The Vampire & Her Witch
Chapter 500: Straight Answers (Part Two)

Chapter 500: Straight Answers (Part Two)

"That’s fitting, isn’t it?" Marcel asked as he speared a cabbage roll and began cutting it into smaller pieces. The intense stare that Isabell directed at him rolled off his pale skin like water off the back of a duck. At this point, he’d lost count of how many determined, focused people he’d sat across a table from, and the look she gave him was no different from the hostile looks he’d received from men who were old when she was still a child.

"Wasn’t it always said that she kept to herself?" Marcel asked as though the answer was common knowledge. "It’s been said that she rarely left the manor because of her poor health, hasn’t it? Lady Jocelynn’s words aren’t too out of place then, are they?"

"Lady Jocelynn says what outsiders expect to hear," Isabell said bitterly, pushing the flakes of fish around on her plate, unable to find any joy in the careful preparation of the local trout while anxiety about Lady Ashlynn gnawed at her belly.

"But anyone who really met Lady Ashlynn knows that she’s always busy doing something. She planted her own garden in Blackwell Manor and dug in the dirt with her bare hands," she said with a snort as she tried to imagine the frail, withdrawing image of Ashlynn that she’d been told about next to the rambunctious young girl she’d known for several years.

"She snuck out of the manor at night to go up on the cliffs and watch the ships come in when the sun rose," Isabell said, repeating the story she’d heard from Ashlynn’s mother, the Countess, when she asked about revealing a way for the mischievous young Ashlynn to slip out at night. She hadn’t been surprised that the Countess knew about her daughter’s escapades, but the resigned look she had when she gave her permission to reveal a small secret had always troubled the engineer.

"But now, she’s holed up in a room in the villa, unable to receive guests and doing nothing but reading?" Isabell said incredulously. "That doesn’t sound like the Lady Ashlynn that I knew. Not one bit."

"So you two are worried about her," Marcell said, setting his cutlery down and growing very still as he regarded the pair of guild masters. "The question is, if it came down to it, would you stand on her side? Even if it meant you had to stand in opposition to Lord Owain?"

"I knew it," Tiernan said. "I told you that things weren’t well between her and her husband. Is that why you wanted to meet with us?" the Iron Monger asked, looking expectantly at Isabell as he fit the pieces together in his mind. "Let me guess. Lady Ashlynn’s not holed up in the Summer Villa because of her pregnancy. She’s held prisoner there and you need us, need Master Isabell, to engineer a way out for her."

"If that’s what’s happening," Isabell said slowly. "Then of course, I’ll stand with Lady Ashlynn. But when I received her letter, she didn’t ask me to help her escape. She asked for my help engineering an escape for Lady Jocelynn. The way she wrote, it sounded like she’d given up on any hope of escape for herself," she said, looking at Marcel and fervently wishing that she’d read Lady Ashlynn’s intention incorrectly.

"Good," Marcel said, offering the pair a smile that felt cold, calculated, and... triumphant. "As long as you remain committed to stand on Lady Ashlynn’s side, I will treat you as her allies in what’s to come. But I will warn you," he said as his already dark eyes seemed to become even darker, turning into bottomless pits that could devour a person’s soul.

"If you betray this trust," he said in a voice that seemed to echo from somewhere far away. "Death would be a release from the fate that finds you. If you cannot promise me that you will carry the secrets I share to your graves and beyond, then we should part ways now and pretend this meeting never happened."

"You can trust in our word," Tiernan said, standing quickly and moving to place his burly frame between Isabell and the suddenly menacing dark-haired youth. "But if you’re going to make threats," he added, cupping one meaty hand over a massive fist and cracking his knuckles. "Know that I don’t take kindly to threatening people, especially people like Master Isabell."

"Relax, Master Tiernan," Isabell said from behind her towering companion, placing a hand on his shoulder and gesturing for him to return to his seat. "I’m sure that Mister Marcel is just making things clear before he invites his hidden master to reveal these secrets to us."

"That’s the real reason you’ve been playing all these word games, isn’t it?" Isabell asked, looking directly at Marcell’s dark eyes. "We’ve heard of this ’well-connected’ individual you serve as an intermediary for," she added, looking at the door the servants had used to enter the room. "Isn’t it time for the man behind the curtain to reveal himself?"

"Hidden Master?" Marcel said, blinking several times before he burst out in laughter. "While it’s true that I’m bound to the service of a powerful Mistress, I assure you that she isn’t here. More importantly, unless my Mistress orders me otherwise, Lady Ashlynn’s orders are the second only to hers."

"The person you’ve likely been told about is a real person," Marcel admitted to the suddenly confused engineer who thought she’d assembled all the pieces correctly. "He’s known as the ’Black Merchant’, but that name has always referred to me," he said, giving a self-deprecating bow from his seat.

"You’re the incredibly powerful and well-connected individual that Owain Lothian is doing business with?" Master Isabell asked, blinking several times as she tried to fit the puzzle pieces together in a way that made sense. "But if you’re bound in service to Lady Ashlynn..."

"Lady Ashlynn needs strong supporters who can fight at her side, whether that’s on the field of battle or in the halls of power where alliances are forged and rivals are toppled in fair and just confrontations," Marcel said smoothly.

"She also needs supporters who have ears in many places, and hands in many pockets," he added. "I’ve done those things for my Mistress for a very long time, and now I do them for Lady Ashlynn as well. But in order for you to understand your role in what’s to come and the way you can most be of use to Lady Ashlynn, there are secrets you should know or nothing else will make any sense," he said.

"You mentioned secrets," Teirnan said, giving both doors an evaluating look. "Is it safe to speak here? Should we go somewhere that someone won’t accidentally enter here?"

"No one will disturb us here," Marcel said confidently. "Now that we have our meal, no one else is even allowed on this floor. The other dining rooms are all empty, and I promise you that I would notice anyone intruding where they shouldn’t be long before they could hear what I have to say."

"Now, let me start with the most important secret," Marcel said before the pair could interrupt with any further questions. "Lady Ashlynn isn’t in the Summer Villa. She isn’t even in Lothian March and she hasn’t been since the night of her wedding when Owain failed to murder her," he said.

For the next several seconds, Marcel said nothing as he waited for the pair to process what he’d just said. Isabell’s face instantly lost all color, quickly looking almost as pale as Marcel himself did, while Tiernan’s face turned bright crimson with barely suppressed outrage as he clenched his fists and visibly shook with fury.

"I just received news the other night," he added in the hopes that he could help them channel the intense feelings storming in their hearts. "Lady Ashlynn is returning from the place where she’s been in hiding. When she returns, she intends to confront Owain and lay claim to Lothian March."

"The only question is," the dark-haired youth asked. "When the time comes, are you prepared to