Page 18 of Love Me Forever

“Just oatmeal is fine.”

Sébastien checked everything in the box. One was of just him and his brothers when he was four. Another of him at seven and sitting on Uncle’s lap was almost thrown into the yard, and Whisper pulled his lips back like he was going to bite the edge.

“Wait!” Remus managed to get the small work from him. “This would be an easy one to erase him. Then it would just be you.”

The background was a simple, hazy grey so the focus was just them two. With the background continued on top of Corentin, it’d be Sébastien from the waist up.

“Fine.” Sébastien relented and removed the last two to prop them against the crate.

Margot couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, and she was sitting in a chair by a window, all prim and proper in silk. The artist had done well in capturing the light on her silver shawl plus the delicate silver necklace she’d been wearing. Her hair, almost exactly like Sébastien’s, except much longer, had been left loose. She had the same silver eyes that looked somewhere outside.

In the second, she was older, seated in a cushioned armchair, and holding a sleeping baby Sébastien swaddled in a blanket. A little tuft of white hair that matched hers stuck up from his head, and she was looking down at him like nothing mattered more.

“Your Mother was beautiful,” said Remus.

Sébastien’s eyes grew glassy. “I miss her.” His breathing hitched when Remus hugged him.

“Do you want to hang that one up today?”

Sébastien hesitated. Maybe it’d be too hard to look at her, younger and unaware of anything in the future. She’d likely imagined seeing Enzo take the throne one day, spoiling whatever grandchildren her sons gave her, and growing old with Jean. She’d been the unwitting shield between her youngest son and the snake quietly living in their home.

“I want them in the sitting room downstairs,” Sébastien said in a small voice.

“We’ll do it after breakfast, all right? I’ll go to the guardhouse and see if they got a hammer and a couple of nails.”

“Thanks, Remus.”

The only thing left was a small bag that clanked when Sébastien removed it. The inside was filled with miniatures. He didn’t know the woman who was on the ivory disk he first pulled out. The name on the back meant nothing to him either, and it wasn’t dated. A friend of Margot from her days as a teenager?

The rest were of the family. Miniatures can be done quite quickly, and some artists use typical portraits to recreate them. Sébastien let out a small laugh as he showed one to Remus.

“I can’t believe I forgot this. I think I was six or seven. An older girl at court did it as a surprise, and her Mother was mortified when she saw it. We laughed at it.”

All three of the brothers were lined up on a piece of glass from the chest up and pulling funny faces with their tongues sticking out. Sébastien had been painted with crossed eyes.

Remus chuckled. “You should keep that.”

A couple were of his parents newly married. A few were on disks of wood and likely done by courtiers practicing their art. The Royal Family is always a popular subject. A couple werequite poorly done. Sébastien found one on a piece of glass, immediately dropped it, and smashed it with his boot. Once he’d ground it to dust, he resumed looking through the bag. Remus guessed that one had been of Corentin.

A faded, twisted bracelet of pink yarn in two shades with beads at intervals was in there.

“A friendship bracelet?” Sébastien turned it over.

“Maybe. I'd imagine that was your Mother's.”

In a silk baggie, he found a necklace. Maybe Margot had stopped wearing it, and it had been put away by accident. He wasn’t sure. Either way, it was the same one from Margot's portrait. The Goddess Elira, small and tarnished, had been engraved on an oval of silver. On the back, the initials M.C. had been carved.

Sébastien peered at the tiny Elira with her skirts moving and her arms outstretched. “I’ll have this cleaned at the silversmith to wear.” He glanced up at Remus. “If we do decide to have a child from a consort later, and we have a little girl, I’ll give it to her so she’ll have something from her Grandmother.”

Remus smiled. “I think Margot would like that.”

***

Barely a week later, Remus sat in the office.Sébastien had gone out to see the new scent shop that had opened in the city. Maxime had said they had some nice bath oils, and they needed more anyway.

They’d decided to spend summer and winter inBelle Âme. Remus wanted to see a snowy winter.

“You might change your mind if you slip on ice and bust your arse,”Sébastien had told him.

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