The Red Queen | Lucien Castle & Tristan de Martel

Chapter 16

"Oh! Now you care about the city."

"We ought to," muttered Elijah. "We built it."

Klaus added, "And we all saw it burnt to the ground twice. I will not let that happen again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Probably not what you should have said," muttered Vivalda as Marcel stormed away.

Elijah agreed. "Not a people person, are you, Niklaus?"

"Nonsense," muttered Klaus. "I love people. Just on my way to warn a couple of prominent ones in case the weather gets out of hand. If you fancy yourself as plus diplomatique, perhaps you'd like to come along."

"No, I must continue to think of a solution for Sabine. She requires a very powerful witch whose bones were never consecrated." His eyes widened in realization when he watched Rebekah coming down the stairs. "There is someone, actually. Our mother."

Rebekah made a face. "It's taken one thousand years, but you've finally gone mad. Our own mother?"

"Yes," said Elijah. "Our beloved mother, who Niklaus has affectionately placed in a coffin in his basement– not daggered, but quite dead."

Klaus shrugged. "Well, she did try to kill us all."

Elijah spoke again, "Well, I say we put her to use and put her to rest once and for all. Now if we bury our mother on land owned by one of her descendants, she becomes a New Orleans witch, and we, as her family, share in that ancestral magic."

"No," said Vivalda firmly. "We can't just hand over her magic to these witches, they've caused us enough problems as it is, imagine them with her power added to their supply? They'll be eternal pains in our arses. Well, your arses, I don't plan to be here much longer if you really intend to pursue this train of thought. Besides, we're vampires, and only Rebekah came close to practicing magic. We can't even own property the way mortals do."

"We don't need to practice magic," said Elijah. "We can merely be channeled. Act as a conduit. It should be sufficient. And, as for owning property, not all of our mother's descendants are dead..."

"The baby," realized Klaus.

"The baby," Elijah repeated. "The parish Tax Assessor's office is just steps outside of the Quarter. Hayley now holds the title to the plantation. So, if we bury our mother there, and we consecrate those grounds, we can finish the Harvest ritual."

The hybrid smirked. "You're a bit of a mad genius, Elijah. Count me in."

Rebekah was still siding with Vivalda. "Are Val and I the only ones thinking? Our mother was the most powerful witch in history. If we bury her, we hand that power to our enemies to use against us."

"Yes, thank you, Rebekah," agreed Vivalda. "We can't trust them to keep their cool and allow us to have peace just because we helped them with this. They've screwed us over one too many times already. If we allow it to happen again, then we're just idiots."

"Given our circumstances," said Elijah, "I hardly see that we have a choice, Rebekah."

Rebekah sighed in frustration. "I don't know why I bother. You two will just do what you want anyway."

"No," said Elijah. "Our decision must be unanimous."

Klaus glared at him. "This is not a democracy."

"You're quite right," said Elijah. "This is family."

"There is a choice," said Vivalda slowly. "I know you don't want to do this but we have another option. Céleste."

"I will not break my promise to her."