Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

76 - Chapter LXXVI: A Veil of Familiarity

Forty-eight hours later.

In truth, Reinette wanted to break his Ming Dynasty tea bowl. The clocks in his study. That ridiculous bone folder with its forty-five degree angles. Replaying the destruction in her mind. Imagining his words. His reaction. So that he might actually have a reason for the utter...disdain...with which he'd looked at her. As though she'd corrupted his household with her proclivities.

And yet she was a creature of habit...and as that creature of habit, she did not typically break porcelain. In fact, it seemed reasonable to assume that-once back in her quarters-if she simply removed the offending article, her dress that is, it might somehow transport her back in time. Help her remember why she cared. Why she followed his rules.

How to explain it.

The reason she was spending six months in confinement in a house where she had no free will, thanks to a society that detested her species. At first angry...and then as the first twelve hours had gone by...tired. The truth holding her hostage more than the walls.

She had nowhere else to go.

No idea who she was anymore. A bright young thing flittering in the dark...or an old seer beneath a veil of familiarity. Perhaps a killer. No idea what her hands would do if someone gave her a weapon and a reason to use it.

Why else had the weight dropped when he'd walked in? As though she truly had no recourse, despite being older than him. Possibly even stronger than him. Enough that she'd signed her own restriction papers, dutifully following the rules of a world that did not turn without his say-so.

And perhaps...

...if he'd left her to her own devices, she might have lasted longer than two days. She might have brought out the veil. Found the old mourning dress. Restricted herself to the path he wished her to follow. But it was not in his nature to let things lie when he could simply smother them.

It started with the boxes.

She woke to find them in her sitting room. Not just the chaise lounge, but all her things from Oppenheim. Things she'd not seen in years, assuming he'd destroyed everything. Of course, he'd kept them. Not for their friendship, but for tempting her back in her cage. The oaken frames filled with flowers and herbs. The pressings, the photographs. All of it behind glass...and her reflection refusing to match with what she'd once been.

The discontent growing in spades. Remembering the curious surprise on Weylan's face as he read the wording on her restriction papers. The moment of signing her restriction papers while two clerks gawked at her leaving something to be desired, but the subsequent headache telling her to deal with the feeling later.

Like waking from a dream, her veil back in order, her life back on track, only the strict reality she'd once craved had become a nightmare. She could feel it building inside her. A chasm between her past and present. The walls of her quarters, the lock on her door, the monotony of her evening ritual failing to calm her as it once did. All those nights of frivolity leaving her with a strange hunger.

Her memories suddenly wary that in twenty-three years, the longest imprisonment Sabine had received in her history of debauchery had been six weeks. Not months. Until, staring into her reflection, naked as the day she was born, she realised it: This was not about the docks.

It was the dress...

...and come nightfall, she was literally going to break his Ming Dynasty tea bowl.

o...o...o

Eighteen hours later.

Lucian was in the first floor dining hall, seated across from a wall of mounted stag heads, staring grimly at his breakfast. It was like the cook hated him. Every single tureen filled with...porridge. Not lamb dripping in beef. Fucking porridge. His already tenuous mood turning into something foul when Weylan entered the hall, bowed once and then explained that three guards had been found unconscious. Also the door to Reinette's quarters had been removed from its hinges. The news causing him to fold his already folded paper in half. Tapping a rapidly growing set of nails against the table before picking up a butter knife and proceeding to put it down again.