Chapter Twenty-Seven

A chill stole over Olive and she tried to scoot closer to Dreagan, only to find nothing. Without looking, she felt blindly with her arm across the bed and still only met with cool sheets. She peeked open a tired eye to find she was quite alone.

The light coming through the small window to Dreagan's room signaled that it was mid-morning. A little twist went through her stomach. Where had he gone? Last night once she'd done her job making him happy, he'd seemed content to lie there with her forever, the pads of his fingers skimming over her bare shoulders until they both drifted off. Surely he wouldn't have left her there alone in this place he hated so much.

Another twist went through her stomach. Yes, he would. The lines between her hatred and love for him sometimes were terribly skewed. He wouldn't care at all to leave her there if it suited him. She had to remember that.

Convincing herself that maybe he'd gone off to find the loo, Olive curled up under the blankets and waited maybe another quarter hour before throwing the bedding off and exposing her naked form to the chill. She was quick to get up and throw on the same clothes from the evening before, struggling just as much getting her boots on as she had getting them off.

Dressed, Olive darted quickly down the stairs to be met, once more, with the horrid sight of the hallway beyond his bedroom door. It seemed even more daunting without Dreagan as her guide. She navigated the missing and chipped floorboards and again found herself at the terrifying staircase. For a moment she just stared down at the next level, gauging whether the fall would kill her if it collapsed. It wasn't her life she particularly cared about, so much as the life growing inside her.

Drifting up the stairs from somewhere on the first floor was a male voice. Olive couldn't distinguish well enough to tell if it was Dreagan or not. Shifting from foot to foot, she debated. Should she avoid the voices or seek them out? The question of Scabior's whereabouts burned her.

She would seek them out. Swallowing the thick knot in her throat, Olive clung to the bannister and took the stairs one step at a time. About halfway down, the stairs let out a terrible moan beneath her and the voice abruptly stopped. She supposed it wouldn't matter whether she'd wanted to avoid the voices anyway because she'd given herself away.

The groan of the stairs had been enough to prompt her in taking the rest quite quickly and Olive reached the bottom of the stairs right as Bastian rounded the corner and appeared.

"Good morning, Olive," he said, smirk again present. "The house elves were just bringing breakfast, come."

Olive stood stock still. "Where is Dreagan?" she asked cautiously, hand still gripping the banister.

Bastian's face was as still as her own, though looked slightly more amused. "He's gone out," he said with a note of finality. "Come and eat with Mother and I."

"Where has he gone out to?" she bantered back.

Bastian gave a small smile and huffed a laugh. "I'll explain it over breakfast," he said with a grin. "No wonder my brother took to you, you're as suspicious as he is."

Olive did not move an inch.

"I assure you, I haven't poisoned the jam jars," he added with a certain amused smirk.

After a moment's deliberation, she deduced that if he'd wanted to cause her harm, he would have already done so. Olive's hand slid off the banister as she took an uncertain step toward him. Bastian held out his hand, which she ignored. Dreagan would not like that. The man's amusement only grew as he moved his hand to motion toward the hallway. "This way," he said. Olive took a step and he fell in stride beside her.

This hall was just as dismal as the others. Large chunks of plaster were littered along the edges of the room. A chandelier hung haphazardly at an angle. Bastian seemed unfazed. The further they went down the corridor, the more a second voice grew. A woman's. It seemed at first the distance was causing the voice to be distorted, but the closer they strode toward it, the more Olive realized the voice itself was off. Muttering, almost. Insane, more so.

Finally Bastian motioned to an open archway, which led into a large dining room with formal settings. The beauty of the objects was marred with age and dust. A woman - their mother, Olive quickly deduced, looking a bit older than in the photo upstairs and much less sharp around the eyes - was staring and muttering, "Mira, Mira, Mira, my only girl."

"Mother," Bastian said, pulling out a chair to the left of their mother and motioning for Olive to sit. She did as she was told, looking apprehensively at the woman. "This is Dreagan's wife, Olive. You have not met."

The woman blinked and stared at Olive blankly. Then a wide grin grew and she nodded her head. "Pretty girl," she muttered with approval. "Pretty girl, sour blood."

"Don't pay her any mind," Bastian said, around the table and taking the place opposite Olive. "She always had a knack for smelling out the mudbloods. She's utterly harmless, I assure you. Quite mad, I'm afraid, but harmless nonetheless."

Olive only flinched a little when he said mudblood. She was glad for the arrival of the house elf and the opportunity to focus on asking after something to drink. Afterward, the table settled into uncomfortable silence. Olive looked at her hands, aware that both mother and son were staring at her.

"There's a baby," the woman said in a sudden whisper. Olive looked up and saw her staring at the pregnant bulge pressed between Olive's spine and the table.

"Yes, Mother," Bastian said. "That's your grandchild."

The house elves reappeared with Olive's juice and a few stacked plates of sweet breads and eggs. Her mouth watered.

"Mixed blood," the woman said, that hardness returning to her eyes which Olive saw in the photograph. Bastian paused for a moment and looked over his mother. As if a breath leaving her, the sharp look dissolved and her eyes went hazy again, moving to the spot behind Olive's shoulder on the wall.

"Yes, Mother, the baby will have mixed blood," Bastian said as the moment passed. He seemed pleasant enough about it. The conversation reminded Olive of her Nan, whose old age brought forth many old prejudices she'd held. She and her dad simply overlooked it when Nan would start muttering off madly about the Greeks.

But Nan had gone funny with age. This woman - only then did Olive realize she didn't know her name - was not nearly old enough for that to have set in. She thought of the sharpness of the woman's eyes, the ferocity she held at the thought of a mixed blood child, and wondered if perhaps there was something afoul. Bastian had laughed at her suspiciousness.

From there, the three ate in relative silence. Months in the woods with less-than-quality men nearly made her forget her manners. Bastian was staring at her until she remembered herself and took her elbows from the table. Only then did he continue his meal.

Though bursting to ask, she managed to wait until they'd finished eating before bringing up the mystery again.

"So, uh," she started, placing her hands in her lap and trying to sit a bit taller. Perhaps it was Bastian's perfect posture or the way their mother still ate with with squared shoulders despite her mental state that made Olive aware of how awkward her limbs felt. She clenched her fists under the table to prevent herself from sitting on her hands. "About Dreagan."

"Mira, Mira," the woman suddenly wailed, bursting into tears. Bastian's jaw tightened and he made a motion to the house elf in the corner, who nodded and was gone with a crack.

"Olive, please," he said, just as cordial as he'd been since the day before. "Would you mind waiting out in the foyer? As you can see, the subject upsets my mother and I will have the house elves tend to her and then meet you at the stairs to talk."

Olive was in shock at the sudden outburst, unable to take her eyes from the ugly way the woman's face twisted. "HE TOOK HER. MY ONLY DAUGHTER," she screamed.

"Olive?" Bastian said. It was enough to jog her back into her right mind. Her head snapped in his direction and she gave a curt nod before pushing herself away from the table - the chair screeching against the floor only adding to the chaos of noise.

"Of course, sorry," she said, ducking her head and hurrying from the room. The woman's wailing only seemed amplified the further away Olive got and she wondered if it had heightened or if it was her imagination.

Once she reached the staircase, it was impossible to ignore the woman. There was a crash of dishes and the murmurings of Bastian trying to soothe his mother. Olive felt awkward, as if she was prying on something she ought not be seeing. Where was Dreagan through all this? Why would he have left her here with no answers, no note, nothing?

Silence stretched suddenly and there were a few cracks, which she figured to be more house elves coming or going. There was a pregnant pause and then sharp footsteps, which she correctly deduced to be Bastian's.

He rounded the corner, straightening the cuffs of his shirt. "I apologize that you had to see that," he said, motioning down the hallway opposite the direction they'd just come. Olive was glad they didn't need to brave the stairs just quite yet. "Mother has not quite been herself and all the recent happenings have...upset her condition."

Olive only nodded, a large knot lodged in her throat. "Please," Bastian said. "My office is just through here."

He led her down the opposite corridor, which did seem to be in better repair than the rest of the house. There were still a few cracks in the plaster walls, but it was otherwise maintained. Bastian led her through a door into a handsome office, the walls lined with leather-bound books. An oak desk dominated the space, accompanied by a smart, green leather chair. No sooner than the door was closed did Olive blurt, "Where is Dreagan?"

Bastian seemed intimidating in different ways than Dreagan. She did not feel physically threatened by him, but she sensed there was a bigger game at play that she was being kept from.

"He went to find Greyback," Bastian said simply, turning away from the door and striding to his desk. He stood in front of it, facing her. The distance between them was just close enough to be uncomfortable. "To get back our sister. As I understand it, you have a bit of history with Greyback yourself. He wanted you kept as far away from it as possible."

A warm feeling flooded her stomach. She felt...oddly protected. Olive didn't know what to think about the fluttering in her stomach.

"Yes, but why?" she asked. "Why is your sister with Greyback? Why would he have taken her? Why not hurt Dreagan or me? It's us he has the problems with."

Bastian's eyebrows shot up. He studied Olive's face closely. "Because Mira would be an eye for an eye," he said slowly. "You do know about Lysia, don't you?"

Even the mere mention of the name made her feel angry. "I know of her," she said, perhaps a bit too hotly.

"You know that she was Fenrir's younger sister?"

Olive's stomach nearly dropped out. Her head spun. "No," she muttered quickly. "What do you mean, so Dreagan dated Greyback's sister?"

Bastian stared at her and she could tell he was wondering if he should go on. He turned his back toward her and poured himself a drink from the decanter on his desk.

"He dated her," he said, pointedly taking his time to not face her. "He also killed her."