Page 86 of Soulbound

"Le Havre? That's where you grew up?" Bishop stepped back from the table, and tugged his cheroot case out of his pocket.

"Calais for a while, then Geneva for a few years, and on to Vienna. Morgana sent me to the Consular Academy—a boarding school there—while she vanished for a few years, presumably leading the Order's assassins on a merry chase. Ghent, Munich, Le Havre, then on to Paris." Paris, where his mother's friends first laid eyes upon him. The name of the place flinched through him, and predictably, he missed his first shot, sending the balls scattering, but not pocketing a single one.

Sebastian looked up, but Bishop seemed preoccupied with lighting his cheroot. It wasn't as if he could have known the effect asking about Sebastian's past might have had on him.

He split the pair of balls in the corner, sending them flying around the table as Bishop poured them another brandy. One hit the pocket, and Sebastian showed his teeth in an equivalent smile as Bishop passed him his drink. "I'm out of practice."

"And two shots in."

He considered the play of the table, sighting along the cue. There was no way he could manage this in fewer than three shots. He sank the second ball, and then moved intently to set up the third.

"The Order had an execution warrant out for your mother," Bishop said, leaning against the fireplace. "But it's almost like she vanished once she left England. They had Sicarii assassins hunting her for years, and even they couldn't find her. Nobody even knew you existed."

"Morgana's a master of the Art of Illusions," he breathed, lining up the final ball. "From my very first memory, I wore a watch covered in runes that cast an illusion every time someone looked at my face. I was never allowed to take it off. I'm certain she had her own version."

He hammered the final ball into the end pocket. "Four shots. Your turn."

Bishop looked interested as he took the cue. "A watch to wield the illusion? That's an incredible amount of fine detail to set up in the spell work. Illusions work best when they're being managed directly."

"Whatever else she might be, my mother's an excellent sorceress," he said begrudgingly as he racked up the balls for Bishop. It was part of the reason they were having so much trouble finding her.

"How would you even...? You'd have to keep powering it. No, maybe a rune to channel your own power, but then you said you were young when she gave it to you, not fully fleshed into your powers yet, so...." Bishop looked like he was trying to solve some complex mathematical equation.

And enjoying the idea of it.

Sebastian fetched the balls from the pockets. "I had to wind it each morning to power the spell for that day. There was a rune in the side of it to gather energy into the device, and when you wound it, the spell was triggered until it ran out of power. If I forgot to wind it in the morning...." His stomach knotted at the memory.

"If you forgot...?"

"Then she put me in a travelling trunk and locked me in," Sebastian replied, and made sure the balls sat in a straight line. No point in handing Bishop the victory.

There was silence.

He looked up.

"A trunk?" Bishop asked incredulously. "How old were you?"

It wasn't the worst thing he'd ever endured, though it had given him a fear of the dark for a long time. "Perhaps five or six."

"For how long? Did she feed you? Did she...." Bishop seemed as though he didn't know what to say.

"The worst was a day or two," Sebastian replied coldly. "It didn't take me long to remember to wind the watch. She said it was to teach me responsibility."

Bishop scowled, and paced around the table. He considered the placement of the balls, but looked through them as if he saw something else. "Damnation."

"What?"

"Agatha's right, as bloody usual," Bishop muttered, sending the balls careening around the table. None of them landed, a sure sign he'd upset the other man. "You don't respond to punishment. You've been punished too often."

He laughed under his breath. "Not a single thing you've done to me this past month is what I'd call punishment."

Bishop paced around the table, but his lips were pressed firmly together. Flashes of his dark eyes kept sweeping over Sebastian, but he finally focused on the billiards table. He potted two balls off his next shot, muttering under his breath, before he chalked his cue and considered the play. "Then what do you respond to?"

Nothing. But that wasn't entirely correct. "Rage. Fear. Anger.... Violence." He thought for a little bit. "Being chained up."

Being chained down, and whipped, and raped.

"All emotions, or a physical threat that inspires emotion," Bishop said. "And you can't use that forever. Expression is too dangerous, you need to learn to—"