“I took an oath, before the sacred groves of our ancestors.” His voice is plaintive, broken. “I vowed to provide healing to those in need. How could I refuse her?”
“Who else knows?” Derek asks, and I can see his mind working, trying to sort out how best to contain this in the midst of the trial.
"No one," Liam says. "We were beyond careful."
"Why meet at her house?" I ask. "Why not somewhere else, where you were less likely to get caught?"
"This isn't your business," Liam hisses at me.
Derek opens his mouth, but I beat him to the punch. "Actually, it is. I work here. I'm working on the defense team. That makes it my business whether you like it or not."
Derek's mouth snaps closed, and Sebastian smiles despite himself. Elijah raises an eyebrow and gives a brief nod of his head in encouragement.
Liam, seeing no one else will be coming to his defense, relents. "Vlad had her house-bound. He claimed it was for the safety of her and their unborn child, but he was just jealous and paranoid."
"Seems he was justified in his paranoia, assuming he's as innocent as he claims," Sebastian says.
Liam just grunts at that.
"What about the letters?" I ask.
Liam frowns. "What letters?"
Sebastian pulls the missives out of his leather satchel and hands them to his brother, who studies them. "I have no idea what these are," Liam says with what appears to be genuine confusion.
"You didn't write them?" I ask.
"No, I didn’t write them. Why would you think I had?"
I roll my eyes. "Really? Because you were there. In secret. They are signed with an L. And you're acting awfully defensive."
He shoves the papers back into Sebastian's hands. "I didn't write them. I've never seen them before."
I cock my head and study him. I don't know if he's telling the whole truth, but I don’t think he's lying about the letters. "Do you have any idea who might have written them?" I ask.
He shakes his head. "I can't even imagine who might have. She was pretty isolated."
Great. A dead end.
"We need to contain this," Elijah says. "If the prosecution gets ahold of this information, it's going to make our defense a hell of a lot more complicated."
Sebastian nods. "Agreed. I'll put the Memory Catcher in our safe. It's immaterial at any rate. But we still need to have these letters analyzed. We need to figure out who wrote them and when."
Elijah steps forward. "Then you'll be needing my assistance."
Sebastian hands them to his brother. Elijah glances at them, then looks at me. "It is too late in the evening for a visit to my contact. But Eve, would you like to join me tomorrow night? It could be educational for you."
"Yes, I would love that, if I'm not needed elsewhere?" I look around, not entirely sure who I'm supposed to get permission or direction from.
Derek speaks first. "That's an excellent idea. You should spend time with each of us, in order to get a complete picture of what we do and what the Otherworld is like. For now, let us all make our way to dinner and then prepare for a good day's rest."
"Where's Dracula?" I ask, as I follow the brothers to the dining room.
"Did he not meet you at his house?" Derek asks.
"No," Sebastian says. "It was just the butler."
"And the cat," I say, with a smile.
Sebastian holds my gaze a moment, then smiles. "And the cat. Eve has quite a way with the felines it seems."
"Speaking of cats," Lily says, coming down the hall towards us, "this little guy has been missing you."
I squeal and hold out my hands for Moon, who nuzzles against me, purring the moment I have him in hand.
"You're not going to bring him to dinner, are you?" Elijah asks, with a frown.
"He needs to eat, too, don't you, little guy?" I say, nuzzling his nose. "Besides, he misses me."
Dinner is a quiet affair. Only Lily, Matilda, and I eat food. The brothers, of course, feast on blood, and Moon enjoys his cat food on a small plate by my feet. No one is much in the mood for talking, though Liam keeps casting suspicions glances at me, for reasons I do not understood. I'm relieved when dinner ends and I retire