It wasn’t that it looked foreign or grotesque — though a subset of hardline elvish isolationists would argue the point — but rather that when she looked at the symbol of his happy marriage, she was filled with envy.
She wanted that. She wanted a consort and a happy partnership and love and babies and warmth. She wanted that more than she could properly articulate even to herself.
But fate saddled her with a consort who didn’t really want her and never would, so she could only take what few scraps were available to her.
Reeling in her familiar anger, she politely asked, “How was your honeymoon?”
Instead of looking him in the eye, she watched his mouth curve in a wide, satisfied smile. “My time with Margot was wonderful. We swam in the lake and she took me blackberry picking, though I still don’t see the appeal of the nasty little things.” His smile dimmed as a chill entered his voice. “Being with her is everything I could have wanted, but I could have done without spending so much time with her family.”
Camille’s hackles raised. The low, almost inaudible rumble coming from Theodore’s chest sent her instincts on edge. He wouldn’t hurt her, but instinct was instinct.
Not that she blamed him for being upset. She didn’t even know Margot and she was upset on her behalf.
Word traveled fast in their family, even when some of the members were intentionally distant. Camille heard from her brother, who heard from Theodore’s older brother Sam, what exactly the Goodes had done to their halfling kin. It turned her stomach.
What kind of monsters mutilated their own young?
Babies were precious. Rare. Camille wanted her own, though she was practical enough to get herself an IUD so she could choose when she wished to have a child — certainly that would come up after her union was solidified, but hopefully not too soon.
To hear that Margot’s mother had been blessed with a child, only to abandon her to people who did not know the proper way to care for an elvish child made everything in her bristle with rage.
They didn’t feed her properly. They maimed her to hide her elvish traits. They didn’t explain the change — that most vulnerable and traumatizing time in an elf’s life, when they went temporarily mad while their bodies went through a rapid, extreme form of puberty. The memory of Camille’s own change and the events that followed it haunted her, just as it haunted every elf. The acute hunger, the echo of bones snapping and muscles stretching, the hallucinations…
It was terrible enough when one knew what lay ahead of them. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be Margot, fragile and ignorant, locked away in the dark for a week as she endured the agony of sudden growth and the madness that accompanied it.
I’d have killed the whole lot of them, she thought, once more marveling at her cousin’s restraint.
“I’m surprised you allowed it,” she said, briskly unbuttoning her coat as she moved to take a seat in one of the chairs facing his desk. “And without bloodshed, too. You must have nearly ground your fangs to stumps.”
She certainly wouldn’t have done such a thing. If it was her consort that had been smothered and mutilated and starved — no matter how good the intentions were in doing so — Camille would have chewed metal filings before she let her partner play nice with those responsible.
Then again, she was a touch less gregarious than her esteemed cousin.
Theodore dropped his hand and sighed. “It was a compromise. It was my wife’s dream to be married in her family’s territory. I agreed only when she promised we would never step foot there again.”
Camille blinked, more wrongfooted by his use of the word wife than anything else. It was such a… human word. “I see,” she murmured, eyes skating away from the sigil between his brows. “Well, that is for the best. She has a new family now.”
Her cousin smiled. Dimples creased his cheeks and made him look boyish again, just as she remembered. “Yes, she does, though she’s still getting used to us.” He paused, one clawed thumb tracing his lower lip thoughtfully. “You know, she could use a friend, Cammie. Someone I could trust to always have her best interests in mind. An elvish woman who can share things with her that I can’t.”
She stiffened. Even if she wasn’t planning on leaving the city as fast as possible, Camille wasn’t entirely sure she could stomach being in Margot Goode’s presence long enough to be friends.
Oh, she seemed nice enough — really, who didn’t like healers? — and Camille rather liked that she had a strong enough spine to stand up to a room of growling elves the day they met, but being pals with someone who had everything Camille would never have? No, she didn’t think she could do that.
Folding her hands neatly in her lap, she answered, “I’m not sure I’m the best fit for the job, Teddy. I plan to leave the city soon.” Very soon. As soon as the ink is dry on the contract.
Theodore cocked his head to one side. A black curl fell against his blue-skinned forehead, once again drawing her eye to that blasted sigil. “Why’s that? Are you headed back to Napa? Alone?”
Camille did her best to contain her annoyance. It was his job to look after her and everyone else in the Solbourne family. He was just doing his duty. But that didn’t mean the word alone hurt any less.
She breathed in and squared her shoulders. Keeping her eyes on his, she answered, “No, not yet. I am… I would like to negotiate a union.” No, that wasn’t right. Not strong enough. Camille cleared her throat and said more firmly, “I am negotiating a union.”
Theodore’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. For several torturous seconds, he simply sat there, his arm suspended in a strange, aborted gesture and his dark eyes fixed on her face. She did her best not to quail. She wasn’t the sort, anyway, but it was vitally important that she not do so now. Any hint of uncertainty might tip the scales in the wrong direction.
“Cammie…” Theodore dropped his arm and leaned forward to brace his elbows on the polished surface of his desk. “Who are you looking to join with?”
She could feel his eyes scouring her features, searching for something, but she didn’t care to figure out what it was. Instead, she dropped her eyes to her supple suede gloves and adjusted their fit. “Mother and I made a list of twenty candidates last year and then narrowed it down to ten men of similar rank.”
Camille had then gone through and eliminated those who were outright enemies of the Solbournes, despite her mother’s firm wish to make life as hard as possible for the main family. She had no desire to procreate with someone who wanted her cousins dead.
Clearing her throat, she continued, “When Mother got too sick, I froze the negotiations. Now that the mourning period is over, I’ve picked things up again.” She raised her eyes to his. Theodore watched her closely, his brow furrowed. Her stomach sank. “I am happy to do this on my own, but as the head of the family, I need your blessing. So… here I am.”
Theodore blinked twice before something dark passed over his expression. “What brought this on, Cammie? Why now? You’re so young. You don’t need to be thinking about any of this for decades — or ever. I would never ask you to join with someone you didn’t care for.”
His last sentence was laden with meaning.