The Might of Evil Dreams (A Novel of the Elemental Chronicles)

Twenty-One - The Friend of Your Enemy

Thomas

Emmeline treated me with kid gloves in the days following. She meant well, truly, but I wished that she wouldn't. I needed my strong-willed wife, the one who reminded me of my place and did not let me forget who was in charge in my absence. Sometimes I even saw the timid girl who'd blown out of a storm from two years ago, unsure of what to say so she said nothing.

And then, one evening, while we were preparing for bed, she finally asked the question.

"Tom, what was Francis like? Growing up?"

I paused midway through unbuttoning my waistcoat and looked over at her. She never once broke eye contact, which meant the question was completely serious. "Besides what the letter said?"

"Knowing his mental state at one point in time does not tell me anything about him," she said, pushing a hand through her hair before dropping it heavily. "And you do not speak about him...I figured that subject was taboo."

A fair point, I suppose. I would have liked to think that Francis was in his perfectly right mind, but even the best physician would have said he was not. He saw things only he could see, heard voices only he could hear, and believed the Devil himself was after him half the time. And nothing, not even the encounters with these strange men, could have caused that.

"The first thing you should know is that Lucian was wrong." I crossed over to the bed and pulled off my boots. "Francis's mind was never perfectly sound."

"Tom, I'm sure that's–"

"No, Emmeline, it isn't." I swung my legs onto the bed and leaned back against the pillows. "Francis was trapped in a world of visions and voices only he could sense. Sometimes there were periods where it seemed he had left it. But they always came back."

"So when he saw the things he drew..." Emmeline's brow furrowed, and she slid her hand into mine. "No one believed him. He was the boy who cried wolf."

"Yes. My parents must have thought that somehow his visions were becoming more vivid." I let out a heavy exhale. "I only wish I could have been here for him. Besides Lucian, only I knew when he was delusional."

"And he knew he was not when Francis gave him that box." Her hand tightened in mine. "Everything he said was perfectly true."

This time I nodded.

"Is that when..." Emmeline began, but trailed off.

"When he took his own life?" I said, and she nodded. "I believe so, yes. I was away at war during that time, so I am unsure of the timeline."

"But now you believe him." She leaned into my side, dropping her head to my shoulder. "After all these years."

I kissed her hand, lingering there before resting my lips on her hair. "Not even someone like Francis could conjure up something this terrible."

She said nothing, only took a deep breath and nestled closer to me. I almost believed, when I discovered what she had been through, that a piece of Francis had been returned to me. In her I saw his same gentle sensitivity, his generosity, his desire to help someone no matter what they had done to him. Perhaps at first, that was what compelled my feelings to grow. But there was one distinct difference, the one that I could not have predicted would seal them and make me proud to have her as my wife. She found it within herself to continue living, despite what she'd experienced. She had the strength that my poor brother did not. And that, I believed, was what made us better.

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"Heard about this unrest in France lately?" Ray said, the next time they visited.