Lilith

I stepped around the corner into the doorway, peering into the room like a little child does a place they know they ought not to be. Colorful maps, charts, and diagrams littered the walls, but the mahogany desk demanded all the attention--as did the man who sat behind it.

"Daddy?"

He looked up at me from the papers on his desk, and told whoever he was on the phone with that he would call them back. He sensed a type of storm, I suppose, and I was going to give it to him...if he'd let me. "Yes, Lily?"

"Alex doesn't want to take the new job," I blurted. "He doesn't want to leave again."

He sighed wearily. "Lily, I can't do this right now. We're leaving tonight."

"But, just to make arrangements," I said, taking a step forward. My confidence wavered. "You can always tell whoever it is that he has other duties. He does have other duties, you know. And there are plenty of other great Alchemists to do the job."

Daddy rubbed his temples with his fingertips. He did that when he got a headache--come to think of it, he did that a lot when I was around. He folded his hands on top of his desk and looked at me with that I'm-an-old-man expression that always seemed to make people sympathetic and willing to bow to his every demand. "Lily," he said with a surprising amount of patience. "Please, sit down."

I glanced at the comfy leather chair in front of his desk and the matching one beside it. Alex had always taken the right, and I was always on the left. It didn't matter how much trouble we got into; being in those chairs meant serious and if it was serious, then there was plenty to be afraid of, especially when your father was as military strict as ours was.

"Please," he repeated more harshly.

I sat.

"Do you know where he's going?" he asked me.

I shook my head. "He said he was staying within the States though." My gaze wandered over his shoulder to the big map of the United States on his wall behind him. Pink, green, yellow, and orange pins marked special things all across the country. I'd never asked him what though.

Daddy nodded. He looked exceptionally old and tired now. "He's going to be the Alchemist liaison at Court. You know what that means?"

I nodded. The terms weren't new to me, even without Alchemist training. I knew exactly where "Court" was and I didn't want him to have anything to do with it. It was just a bunch of fancy-acting old people with dusty blood in them. It was a bunch of vampires. Alex would be the only human there, besides the feeders.

"Queen Vasillisa has requested he fill the position, on account of her newfound position. There seems to be a lot of unrest among the people now that they've got a new ruler."

"Why Alex?" I asked, trying to find the confidence I had when walking into the room. It was nowhere to be seen.

"Alex has done some...work...with Vasillisa and her guardian, Rose Hathaway. The other guardians now stationed at Court are also familiar with him, so the dynamics wouldn't have to be changed much."

"You're sending him away to please a vampire?" I snapped, dumbfounded. "You can't really--"

"Lilith."

Oh god, not the full name. I hated the full name. While it was pretty and all, I'd just grown up knowing that the full name meant to stop whatever you were doing, no matter how afraid of getting in trouble you were, and tell the truth.

He glared at me. I looked down at my hands in my lap, and apologized. He was so much scarier in person, than when I was practicing this conversation in front of my mirror last night.

"I need you to understand, Lily," he said. "I do not sympathize with the vampires, nor do I particularly like them." Here comes the Alchemist spiel. "They are unnatural, in every human way. They are flaws in nature, an anomaly. They should not exist...but they do."

He paused, so I nodded. I didn't dare say anything though, or I'd be reprimanded again.

"However," he continued. "I did make a sort of...acquaintance-ship with one before. His name was Erick Dragomir, and he and his wife had a son Alex's age."

I put two and two together pretty easily, and dreaded the rest of this story--Dragomir was Vasillisa's last name. He was sending Alex to Court as a favor.

"Queen Vasillisa has requested this as a favor, and I will honor that favor, due to Erick and his family's passing. Alex has agreed to take the job, and that is all that matters."

He didn't go on, and he didn't look at me. His expression was blank, and his eyes were their usual, empty black. Sometimes that man was the hardest person to read, and other times he was an open book. Unfortunately, he was no open book at the moment, and I tried to pull out some of that confidence I pretended to have earlier.

"I understand why you're doing it, Daddy," I said softly. Upsetting him was not going to get me anywhere, and I think I'd done enough of that already. "But...that was years ago." I looked up at him. "You don't owe Vasillisa any--"

"I owe her everything," he said, eyes burning as he lifted his head. "And, notwithstanding her...race, I owe her at least this favor." He picked up a pen and started writing on the paper in front of him. "We will speak no further on the matter."

"But, Daddy," I started. It was useless. His expression completely changed as I spoke up, and I knew that face. It was the scariest, most dismissive look you could ever get--one I'd always feared as a child. Daddy was a serious man; he had to be, to get so high in Alchemist ranks. He was a very militaristic person, and he'd raised his children in much the same way he'd been raised himself. So I did what any smart person would do in this situation: I backed down.

"Thank you, Daddy," I mumbled underneath my breath as I stood. "May I ask a favor of you as well?"

I looked at him hopefully, and he waved his hand in the air. That meant not all hope was lost. "I'd like to go with you and Alex," I suggested softly.

He looked up with a "no" already on his lips.

"Just to make the arrangements," I assured him quickly, and his eyes got mean when I interrupted him. As he thought on the matter though, he became a little more forgiving. He didn't answer me for a long time, and I was starting to get antsy when he finally answered.

"Be ready by seven o'clock."