Episode 64: Upstairs (Camilla)

They were in the room, and her arms were crossed.

She thought that was a nice touch, something that said she meant business and wasn’t just going to walk away without an explanation.

She had a really horribly terribly badly bad feeling that she couldn’t just walk away, even if she wanted to.

“Will you sit?” Tarragon asked her.

No, but she could probably fly out the window. She wondered what would happen if she did.

“How did she know about the twins?” she asked. “What did Tara mean.”

It was really easy for her mom to cross her arms when she was upset, because she was a water fairy and it was like a sponge wringing itself out. Camilla was an air fairy and it just wouldn’t work. The more stressed she was, the more her arms wanted to blast away from her body like they were wearing rocket packs.

Add to that the effect of the fire, which sparked all along her skin, and she probably looked like a mess. Not at all tough like her mom did when she crossed her arms.

I’m Camilla, she wanted her body to say, and you better watch out.

It probably said that, but there was an added part of the sentence: before I accidentally lose control and hurt you.

Tarragon held his hands up like that would placate her. “I’m also a prisoner here. If you relax, you’ll be okay.”

Yeah, because everyone relaxed when someone told them to. It was like adrenaline potion, being told to relax.

“Prisoner?” she asked. Her voice was too high, the pitch all over the super octaves that only panicking people in B horror movies achieved.

She was not a B horror movie. “What?” she asked in a calmer voice. “Why.”

She re-crossed her arms for affect.

“You’re the last of your line,” Tarragon told her in that same obnoxiously calm voice. He sat down on the bed, because apparently when he asked her to sit it was because he wanted to. “A true heir.”

A lifetime of carefully avoiding her heir-ness, staying in-realm where people could keep an eye on her, opting out of certain classes at school, and it all came down to the fact that she was an heir.

Really, if she had to get kidnapped, couldn’t it be about her and not about who her mom used to be?

“So?” she asked, hot. Too hot. She was practically on fire. Good, maybe she’d burn this place down. “That throne doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“It lives on in you, as mine does in me. A child of ours would have a right to the throne.”

She looked at him. Not as the guy she’d slept with before, or the cute but kind of weird guy who was Jentzen’s cousin, but as someone talking about heirs and lines.

The chiseled jaw she’d admired before? Exact duplicate of Acheron’s, except where Ach’s was milky-white his was a microshade darker. He was Ach, if Ach had dark hair and deeper blue eyes. Even the fat lower lip she’d kissed this morning.

Ewwwwwwww.

She’d practically slept with Ach. That might be the most disgusting thought she’d ever had.

It also meant that he wasn’t just some guy with a weird name.

He was…he was the king and queen’s lost son.

“Oh, no,” she groaned. “You’re…I should have known when you said your name.”

Seriously, how many people were named Tarragon of all things?

“I’m sorry, Camilla,” he said. He sounded sincere, which was rich given everything. No wonder that wine had made her so drunk, they’d obviously drugged her. She’d been kidnapped to be a broodmare for her family’s enemy, and he sat there apologizing like it hadn’t been his choice.

“This is out of my control,” he went on. “I am at the mercy of Ionia.”

That must be the aunt’s name.

Yeah, she’d definitely seen that one tossed around in the history book, crazy Queen Titania’s twin sister Ionia, who had vanished during the war.

Well. Apparently she’d taken Tarragon with her.

He reached for her hand, and she let him take it because she forgot she was mad at him.

“You were given elixir,” he informed her. His eyes watched her face.

It took her a minute. Her parents hadn’t ever elixired, none of her siblings had. It was a special drink that royal fairies took to bind their houses together. It had some pretty big rules, like til death do us part and an exchange of magic.

Reverse bond? Not quite.

They were all so smooth and good at this.

She’d gotten married last night. To her enemy.

“Please breathe,” he asked, soft. He pulled her onto his lap. “The calmer you remain, the safer you are.”

“Jentzen is a spy?” she clarified. “He kidnapped me. You…you.” She dropped her head into her hands. This was beyond horrifying. She’d been smitten with him, and he’d been using her.

And even worse, he was the only one around to comfort her while she figured her issues out. “I have the worst people judgement,” she complained.

At least he didn’t try to argue with that one.

“Right now you are safe. For about seven or eight more months. We have time.” He ran his fingers lightly over her back. If he’d done that an hour ago, she would’ve melted into him like a moron.

She wasn’t that girl anymore. She was the girl who was going to survive, no matter what.

“Why then?” she asked. Facts seemed important. People armed with facts were people who could plan. People who planned were people who survived. She had a plan, to plan to survive.

It was awesome.

He slipped his hand around the side of her body and rested it between her hips. “You’re pregnant, Camilla. We both will cease to be useful when that time is up.”

Better and better.

She turned to look at him. “Okay, so…I have air magic. Let’s get out of here. We can just fly away.”

He shook his head. “There are wards. My children are in her control. She has been breeding me.”

Breeding. Those twins were probably his.

How ironic, that Ach had adopted them.

“So you’re not coming with, is what you’re staying?” she asked. She extricated herself from his lap and walked toward the window.

“Not today.” He didn’t try to chase her, but his shoulders got all tense as he watched her. “You will have one chance, and if you use it today you will fail. She expects it.”

She scowled at him.

This was just plain suck. There was no other word for it.

She was stuck here, with all these messed up emotions and she was pregnant and she was officially her family’s enemy because, through probably a wiccan spell, she was carrying a baby meant to destroy her family, and she knew, even if she didn’t yet, that she would love and protect that baby.

“Fine,” she said, half-hearted. “My brother will find me.”

She hoped Spence would. Somewhere in between running for governor and training with Konrad and raising all his kids and his obsession with Ach, she hoped he’d realize she wasn’t just off on some extended romantic date.

Which she sort of was, in this really twisted way.

She hated that she couldn’t sort out her feelings about Tarragon and her feelings about her situation. They shouldn’t be so messed up and different.

Hey, yeah, this is the guy who kidnapped me. He’s kind of hot though. And genuine and protective and deep.

Hey, Spence. I married almost your husband. That’s not gross, right?

Hey, Mom and Dad, I’m pregnant. It’s cool though, don’t worry. I’m not over here panicking or anything.

Tarragon’s shoulders relaxed. “Will you behave in the meantime? She can make your life painful.”

She could probably drug Camilla until the baby was born and then kill her. Camilla might be flighty and unobservant but she at least listened to the warnings her parents gave her brothers before they started school in Sylem.

She knew what wiccans were capable of, and if someone was helping Ionia with wicca magic then Camilla was screwed.

She raised an eyebrow, joking because being stuck was bad and she wanted something good. “She can’t ward a house that doesn’t exist. One little tornado…”

“Camilla, please.”

He’d totally missed it.

She was so alone.

“You’re risking more than yourself.” To her surprise, because why would she ever see that coming, he lifted the leg of his pants and showed her a cluster of little star tattoos on his calf. “My children,” he explained.

It was…she didn’t know. Cute? Creepy? Weird? She’d seen people in movies who got tattoos of their kids, but it was usually a birthdate or something about the kid.

She opened her mouth to compliment him on how many he’d had – there were a lot – but before she said anything he asked, “Olida and Orris…they’re safe?”

“Yeah.” Knowing Ach they’d be some of the safest kids in history and lead boring lives of library and discipline.

And probably never get kidnapped, but whatever. What was done was done.

“Can you tell me about them?” he asked.

“No!” she snapped. “You kidnapped me and tricked me into marrying you and got me pregnant on purpose!”

He could blame Ionia all he wanted, but he’d social-bullied her into staying longer, he’d given her the glass of wine, he’d carried her up the stairs, he’d slept with her.

Whatever he said, no one made him do that. He made choices too.

He lay back on the bed, not even looking at her.

“You don’t deserve this,” she told him.

She sighed. She was stuck here, with people she obviously had to make happy if she was going to have any chance of getting out of here alive.

She took a deep breath and kept talking, whatever crossed her mind about them. It wasn’t much, because kids were pretty boring until they hit school age, which Orris and Olida still had years to go on.

“They’re short for their age. He has curly brown hair, hers is long. He’s shy, she’s more confident.”

She tried to think about what her mom would want to know, if she couldn’t be around Silas. Character mattered most to her mom, but Camilla didn’t know their character. Kids were people who crawled under the table and argued with Merlyn during supper, and then they went away until the next day.

“Who is raising them?” Tarragon asked. “Have her burns healed?”

Burns? Camilla hadn’t noticed any.

She wondered, for the first time, why Spence and Ach had adopted them. She thought they must have come from the orphanage, but maybe there was something else going on.

“My dad healed everything,” she invented, because he probably had. “And my brother and his fiance – your brother – are raising them.”

“My brother?” Tarragon sat back up, eyes on her. “How many siblings do I have now? My parents remarried?”

This was intelligence-gathering.

Spence better be proud of her for realizing what Tarragon was up to.

She decided to be vague but factual.

“So. Your mom married your uncle and got pregnant, and then he died killing,” she looked up, trying to remember all the stuff in the history books. It was family history, her history. She knew she should care more, but her life had been about making sure everyone knew she didn’t care. “…your grandfather. And then your mom married your dad again. They have a ton of kids,” she hoped that sounded nice and threatening. “But the brother that’s with my brother is your uncle’s son.”

“What do my kids like?” he asked, almost as soon as she’d stopped talking.

She met his eyes.

Why did she do that? She hated how vulnerable he looked, how much she wanted to comfort him. She pressed her back against the wall.

“I have spent exactly no time with them. They exist in the same house as I do.” She met his eyes again so he’d know she wasn’t hiding things from him. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said, with a shoulder shrug.

He was either disappointed or a really good actor.

“They’re safe is what matters,” he added. He stood up and walked toward her.

Oh no.

She was going to just have to get used to him being close to her, and find a way to not let it affect her the way it did.

“My brother adopted two other kids too, from Sylem, so it’s not just them.” There was no way she was telling him about Fort and Emma, Ella and Jax. She had to protect them. And she wanted him to know how involved their family was with Sylem, how hard an attack on them would be.

Stealing away a ditzy girl was one thing. Attacking the palace would be a whole different mess for them if they tried it.

He kissed her. She tensed, and then let her lips open to him.

Survivors planned and planners survived, but survivors also cooperated.

She hated how much her body liked kissing him, how responsive it was. At least it would make it easier to go along with him?

“I don’t want to lose the chance to see these babies,” he said softly.

“These?” she asked.

Maybe he thought she’d have twins because the Dragon line did.

Or maybe he was prone to twins. It made sense – Ionia and Titania were twins. Orris and Olida were twins. Maybe they ran in the family.

Ugh she didn’t want twins. She saw how stretchy and gross Talise always got at the end of her pregnancies. Camilla liked looking like a fairy and not a beached whale.

“Ionia didn’t want to bother with a second pregnancy, so there should be more than one.”

Right… “Because Ionia wants to kill me.” She was sparking, more than before. Somehow, while pregnant with more than one kid, she had to figure out a way to get out of here, or she was going to die. She could count the days, more or less, until her life as heir to the Sylph throne would be worthless to Ionia.

“She kills me every so often,” he said. Like that was supposed to somehow reassure her. She remembered when Spence died two years ago, the way he’d changed and become more adult.

She didn’t want to die.

Tarragon reached for her hand. “I love my children. I want you to survive.”

Long enough to have kids for him, anyway.

She looked up at him and tried to seem meek. “I won’t piss anyone off.”

Apparently it was time for roll call, because he added, “Annatto is my oldest son. Tara is…mine. But not with the elixir. I’m not sure what will happen to her.”

So he’d had a slave? No wonder Tara was so hostile.

Plus now that he’d elixired to Camilla, Tara might be in danger. More danger than Camilla was, at this exact moment.

“That is…messed up.”

“What can I do?” he asked her, almost like he was begging her to tell him it was okay. It so wasn’t. “What would you like, given my limitations?”

To survive. To go home.

He couldn’t offer either of those.

“Nothing,” she told him.

“We’re to share a room…a bed.”

She looked at the bed. It didn’t make sense, because she was already pregnant. Maybe she was supposed to be Tarragon’s new slave until Ionia killed her.

And Tara would be…she didn’t know what was going to happen to Tara. She didn’t know enough to know. Survivors needed facts in order to plan.

“No wonder Tara hates me,” she said.

“She’s been here a week. She hates everyone.”

Wait, what? A week?

Well that was an interesting fact. It meant Ionia hadn’t planned on Camilla coming here. She might not have known until very recently that Camilla was even possible. She’d gotten Tarragon a slave, and then elixired him to Camilla instead.

Rushed. Rushed was good because it meant there were probably flaws in Ionia’s plans. Things she’d overlooked.

Maybe not though. Camilla was basing this off of what she would have done, which was frantically rush everything until nothing was done right. Ionia was probably a lot more clever than that.

She hugged herself.

“Okay,” she announced. “I need a nap.”

“Go ahead.”

Thank you, kind sir, for giving me permission to sleep now that you’ve kidnapped me and drugged me and impregnated me.

She lay on the bed.

He joined her. Didn’t he have anything better to do?

It didn’t matter. She closed her eyes and caught a breeze. Ionia might be able to ward the house against her leaving, but it couldn’t trap her mind. She followed the little curl of air out the window, into the desert, over the land. She drew more air into it so that it was strong and durable. She crossed the land, over fields and bare patches and a small river, across the orchards and the palace gardens, into the palace.

She wove her way through until she found Spence.

He was in the garden with their mom, talking.

She attached half the breeze to him, like a fan constantly ruffling his hair, and rode the other half of the breeze home. There she attached a tiny piece of it to the back of her elbow, where it wouldn’t be obvious. Any emotional reaction she had, Spence would feel.

She released the rest of the breeze, untethering it from its connection to the air between her and Spence, and sent it out the window.

This had to work. Now she could watch Spence any time. She could follow him, bug him, make him feel her panic.

Spence would find a way to save her. She knew he would.

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