The Investigation | Mikael

Chapter Eight

 We ran until we were in the woods, not far from the bayou. Thankfully, it wasn't a full moon, or we probably would have come across a werewolf by now. 

 "Is it safe for us to be out here?" I asked Mikael. 

 "It isn't safe for me to be anywhere right now, Mr. Laverty," he answered. "But I suppose here will do for now." He sat down under a tree. "Not a bad spot. Now, shall we pick up where we left off?" 

 "I guess so." I sat down next to him. "You can call me Finnamore, you know. Or Finn. Everyone usually calls me Finn." 

 "Finnamore it is, then." 

 "All right." I opened up my notebook. "Let's go into your family. You had parents. Any siblings?"

 "No. I was an only child." 

 "Hmm. So, your children. What about their mother, the witch Esther?" 

 I thought I saw him visibly cringe a little at her name, but if he had, he quickly recovered from it. 

 "She and her sister Dahlia were kidnapped during a raid," he said. "Dahlia knew a lot of dark magic, but Esther...she wasn't like that. She was different than that. We met, we spent time together. I went and fell in love, obviously." He began to slowly spin a loose thread from his jacket around his finger. "Esther and Dahlia stopped speaking to each other after we got married. I thought it was just some argument between sisters." 

 "But it was more than that?" I suggested. 

 "Dahlia thought Esther had betrayed her somehow by marrying me." 

 "Was she in love with you herself?" I tried to imagine in my mind what sort of love triangle that would be. 

 "No, certainly not." He sounded horrified by the idea of Dahlia being in love with him. "She was angry with me for taking Esther away. And then Esther and Dahlia made a deal I never knew about." 

 "A deal?" I repeated. "Having to do with you?" 

 "Partly. But no. It had to do with our children. Esther and I hadn't been able to conceive a child. She went to Dahlia for help, without my knowledge, and they struck a deal. She would make sure Esther could have children, and in return, Dahlia would get the firstborn child of every generation." 

 "And your wife agreed to this arrangement?" 

 He shrugged. "She wanted children, and she didn't know what else to do. I didn't learn about this until recently, and I didn't even hear it from Esther herself. This is only what I'm assuming. Knowing her, I think she must have been desperate and too trusting of her sister. I don't think...she really knew what she was getting herself into." 

 I thought back to the binder Marcel had given me, the one with all the information on the Mikaelson family. The first child was Freya, whom I had never met. She was the one Dahlia took. 

 "I think that would bring us to your oldest child," I pointed out. "Your daughter Freya. Why don't you tell me about her?" 

 He stood up. "I can't." 

 "Why not?" 

 "Because I...I just don't want to talk about her. Not tonight. We can go into my children tomorrow. I doubt we'll be able to get back into the compound now." 

 "Right." I stood and brushed off my jeans with my hands. "Well, how about I leave the back door open for you? It's probably easier than climbing through my window, right?" 

 He didn't seem to realize that I meant it jokingly, and he said, "Well, if you want to leave it open, go ahead. I'll come if I can." 

 "Oh. All right. Um, goodnight, then." 

 I started to walk away, knowing which direction would lead me back to the French Quarter. I stopped a moment to turn around, and Mikael was gone. 

 I should have known that bringing up his children would be a sensitive subject. All of his biological children were gone now, and all he had left was Klaus, the one he had spent centuries trying to kill. Why would he open up to me about it, of all people? 

 But there was some small part of me that hoped, genuinely hoped, he would.