21. Alfie

Ihadn't expected my father to be the one to tell me about my new tutor. I had just assumed that someone else would do it, but I suppose it was logical that he'd do it himself, since Rhod was no longer there to do it for him. Now he had no PA, Father was going to have to do a lot of his own work.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

Part of me wished he'd just told someone else to do it like everything else, and then it might have been Mother or someone, and I could ask a few questions.

Another part of me, though, felt a shocked thrill at my father talking to me like this, calling me to his office like I was someone of importance.

The clash of feelings meant I got very flustered and tripped over my own feet going into the office and then I forgot that it was rude to look a dragon elder in the eyes and only remembered to lower my head when Lord Somerville's thin eyebrows drew together in irritation.

"You're late. I summoned you well over an hour ago."

"Oh, um, did you?"

I felt a moment of alarm at the prospect of Lord Somerville having gone looking for me or finding out where I'd been. I really didn't want him to find Blaze. Something in me wanted to keep him secret. Although that same thing in me wanted to parade him round and tell everyone he was my best friend and that he loved me.

Secrecy won, obviously. I knew that if anyone found out about him, he'd be sent away. And I couldn't think about that. It made me feel like I'd have a heart attack with how hard my heart beat, like it was pushing through my chest. Any time I thought about Blaze being sent away, I quickly thought of something else instead.

My father looked at me with icy eyes over his desk.

"Where have you been?"

"Uh, I was, um, well you see I wanted to go for a walk but I didn't want to—"

"Don't babble, Alphonse."

"Yes, Father."

I was so relieved that it meant he didn't know where I'd been and he didn't know about Blaze that I actually smiled.

That only lasted a second. Lord Somerville's eyes flashed with something I wasn't familiar with and my smile faltered and died. I flushed with embarrassment and confusion.

The thought that remained was that I was very grateful I'd taken the time to go back to my room and shower and change my clothes so that I didn't smell of ash and woodsmoke and come. I'd licked Blaze's come off his hand and it had tasted so good…

Oops, I didn't want to think about Blaze right now. Not in front of my father.

He was studying me, his silver-blue eyes so pale that they were like chips of ice.

"It is time that you learned to shift, Alphonse. You are old enough and it is your duty to do all that you can for the good of our clan."

"Yes, father," I said, and I meant to stop there and basically back out of the room, but of course I didn't. I blurted out, "Will it hurt?"

"Excuse me?"

"Shifting? Will it hurt? I mean, I'll do it anyway because I want to help and everyone else can shift except me so I want to be able to do it like the rest of you but I was just wondering if it would hurt, so I could brace myself—"

Luckily for me, my father interrupted me and my tongue stopped almost as if he had commanded it.

"Accessing one's dragon is natural and does not hurt. One as unused to communicating with your dragon as you might find it uncomfortable, but you will learn, and it will become second nature to you."

"Should I have talked to my dragon?" I was so surprised that I looked up, my mouth open. "I didn't know! I don't know how to do that."

"That is what you will learn at the hands of Madam Trevellian."

After the conversation I'd heard-but-hadn't-been-meant-to-hear, I couldn't help but ask, "Is she nice?"

Even though I guessed the answer, I wasn't prepared for my father's blunt reply of, "No."

"Oh. Can't I have a nice tutor?"

"Madam Trevellian is the most experienced and powerful hag in the country. She will be able to sense your power immediately and draw it out. She is not required to be nice, only competent."

That made sense, of course, but it didn't mean I had to like it.

"Yes, Father."

I left, longing to go straight back outside and see Blaze. I just felt so much… better around Blaze. I felt like I was someone important.

Not important like a clan elder or a pop star or a politician, but important like I really mattered to him.

Instead, I had to roam the castle, feeling restless and not able to find anyone. I thought I saw Aunt Isabella's bond flicker in front of me in the way that meant she was near so I followed it, hoping to find somebody to talk to. I rounded the corner of a long corridor and saw her at the other end. Before I could even call out a greeting, she gave a start and fled.

There was no other way to describe it. She turned and ran.

I thought I heard her give a little sob, and I wanted to go after her but it wasn't my place. If she was upset, she would probably rather speak to her daughter.

So I kept roaming round. I should probably have gone back to my desk and started some school work but I didn't. Father hadn't specifically told me to and I think it was an open secret at that point that what little work I was doing was pointless. Nobody was tutoring me and I'd been left alone to try and fill my days since Morgan had left.

For a castle with a whole clan inside – albeit a small clan – it was incredibly difficult to find anybody to talk to. My eyes kept sliding to the windows, looking to see if I could see the woods and Blaze snuggled up in our den.

I didn't dare to go outside again, though. I might have got away with it so far but people would notice if I moved myself out to the woods permanently.

I must have been wandering for half an hour before I saw another bond flicker and followed it. I traced it all the way to one of the drawing rooms on the west side, where the long afternoon sunlight streamed in and warmed the whole room.

Inside the drawing room, sitting rigidly upright in a high-backed armchair, was Great Aunt Evangeline. She held her pearl-handled walking stick in front of her, resting her hands on it. She was already looking at the door when I peeked in. Perhaps she'd heard me approach.

"Good afternoon," she said.

"Good afternoon, Great Aunt Evangeline. May I enquire after your health?"

"You may." She gave a magnanimous nod of her head, and I crept further into the room. "I am tolerably well, thank you. Though the whole clan is unsettled at the news, of course."

"News?"

She raised her perfectly drawn-on eyebrows. "News of your tutor, Madame Trevellian."

"Oh." I couldn't help myself. I blurted out my question. "What is she like? Because nobody seems to like her, even Father, but he hired her as my tutor so he must trust her an awful lot to let her inside our boundary protections."

Great Aunt Evangeline gave an imperious sniff. It was the most disrespect I'd ever seen her show for anyone, and it made me stand there with my mouth open in shock.

"Madame Trevellian is a hag. She is immensely powerful but it comes from draining it from other creatures. Hags can sense power. True power. She will know, instantly, what you really are."

"What do you mean what I am?"

Great Aunt Evangeline tilted her head to one side and I squirmed as she studied me. I always got squirmy when I spoke to her, even though she never did anything wrong. There was something about her eyes that made me uncomfortable. She was so old, and her eyes held such strange depths of knowledge and wisdom.

I had wondered, once, whether she had been the clan elder before Lord Somerville, because people avoided looking her in the eyes the same way they avoided Father's eyes. Only with Great Aunt Evangeline, I always remembered that it was rude to make eye contact and I kept forgetting with Father.

She hadn't been the clan elder, though. I'd checked. The Somervilles had never had a female clan elder, and I wasn't sure whether that was by chance or design. Considering how old our clan was, it probably couldn't have been chance.

I don't know what she saw in my face as she studied me, but she chose to answer my question.

Unfortunately, she answered it with a question of her own.

"What do you know of your deceased brother, Alexander?"

"Well I know he died before Morgan was born, but Mother still grieves him."

"A mother always grieves her child, if she survives them."

There was some shadow of grief inside that statement that made me uncomfortable and I didn't know what to do. So I babbled. I'd thought I'd got better at controlling my mouth, but apparently I hadn't.

"Alexander had a bond with everyone in the clan and they're still there, which is so unusual because nobody else has a broken bond. They're either there or they're not. They're really strong bonds, too, which is strange considering Alexander was so young. Most bonds grow stronger over time, unless something happens to weaken them. I know he was important, but I don't know why. It can't be because he was Lord Somerville's eldest son, because Morgan never had a bond like that with everybody."

She raised her hand, one small, imperious gesture, and I snapped my mouth shut.

"You know that we are not meant to mention that name. That is the second time you have done so. Be careful, Alfie, not to be heard doing so."

"Yes, Great Aunt Evangeline."

I felt chastised, but I was still too curious to stop asking questions. Normally, people brushed me off with vague platitudes and told me I'd find out some day, when I was older. They'd been telling me that for years. So I asked, "Do you know why Alexander had such strong bonds with everyone?"

"Yes, I do. It's the same reason you've had bonds with everyone, even from birth. You and he were born the same, though you have become a very different person from him."

I almost squealed in excitement. "You know about the bonds?"

"Yes, I do."

"Really? You can see them too? I didn't know that. I was starting to think I was the only one."

"You see the world the same way I did."

"Do I? Why didn't you tell me?"

"We were forbidden from talking to you about it. A clan must obey their elder's orders, or they will descend into chaos."

I stepped closer and lowered my voice instinctively. "Forbidden to tell me about what?"

"What you are. What is expected of you."

"Then why are you telling me now?"

"Because Lord Somerville has decided the time is right for you to learn it. He has summoned the hag once again."

I shuffled closer until my toes almost touched her walking stick. "I didn't realise anything was expected of me. Nobody seems to expect me to do anything."

"They were forbidden to talk about it. And they were grieving the loss of the- of Alexander. And they were frightened. Our clan came very close to extinction, the night Alexander died. That memory lives deep within us all."

"I didn't realise," I said again. I felt so stupid, so ignorant. Why did everyone else know about this and not me?

Great Aunt Evangeline must have seen something of my thoughts on my face, since I was never very good at concealing them. She reached out a hand and touched my cheek gently, just for a moment.

"I know what you are, Alfie. And you will know in time. There was no need for anyone else to find out so soon."

"Nobody tells me anything. I'm not a child any longer." I sounded sullen, even to my own ears.

"No, you are not. Your father has set this in motion. Once the hag arrives, the truth will come out. She will see to that."

"If you know what I am, why don't you tell Father? That way, he won't need to hire Madame Trevellian."

"Your father has no respect for my power. He does not believe in bonds."

"But they're right there," I said, gesturing between us. "Can't you persuade him?"

"I am old, child."

"Not that old," I said, even though it was a lie. She was absolutely ancient.

I nearly fell over in a dead faint when I saw her smile. I couldn't remember ever seeing it before, and her whole face cracked like a mask, breaking into a web of lines and wrinkles. Despite the wrinkles, she looked suddenly so much younger.

"Your father wishes you to be tutored. Knowing what is inside you and accessing it are two very different things."

"So… I do have a dragon inside me?"

I was surprised by how small my voice was right then. It almost sounded as though it was coming from someone else, and my face flushed with embarrassment. I hadn't meant to sound so timid. It was just that I'd never dared to ask the question before, and it seemed so shameful, to stand in front of such a powerful dragon and ask whether I was one of them.

"Yes, Alfie, you are a dragon."

"Are you sure? Because I've never felt a dragon inside me. Not the way other people describe it. Father says I should have been talking to it, but I don't know how."

"You were trained in infancy to ignore it. Those teachings and the magic which accompanied them reached deep inside you, child. That is why M—"

She cut herself off suddenly, and I realised she had been about to say Morgan's name. A rush of relief went through me. I wasn't the only one!

Great Aunt Evangeline continued, having corrected herself. "That is why you may require many months of tutelage before you learn to shift. Your other half has been deeply repressed."

As she spoke, I studied her, looking carefully for the bonds she had. Aunt Evangeline's bonds bristled out in every direction so that, if I allowed myself to see them, she looked like a walking firework. It was hard to make out which bond belonged to Morgan, but I was certain she would have one. If she still said his name, it meant she still loved him. To her, he was still part of the clan, even though he had been banished.

No matter what Father said, he couldn't undo a bond, not unless the person allowed it to be broken. More than anything that was written in the records, or names that were forbidden to be spoken, our bonds decided our clan.

I'd had a bond with Blaze before I'd even set eyes on him, and it had grown stronger and prettier every day since. I'd learned to read it. I'd learned to feel him through it. He was my clan, even though my clan elder had no idea Blaze even existed.

As I was searching for the bond, I saw one rise, grow brighter than the others. The rest of them sort of simmered in the background while this one hung suspended in front of her, bright and silver.

She was looking at my eyes and I couldn't meet them. I knew she was telling me something, though.

That bond ran parallel to the one I had with Morgan, and I looked harder. It felt protective and proud. Even though it was silver, it had a blue sheen to it, adding some depth and making it shine. It was the exact colour of Morgan's eyes.

When I realised what I was seeing, I gasped and met her eyes. They were silver-white, pale like the rest of her, and as I met them I felt a rushing flood of power sweeping over me. It was her power, and I'd never felt anything like it.

"I see your bonds, child. All of them. Guard them. Guard them."

I was going to answer her – though what I could say to that kind of thing, I wasn't sure. I'd have said something silly, no doubt. I didn't get the chance.

Great Aunt Evangeline gave a gasp and slumped forwards.

I grabbed her shoulders without thinking, pushing her back against the high-backed chair. Her breaths were loud, which should probably have been worrying, but I was just so grateful that I could hear her breathing that I didn't care.

"Great Aunt Evangeline?"

Her lips moved but no sound came out. I leaned closer, straining my ears. "Guard them," she said, "Guard them."

"I will, Great Aunt Evangeline. Don't worry, you're going to be okay. Oh no! Glenwise isn't here. What shall I do?"

Glenwise, our medic, had gone. His bond felt exactly the same, as healing and watchful as ever, but Glenwise himself was no longer there. We had no doctor.

I fumbled for my phone and scrolled through the contact list. It was incredibly small, only the people in the castle. After what seemed like an age, I finally found Uncle George's number and rang it. He answered with a surprised grunt.

"Hello?"

"Uncle George, it's Great Aunt Evangeline. She's not well."

There was a rustle on the other end of the line and then thudding footsteps. Uncle George asked, "Is she in the drawing room?"

"Yes."

He appeared in the doorway less than a minute later. I still hadn't actually seen him run but he must have done, to get there so quickly.

He was by her side in an instant, kneeling by her chair and holding her hand. "Aunt Evangeline," he murmured. She was breathing loudly still, but couldn't speak. "Alfie, go and get your mother and her sister."

I hurried off to do that and, when I came back, they shut the door on me. Mother said, "There's nothing you can do here, Alfie. You don't need to see it."

And that was it. I wasn't needed any longer.

I stood in the corridor, listening, for ages. Then I walked slowly to my room and sat there alone. I wished Blaze could join me there, snuggle on my lap and talk to me in the soothing way he had. The castle seemed to echo louder than usual, since it was emptier than it ever had been before. I hoped this wasn't an omen or something.