stammered as he took a step back.

I returned to my room. But what had just happened, exactly?! I closed the door and leaned back against it, biting my lip. I was happy, transfixed with happiness like a girl who had been courted for the first time. I should have felt guilty, I was married, the weight of a war was looming and the responsibility of leading my fellow castes into battle fell to me. I should have thought back to Carmichael or my brother leaving to join the Five, to the need to convince other castes to stand up on our side. But no, I was only thinking of Eric and the few words exchanged during our dance. I lay down on the bed and curled up on myself, bursting out laughing. My God, how I needed to laugh, how I needed to feel alive! Eric brought me that. He always had.

I fell asleep fully clothed, and my sleep was peaceful, which was surprising in view of the terrifying actions I had recently committed, such as tearing off a woman’s head. But, come to think of it, I rarely had my sleep disturbed by anything. And with Eric’s image imprinted on my every thought, I slept even better that night. However, if I had known what awaited me the next day, I would surely have had nightmares.