What if you decided not to turn him in? What if he has to stand trial anyway? And what if you get asked to be a witness?
Would you save him? Or wouldn't you?
For Sebastian Sallow, Eleanor - Ellie - has been through hell and back. She did it all for...
The song choice for this chapter is "happier" by Olivia Rodrigo.
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Alaric is a fine company. He's polite, obviously well-behaved, and someone educated him about all basic manners. He knows all the tricks, like opening doors, getting my coat, placing my chair, ordering the fancy wine. No one even asks him if he's old enough to drink. No one cares, either.
He took me to a cute little place in Upper Hogsfield. I've been into this hamlet a few times last year, even exploring a tomb with Sebastian. I don't think that's a fun topic for conversation, though, so when he asks me if I've been here before, I only say, 'Yeah, collected a demiguise for Mr Moon.'
And because that sounds odd enough, we have a fun conversation carrying us for the first fifteen minutes of the date.
Once at the restaurant, the topic changes to family. I don't let through that Ominis has ever told me anything about the Notts and listen to Alaric's version of events.
'My father works at the ministry, as I already said, in the department for international cooperation. My mother is at home, but she's responsible for all things social. I sometimes feel like she works even harder.'
'I can imagine,' I reply upon getting our food. And, by the way, it's good wine that directly goes to my head. 'It is quite the mess to take care of everything when you're from a family that cares.'
'Don't you?' he asks. 'I mean, you're an Avery, after all.'
'Half of me is, yes,' I admit. 'On my mother's side. They do have their traditions, but I have to admit that I was lucky enough to grow up with the Hardice side influence. My father never wanted to sign any agreement to marry me off to some other pureblood family. Luckily.'
'That does sound lucky,' Alaric says, but it also sounds like he is sceptical about it. I'm not naïve. The fact that he has only now asked me out is directly linked to the fact that he didn't know I was an Avery before. And if I tell him now that I don't care much about the whole Pureblood shit, I'm not putting myself in his favour.
But I don't want to anyhow, so ... what do I care?
'It's good to know, however, you haven't been promised to someone,' he eventually adds. 'Otherwise going out with you might be fruitless.'
'Well, not if they would've signed an agreement with your family. I mean, do you have one?'
'Used to,' he admits. 'To Imelda, that is.'
I choke. 'Excuse me? You were, I don't know how to phrase it, but engaged to Imelda? Promised to her?'
'All of those fit in a weird way,' he says and laughs. 'But I'm not anymore. We both weren't keen on it anyhow, but her family paid a lot of money to mine to make it happen. They thought she'd rise the ranks as a Nott.'
I don't know what to say to any of that. This is just awful. 'What happened?'
He shrugs. 'Pretty easy, honestly. I never wanted to marry her anyway, and I don't think she wanted to be with me either. So, when I walked in on her doing it with Sallow just, like, a couple of weeks ago, we finally had a reason to drop the whole thing. I suspected it to happen, honestly, since they were so close a while ago. I'm glad it finally did. It means I'm here with you.'
