“But back to what you were clarifying, Ava... today, you totally... enchanted King Ankor,” he said, keeping his eyes on Tavlor rather than on me. “He doesn’t like witches and has been notoriously badly behaved to visiting dignitaries, and yet, he... liked you.”
I shrugged. “I’m no threat to him,” I said as though it wasn’t that big of a deal. “And I have no interest in trying to take away or keep him from his power.”
“Precisely,” my father said with a grin. “In you he saw a friend. Someone who should be shown things, helped, even... confided in. What did you talk of while strolling through the town? It was hard to pick up everything that was said.”
“I just asked about his people. What had happened to their magic.”
“And he told you?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
My father and Tavlor shared a look of surprise.
I focused on my father. “So, you’re saying you want me to make friends with the shifters too?” I asked. I didn’t want them to linger on the fact that King Ankor was enchanted by me. I’d just treated him with respect and that was it. “Let them talk to me, perhaps confide in me?”
“Yes.” My father nodded once. “If we can show the Council that you have the power to turn people against them, but that you also have the power to make their lives more peaceful, the realms easier to manage, then we may have a powerful bargaining tool at our disposal at the hearing in two days.”
I tilted my head to the side, beginning to feel like I was way out of my depth. Quite honestly, I had no idea how I did it with Ankor.
“But I know, literally nothing, about shifters. The only ones I’ve really even... seen, were the ones who came to kill me. At least with the Fae, I had been living in their realm for protection. At least I had Tavlor to help me understand what it meant to be Fae, what life was like for them. I don’t have that same luxury with the shifters.”
“Well, you’ll be getting to know more, tomorrow. First thing.” My father got to his feet, with a smile on his face. “I think I will turn in early tonight. I have some reading to do of your mother’s ancient law books. I want to see how much we can glean from there to work into our defense. There’s no reason we can’t ask for the same contract that was handed out to the first High Warlock, and since we know it happened, it set up a precedent, so to speak.”
“Nor is there a reason why Fae and shifters aren’t on the Council,” I added.
My father froze. He turned slowly to look at me. “You know that will never happen, Ava. Not in our lifetime anyway.”
I pressed my lips together. “It’s not fair, especially to not include the Fae,” I said. I knew this was a battle I had to be careful of, but I couldn’t help it. “They are powerful, and ancient and all knowing. They could help the realms so much.”
I glanced over at Tavlor, who was staring at me with that wondrous look he had on his face sometimes.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Oh... nothing. I just wonder sometimes if your mother did you a favor raising you without the influence of other Witches, or if you would have turned out like this either way,” he said.
I shrugged. “I like to think I would have the same opinions, either way. If that’s what you mean. The fact that I don’t think the Fae are beneath us?”
I went back to eating, annoyed for some reason. They treated me like I was so weird, just because I believed in equal rights. In people being treated like people.
My mother hadn’t taught me that; it was common courtesy. Decency. Although she also hadn’t taught me to have an elitist mindset either. Perhaps that was what they meant.
Was being prejudiced against other kind of supernatural entities natural here? I didn’t see Tavlor or my father having those tendencies, but each time I made a suggestion that teetered on challenging the norm, they both looked at me like I had suddenly learnt a second language they couldn’t understand. I wasn’t sure how to respond to it.
“Well, goodnight,” my father said, and then disappeared into his room.
I looked over at Tavlor.
“Do you think he’s ever going to go back to his old home?” I asked, deciding to let my annoyance drop, at least for the time being. The last thing I wanted to do was start a fight.
Tavlor glanced towards the closed door. “I don’t know,” he said. “As the High Warlock, that house in the Councilors realm is his, not Charity’s. But he may need to dissolve their marriage to get her out of the family home. I really... don’t know.”
“But he obviously doesn’t want to go back there at the moment, does he?” I asked.
I wasn’t the only one seeing that, surely?
“No, he doesn’t want to go back to his old life. His old world. His... wife.”