Page 46 of Of Fate and Phantoms
"Lincoln's? We're not married."
"You will be." She said it so off-handedly that it took me a moment to respond.
"Is that the seer talking or the mother?"
Her knuckles whitened. "I have not been a mother to him."
"No, but I'd wager the connection is still there between you."
"You think this? Why?"
"My mother gave me up soon after I was born, too. I called her spirit when I learned her name and…and a connection existed between us. She hadn't forgotten me."
Leisl leaned forward a little as I told my story. "Your mother…did she choose to give you up or were you taken?"
"She gave me up for my own safety, and to give me a happy future." I didn't tell her that it hadn't quite turned out as well as my birth mother hoped. That part of the story was for another day.
"I was forced to give up my son," Leisl said.
My breath hitched. I hadn't expected her candor so early in the conversation. A thousand questions swirled in my head, but I got none of them out before she spoke again.
"They came for him the day he was born and I never saw him again."
"My God," I murmured. It must be a mother's worst nightmare. "Did they tell you why?"
"No, but I know why. I see them in my visions. I knew they would come for him."
At least it wasn't a surprise, but still. "You must have been upset."
"Yes and no." Her angular features slackened, but only for a moment before they once again firmed. Unlike Lincoln, her face was easy to read, the creases folding or stretching according to the direction of her thoughts. "It was for the best. I saw his destiny and knew I could not keep him. He is special. Royal blood flows with Romany through him, but he is not royal or Romany. He was not mine to keep." Her gaze drilled into me. "And he is not yours, Charlie."
I bristled. "I know that. People don't belong to other people." I sounded defensive, but I didn't know why. Of course Lincoln wasn't mine. He wasn't anybody's, just like I wasn't his. We were both free individuals. And yet… "Is that why you came here? To tell me I can't have him?"
Doyle entered with a tray and set it on the table. I poured as he left and handed a cup to Leisl.
"You do not understand," she said. "You will have him as a wife has a husband."
My face heated and I concentrated on pouring my tea. When I looked up, Leisl smiled back with a wicked gleam in her eye.
"You will have his heart," she went on, "but not his soul."
"Nor do I expect to. Souls belong to us alone. I know that much from speaking to the dead."
She gave a firm nod. "Good. I see you are not a silly English girl."
"You thought I would be?"
She lifted one shoulder and muttered something that sounded like, "Eh."
"Now I know why you came here. To see if I was a suitable woman for your son." I laughed softly. I wondered what Lincoln would say if he knew his mother worried about his choice of a wife just as much as Lady Vickers worried about Seth's.
"A little," she said, smiling. "But also, I want you to tell him that I didn't want to give him away, but I knew it had to be so. Tell him the general would not say where he took him so I could not visit."
"General Eastbrooke?"
She shrugged. "I did not know his name, only that he is general. Did he—Lincoln—live with the general?"
I nodded.
