Aoife was positive that the dresses in the closet became more ostentatious the longer that she resided in the castle. This was the seventeenth dinner that she'd gone to and she had yet to wear a dress twice. Her days were a blur of physical training in the mornings and learning to read in the afternoons, before forcefully scrubbing herself clean and dressing formally for dinner, as the Enchanter continued to insist on proper etiquette and formal evening meals.

Tonight's dress was a deep blue garment in the Fae style, though thankfully it was more modest than many things the Fae court members were pictured wearing in the tapestries around the castle that she kept discovering around every turn. The skirt was long without being full or looking like the pastry-dresses that court members wore, and the entire dress wrapped around her body with a series of ties that flowed into the fabric of the skirt like streams into a river. It was sleeveless, but the wardrobe had kindly provided a set of long gloves in the same shade of blue, which made Aoife feel slightly less naked. Her pendant still dangled from her neck, and she clutched it tightly in one hand as she pushed open the doors to the dining room.

As usual, the Enchanter was already seated facing the door, and he did not rise to greet her, though he did look up with a slow nod.

"That suits you," he said softly. "More than the others, that is."

"Thank you," Aoife murmured, shocked. It was the only commend he'd made about her appearance since the very first night she came to the castle. She barely remembered to pick up her skirt so she wouldn't trip over the excess length, pushing the comment out of her head and concentrating on making it to the table unscathed.

However, as soon as she was seated...

"Why do you always wear those?" she blurted, immediately blushing at her rudeness, but it was too late to take the question back now. He was still in his red robes, the same ones that he wore every time she saw him except during physical training, and even then he sometimes kept them on when the weather wasn't too hot. To her knowledge, there was no law that said Enchanters must wear red in the privacy of their own homes, and even if there was, he didn't seem like someone who would bother abiding by it so far out from the center of the kingdom with no one else around.

So why?

The Enchanter seemed to consider a moment, pouring himself a glass of wine while Aoife reached for the water pitcher. "It reminds me of who I am, who I am not, and what I have done," he said bluntly, but did not meet her eyes.

"What have you—" Aoife began, but cut off quickly as she saw him stiffen slightly. "Sorry." She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, taking the initiative to serve herself from the various dishes around the table. They generally didn't have too much conversation at dinner beyond his snippy remarks about his table manners, but she could tell that whatever was in his past, she'd managed to touch a nerve this time.

They ate in silence, and Aoife had just started to wonder if she actually needed some of the wine to slow the speed of her whirling thoughts, when the Enchanter spoke.

"I have done far too many things to explain to you in a single evening," he said with a sigh, "but understand that no matter my past, I do want the world to keep turning. You can at least have confidence in that."

"Is there someone who doesn't want the world to keep turning?" she asked carefully. Her water goblet was empty now. Wine it was. She poured herself another goblet full as the Enchanter laughed.

"Not the world as we know it, no," he said, shaking his head. "There was a time when I would have probably agreed with her, too...but then a dear friend of mine chan­ged my view." He paused, eyes following her hands as she poured the wine, following the glass to her lips. She fought to keep a straight face at the bitter taste, half afraid to comment.

"I'm assuming you won't tell me who that is," she said, and it was not even a question in the slightest. If there was one thing that she'd learned in her first week at the castle, it was that the Enchanter divulged as little information as possible. Only crucial pieces of stories and little, random facts slipped out every now and then, and never enough to piece together whatever thoughts were hidden past his gray eyes.

"Perhaps another time," he said, taking the wine pitcher to refill his own glass. "Though... I will tell you that it was a woman named Elina who managed to bring me out of my own darkness."

Aoife choked on her wine.

"My... my grandmother was named Elina," she said slowly.

"I know."

"You... You're not my grandfather, are you?" Aoife asked carefully.

This time it was the Enchanter's turn to choke on his wine. "Good gods, no! Absolutely not! Elina was like a sister to me, we never— no!"

"Then how did you know her?"

"We grew up together." He cleared his throat and sighed. "But we can talk about it more once I recover from ­the shock of you asking if I'm your gran­dfather," he said with a shudder, downing the rest of his wine in one long drink.