Author's Note/Summary: A 'passing of the proverbial torch tale' if you will. The third installment in my what I like to call 'Heaven's Light' trilogy, with 'Ordinary Miracles,' being first, Heaven's Light, second, and this is the third in this little Notre Dame series. I originally wrote the first two with no intentions of going further, but a friend recently suggested she'd like to see what would become of their child, so this is my 'passing of the torch' tale.

Summary: 'Devil's Daughter' tells the tale of Quasi & and Madellaine's daughter, Charlotte, who is now a grown adult at 18, her parents in their early 40s and content with their simple life in the bell towers. Adapted to a life of solitude high in the bell towers, Charlotte longs for something more out of her mundane life and gets her wish when she is saved from an angry villager by a stranger to Paris with horrible burn markings all over his body. Intrigued by the man who saved her life, she quickly develops an emotional attachment to the man and begins to fall in love with him, with one minor caveat: she is already engaged to Zephyr, Phoebus and Esmeralda's son, due home from the wars.

CHAPTER ONE

The fire crackled in the hearth as the Minister of Justice read the letter just delivered to him in the late hours of the night. The wood-fire, blazing lazily in the ample fireplace, sent its warmth and light far out into the room, flashing red and orange reflections. The warmth did not reach Minister Darius Barret's soul. If anything, he felt cold. Cold and alone, fuming in his anger as he read the latest reports of incursions of trouble, and all of them having one common denominator: The 'Devil's daughter' herself.

A young woman by the name of Charlotte. If you were to ask the people of Paris, she was nothing more than the offspring spawn of the demonic accursed wretch who lived in the bell towers of Notre Dame de Paris with his wife, an ex-circus performer and something of a reformed thief.

Though Minister Darius Barret knew this to be not true. That the deformed man's daughter was quite kind, but his hands were figuratively tied. The general public cried out for justice, and it was his job to provide that for his people of his city. Reports of angered villagers at the fact that such a creature should not have been integrated into their society filled the Minister's desk, and the reclusive family was becoming something of a problem for him, though he knew that as long as the 'wretched bell ringer' and his wife remained within the safe haven of their home, he could not touch either one.

The daughter, however, was not so content to remain within those stone walls of their precious sanctuary. He furrowed his dark brows into a frown and glanced up at the mantle, staring numbly into the fire's glow, unaware that he had taken the latest incident report and crumpled it into a ball, throwing the report of Old Man Mansart claiming the Devil's Daughter had stolen apples from his cart, though the old disgruntled vendor at the marketplace could not prove it, that it had been she who had done it, thereby his claim was nullified, however, other such similar instances were cropping up over town, similar claims that the girl had stolen from them, with demand by the public to arrest the wretched putain, his words, not Darius's.

Without solid evidence against the young woman in question, of whom he knew very little other than the girl's parentage and the fact that she was friends with his Grace, and it was rumored she looked more and more like her mother as she aged, he could make no move to arrest her and send her to rot deep within a cage in the darkest corner of the Bastille, and this fact alone troubled him.

Minister Darius Barret clenched his jaw and ground his teeth in anger as his fingers curled over the rim of his wine goblet as he mulled over what to do about his growing 'little problem.'

He had sworn since taking over the position from deranged Claude Frollo all those years ago that he would be firm but fair in his punishments, and the horrible irony of the situation was that his and Sophia's own daughter, Grace Barret, was the girl's best friend and quite close friends with Madellaine Renee Barreau, the girl's mother after Charlotte's mother had saved Grace's life not once, but twice, when Grace was younger, around eleven.

And now…the public was demanding that Minister Barret do something about the so-called 'insolent heathen witch,' crying out for her arrest. And he hadn't actually made it a point to go and visit her parents about it.

He couldn't. For it would surely kill Grace, and his Sophia too, for his wife considered Charlotte a second surrogate daughter. Darius snorted over the rim of his wine goblet as he lifted the cup to his lips and heavily drank.

That much was the truth. Charlotte came over to their house for dinner more often than naught these days, so much so that Sophia only half-jokingly claimed they could make up the extra bedroom when she wished to stay the night.

And the thought of harm befalling his dear friend's daughter, well…that was something he could not allow. Darius scowled, furrowing his dark brows together in a frown and slammed his goblet down on the little wooden side table and folded his arms across his chest as he stared into the fire's depths, right as his sentry knocked.

"Sir?" Roul's timid voice filled the otherwise spacious study, and Darius felt his face relax and the tension in his shoulders momentarily leave him as the slightly sallow-faced, black-haired sentry entered the room. "She's here," he breathed, sounding winded, and Darius snorted as he grabbed his chair and swiveled it around to face his best sentry.

"Good." Darius was fully aware he was sulking, but he couldn't help it. Nothing more wine wouldn't fix. "Send her in, mustn't keep her waiting any longer than I'm sure you already have," he snapped, and shot Roul a look.

"Yes, sir," the sentry mumbled, dipping his head in acknowledgement and slowly backing out of the room, never once turning his back on the Minister of Justice, a man who held the power to have the boy arrested and beaten within an inch of his life with just a single snapping of his fingers if Darius Barret was of a mind to, which he wasn't.

He frowned as the silence dragged on and filled his study within the Palace of Justice was almost deafening to him. Darius barely stifled his grin as Alice's harsh, barking tone filled the room, biting the inside of his cheek as he reached for the tin chalice of wine on his desk.

"Gods, boy, that's enough, we're not in a tavern," growled Sister Alice Beaumont, a young woman in her late sixties, nearing her seventieth year in a few more months, if Darius wasn't wrong, as the aging nun of Notre Dame de Paris entered gingerly into the room, clutching onto Roul's arm tightly, her now-fully gray hair done up in a severe tight bun. Most women in Paris would consider the look harsh, though Darius had to admit the look suited the cantankerous woman, and even at sixty-eight years of age, the woman was still quite pretty, though admitted with a few more lines upon her forehead, and dark circles underneath her sky-blue eyes, and took excellent care of herself.

Roul glanced at the nun with a raised eyebrow, and then quickly realized that the nun was speaking to the Minister of Justice as he was in the midst of pouring the aging nun a glass of wine, almost full to the cup's brim. Alice Beaumont shot the head sentry a look as he helped her settle into the chair opposite the Minister's desk.

"Are there any figs and cheese?" she asked, waiting for Roul to nod, which he did, and she smiled. "Good. Fetch some." When Roul made no move to vacate the premises, she scowled. "Are you going to bring the food, or do you mean to starve us to death?" Alice snapped, shaking her head, and slamming her walking stick onto the floor.

Roul immediately left the Minister's study, his cheeks flushing high with color and reddening in embarrassment.

Alice clucked her tongue in disappointment and shook her head. "Where do you find them, Barret?" she snapped. She raised a hand as Darius opened his mouth to speak. "He's a clever man, your sentry, Darius Barret," she snorted, regarding the Minister of Justice over the rim of her goblet. "As are you. I've known a great many clever men in my time, Darius. And I've outlived them all. You want to know why? I ignored them all, Barret. Advice I try to give to the pretty young thing back in the cathedral, though I think she thinks I'm jesting her. I am not." Sister Alice smirked and folded her arms across her chest, shrinking into her set of plain brown robes.

"Whatever on earth would I do without you in my life, Alice Beaumont, you certainly know how to keep me on my toes and keep things interesting, don't you," Darius sighed wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, shaking his head in slight disbelief, hating that matters had come to this. "And speaking of that girl. I have called you here, because of…that. I seek your solace and advice, my old friend," he growled, jerking his hand towards the several discarded piles of paper, that he had thrown off his desk in a rage earlier, not wishing to read any more of this upsetting news. "Are the complaints filed against the girl true, Alice?"

Alice paused, glancing over at the pile of discarded lists and ledgers of complaints and scoffed, rolling her eyes as she reached across his desk for the chalice of wine, pouring herself a fresh glass of red wine, just as Roul returned with a platter of cheese and figs. "It's about time, boy, where on earth did you go for them? Spain?" she barked angrily.

The Minster's head sentry Roul murmured a half-hearted apology and bowed out of the room as quickly as he could.

Alice chuckled darkly and returned her attentions back to the Minister, popping a bite of cheese and a fig into her mouth. "So," she began as she swallowed and dabbed at her mouth with her handkerchief, "these…falsehoods of which you are receiving reports are not to be believed, Minister. But I do believe you find yourself in a bit of a predicament, do you not?"

Darius frowned, his scowl creating lines upon his smooth forehead and a deep groove near his mouth which did not suit his handsome features, and he fought back the urge to slam down the flagon of wine in a fit of frustration.

"I cannot believe these lies. The girl is my daughter's best friend, Beaumont," Darius growled angrily, stifling a low growl in the back of his throat. "I—the people demand of me answers, Beaumont and the people—"

"Are sheep," interrupted Alice darkly, glowering at the Minister of Justice over the rim of her own goblet. She'd had two drinks already and seemed to show no signs of stopping anytime soon. "You're a lion, Barret. Be a lion."

Darius blinked, the nun's quip not quite registering with him in his slightly inebriated state. "What?"

Alice rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust. "You require proof of the child's misdeeds, do you not, Minister?" When he nodded, favoring silence as a response, not at all sure where the nun was heading with her statement, she frowned and returned the gesture. "I assumed and thought as much. This proof that you will seek, you shan't find it, because it simply does not exist, and until someone catches her in the act or you see her miscreant behavior firsthand for yourself, then you would have just cause to arrest the girl on charges of thievery but the child is not what the people say she is. Nor, for that matter, is Madellaine. You should hear what the people have to say about the former thief. We all know the girl's mother was forced into that life of servitude by that stupid circus."

Darius's scowl deepened as he watched in disgust as the nun leaned back into her chair and put the heels of her black leather boots on Darius's mahogany desk. He shot her a withering look that had he the ability, would have turned the aging woman with the silver tongue and sharp wit to stone, but as it was, he did not, so she remained.

Ever a thorn in my side, but I love you for it, Beaumont, he thought, and stifled the groan that threatened to escape his lips. He heaved a heavy sigh and rested his elbows on his desk, focusing on the nun's blue eyes through his hazy, blurred vision. It was rare that he indulged in this much wine. Usually, he saved this for his time with Sophia, but tonight he'd needed the comfort that he felt not even his wife could provide for him. Only wine.

"What then, do you propose I do? Nothing?" he growled, fuming silently as he rested his hand in his hands.

"Yes." Her answer was simple, and Darius blinked, quite certain the Minister of Justice had misheard the nun.

"What?" Darius snapped, curling his hands into fists, feeling his nails dig into the skin of his palms. "Seriously?"

Alice rolled her eyes. "Do I need to say it a second time, Barret? Don't make me say it a second time, Minister."

"Or what? You'll talk me to death? By the gods, woman, your tongue must be hung in the middle so that it can wag at both ends," Darius growled, feeling as though the nun had slapped him. His brain stuttered for a moment at the woman's rudeness as his eyes took in more dim light from his study streaming from both the fire in the hearth as well as several scattered candles in the sills he'd put in an effort to cheer the place up as his mind struggled to process his old friend's words.

Could it really be that simple? Ignore the people and just…wait? To see this for himself.

"The people revile her, Minister, and they would seek to use her parentage against her. If you want my opinion, I believe these so-called 'incident reports' of yours are nothing but slanderous lies. They cannot accept who she is, and they will never, I'm afraid. You and I know better than most in this rat hole of a city that what hides behind the lies are truths that failed to get to the light, and the plain truth of the matter is…our city is perhaps even worse, now that Frollo is gone," Alice admitted, and there was no mistaking the bitterness laced within her voice as she raised her goblet to her lips and drank heavily, tilting her head back as she allowed the dark substance of the alcohol to affect her. "Because of whom she is. Or rather, not who she is, but…who her father is," she snarled.

For the briefest of moments, Darius saw flickers of rage dart through Alice's sky-blue orbs, and the shadow of a female wolf crossed her face, and Darius Barret could not help but to wonder what she was like at the girl's age.

If she had been as much of a spitfire back then when she was much younger, as she was today. God help Beaumont, who she had married at a young age and had been with him for a few years prior to his untimely demise. Darius clenched his jaw shut, but it did nothing to quell the raging dragon flaming hot within the pit of his stomach, and before he could stop himself, he balled his hand into a fist and slammed it down onto his desk's surface.

"The world…my city should not…should not be this way, Alice. I swore an oath, I made a vow to the people of Paris when I accepted this position, that things would be different. I held out hope for my people to change their ways with that oppressive heathen of a judge now dead, but…they want to see her burn. What do I do? I cannot simply let these idle threats lay dormant. I have a duty to fulfill and an obligation to the people, Al."

Sister Alice Beaumont snorted. "You would really ask me? I thought you of all know me, Darius. That I don't play well with others. That the cathedral is my little place of peace. The interior of my chambers in the cloister cell I occupy is undeniably frigid in that damned place. Cold as the crypts themselves. Maybe I should build a fire and the fire will build some smoke and the smoke will build some rain…" She noticed Darius frowning and smirked.

"You are avoiding my question," Darius growled, feeling the last vestiges of his patience begin to break.

Alice frowned, resting her chin in her hand, and leaning forward in her seat, placing her elbow upon Darius's desk. "Not avoiding no. Elongating the moments between the asking and the hearing. Pausing for effect." A pause. "I was told you were drunk, tending to favor your wine, and thoroughly divulged, Barret, ever since taking over from Claude following that accursed man's death. I know you've improved things here to the best of your abilities. No more pyres, but still, that doesn't stop the simple-minded peasant folk from treating the boy's daughter like she is some kind of...of witch," she spat bitterly. "And as for the judge? God rest his soul, though you ask me since I am no longer in my sanctuary and may speak freely here, I hope that man rots and burns in a lake of Hellfire for all eternity, Minister... You, Darius, I had high hopes for. These cases, these accusations against the boy's daughter is nothing but slander. And you would seek these few instances to be your career's undoing? And what of your friendship with her mother? I'd have expected more of you, Minister. No offense, Your Grace."

A beat. A pause. Alice furrowed her brows into a frown. "You can imagine my disappointment at finding nothing but a brow-beaten Minister," snapped Alice, her blue eyes narrowing. "Well. If that's all, Darius…"

Darius chose silence as perhaps the only apt response to the nun's words, too angry and inebriated to offer up a retort, let alone one that would match that silver dagger that was the old woman's tongue. He felt his jaw clench in anger and his teeth grinding as his hands gripped his wine goblet, his blue eyes swiveling towards the back of his head in a distressed sense of a headache.

By the gods, the old cantankerous woman was right. He could do nothing. All he could do was wait and pray that the several accusations against Charlotte's character died down. He heaved a heavy groan and made to get up from his armchair. "N—no, I can—I can do it myself," he snapped, swatting away the nun's hand as she moved to help him rise from his chair. He did not wish for his old friend to see him like this, in such a state of distress over what to do.

"You should sleep," urged Alice softly, lowering her voice and dipping her head, her fingers curling tightly into a fist over Darius's arm and with surprising force for one so old, violently wrenched the drunken Minister to his feet.

Darius said nothing, which earned him a swift swat on the arm from Alice as she pushed him forward. "Move," she whisper hissed into the shell of his ear. The Minister of Justice nodded, knowing all too well that his breaths were the underlying cause of the alcohol scent that entered into his nostrils and his mouth was on fire and sore, burning from the copious amount of wine he'd just poured down his throat.

Wine that he had intended on saving for his and Sophia's anniversary, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Oh well. He'd buy her another. The Minister cleared his throat as he attempted to stand up straight to his full height of 6'3, just to collapse back into his armchair as Alice tried to guide him towards it and bade him sit. He was glad only Alice was here to see the distinguished Minister struggling to keep his balance, and even he knew he was struggling to keep it right now.

It felt like some strange out of body experience that he was witnessing for himself. Alice's voice sounded muffled, as though underwater. His legs refused to work as he commanded them to. Neither did his hands, or his fingers.

Somewhere, deep inside, Darius knew his mind was sending signals to his body, telling him what to do. Whether or not it was actually listening to him was a different story entirely. He could feel it moving, and his body could feel it doing what it wanted, despite the nun's fruitless efforts to help guide Darius towards the chair.

Could he stop it? He felt like they all knew the answer to that. It was doing as it pleased. He tried to walk out of the chamber, but his legs were telling him otherwise—swaying—left and right. No matter how many steps he took, he was no closer to where he wanted to be. And then…he focused on Alice's face, and things felt a little bit clearer. "Sleep," the aging nun of Notre Dame commanded, no warmth in her voice. "You will have a clearer head in the morning once your ailment has lifted," she snorted, referring to the unmistakable hangover the man was apt to have when he woke.

"And then?" he growled, not even caring that black spots were dancing in front of his vision as he squeezed his eyes shut, turning his chair towards the fire, enjoying the warmth that the fire gave out. "What of Charlotte? You know how much Barreau and Quasi dote on their daughter. To bring them news like this...it would kill them."

Alice, who had turned away, her back facing Darius, a hand on the doorway of the study's entryway to steady herself paused, though not before risking one last glance over at her friend of well over ten years now. "Wait. You cannot make an arrest without proof."

Her piece said, she mumbled a half-hearted goodbye and sauntered out the door. Darius scowled, thinking how it wasn't bloody fair that Alice Beaumont had had more glasses of wine tonight than he, yet he was the drunk one.

Darius stared vacantly into the fire as he mulled over the old woman's words. "Damn her. She's bloody right."

The Minister of Justice could not arrest the girl on a trumped up charge, just to appease the citizens of Paris. He was going to have no choice but to wait, and pray that the girl, his daughter's best friend, did not do anything rash to cause more accusations to come to light and prove to the Minister of Justice that they were true.

Darius did not want that. But he could not quite shake the feeling of dread from his shoulders, it felt like a chunk of stone had been set upon both of them, and he could feel the dread creep down his spine like a spider leaving a careful trail of silk. He could feel her feet on his back, and the Minister, even in his drunken state of semi-consciousness as he closed his eyelids, knew that sooner rather than later, he was going to have to act on this.

He could not shake the feeling that no matter what happened, the girl was eventually going to have to be brought to justice and arrested, and he knew naught what to do about it. To even consider it felt like such a betrayal.

Maybe that was why he had drunk so much tonight. His eyesight blurred, but not because tears were welling up as he rested his head against the headrest of his armchair, and as he closed his eyes, the study around him blurred, and then Darius Barret saw nothing at all. His consciousness was floating through an empty space filled with a thick, heavy feeling, a weighted burden that he could not escape the fact he was going to have to arrest Charlotte.

Throughout the blackness, his heartbeats pounded loudly, echoing in his ears. The feeling in his body slowly drained away until all became black. He frowned as visions of his daughter's friend, of Charlotte, swam to the forefront of his mind and refused to part from his thoughts as he attempted to sleep.

He dreamed he and his daughter were watching the ducks march over the edge of the ice over the frozen-over surface of the River Seine. How he knelt to the edge and reached down his hand only to find the river was hot like soup. It was still the river and he could not understand why in the dead of winter the water wasn't frigid.

Darius looked again and the ducks he and Grace watched on the riverbank were babies, happy, smiling, but they were drifting out towards the middle of the Seine and he could not reach them. He searched for a discarded fisherman's net to pull them in, but the water as too hot and they were getting further away. He could not do it. He was going to have to swim for them, but then there was another noise behind him, and it's Grace and Charlotte. Grace had a cut on her face and legs, bleeding into the snow on the bank's edge. The blood was flowing thickly and Darius knew he had to stop it or his only child was going to die, and Charlotte, the bell ringer's daughter, was somehow screaming, begging for mercy and for God's redemption, all while tied to a pyre.

A pyre that in his nightmare, he himself had built. Darius ran to Grace, taking off his jerkin, ripping it to tie around Grace's wounds. Seven hells, she was already pale, her color rapidly fading from her face fast. She breathed easier as her father wordlessly pulled her into a hug, and when he turned back to the riverbank, the babies were gone. There was just barren land where once the ducks stood, and at the edge, Charlotte's pyre still burned.

But Darius took Grace by the hand and led his daughter home. He had had this dream many times over the last several weeks, and tonight, even in his drunken state, was no different. In the end, he always made the same choice.

He saved his daughter. And he let the bell ringer's daughter burn.