Page 53 of His Greatest Treasure

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 roomson 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 showfor 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 eldestson, 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?”

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