“Ella, we’re not going to get anywhere if you won’t talk to him. Remus is on our side.”
Ella’s gaze shifted to Henry in the quiet of the study. There was a fire built in the welcoming hearth, and an antique tall lamp next to Remus, who sat beside the flames in a large leather armchair, one leg crossed over the other. He had his elbows on the armrests and his fingers pressed together under his chin, while he studied her total motionlessness on the matching couch on the other side of the hearth.
When Remus spoke, Ella stiffened. “You don’t want to talk about yourself, and I can understand that. How about we start with me? I’m the wildcard. You don’t seem to mind talking to Henry to some extent. Ask me anything.”
Ella’s eyes flicked up to him, harboring a tinge of mistrust. “You don’t mean that. People say it, but they don’t mean it.”
Remus smiled, relaxing in his chair that he’d finally managed a response. “Did you know that I was lying to Lady Tremaine about my interest in her fascinating ideas about how best to deal with the Lethals?”
Ella ran her tongue along the inside of her bottom row of teeth before responding. “Not at first, but after a couple exchanges, yeah.”
“Then trust yourself enough to know if I’m lying to you. If you don’t want to talk about yourself, then we can talk about me. Ask away, Miss Ella.”
Ella’s lips twitched at the formal address. She was wearing her old housework jeans, a red flannel button-down and torn sneakers. Remus looked fresh off the cover of a magazine for the modern businessman—confident and crisply put together. “Okay. Who are you?”
Henry leaned on the hearth—the only one too anxious to sit. “This is Remus, blue eyes. I told you, he was my mentor and my tutor growing up.”
Ella waited a few beats, and then asked again. “Who are you?”
Remus kept his body language lax. “I’m Remus Johnstone, tutor to the stars,” he replied with a flair of playful dramatics.
Ella blinked at him and dug her heels in. “Who are you?” she asked again, unwilling to smile at his lightheartedness.
Remus tilted his head at her. “I’m the man who cares enough about Henry to help him out when he’s worried. He was concerned about you, so I drove him over to pay you a little visit. Good thing he brought me along. He’s usually better at thinking on his feet. I daresay your black eye confounded him.”
Undeterred by his attempts at making small talk, Ella repeated herself. “Who are you?”
Remus frowned and leaned forward in his seat. “Alright.” He swallowed hard as he stared at her, stripping off any charisma to get to the bare bones. “I help people with extraordinary Pulses. I teach them how to get their abilities under control, which Henry mentioned might be a problem you need help solving. Think of me as a friendly guide.”
Ella lowered her voice, but didn’t break eye contact. “Who are you?”
Remus stopped to think, turning her question over to examine it from all angles. He rested his elbows on his knees and turned his palms up in a subconscious gesture of surrender. “I’m someone who can help you.”
Ella took in his sincerity and deemed the question answered, so she moved on to the next one. “Why?”
Remus maintained his submissive posture. “You called Henry to tip him off that there was a hit taken out on a few chairholders on the council. Because of you, we were able to take countermeasures, and Caleb and Eustace are safe. Henry needs more people in his life who care about him enough to speak up when he’s near something dangerous.”
Ella didn’t accept this as the whole answer. “Why do you want to help me?”
Remus searched through his response, and then moved deeper into his rationale. “Because Henry needs someone good in his life. He’s not easily enchanted by a woman. I had to meet you.”
Ella was not satisfied, and spotted a look on his face that told her he was still holding himself back from answering the question completely. “Why do you want to help me?”
Henry shifted his weight from one foot to the other, impatient with Ella’s process. “He’s a good person, Ella. He’s helping because I asked him for a favor.”
Ella held Remus’ gaze, seeing in his eyes that there was more to it all than that. She made it clear that she wasn’t moving off this point until he answered it to her satisfaction.
Remus hung his head, a sudden wash of shame weighting his posture. “I want to help you because it fascinates me to study the mutations in our magic.”
Ella nodded, finally understanding that the root of his motives were his curiosity. “Explain.”
Remus obeyed her as if she was the instructor and he was the student who was being told to search out his motives as part of his daily lesson. “The community is afraid of anything new because we’ve all seen what Queen Vanessa did when anyone stood out. She took them and broke them. She manipulated them so she could use their power, and then sold them out and labeled them dangerous. They were tried for their crimes, and in the older days, they were disposed of. Malaura wasn’t much different. She didn’t take them to break them, but she collected the ones with odd abilities all the same, and kept them for her purposes. Being close to Malaura broke the good in people.” He paused to let his eyes plead with her, permitting his decades-old hurt shine through.
Ella kept her voice quiet. “Is the good in you broken?”
Remus’ expression twisted from practiced calm to positively haunted. “I’ve done everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t come about, but sometimes I worry.”
Ella inclined her head to him. “Maybe it’s that worry that’s kept you from crossing over completely.”
“Perhaps. But I know my curiosity for the strange and new has nothing to do with how she trained me. I want to understand because I think our magic is an ever-shifting miracle. Malaura made everyone afraid of anything different, but that’s never been me. The evolution of magic is happening, whether the public wants to look at it or not. If we don’t understand how the world is changing, then one day we’ll wake up to find nature’s progress has left us in the dust.”
“Those uniquely gifted were given lobotomies in Queen Vanessa’s day,” Ella state bluntly. “You can understand why I’m not eager to jump aboard that ship.”
Remus held her gaze, trying to convey that nothing could be further from his intentions. “Those didn’t happen under King Hubert. He’s a solid friend to me, and I know his heart. He doesn’t want to stamp out the people who are different. If anything, he’d want to learn from the mutations so we can add to and strengthen our community.”
“So, you want to use me for political gain.”
Remus raised his palms to her. “I want to study your magic if it’s as incredible as Henry claims. Nuances to our ancient magic have always fascinated me. I want to help you because that’s my nature. But if you’re worried about being used or called out publicly, I can offer you a promise that I won’t speak of our sessions to anyone, aside from Henry.”
Ella quirked her eyebrow, seeing his boyish fascination of the obscure for the hobby and obsession that it was. Finally, she felt she understood Remus Johnstone enough to talk. “Does your promise come with a contract? Something legally binding?”
“It does if you need it to.” He pulled out his phone, but then frowned. “But you don’t have a voice in court. Servants don’t have legal representation, so they can’t sign contracts or hold other people to them.”
Henry hissed at the insensitive observation, but didn’t argue the logic. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what? She wants assurances I can’t give her, and she’s smart enough to know that. If I tried, I’d be lying to her, which is no way to start this out.”
“I’m not a servant,” Ella admitted, tucking her hands under her thighs to keep from fidgeting. “That house you just saw? I own the deed. It’s my home.”
Henry’s mouth fell open. “What? Why? Why would you let Lady Tremaine treat you like that? She told us you were her servant! You told me you were her servant!”
“I fill that role, yes, but legally, I’m a landowner. Lady Tremaine treats me like that because she knows most of my secrets. If I misbehave, she’ll turn me in so the government can do experiments on me.”
Remus was speechless but Henry was livid. “How did you come to meet this terrible woman, and how does she have so much power over you? She just took over your home? Some random stranger can just move in and… I don’t understand.”
Ella shifted uncomfortably against the buttery leather of the couch. “Well, she’s not some random stranger, for one. Lady Tremaine is my stepmother.”