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worried

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I've never seen Marco so absolutely furious with Mercutio before as he is right now, not that it does much good when Mercutio's lying unconscious in bed. He and Charis both got wounded but they're going to be all right. We did lose two men (no-one I knew, and I feel rather guilty about it) and I wish Katya were here; it might have sobered her up a bit. Fortunately for Mercutio, we didn't lose any men because of what he did; but he's got to give up on trying to outdo Valeria. Valeria is apparently not human in a way that completely beats out all of the other ways some people here are not human. (Emotionally she is all too human, and if she doesn't stop sulking when Pritchard pays attention to other women, she'll lose whatever hold on him she has.) Mercutio just can't seem to accept that this is the reason he could never beat her when they were on opposite sides of the battlefield, and that he shouldn't expect to be able to do what she does. (Which Santino didn't especially want to let her do either...but somebody had to take care of that problem, since Juliana wasn't allowed to pre-empt it--Pritchard, turns out, was the one who encouraged Lucius to go with his feeling to wait until the adults came back, though Juliana is an adult...)

Also, I now find myself unexpectedly in the "Ianthe Pritchard has morals" camp. I know what some people say about Nat and Ianthe, and it always did seem rather plausible, but if Pritchard was getting it direct from the source and not frustrated, why would he insist on chatting up every independent-minded, brassy blonde who isn't in charge of him?

I like Juliana--Liane, she told us to call her--better than Valeria, but part of that, I'm sure, is because she's older and more serious. And part of it, which is unjust of me, is that I didn't have to spend the first half of my wedding day listening to her blubber. Over Alessio.

Yvon had better mean what he said, or there will be a reckoning.

I suppose Marco will come to bed when he's done fretting about his brother. I can't complain. He came back, after all.

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worried

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Somehow I didn’t think the first thing I’d write about after I got married would be this.

Lucius and Alastor sneaked out of the house, and when they came back, Lucius started ordering people around and they followed him. I thought Marco would be in charge, but apparently not; since Lucius is the only one the faerie guards will follow, it’s got to be him. Marco is down there now with Captain Matteo and Charis and Nat Pritchard. Pritchard told me to send Luce’s dispatches just like I would for his mother and even gave him the single use pad for the one he sent to Kyteler.

I’m worried about Marco. I thought I was lucky that he’s not going off to war like Jamie did, but now the war’s come here. It was selfish of me but I hoped I’d have just a little while longer before he got mixed up in it. I’d rather go myself than watch him go.

My mother stayed here after Zitek left. I’m glad she came and even gladder that Lady Malfoy let her stay, with everything that’s going on (Yiayia is not so pleased about it though) but not as glad as I am right now. She’s the only person I think would know how to take care of Endymion. I don’t know if he’s very happy with her right now. She washed his head and neck with salt and liquor and she’s got his whole head wrapped up with silk and herbs stuffed up his nose. Also she told him not to take any more willow bark while he was bleeding and cursed out his Potions professor because he should have known better than that. I told her he’s an alchemist, not an apothecary. (Endymion that is, not VR.)

I wish I knew what they found, but Lucius sealed the dispatches. He tried to send Yiayia down too, but she says she doesn’t take orders from children. It must be serious if Marco went down there with Charis and Nat and the captain. Endymion thought that the Company men could probably handle it, but Luce isn’t taking chances.

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busy

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I haven’t written in here since before I decided not to return to school. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I left. Marco and I are probably going to be married this weekend, along with Alessio and Valeria, which doesn’t bother me; I only care that we are married. And then this morning, as Marco was leaving for work, Lady Dracaena asked me if I could write Gobbledegook, and when I showed her I could, she made me her secretary, put me in charge of her calendar (which is now on a chalkboard we moved up from a schoolroom and put in her study), and gave me a pile of ledgers and letters to work on. She and Nicodemo have been talking and writing letters in their dressing-gowns all through breakfast. Her solicitor, Mr Bones, is coming down this afternoon.

Yiayia is in something of a panic, but there isn’t much she can say; Lady Dracaena is paying me to do this and she said she’d continue to pay me even after I married Marco. They’re turning her study into a real office.

They’ve even put Valeria and Alessio to work. Nicodemo looked at Lady Dracaena’s list of things to do this morning—she just started keeping one, she used to keep it all in her head—and asked her why she thought she had to do all that herself when there were so many things that only she could do and lots of other things that other people could do. There’s this word he’s taught her—’delegate’. I have the feeling we’re going to be hearing a lot of it.

My sister would be so happy if she were home. She really hated all that sewing. Isabella’s in charge of sewing now.

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sad

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They have to let us go to Hogsmeade on Saturday.

At least, they have to let me. It's going to be Marco’s birthday.

He’ll be twenty.

Next year, he’ll be twenty-one.

And we’ll be married. If we live through this.

It’s just one more year.

I’d ask myself what can happen in a year, but after the last one, I know; and I’ll not tempt the fates like that.

Dracaena and Don Zabini say I don’t have to do this. Yiayia says I do. Marco says it’s up to me. I wish he wouldn’t be like that. But that’s Marco. He’ll never ask for anything he wants or needs.

If I don’t go, though, I’ll be leaving the entire programme in Antonin’s hands, and I’ve seen how irresponsible he can be, particularly when it comes to the Saint-Germain girl.

I hate this.

I had no idea that Marco lived in Knockturn Alley. This is the tiniest flat I've ever been in with its own lavatory attached. At least it won't be too hard to keep clean. Marco is fretting about his job even though I'm sure Kyteler took care of that. I don't know what in the world I am going to make for supper, there's basically only a stove for warmth and you can set things to heat up on top of it, but in August...

I think this must be why Lavinia made me take so much food. I have no idea where to store it; I suppose I can use charms to keep it all fresh for a few days. I'm certainly not going out here now that it's dark. I could take care of myself, no doubt about it, but that doesn't mean I look forward to having to do it.

Anyhow, Marco needs me. I've never seen him so rattled. Gods only know what sort of garbage Kyteler had to dig up in his mind, and then to see his house taken apart like that by the Aurors...

Lavinia once told me that food, sex and a gentle voice will take care of most of the things that go wrong with men, at least insofar as they'll ever let you know. I suppose that advice can't be wrong, she would know.

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worried

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I really don't write in here very often--it seems the last time I did was the tenth, and so much has changed since then. I suppose it's because I've hardly been at home since then. I spent a lot of time with Evander and James, and when I was at home I mostly spoke to Lavinia and Kyteler.

Yiayia is moving into Sra Vincenti's house, or at least she was this morning, and she's furious that I refused to go, that I'm staying with Marco. Zio Ercole told her not to bother, that when he got everything that belonged to him back he would be wanting us all to live with him and Dracaena, whom he insists is still alive. I thought he was mad but Susie says he is quite sane and has sent for her mother.

I cannot imagine Susie's mother here. It's a frightening thought. I know she and Lavinia used to be friends, of a sort, but I doubt that can be the case now.

I wish Marco would come back. I am worried to death about him. I am very glad to have Zio Ercole back, I really am (I feel as though I ought to write: "Zio Ercole's back!" and enchant it to sparkle and flash like Susie or one of her sillier friends--but it doesn't seem real yet, not at all, even though he's here in the flesh and has had a bath and is wearing Mercutio's dressing gown--we shall have to find clothes for him, and Mercutio's won't fit and no-one's going to dare to try and get into Kyteler's things) but I cannot help thinking that anything at all could happen down there, and I won't feel really well until I can see him and touch him again.

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annoyed

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I really, really do not understand why Kyteler thinks that this is a conspiracy. Because Lavinia and Yiayia are fighting? That's been brewing for a while. And I know he doesn't think he's my father. It's this business of him thinking he's head of this household that I have a problem with. After how many years, he decides to admit--but only to us--what we already know, and I'm supposed to be impressed with him for that? No. I don't think so. But Yiayia is being ridiculous, blaming Kyteler and Lavinia for the fact that my sister has taken lovers and I am a Beltane Knight.

Yiayia forgets that I was raised to think of marriage as a contract, and that I know perfectly well that she had affairs, that my parents had affairs, that the reason we left Byzantium and lived in Roma had to do not only with the political but also with the personal, and that Marco and I would probably eventually have taken a lover or two in due time, once we had two sons and a daughter. It's not from Kyteler and Lavinia that I get these ideas. Kyteler actually wrestles with guilt. I think Yiayia bested guilt two falls out of three at least twenty years before I was born.

I tried to tell Lavinia that it was all a misunderstanding. That I offered to give Evander the money back (and I did, at one point), that I told him I never intended to ask for it, and he told me to take it anyway because I needed it more than he did, and not as payment for services rendered, but as a gift, to buy myself some pretty things (and he didn't mention Demetria or Fiammetta, but it's my money now, if I want to buy them presents I can do it). She told me that's the difference between a courtesan and a whore--we get presents, they get paid. Fine, if that's what a courtesan is then I guess that I am one, but it's not my career. And Kyteler has no business telling me that I will never have another career if I'm a courtesan now, because he knows better--the only reason Lavinia has had so much trouble is she doesn't have NEWTs and she hasn't been admitted to any guilds. These are problems that I will not have.

I just want to enjoy my last three weeks of freedom before I have to go back to school. And I really don't understand how Evander could possibly be responsible for the fact that my going to this party with him has caused Lavinia and Yiayia to have the fight that they've been avoiding having for over a year. How in the world could he have possibly known about that?

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annoyed

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I am going to be a Beltane Knight myself in my own name if it is the last thing that I do. I didn't think about Marco even once last night. The rituals are bloody silly, but other than that? It was just like the parties Pappa Ercole used to throw, except for the masks and cloaks, and except for the fact that instead of sitting in one of the balconies hoping none of the adults would notice me watching, I was in the middle of it.

Lavinia is furious with me. I told her she oughtn't be, because I could have moved out but I'm not a fool. I also told her she knows perfectly well why Kyteler doesn't want her going to those meetings and it hasn't got a damned thing to do with his politics, which only served to get her even more worked up because she knows it's true. Evander and Kyteler used to work together and he knows exactly what Evander gets up to. Not that I don't adore Kyteler, and not that I don't know every damn one of us owes him, but really, it's not completely out of the goodness of his heart that he is so concerned about us.

Anyhow. That is that. I don't fool myself that people there think of me as their social equal just yet, but I also know that more than one broke pureblood bitch has got herself a husband out of those parties, even if no-one will ever admit it, and I could do that if I wanted to, become a younger son's wife or a rich old man's mistress or possibly one till I'm tired of the other. I don't fancy doing that for a living, but as a hobby it beats embroidery to hell and back. I slept with more men in one night than I could have had in my entire life if I'd married, because Marco, I love him, but he is not his father. And sometimes I wish he were more like his father, which isn't quite fair, but I had a good time, and I'm tired of her and Yiayia staring at me like I've lost something.

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curious

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I'm so glad I got the post before Yiayia did; she'd have thrown a fit. And Demetria isn't home yet, which is also a good thing because really, she can't keep a secret to save her life.

I ought to be suspicious that Lavinia chose not to be involved with these people, but then, it's not as though I don't know exactly what Kyteler would have to say about that.

I think...I think I really want to go.

I wonder if I have to do it with all of them to get in. That should bother me more than it does. I'm sure there will be at least one that I don't like, there always is with things like that. And I hope there is no-one my own age there, because I would die if anyone at school found out. I wonder if they're good-looking. Or if they're as good at it as he was.

There's something wrong with me. I asked Callandra if she ever heard of the Knights of St Walburga and she said they're also called the Hell-Fire Club. That shouldn't make me feel...like this.

Isn't this the sort of thing that is supposed to happen to Slytherins? But I'm curious. I think I'd die of it if I didn't go, even if I decide not to join. Because I'd never, ever know.

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weary

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Yiayia isn't happy about it, even though I'm really only going there to help introduce people to each other and make sure Lavinia doesn't get cheated, but I offered to help Lavinia with her salon and I ran my first party last night.

I'm not as pretty as any of Lavinia's 'girls', but there were several men who asked me to meet them outside the salon. I told Yiayia I wouldn't do anything like that, but I thought about it.

I miss Marco so much, but he's not coming back, and my reputation is shot. I think...I think I'd like to go to bed with someone who doesn't expect anything out of me.

The books list for NEWTs is bloody pathetic. Bettony assigns things for seventh-year work that I'd read at Durmstrang when I was twelve...I almost don't see the point in going back to school but Lavinia insists, because she doesn't have credentials and she wouldn't be able to do anything other than give parties if Magister Kyteler hadn't taken a chance on her. Of course he barely has credentials himself (I'm not exactly sure how he got to be a Magister), and he's done perfectly well for himself. But he isn't a girl. And I suppose I want to be an Auror--as long as my colleagues are nothing like Bettony.

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worried

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Charis Marvell’s mother called us to ask if I knew where she was. And I don’t. Apparently she ran away on Thursday night and no-one’s seen her since!

I’d bet good money she’s with Foggington, that’s where she always goes to ground—but I’m not about to tell Yiayia that, she’ll make me tell Charis’ mother. Unless she’s with Marco.

I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s enlisted. I wouldn’t blame her, either!