Requiem (13)   Pasture, stone wall, and steeple, What most perturbs the mind: The heart-rending homely people, Or the horrible, beautiful kind? Every day was a brainwashing. Every day was the ruthless reclamation of a clean, untroubled mind. Every day all the evidential filth that had come to defile him was soaped and scrubbed and bloody-knuckle scoured of all its inexpedient meaning. Every tainted truth, every festered fact, every cursedly ruinous reality was bleached with disavowal, boiled in refutation, blistered to retraction and brushed away, until all that might provoke a feeling or a force, a reaction or a choice, had been vanquished like a series of set-in stains in the backroom of a Chinese laundry. My father was insane. Doesn't matter. My mother never loved me. Couldn't care. Uncle tried to push my heart off a cliff. And this is a surprise? My grandmother had me committed. True to form. My brother made a move on my wife. What's your point? I shot a woman in the chest for no other reason than her broken-souled relentlessness. Could you pass the marmalade, please? His arm spread out across the air before him, his weight shifting impassively, as he sought the measured calm promised by the ancient masters. The ground beneath my feet has a life. The wind off the water has a whisper. The crow in the tree calls me home, to the universe of my nature. The shadow behind me is not Stefan. It is a trick of memory; the pattern of a purposeless past. It is gone. The definition of insanity is performing the same act time and time again and expecting a different outcome. If he trusts her not to make a move before talking to him first, he will always be betrayed. To avoid betrayal he must learn to expect this indulgence of impulse. He must learn to accept her impetuous spirit, her thoughtless rush to result. She was a curious girl, always on the lookout for mystery and adventure. He would no more imprison that lust for life than he would tie himself to the burdensome legacy of his lunatic Cassadine ancestry. There is always a choice. There is always a choice. And the choice is always mine. She'd gone to offer this stranger a seat at his table. So be it. He'd send the invitation out today. She would be pleased and he would benefit from the fruits of that pleasure. Add to this the long-awaited sate of meeting the man face-to-face. He'd make the rules; he'd own the field. And, he decided peremptorily, they would proceed in the formally traditional fashion; as prince to penitent; host to a guest beholden of his lord's magnanimity. He had no doubt this Cassadine's scheme would be revealed with each request he made, each question he asked, every small and oh-so-artlessly conveyed off-the-cuff remark. Once those plans were known, well, he would mount a commensurate countermanding force and take to battle; win the war. Then, after the dust had settled, they would talk about this European consortium of his. There was undoubtedly money there to invest, and a stake in re-couping what his uncle had so clearly lost through his untimely death. A golden opportunity existed. He was certain all would see it. And this Maximillian Cassadine, if his prince were gracious enough to permit, could wind up making a tidy little profit by brokering the deal. His mind cleared; his mood lightened as he brought this Tai Chi session to its close. The ground beneath my feet has a life. The wind off the water has a whisper. The crow in the tree calls me home, to the universe of my nature. The shadow behind me is not Stefan… …though for a single, ephemeral second, he did imagine he could feel the weight of a hand come to rest on his shoulder. Maxie balanced the cup in her palms and felt its warmth diminish. In a few short minutes the tea would be cold. What did she plan on doing then? She certainly had no intention of asking for more. She supposed she'd set it to the table and continue on waiting as before. As now. As forever, it looked like, until someone she actually knew came walking through the door. She guessed it was rude to show up like this - unannounced with the stupid expectation he'd be here and maybe glad to see her. She should have called. She really should have called. Too scared though, in the end, to hear his voice and wonder how much he'd been told. Maximum Maxie was a mistake she'd been fool enough to think she'd left behind. Truth was it trailed her like a puppy - a small, sourly-insistent little beast she could never quite shake off. And while she'd made a kind of peace with that, owned up to the miserable idiocy of falling for a creep like Kyle who could never even seem to keep his lies on straight, she still couldn't help but die a little bit every time it was thrown in her face. It was different when you told the story yourself. You could be strong then, confident, wise. But when you were ambushed by a kid, or your sister, or Emily-I'm-So-Holy-I-Can-Fly-Quartermaine-Cassadine, the shame showered down like a freak summer storm and was almost more than she could bear. She couldn't believe she'd run away. She should have met that past head-on. She should have claimed it, explained it and cast it aside. Instead she'd allowed the preciously perfect Patron Saint of Port Charles to run her right out the door and that was worse, infinitely worse, than finding the courage to stand. To stay. To deal. "Al-la'na! Laa. Laa! Maadha hadath?" Her head spun around at the sound of the wail emerging from behind the kitchen door. The smooth whirring of the mixer had stopped. It was snarling now, its motor clearly struggling to process whatever it was blending in the bowl. Should she offer to help? She didn't know. The woman had not asked for company or been open to a word of conversation, just parked her on the couch with her tea and disappeared. Maybe she should just stay put. Maybe she should keep her nose out of this. "Laa tatalaa'ab ma'ii…tawaqqaf! Ughrub 'annii!" Then again, maybe not. She entered the kitchen just as the mixer gave up the ghost. The woman dumped it, cord and all, into the batter and thrust the bowl away, glaring viciously after it as if daring the mess to protest. "He is thin, you see," she contended darkly, in a voice both quiet and cold. "So thin. He forgets to eat. He is too busy to eat and so I think, twist yourself into a knot, Djinn, and make him fat again. Or for the first time, I don't know," she dismissed in a ruthless snap. "Filo I am good with. Dates, nuts. Rugelach. Baklava. But no, I choose to make him this favorite thing. This cookie. This chocolate chip cookie." Her eyes closed, her grip on the lip of the countertop flexing. "Is it possible to buy them, do you know?" "May I…?" Maxie tendered hesitantly, reaching for the bowl. "Can I just…?" The woman looked up with suspicion, then stepped to the side to give her room. "This is a very old mixer," she observed, lifting it from the bowl and glancing around for something she could use to scrape the batter off. "It came with the house," the woman allowed, passing her a spatula. "Well, it doesn't have the power to mix a cookie dough. We'll have to do that by hand." She scanned the length of the work surface, noting the open boxes and bags of flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and the two smaller bowls of chopped nuts and chips. "What's left to add?" The woman drew the smaller bowls forward. "It was the flour that killed the machine. Too much flour, to my eye. It will never incorporate. You are wasting your time." "I always think so, too. It never looks right. Do you have a wooden spoon?" The drawers by the sink were opened and searched, three spoons proffered for her use. She gestured toward the largest and took it in her hand, throwing her strength to scraping, blending and pounding this mess into a single, cohesive whole. "Your name is Jin?" she asked, looking up in time to catch the woman's acquiescent nod. "Mine's Maxie. But you know that, right?" "I do. Maxim speaks of you frequently. And…yes, I arrived yesterday just as your visit came to its close." "Oh." It was all she could think of to say, and was glad she had this stubborn dough to inflict her mortification on. Stand, Maxie, she told herself in a firm, no-nonsense interior voice. Stand and deal. "What's the expression? Not my finest hour?" She lifted the nuts from the counter and poured them into the bowl. "I suppose she told you what that was all about? Why I got so upset?" "No," the woman stated flatly. "Maxim would not allow it, though she offered many times. The girl grew quite distressed. But Zimi said if he wished to understand, he would look for that understanding from you. He won't, though, you know. He will never ask. If you are fearful of this, you have no reason to be." Something lurched in her stomach then, and made her want to cry. Instead she reached for the chocolate chips and kept her arm working. "My mom says you can never escape the past, just be proud that you lived through it." She turned the bowl and revolved the dough, stirring and stirring. "They must have a book of sayings like that. Mothers, I mean. Words of wisdom for every occasion; little soothing sentences they use whenever their children's lives spin out of control and smack into the wall. I bet your mom had some, too." "I had no mother," the woman pronounced, falling to the task of cleaning up the countertop and putting her ingredients away. "There once was a woman who claimed she bore me. I believed her. That was all." Silence descended for a span of minutes, filled only with the sounds of closing cabinet doors and the clink and clank of dishes in the sink. She broke it on an instant to observe. "I think that is Maxim at the front. Perhaps we should take a look?" They emerged from the kitchen to find him at the landing, his fingers resting atop the boxes she'd stacked in a cardboard pedestal there. Lost in thought, he didn't look up and remarked in a quiet voice, "She was here, then?" "And still is," announced Djinn, drawing his attention to their guest. His head rose sharply and Maxie thought she could detect relief in his face. "Thank God," he expressed with a smile. "I thought our Officer Spencer had finally awakened to the fact that his police car didn't blend with the trees." He stepped forward to offer her his hand. "That's your vehicle parked outside? I'm so pleased you're here. Are you all right?" She felt the prickling of a blush creep to her cheeks as she placed her hand in his. "I'm not so sure Lucky would be happy to know you see him out there." "Then he should take better care to hide himself," Djinn retorted indignantly. "It's not as if he doesn't have a full forest of vegetative cover." "Djinn," Maxim reproved, giving his visitor a surreptitious wink. "She's a creature of the desert. She has excellent eyes. Come," he gestured, escorting her down the few short steps to the couch. "This is becoming a pattern with us, isn't it? My need to apologize to you? We're going to have to change that." "But you didn't do anything wrong," she insisted, lowering herself into her seat. "I shouldn't have over-reacted. It's not like I haven't heard that kind of stuff before. I'm sure…I'm sure she just wasn't thinking until, you know, it was way too late." His brow lifted in bemusement as he reached for her cold cup of tea and passed it backward into Djinn's waiting hand. "It's generous of you to say that. While I agree she seems to be stunningly unperceptive, I thought the remark held more than a degree of calculated intent. Would you like more tea, or food perhaps? An early lunch? Is there anything I can offer?" "No," she said, shaking her head. "Actually, we were in the middle of baking something. I should probably help you finish that." Djinn placed a staying hand on her shoulder. "No. You visit with Maxim. I believe I can finish. We are past the blending stage, yes?" "Sure. Yes, you're ready to go. The mixer broke," she explained to her slightly puzzled host. "We had to do the stirring by hand." "And what were you stirring, if I may ask?" "That's none of your business," his housemate dismissed. "Your errand, Maxim. Did it yield?" "Unfortunately not." A look passed between them that Maxie couldn't read, then flashed into the ether like the trailing tail of a shooting star. Quiet now, and deep in thought, the woman turned to re-enter the kitchen. "A dangerous being, my Djinn," he murmured, his gaze lingering on the closing door. "Have a care where she is concerned. Never underestimate the lengths she'll go to achieve her every end." He seemed to rouse himself then, and looked to his guest. "It was good you could help her, though. She won't forget that." "It was nothing. Just a little snag. I kind of…I kind of feel bad for her, you know? She said she didn't have a mother, so all the cooking and baking and stuff? It's gotta be really hard." "She told you that?" The intensity of his tone caught her off-guard, as did the sudden, inexplicable weight of his stare. "Well, yes…I…she said…," Maxie stammered. "I'm sorry, should I not have mentioned anything?" "No. No," he soothed, relaxing back into his ease, though she could see he was still intrigued. "I'm simply surprised she shared this with you. Djinn keeps a private soul. She is self-sequestered. Completely concealed. The little she reveals about her life, her longings or her line of thinking is inevitably cryptic and would take an expert to decode. There are no experts, of course," he allowed with a despairing sigh. "I thought I might qualify at one point, but no. And so when you say she has announced, in no uncertain terms, that to her eye she had no mother…it is…well…it's shocking, to tell you the truth." "Maybe I should learn to keep my mouth shut," Maxie huffed dejectedly. "Not at all! Honestly, no," he assured her, stretching to touch her arm. "She's opened a door, don't you see? A gate to the path that winds down through the very heart of her life. What else did she say, if you don't mind my asking?" Maxie thought there was something to the question she probably should mind but her curiosity about this woman, held at bay for over an hour, finally sprang to life with a hunger that would not be denied. Who was she? Why was she here? And, most important of all, what was she to him? "Not much, really. Just that a woman once claimed to be her mom, and she believed her. I don't know what that means." His hand retreated from her arm, his elbow lifting to prop itself on the back of the couch as he digested this. His gaze clouded; his legs crossing on a sigh. "How much do you know about a woman's place in the culture of the Middle East?" he asked, his head tilting to study her face. "Mmm. I know about Afghanistan. The Taliban? How women were second-class citizens there. How they had to cover every inch of their bodies and they couldn't work or laugh or talk or do anything to draw attention to themselves. How they were locked up and had to have a husband or a man from their family escort them everywhere they went. It's like they were prisoners." "Yet some would advance that women are revered more in Islamic society than anywhere else in the world; that it is precisely because they are so deeply cherished that such protective measures are put into place. Every culture has its facets, Max. And its fanatics. The Western mind has a tendency to regard the Middle East in broadstroke, through the eye of its own technological, ideological and, yes, moral achievements. There's a certain amount of hubris there that blinds us to its vast complexity; to its richness, to the essence of its soul. Djinn was born of this culture and, while it would be easy to see her life as a lesson in the value of escape, one can never forget that she takes her land, her people and their precepts with her everywhere she goes. It's a part of her, and will be so until the day she dies." Maxie nodded, understanding this, although entirely unable to imagine the woman she'd just met consenting to be in any way beholden to a man or a land or a culture so restrictive. He seemed to sense the thought, his blue eyes dancing for a moment on its inherent inconsistency, before settling down to his story. "Djinn's mother was born into a desert tribe of the Nedj, on a settlement at the edge of the Rub al-Khali in Saudi Arabia. As a young girl her duties were primarily confined to keeping house - or tent, if you will. Some gardening, some gathering, the occasional trip to the women's souq to sell the surplus of her harvest. Her true and inestimable value to her family would come into play only when she reached marriageable age and could be used to cement a bond between two rival factions of her tribe. Make no mistake, this is a vital and important role, and was much esteemed for the peace, the power and the influence it would bring, along with the necessary, almost sacred sense of tribal continuity it provided. She was treasured for this, and felt its honor deeply. It was her purpose. Her sense of worth. "Unfortunately for her people, and for Iffat herself, an accident occurred in her fourteenth year that robbed her of the ability to bear children - or so the local doctor claimed. And, well, that was that. As she would never be a mother giving birth to precious sons or even the cold currency of daughters, her privileged status was lost. She would be lucky now if a man, out of pity, would consent to take her as a second wife. Or a third. Her family felt the shame of this and reacted accordingly. Her friends were no longer her friends, but superiors in the social structure. Those sympathetic to Iffat permitted her, through the goodness of their hearts, to perform the most lowly of chores - whatever repugnant, unsanitary task they had no desire to do themselves - in order to allow her to prove she still held value to the community. This was the kindest response. There were more than a few men, young and brash, who advised her father to leave her by the roadside, or cast her to the center of a distant city and let Allah name her fate." He paused here to brush a piece of lint from the fabric of his pants and she knew it a mindless gesture meant to cover an emotional response. His tone, while not pleased, was deliberately non-judgmental when he took his breath to carry on. "By the age of seventeen, Iffat was little more than a slave to her people and had given up the hope that her life would change. Yet, as so often happens when we resign ourselves to disappointment, something or someone invariably comes along to turn existence on its head. Such a thing happened to Iffat one day on her way to market. A man saw her. A kind man. A rich man. A foreign man caught to that ineffable sensation that attracts one human being to the next. Was it the way she walked? The stony brightness of her eye? The confidence with which she labored to bring her harvest to the souq? Who knows? Whatever he saw in this girl, though, was enough to bring him back day after day on the slim chance he might see her again and, were he granted his most fervent wish, that she might see him. "This attention did not escape her brothers, who approached him looking for a fight. But he was good with words, this man, and keen in his understanding of the culture that surrounded him. A bargain was struck and Iffat given over to his care for several thousand dollars and a satellite dish. You might consider it a dower price, although her brothers certainly did not. They laughed behind his back when he married her, this ignorant Western man who could just as easily and, to their eye, more intelligently have kept her as selam, or a secondary lover. Well, they might laugh all they wanted. Iffat, or Allah if you like, had a surprise in store for them. "When Iffat became pregnant in her first year of marriage, no one was more shocked than she. The impossible was possible, it seemed. A miracle had come to be. And that shock, as one may imagine, soon turned into joy and, soon after, into pride. All the anger she felt for the doctor's long-ago misdiagnosis and her subsequent loss of status found a seat at the heart of that pride and tainted it with vengeance. Any reason would do to visit her desert family, to parade her condition before them and preen; to present them with the physical proof they had been wrong. So swept up was she in the need for vindication that it wasn't long before she began to insist to all who would listen that the child she carried was a son. A son has great value to the tribes of the desert. A son is the most priceless offering a woman can present to her community. To have them imagine she'd been capable of this, and to imagine it herself, gave her great pleasure and set her to whistling throughout the course of her pregnancy. She was, undoubtedly, happier in those nine months than she had been or would be for the rest of her life." His head fell back and his eyes closed, a frown creasing his brow as he located the less than happy ending of his tale. "This was the circumstance into which Djinn entered the world. As a girl she was a disappointment from the moment the cord was cut. All her mother's pride vanished in that instant, to be replaced by little more than a listless maternal apathy. A daughter was not what she wanted. A daughter was not what she deserved. And though she tried year after year with an unrelenting diligence afterward, no other miracles were gifted to Iffat. Djinn was to be her only child, her almost son, her defeat. It was a reality she could never quite manage to accept, much less embrace. So when Djinn tells you she had no mother this is what she means. And I can add with a fair amount of certainty that Iffat, were she alive today, would no doubt agree." A knock on the door had him out of his seat before Maxie could respond, leaving her to process what she could of this past and the flood of empathy it engendered. Her hands came together in her lap as she thought about that mother and daughter, wringing with an impotent sadness right up until the moment she caught sight of her watch. That's not the time. It couldn't be the time. She was late! Mrs. Hardy was going to flip! Hurrying to collect her coat and purse, she rose from the sofa and rushed to the door with an apology on her lips. "I'm sorry, I've got to get to the hospital. I forgot I had the afternoon shift!" Maxim signed the clipboard with a flourish and sent the messenger on his way. "You should go, then," he encouraged. "But before you do, where would you like these boxes? I could put them upstairs with the first or leave them here until you return." "Upstairs is fine," she replied as she scurried through the door, then stopped for a second to turn back. "Could you tell her good-bye for me? That it was very nice to meet her?" "Djinn? Of course," he agreed with a smile. "I'm sure she would say the same." Maxie hesitated a moment longer, searching for something kinder to add but failed to find the words. She saw him nod and knew he understood. "Thanks," she chirped with a wave, then spun to skip down the front porch steps. "It's arrived, then?" "It has." Maxim ripped the tab from the messenger's envelope and reached into its cardboard sleeve, pulling out the invitation. The crest emblazoned on the linen rag was patently unmistakable. He withdrew the note and read it, then passed it into her waiting hand. "We are invited to dine." "To be inspected, you mean. To be called like errant children to splay our hands and show the state of our fingernails. Maxim, you will not take those boxes up," she ordered, still scanning the invitation. He had already lifted the first of the cartons but deigned at her command to stop, balancing the box atop his knee. When it became evident she had said all she planned to say, he resumed his journey up the stairs. "Maxim." He halted once again, turning to find a finger crooked in accusation at the box. He knew she thought him too weak for this and, in truth, he was growing quite tired of that assertion. "You know," he observed, returning the carton to his knee, "you don't need me to make your friends for you. You're more than capable of doing that yourself." This was enough to arch a brow. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He fell back against the wall with a grin. "How many times have I heard you say it is the labor that gives a dish its spirit?" "Maxim, your point eludes me," she sniffed. "Unlikely," he countered on a laugh, marking the way she stiffened on the landing beneath him. "Shall I be plain, then? Very well. Djinn, in all the years I've known you - with every dish you've made, every meal you've prepared - I've never seen the sight of it or heard it or known it even once to be used. Since when do you employ a mixer?" Were he closer he was certain he would feel the ire that flexed those fists and thundered such a spark in her eye. Alas, he was not and so he simply turned to climb the remaining stairs. Arabic Translation (of Djinn's kitchen expletives): "Al-la'na! Laa. Laa! Maadha hadith?" "Damn! No. No! What's wrong?" "Laa tatalaa'ab ma'ii…tawaqqaf! Ughrub 'annii!" "Don't mess around with me…stop it! Go to hell!" Requiem (14) I inhabit a sacred wound I inhabit imaginary ancestors I inhabit an obscure will I inhabit a long silence… Lebkuchen. It would have been lebkuchen thirty years ago, culled from her great-great-grandmother's recipe - a parchment scrap handed down tenderly, chastely, from one generation to the next…until finally it came to the last; to the sole remaining pair of family hands still at work in the world and still capable of producing this epicurean treasure. Baba Mari's spiced honey cake with its spongy chunks of candied citron, orange and lemon peel had been a true magnificence; its every slice a spectacle; its every bite ambrosia. Helena had adored it. Fond of poison as she was, the Dowager had never been able to resist the kindest of them all. Sugar she loved, and sweets. That she still kept teeth was such a mystery. Mrs. Landsbury broke the seal on the canister of Kievan honey, struck its wire brace and gently thumbed the glass lid up to expose the nectar to the open air. A single sterling silver fork, cleaned twice for certainty, plunged to press the comb apart. One hand on the fork and the other lifting, she tipped to pour her portion out to the measuring cup beneath, then twisted the canister in a quick right angle to prevent the loss of a drop. Enough here, she ascertained, for the cake and the game hens and some scones besides. If she took a care. And she always took a care. No lebkuchen today. No lebkuchen since the Count had wrested the Estate from his mother's hands some twenty years past. Like treacle, he'd said, and cloying, turning her instead to the palate of the Greek; his karidpeta with its molasses and nuts. This was the only honey cake Master Nikolas had sampled in his childhood and as such held a cherished place on the list of his favorite desserts. Proper, she thought, that it be served on so important an occasion as his meeting with his long-lost cousin. What he knew or didn't know, had been told or hadn't was, in the end, unimportant. Maxim's honey to Nikolas' sweet blended means to meaning in a way their absent father would have both understood and appreciated. Perhaps even desired, when all was said and done. There were days, once upon a time, when he had desired just this much. Days when he had dreams… "I apologize, Mrs. Landsbury, for what may seem to be an impetuous decision on my part. I realize it will be difficult at first, but Nikolas is comfortable with how the house is run and I can't imagine he will alter much in regard to your duties or those of the staff. He's still quite young, though. He may require patience on occasion." She lowered her head as she so often did when people thought to inform her of things she already knew, and spied a crease of forgotten dust on the clawed left foot of the study desk. She made a mental note, composed a second warning for the morning maid and carved out the minutes in her schedule to deliver it all before he'd taken the breath he required to continue. "I've written out my itinerary in the unlikely event you should find the need to consult with me." He lifted his page and she walked forward, taking it from his hand. "London first. Then Greece and Geneva. By the time we leave Versoix the Milanese renovations should be done. Italy will hold us through summer, I think, lasting to the start of his internship." It was all a little pantomime, of course. An obfuscative exercise designed to hide his heart's cavort. He needn't bother taking the pains; she thought it a wasted effort. The dancing of his fingers across the desk was enough to give him away. The bounce of his eye, the brightness of his tone, his need to idly emphasize the plurality of the journey. We. Us. His. Did he imagine she didn't know precisely who he was talking about? If he wished to discuss Maxim he should simply come out and do so. Look at him waiting so expectantly on the gist of her response! She allowed herself the briefest of interior sighs. Very well. "His studies are progressing, I trust?" "Oh yes, oh yes," he replied in a poor attempt at detachment. "He's nothing short of brilliant, or so his instructors say. He jumped a level at the start, you know. It was a concern at first. A new university, an alien curriculum, the transition he'd be forced to make. We worried he'd put too much on his plate. But I must say he's handled the brunt of it admirably, managing to rise to the top of his class in less than six months time. A ranking he's held to this day." Although he played at disaffection, Mrs. Landsbury was sure he had the boy's grades somewhere close at hand and would produce them on an instant should she evince the slightest desire for proof. She did not. "And he has adjusted to this life?" "Like a duck to water. More than that. Like a falcon released from the wrist," he declared with a demonstrative lift of his arm. "Do you know he's shown a remarkable facility for languages? A mimetic aptitude, they say, that allows him to duplicate not only the savor of a tongue but its every dialectical distinction. The romance languages were absorbed in a heartbeat. Russian took a fortnight more - the speaking not the writing. Cyrillic is always an ache. I look forward to introducing the Greek. By summer's end, with my assistance, we hope to have it mastered. What?" The moue had appeared for a moment only yet he caught its flicker on her face, his brow lifting as he sought its meaning. She cursed this lapse in reserve and its sudden, subsequent need to be explained. "Summer, as I understand it," she forthrightly pronounced, "is a season the young look forward to for its lack of intellectual labor." "If I thought it would be a labor…" he sustained, taking mild offense. But he was still smart enough to examine her contention and perceive its underlying intent. "You may have a point," he conceded, a rare grin rising from the well of that truth. "Tai Chi, then. And sailing. Riding, perhaps. I should order him a mount." His arm reached out for the phone. "It's possible he has some ideas of his own." "True, true." The hand fisted to rest on the desk inches short of that phone. He rapped the wood once, then twice, in restive frustration. "What do I say to him? How should I be with him? It's been a year, a year since I saw him last. They change, you know. They evolve. Intellectually. Perceptually. Nikolas was always here, always at my side. He took his lessons in this very house. Maxim…well, it was impossible to leave him on his own in Geneva. Just a tutor or two and the household staff? No. But university life? Such a cauldron of competing influences. It's hard to know what to expect." "And so you expect nothing," she advised in a quiet voice. "You take what you get and you work with that, as we all do." His features grew bleak with these words. One child he had raised nearly from birth, one hand immersed in every facet of his life - teasing, taunting, training that spirit to arise equipped for all the challenge it would face. This other soul was a stranger to him, a work already in-progress when finally they came to meet. He so wanted to be proud, needed to be proud not only of his son but of himself as a father. Though how could he expect to be? The earning, on both sides, had hardly taken place. Back to the middle of beginnings he was, and not at all happy with the seat. "A pipe dream it seems, at times," he confessed, his fingers lifting to rub the remaining stardust from his eyes. "These two boys…men…marching into the future, ruling the Empire side-by-side. It's not too early to introduce him to the concept of advisors. Who does he have? These ersatz 'musketeers'? Milan will test him, I know that. But there will come a day, inevitably…" He blinked hard and shook his head but could not, in the end, erase the thought. And so he gave it voice. "I will not live forever, despite what some may claim." Three years. He had three years left at that point. Far too soon for her. Not soon enough for others, or so it appeared. As she poured the honey into the syrup now bubbling in a saucepan on the stove, she found herself mouthing a retroactive prayer that he had crafted some sort of life for himself in those last, leisured months in Milan. Enough of a life to find peace in death. Enough of a life to make up for what he'd spent seeing to the needs of others. Well or poorly pursued, his dreams were all vicarious; his ambitions at their root intended to bloom always in someone else's garden, to be cut and gathered and arranged in someone else's empty vase. That he had a rose of his own, one small, sturdy, selfishly-tended rose, was all she hoped for or thought to ask. "Oooh, what are you making?" the young mistress of Wyndemere cried, bursting through the door with a widened eye and an enthusiastic sniff of the kitchen air. "I could smell it all the way from the study!" Spying the honey open on the counter, she sunk a finger in, withdrew it with a twist and slipped it solidly between her lips. "Mmm, this is good! I bet it would be great in our morning tea." "Then I will serve it at breakfast tomorrow," Mrs. Landsbury replied. And every breakfast thereafter, she sighed, marking the taint and scratching the game hens from her menu. A roast, perhaps? A rack of lamb? It was suddenly a very good thing she had time to sift through second choices. "Ms. Davis," he announced, leaning over the table to offer her his hand. "I was surprised to get your call. I had assumed the matter would be dealt with over dinner at Wyndemere." Alexis produced her most professional smile, the one that never quite managed to reach her calculating eye, and waited for him to take his seat. "I'm happy to see you've moved beyond the need to hold your agenda so close to the vest. You admit you're behind it, then? The Order of Exhumation?" He laughed, hooking the napkin with his finger and unfolding it in his lap. "I lost my taste for vests some time ago. In fact, I'm not sure I ever had one," he submitted with a wink. "Perhaps when I was young. Someone's idea of Sunday morning best. As for the order? Langston is the creature of another, I'm afraid. I'm nothing but eyes-and-ears." "I have a hard time believing that." She watched him scan the Metro-Court's dining room from the fresh perspective of his chair, his gaze taking in the art, the architecture, the modern mood of the restaurant's décor. Though still new enough to bear the chill of recent construction, she had to admit Jax had done a good job with this. She could easily make it a second home, or a third, or at the very least a high-end venue she could use to conference with her wealthier clientele. The waiter arrived and she waved away the menu he sought to slip into her hand. "Just coffee for me, thank you." "Tea," ordered her guest without looking up at the man. As his head rounded to finish his inspection, his glance came to rest on her face and another examination began - this one sure to be peppered with the politic preliminary chit-chat. He surprised her, though, and came straight to the point. "Are you here to warn me off or provide an explanation?" "A little bit of both," she replied, a hand descending to the sleeve of her briefcase to pull out her file. She removed the copies she'd made of the autopsy report and death certificate, sliding them across the tablecloth into the territory of his place setting. He made no move to pick them up. "Your proof of death," she stated, meeting his steady stare. "Need a witness? You're looking at one. I was present at the funeral. It was open casket. I'll testify to that in court." "But not to his interment at Memorial Glen. These distinctions are what concern me, Ms. Davis. They give rise to questions, and those questions to speculation. You're a lawyer. You know the drill." "I do," she affirmed, nodding curtly. "And I'm telling you not to waste your time with this. Read the records. Talk to the people who were there. My brother is dead…" …my brother is dead, my brother is dead… An odd echo that took an odder second to move past. "And the location of his final resting place is entirely immaterial. You can take the matter up with Nikolas if you like, but I'm telling you there's nowhere to go with this; no pot of gold to be found at the end of this particular rainbow." "It's not about the money, Natasha," he revealed in a quietly dispassionate voice. And his eyes, those eyes…she was more convinced than ever that he had a personal stake in this. Before she could chase the intuition down, he'd reached into his jacket to remove an envelope he offered with the languid stretch of his arm. She took it, opened it, read it and released a reductive laugh. "My, my. Aren't you the busy little beaver? What were you doing in Florida, if you don't mind my asking?" "I go where the road takes me," he responded around the waiter's arm. The conversation paused briefly as the tea and coffee were served. Additional minutes were given over to creaming, sugaring and stirring - dulling the strength of both the drinks and the dark determinations. "I understand you lived with Dr. Lewis for a short period of time." "I'm not sure what we experienced could qualify as living together. It was complicated and, frankly Mr. Cassadine, I don't know you well enough to descend into detail. If you're asking whether I've kept any of his belongings, I haven't. Did he owe me money? No. In fact, I owed him. He posted bail for me once," and here she scowled despite herself. "He composed a loan agreement on the spot. Fourteen percent! That's triple the going interest rate! Would he negotiate? Not for a second. He couldn't spare an ounce of consideration. Tight-fisted, tightwad, tight-ass," she sputtered beneath her breath. "Say what you want, the man was tight." She caught his smile behind the rim of the teacup and attempted to rein in her pique. "If you'd like me to find it…?" "That's not necessary," assured Maxim. "The family is merely concerned that no one be left out-of-pocket." She passed back the letter and he set down his tea to receive it, returning it to his jacket. "I've collected Dr. Lewis' belongings from the hospital - project profiles, article outlines, office adornments and the like - and I came across something I thought might best reside in your possession." He patted down his overcoat, locating the item deep in an outer pouch. His hand sunk to withdraw a small cassette of the size used for dictation. He tossed it on the table and she eyed him suspiciously before consenting to pick it up. "Your session tape, I believe. First and last?" Her mind raced back at breakneck speed, flipping through a catalogue of ancient memories - Cameron, Dr. Lewis, in his professional capacity, D.I.D., Dobson…When? When? - until she hit upon the day the recording was made. The breast cancer run, early afternoon. I sometimes find it easier to tape sessions with patients. Do you mind? Damn! What had she talked to him about? What had she said? She'd sought him out, she remembered that. Had to beg him to consent to take her on as a patient. Again. She'd been frantic about something. What? What? And suddenly the mist cleared. I've made a deal with the devil…The justice system failed me…He's going to ruin Ned… "Four minutes and twenty-six seconds," Maxim relayed, reaching once again for his tea. "Nothing too surprising. Certainly nothing worth holding over your head. That he kept it in a pencil box with paper clips and pins is an indication, I think, of his own sense of its insignificance. Your participation in the conspiracy to destroy Mr. Ashton's reputation in an effort to regain custody of your child has become a matter of public record, after all. I wonder, though," he mused in a curiously facetious tone, "if this is a part of that long list of sins for which your brother, as you've implied, was so deservedly brought to trial? I gather you view the crime as his and his alone?" He let the question stand just long enough for the insinuation to sink before adding, "I thought, at the end of the day, you might like to have it." "I appreciate that," she countered, working to keep her voice even as she closed the cassette in her fist. She suspected his analysis of its content was correct, but would have to hear it to be sure. His comment about Stefan she didn't bother to address. His outsider status robbed him of the means he'd need to truly understand. "As far as I've been able to ascertain, Dr. Lewis lived in three apartments while working in Port Charles - his first, yours, and the one that housed him to the day of his death. You say you've kept none of his belongings and I've inspected the rest. Is there any other place you can think of, some non-residential location, in which he might have left a possession behind?" "Why?" she snapped, her mistrust of his motives plainly broadcast by the dubious expression on her face. "Why are you being so thorough about this?" His eyes drifted down to the table, the edge of his hand artlessly brushing at rogue granules of sugar scattered beyond his saucer's rim. "His ex-wife's peace of mind," he answered after a time, then glanced up at her from beneath the furl of a troubled brow. "You're aware she's in an institution? He told you that, yes?" He hadn't, no. Yet it made sense. "I was aware she fell into a depression but he didn't go into detail." "That depression never ended. Or if it did she had, by that time, retreated to a place from which she could not be recalled. It's a sad story and my primary reason for accepting this assignment. Whatever I can bring her, they say, while it will not heal her might serve to ease her in the day-to-day. I like to think, were this my wife, someone would find the kindness to do the same." "He had a cabin," she offered abruptly. "Stinson Lake. Deer's head over the fireplace. It's very rustic, but it's all his. I wouldn't bring her the deer's head, though," she advised through a grimace. A second passed and she huffed a sour sigh. "On second thought, do. It might be the perfect prod to remind her of the man she was married to." "Maxie?" A triangular wedge of light stamped itself on the floor at her feet and promptly expanded as her mother's curiosity quested through the door. An irrational panic surged, urging her to pull her sneakers back, to conceal herself inside the vacant space left by his cartons. Might have worked on her dad with his gruff, cursory scan, but this was Mom - a woman who never failed to scour the corners. Her fingers patted her face, searching for any stray trace of a tear that hadn't been wiped away, then she squinted in expectation of what was now inevitable; the flip of a switch that would flood this garage with blinding illumination, leaving no safe place to hide. But the inevitable was evitable today, it seemed. The darkness remained and all that changed was the number of people in it. "I brought you some hot chocolate," she said, passing down the mug to where her daughter sat on the old, cold cement. "Can I join you for a minute?" Maxie reached to take the cup and slid further down the wall. "How did you know I was out here?" "It's where I'd be," Felicia asserted, buckling her legs to sit while balancing her own steaming mug in the well of both hands. "I might even pitch a tent. Stake my claim. Make a big ol' emotional statement. I can hear your great-grandmother now. Oh, Felicia, what ARE you doing?" She flashed a brilliant, mischievous grin. "Some people get it. Some people don't." Maxie doubted her mother 'got' it, but knew she was making an effort. "It's not…I don't want to stay here, you know." "Oh, I know. It's just where you are. Not in the garage in the dark, really, but trying not to let go. I may not have known Zander very well, and I certainly don't approve of the choices he made when it came to my daughter, but I can see how much he meant to you…" "Means to me." "Means to you," she revised. "And I want you to know I can respect that. I can and I do. Aw, Maxie," her mother murmured on a softly collapsing breath, "I really wish I'd been here. Maybe it's better that I wasn't, though. You know me. I'd probably have tried to protect my baby and you would have hated that." "Yeah," she admitted, yet went on to add, "but if anyone could have found out who really shot Detective Beck, it would have been you. Dad wasn't going to listen to me. If he knew I'd even talked to Zander he'd have gone completely ballistic, past psycho with the third degree. Who? What? When? Where? Why? You know how he gets. He'd have hunted Zander down even harder just to keep him away from me." "Detective Beck. Now remind me again, who was he?" "The policeman Zander was accused of shooting. The crime that sent him on the run. He swore he didn't do it and, Mom, I so believed him. He just got caught…I don't know, in something else. Something even Detective Beck didn't want to come out. But Mac, to him a policeman's word is gospel. Gold. The take-no-prisoners truth. Like they're totally incapable of lying. But they're not, you know. They're not. And I'm telling you Zander didn't do it. There's someone out there, walking the streets of Port Charles this minute, who got away with shooting a cop." She could tell her mother was skeptical, but she didn't have the strength at this stage to launch an all-out defense. She'd done that so many times over the last, tortured year, and it never made a difference. No one ever changed their minds. They just shook their heads with that poor-you look that made her feel like she was three steps shy of an extended stay at Shadybrook. Best to drop the subject, which she did, and soon found the room enveloped in a thick grey silence. It wasn't long before Felicia laid a hand on her daughter's knee, then forced herself to rise. "Let me know if there's anything you need. I'll try to keep him out of here as long as I can, but he'll come through that door eventually. And I think we both know he's not going to be too happy to find you sitting in the dark." "Mom," she called, almost in afterthought, when Felicia reached the door. "Did you want a son? When I was born, I mean. Did you want me to be a boy?" Her mother scrunched her nose at the unexpected question. "Where'd that come from?" When it became obvious the query was in earnest she paused less than an instant to think and laughed out loud. "A girl. I wanted a girl so badly I could taste it! But I'll tell you a secret my darling Maria Maximilliana Jones," she added, her voice pitching to a whisper. "I didn't want just any old girl. I needed a girl like you. I always have and I always will." With this, and a not-so-sly set of firmly-crossed fingers, she closed the door and allowed her daughter the room to find her way. Requiem (15) In the west the falling light still glows, and the clustered housetops glitter in the sun, but here Death is already chalking the doors with crosses, and calling the ravens, and the ravens are flying in. "If you took a phone…" "You can't take a phone on horseback. Not through a training exercise. It deflects the animal's attention." "Only if it rings." "Which it would have done had I taken it. You're not wearing that, are you?" Emily tore her eyes away from the nude body of her prince, still damp from the steam of his shower, the small tails of hair at the back of his neck dripping water down his spine, to take a quick inventory of her outfit. Beige linen pants and a perfectly darling pink paisley blouse. "What's wrong with this?" she asked, disappointed to discover a towel in place by the time she raised her head. "I'm wearing a suit," he announced, as if it were answer enough. A comb raked the crown of his scalp, then was set aside as he examined his jaw, judging its need of a shave. "I thought we said seven." "That's what you told me," she snapped, catching the accusation through the open closet door. Three summer skirts ran down the rod in pure agitation. "And no one said anything about dressing up. Your dinner's at eight. I know that's late but there's nothing I can do about it now. It took every kind word I had to convince the day maid to stay the extra hours. She wasn't pleased. She doesn't like taking the launch after dark. I don't see why Mrs. Landsbury couldn't handle that herself." "I told you to put her in charge. You didn't want to do that. You wanted to see to the details yourself. Delegation, Em. It's a good thing." Delegation was for corporate magnates and old grey CEO's, she fumed, pulling her champagne silk from its hanger. A coldly-impersonal approach to take when it came to social events and the entertainment of guests. A lady should always put her own distinctive stamp on her gatherings. Grace her affairs with a soupcon of individual style; her unique imprimatur. Imprimatur. It was a word she'd loved from the moment her grandmother first used it in a sentence; an idea soaked in elegance; steeped in taste and refinement. She'd been witness to countless examples of Lila Quartermaine's skill in this regard - the delicate charm of her teas, the precise polish of her parties, the cultured sophistication stitched into the splendor of every major fete. Her renown as a hostess of substance was such that it sent all of Port Charles society (and on occasion the entire northern seaboard) atwitter at the mere suggestion she might, once again, be occupied composing a guest list. And as Mrs. Edward Quartermaine's hand-picked successor - everyone said it so it must be true - Mrs. (Princess) Emily Quartermaine-Cassadine, wife of Prince Nikolas Cassadine, would not fail to pick up that baton. Her first soiree, intimate though it was, would sparkle with her own sense of fashion, flair and finishing touches. One couldn't delegate that kind of thing. Not and expect to maintain one's reputation. "So they're early," he murmured, sidling up from behind to twine his arm around her waist. "I say let them wait." "No, no, no. Zip me up," she ordered, neatly slipping out of the embrace. "I have to check on the food and take a last look at the table arrangements. You should have told me this was formal. I would have used the sterling." "We still have sterling?" grumbled the prince, sourly renouncing his seductive intent. "How is that possible?" "My grandmother's bridal set. It's been in the family for generations. I'd never sell it. We'll be passing it down to our children." She eyed him through the dressing room mirror; a sharp, shaming glance that sent him trudging back to his own closet to contend with his clothes. Pearls, she thought, as she inspected herself one final time through the glass. A string of pearls to soften the look and graciousness, too. Tons and tons of graciousness to forgive the fact that they were early. What were they thinking, these people, arriving thirty minutes ahead of time? The very least one might expect of one's guests is that they learn to look at a watch. Kachok. It was his first impression of this prince; the Russian term for a muscled man - a brawn, a hatchet, a bully. Had he not entered the room with that air of dark, ennobled grace so distinctly Cassadine in nature, he might easily have been mistaken for one of their brutish bodyguards. Not at all the precious, endangered heir he had come to expect - the boy his father held in reverence; the sensitively civilized all-but-son he had gone to such pains to protect. Even the family photographs, clearly out-of-date, had failed to provide a clue to his physique's propensity for bulk; this thickset heft; this hardened husk. And a husk it was, he concluded, as he watched the man walk to the center of the room, drawing his infamous bride along like a prized Pekingese. A husk, a shell, an armor manufactured to protect whatever trembled in his soul, whatever had gone quaking at a time not so very long ago. "Mozhna?" Maxim inquired, lifting the large black folio from where he'd set it on the desk. If his host was taken aback by this slip into the ancient introductory ritual, he did not show it. "Pozhalyusta," the prince permitted, drawing straight to a formal pose. "Moyo pochteniye, Nikolai Stavrosovich. Razresheetye poznakomit'sya. Minya szvut Maximillian Cassadine. U minya est'dlya vas nibal'shoy padarak." The folio, balanced flat atop the ten tips of his fingers, was proffered with a curt nod of his head and a subtle click of his heels. The gift was accepted with respect. "Dabro pazhalavat, Maximillian. Spasiba za padarak." The custom completed, his guest stepped back and relaxed his ceremonial posture while Nikolas pulled the silken cord and drew the cover apart. His quick intake of breath was gratifying, the cold, hard look he shot this stranger more than a little interesting, and his wife's wide-eyed squeal of wonder perfectly predictable. "That's Laura!" Emily cried, contenting herself to relay what was most obvious. "Where did you get these?" asked her husband as he carefully turned the top sketch over to inspect the next, and then the next. Maxim took the responses in order. "Laura, yes. Skazi's preliminary drawings for the portrait, as you can see. Your uncle left them in bequest to the family archives. These are only copies, I'm afraid. They were quite adamant about retaining the originals. In fear, I suspect, that someone might get it into their heads to light another match." "I'm sorry, I don't…" his hostess queried. "Stefan burned the portrait," Nikolas explained, passing the folio over into his wife's eager hands. "I was unaware my uncle had arranged to make any bequests." "Oh, yes. They numbered in the dozens, all catalogued in his will." "No, that's not possible. Stefan didn't have a will," Emily mused, her finger gently tracing a charcoaled curl of Laura's hair. The motion stopped abruptly, her gaze rising from the page. "Did he?" "Of course he did," her husband retorted, scowling with the revelation of a precautionary measure a man like Stefan Cassadine would not have failed to take. "Why wasn't I informed of this? When was it read? Who did he name?" What did he leave to me? Maxim watched the warring emotions charge across this prince's face. Suspicion, disgust, rage, resentment and, for a single fleeting instant, undisguised greed. He seemed to settle, finally, on a self-possessed sense of entitlement. Probably a product of his upbringing and no doubt the manner most comfortable to him. "As you were not mentioned in the document beyond a recounting of the pre-arrangement he'd made to bequeath you the contents of this house, there was no obligation to inform you. You can't imagine anyone wanted to intrude on so profound a grief?" "This house and everything in it is a part of the Cassadine Estate. It belongs to me. How can he leave me what I already own?" Maxim shifted his weight, his brow creasing in clear discomfort at having to explain, but Nikolas showed no sign of relenting and stood in stony silence waiting for his answer. "As I understand it - and I'm no expert, mind you - Spoon Island and all the structures on it fall within the holdings of the Cassadine Estate. But surely you took notice over the years of the many small treasures your uncle brought with him to grace this home? Some of them were quite valuable. A few even priceless. His reputation as a collector of antiquities was not undeserved. While I've never had occasion to tour this house," he contended indicatively, "I can tell you it held a selection of Mayan ceremonial bowls any prestigious museum would have given its eye teeth to obtain. The same with his bashkir falcons. Nine onyx birds from the Ottoman era, the largest collection of its kind known to be whole and free-standing. The Faberge sterling. The Persian textiles. The Dresden plate. You're aware of all of this, I'm sure. There's no reason to go on except to add that I'm most interested in seeing his Russian iconography, particularly the enameled Transfiguration once owned by Nicholas the Second. Acquired, as I recall, to commemorate your birth and baptism into the faith?" "Gone. All gone now, Maxim. We've come too late for that. We are always late, it seems. Except, of course, when we are early," she amended in an amused voice from the back of the room. The prince recognized the tone at once - its dulcet irreverence, its mellow mischief - and turned fully expecting to find the same black-clad figure he'd encountered on the bluff. What he saw wiped every expectation from his mind and the arrogant frown from his face. She lingered at the rail of the rise, then descended the steps to the landing slowly - entertained by his astonishment and marking the sweep of his gaze over what had been hidden from him atop those cliffs. Her long, lithe line of a body took the stairs with a sensual grace, the tails of her vibrant, multi-colored skirt switching against her calves; its gauze whispering through hues he found impossibly vivid; richly ripe yet soft and opaque like the misted tail of a rainbow's end. A matching blouse fell from her shoulder - insolently, he thought - revealing skin tinged with a bronze known only to the races of the Fertile Crescent. Her hair, black and thick as the oil flowing beneath those sands, had been thrust through a complicated knot to fountain down her back. The length of her burnished neck was sublime, those lips cunning, those cheekbones erected like monuments to cradle eyes so large and dark…hard on an instant yet the next awash in a swirl of smoke and shadow; they mesmerized with ease. Here were secret meanings, mysteries to be stolen, truths to be met. Those eyes, over every other undeniably magnificent feature, were what managed to hold him prisoner throughout her crossing of the floor. "There you are," Maxim observed with the slight note of a chide. "I thought you'd gotten lost." "Oh," she countered with a chide of her own. "Your prince is in no hurry to meet the likes of me. Give him a second and he'll call a guard to chase me from the room." A devilish eye rose to her host, enjoying his sudden discomfort. "You require a formal introduction, true? Best be quick about it, Zimi, or the table will be set for three." Maxim cast her a jaundiced look she chose to ignore, then struck himself to the task of making acquaintance. "Nikolas and Emily Cassadine, permit me to introduce my companion, Lady Esme Cardiff. Esme, our hosts." "A pleasure," she expressed, allowing her hand to be taken by the man while the girl at his side gave her half of what appeared to be a calculating nod. "Welcome to our home," Nikolas intoned. "I apologize for my brusqueness at our first meeting. A surprising number of visitors to Port Charles mistake Spoon Island for a tourist attraction. Some manage to cross the harbor and climb the bluff. A few come knocking at the door for a map. My misapprehension entirely. I hope you can forgive me." "Don't be silly," piped his wife, snaking her arm through his sleeve. "Of course she forgives you. It was an honest mistake." "Perhaps we should trade apologies, then?" Maxim suggested diplomatically as his companion drew back to his side. "We saw the possibility of fog this evening and took the launch in advance of its arrival. In an effort to avoid being late, we were irremissibly early." "Apology accepted. We're even," declared Emily with a brightly-naïve little grin. "Why, I'll even forgive your mood at the cottage if you'll forgive me for not calling first. Do we have a deal, Maximillian?" "Oh, you must call him Maxim. Everyone does," Esme insisted through the tightest of smiles, her hand questing after her companion's, their fingers intertwining. "You're cold," she announced abruptly, her eyes narrowing in concern. "Nikolas, I noticed a hearth in your dining room. Would it be possible to lay a fire?" Maxim stiffened. "Djinn…" "Of course," granted the prince. "I must apologize for the presumption of my friend," his guest submitted swiftly. "She is, at times, genuinely over-protective of my health." "And he is genuinely embarrassed by it." A small silence ensued as she measured his ire, then dismissed it out-of-hand. "I will not ask forgiveness for this. In fact, I think we've tendered enough apologies to last us the rest of the week." "I agree. Shall we sit?" Nikolas gestured to the interior of the room as he crossed to the bar to pour himself a drink. "Can I offer you anything? Cognac? Scotch? I can call for wine. We have a fine white in the cellar, a few ignominious reds. There's a pinot noir you might find amusing." Ice cracked as the vodka poured, then again as he brought the glass to his lips, fracturing from the warmth of the fortification he sent in a swallow down his throat. "Tonic?" Maxim queried, approaching from behind. "I'm sure it's in there somewhere," he acknowledged with a short laugh. "Help yourself. Lady Cardiff? Emily?" The women demurred and he took his drink to the sofa, sinking into the far end, his arm lifting to allow his wife to nestle against his chest. Lady Cardiff, he saw, had settled on the upholstered arm of the chair, saving the cushion for her 'companion'. He wondered at their connection and Emily, appearing to have read his mind, gave the question its voice. "So how did the two of you meet?" "University," Lady Cardiff replied. "On a registration queue at Cambridge. Ours was an alphabetical destiny. Cardiff? Cassadine? I was ahead of him even then." She tossed a daring look to the back of the man she teased and seemed gratified to find him nodding in agreement. "He took me beneath his wing and I took him beneath mine. Feathers flew for weeks." "That they did," conceded Maxim, coming to occupy the seat beside her. "It helped that neither one of us was indigenous to Britain. The culture, the society, the history - all of it arrayed against us. We shared that challenge and have gone on to share every challenge since." "Like us," Emily exclaimed, lifting her head from the crook of her prince's arm. "I like to think our challenges make us stronger. They bring out the best in us, the most worthy and noble parts. Nikolas and I have found there's nothing we can't defeat if we face it side-by-side. If we confront it together. If we're true to our hearts." Nikolas met her earnest gaze and tipped his chin, calling for a kiss. She delivered her lips briefly, then withdrew with a contented sigh. He turned back to his guests. "I understand you've come to look into the circumstances surrounding my uncle's death." "I have," confirmed Maxim, swirling the tonic in his glass. "Your relations are concerned, as you must by now have guessed." Emily's head cocked in confusion. "His relations? What relations?" "Oh, just those lesser Cassadines residing overseas," he tossed off negligently. "Those of us who make up the nothing he bemoans being Prince of." He caught his host's eye with a sly smile. "Every so often a quote or two flies its way across the Atlantic. No one takes it personally. We assume you refer to the empty coffers of the Estate." "My relations are concerned," Nikolas echoed, his thoughts working to reorganize themselves in the face of this information. "With what, exactly? His crimes? His state of mind? The disposition of the Estate? It's none of their business. You can tell them the transition's been made. Their empire is no longer subject to the whims of a madman." A brow arched as his guest absorbed those invalidating words. "On the contrary, the fate of your uncle is of great import to the family. He was regent of The Empire for over twenty years; steward of its holdings, master of its bank, shepherd to its sheep. The effect of his disappearance from the scene ripples throughout Western Europe and can be felt as far away as Mozambique. Reactions range from mild curiosity to a sincerely desperate despair. Questions have been raised. Repeatedly. In the absence of answers a council was formed…" "There's a council, now?" Nikolas retorted, disentangling himself from the arms of his wife to address this outrage. "I'm the Prince of the Cassadine. That's not an honorary title. I don't answer to anyone. Not you, not the family, and certainly not to a council convened without my knowledge to contest the decisions I make." "Do not misunderstand me," Maxim relayed in a wholly deferential and soothing tone. "No one seeks to impugn your authority. No one seeks to challenge you. A Cassadine has been declared dead, Nikolai Stavrosovich. You can't think the family, however distantly related, would fail to take issue with this. I would add that Stefan Cassadine, as miserable a man as you may have found him and as he may most certainly have been, was nevertheless diligent in his efforts to keep the family abreast of events as they occurred in this far-flung town of Port Charles, New York. That's right," he averred, noting his prince's interest in this fresh fact. "He kept us informed. Barely so. Just enough to prevent us from intruding in your life to ask what I'm sure he felt would be a litany of pointlessly invasive questions. He was our link. Our connection. That connection was severed over a year ago, leaving nothing in its wake but a highly-suspicious silence. You did not call. You did not write. And, no, we did not disappear. A council was formed and a man selected to investigate the matter. A man close to your age who speaks your language and bears enough common blood to interact with you, should it prove necessary, without risk of aristocratic affront. I am that man, a man you would commonly refer to as one of the cousins. And I am here not to dispute you or debate you or disrupt your life in any way, but merely to gather whatever information is available to ease the minds of your kin." "You're not buying any of this garbage, are you?" Lady Cardiff was on her feet instantly. Emily swung her head around while Maxim's eyes simply rose to meet those of the man now leaning against the mantelpiece, the shadow of a tunnel door closing discreetly behind his back. Nikolas, having immediately recognized the voice, was trying his hardest not to wince. "Lucky," he announced in a tone that stretched for enthusiasm, yet somehow missed the mark. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" "There's a new Cassadine in town. Did you think I was going to miss this?" "Would you like to stay for dinner?" Emily asked hopefully. "No. No, he would not," informed her husband, rising to his feet. "Lucky Spencer, permit me to introduce my guests, Maximillian Cassadine and Lady Esme Cardiff." He knew it was too much to hope his brother would catch the proprietary emphasis. Lucky's assumptions were on the run. It would take an anvil falling from the sky to knock him off his stride. Maybe two. "Maximillian," drawled his brother, taking stock of the man as he rolled the name carefully across his tongue. "So where do you fit in the pecking order? Mikkos? Victor? Tony? A love child of Helena's? Whose get are you?" "That's enough," Nikolas charged, offended not so much by the question but the purposeful vulgarity in which it was housed. "He's a distant cousin, Lucky. I have a lot of them, you know. Enough to populate the nightmares of you and your father combined. Let it go." His brother whirled around in a flash. "I can't believe you're falling for this. Again! They're poison and you know it!" "Now Lucky…" began Emily, bouncing from the sofa to his side in an attempt to smooth over this fraternal dispute. "Now nothing, Em. You of all people should recognize the kind of threat these vipers pose! His uncle tried to throw you off a cliff! His grandmother sent a spider to finish off the job. She put a curse on your marriage and used every trick in the book to make you believe it was real. She burned down a church, for chrissake! What's it going to take for the both of you to realize the farther you stay away from this family the longer you get to live?" His fury now fired to a fever pitch, he turned on Maxim. "You have questions, do you? Want to do a little digging? Maybe revive a corpse or two? I wouldn't put it past you. The Cassadines are notorious around here for their countless, cozy little reenactments of Night of the Living Dead. Why don't you do us all a favor this time around and just rent the movie? No," he seethed, spitting his contempt. "I have a better idea. You've got questions you need answered, why don't you just ask me? That's right. I'll tell you anything you want to know. But that's not going to work for you, is it? You've got other ideas. I haven't met a Cassadine yet who didn't have some sick plan snaking up his sleeve. You want us to believe you're on the up-and-up? Okay, prove it. Ask away, Maximoto. Throw me a few of those questions your fellow vampires need the answers to. And don't be afraid of the curveballs. My swing covers the plate." Maxim looked past this posturing bulk of antagonism and into the eye of his host, who appeared content to let the challenge stand. "Very well, Mr. Spencer," he allowed, passing his drink to his companion and pressing his palms to the arms of his chair to lever himself from its seat. "They may seem a little mundane for your impressively dramatic taste, but I do have a question or two for you." Lucky's chest swelled, his stance bristling with self-righteousness. "Fire away, cousin." Maxim met the gaze of his opposer, his expression mild, his tone bordering on rank indifference as the query flowed. "I'd be interested to know whether you categorize Stefan Cassadine's death as murder or assisted suicide? And, if you would be so kind, could you share the reasoning behind your tenacious determination to drive a clearly unstable man straight to the brink of death? Was it your intent that he die, or did your father take the matter out of your hands?" Silence engulfed the room; a palpable tension mounting on the back of his carefully-phrased question as all digested its gist. Nikolas gripped his brother's shoulder, holding back his response. Maxim took note of this and nodded, his lips pursing thoughtfully. "Well, perhaps that question's a little too close to home. A tangential event, then. Dr. Cameron Lewis. He saved your life at the cost of his own, yes? The Port Charles Hotel fire. He pushed you from beneath a burning beam and took the brunt of it himself. If you would, could you describe your experience as an active member of the task force that killed his son approximately one month later? What were your thoughts as you watched Zander Smith fall in a hail of gunfire? What were your feelings? Did you think of his father in that moment, or was he simply an ancillary concern? Or did he cross your mind at all?" Maxim blinked languidly, his patience plain as the darkest of clouds arrived to overhang the evening. Such a sea of stormy countenance, such a tempest of impending tirade. Mrs. Landsbury's clearing of her throat, when it came, pealed like thunder. "Dinner is served." Russian Translation: "May I?" Maxim inquired, lifting the large black folio from where he'd set it on the desk. If his host was taken aback by this slip into the ancient introductory ritual, he did not show it. "Please," the prince permitted, drawing straight to a formal pose. "My respects, Nikolai Stavrosovich. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Maximillian Cassadine. I have a small present for you." The folio, balanced flat atop the ten tips of his fingers, was proffered with a curt nod of his head and a subtle click of his heels. The gift was accepted with respect. "Welcome, Maximillian. Thank you for your gift." Poetic Attributions (The Introductory Lines): Chapter 13 - from Question In A Field, by the poet Louise Bogan. Chapter 14 - from Lagoonal Calendar, by the poet Aime Cesaire. Chapter 15 - from "Why is this age worse…?" by the poet Anna Akhmatova.