The Return of the Shoes!

Elijah was still completely lost in the world of fashion. He liked a good pair of heels on a woman but he wasn't picky. It seemed as if Merlin and God were conspiring to make all women short beyond belief. Then again, the Bulgarian wasn't complaining in the slightest. He liked short-ish women, as did many people and this was actually proof in his father's case because every picture he had with his mother, who probably only just poked past 5'3, he had his arms tightly wound around her waist. Perhaps it was a protective thing or maybe it was just a random gene that the Krum men seemed to carry.

"So.." Eli tested the English words on his foreign tongue and smirked. "these shoes are for those.. vertically challenge people of the female persuasion hm?"

Eli was intrigued by Amelia, she seemed to have everything thought out perfectly. It seemed as if everything about her had an answer that she either wished to explain or didn't. Elijah was in deeper than he thought he would be but he relished in the thought, perhaps there was some hope of pulling little Miss Mia Lyons out of that bloody shell she kept herself in.

"There is no man in this world adverse to a woman in stilettos. It is a mesmerising thing I assure you but there is only so much lust that can fall off of a man before it gets too much for a woman." Elijah said thoughtfully. "I think that a good pair of trusty trainers, some jeans and a t-shirt is all that’s needed. Elegance is measured by the way a woman holds herself not by the ridiculous shoes she wears. I feel terrible for the clumsy ones that are forced into these shoes." Eli shuddered and grinned.

Amelia laughed lightly at Elijah’s smirk and the summary he provided of what Amelia had described. He seemed amused by what she had said, though she could not tell why. She had thought her response to be logical and factual – not exactly something which inspired the kind of smirk which now lingered on Elijah’s face.

He was a curious individual, this Eljah. He managed to both perplex and intrigue her simultaneously, despite the fact that her mind provided a constant tug to get out while she still could. The feeling of needing to escape had not disappeared, although by accompanying Elijah on this walk she was at least in part overcoming it. That feeling nearly never went away when she was in the company of others, and Elijah was a very special kind of “other”. He was the type of person Amelia rarely had to deal with: a person who wanted to get to know here. Usually, with one look at her icy exterior people walked quickly in the other direction. But not Elijah. Here he was, walking down the hallway next to her, even after experiencing her distant personality first hand .

“The clumsy ones don’t last long in them,” Amelia replied when Elijah made mention of them, “If longer looking legs mean losing a limb, most will opt for the sneakers you described.” Amelia was surprised that Elijah, who had surely grown up in a privileged household, would think of jeans and t-shirts as appropriate female attire. Most men of his stature believed as her parents did – that women ought to be dressed impeccably at all times because you never know when your potential husband might see you. Or at least that’s what her mother said.

“What are your parents like?” Amelia asked, segueing from her thoughts to the conversation without realizing she had done so. To Elijah, the question was probably out of the blue. Not spending a lot of time with others sometimes made Amelia forget that when she talked aloud to other people, they weren’t following what she was thinking.

"Ah." Elijah's mind seemed to take a giant leap at the thought of his parents. It was as if her words were trying to attack the memories that were under lock, key and various chains. He didn't like to speak about his parents because he wasn't fond of reminding himself exactly how parental they actually were which wasn’t very much.

"My parents have never had time for me. My mother hated me from the word go and the first words she uttered was “Shut him up” before leaving that stupid wet nurse to look after me. My father tried to create a relationship with me. He was always the nicer, more down to earth one out of the two. My mother never accepted me though, so Victor refrained from seeing me just to please her. I had a version of parents though, I consider those more parents than those fools that created me.

Emma and Jared are pure souls, ones who truly care about the people around them. It is probably one of the main reasons I love them so. I do not see them often though. They are usually in Milan with my mother and father. I see them during the summer before I depart for Paris which is always good. But I suppose you could say I have no parents. I have lived with people trying to look after me all of my life but I have never been shown love... it was all for motives of their own cause that they chose to be around me. They had their own agenda, they didn't care about me."

Elijah took a deep shaky breath and exhaled slowly. He head forgotten about his home life. He had gotten used to being at Hogwarts. He tried to spend as little time there as possible which was probably why he bought that studio in Paris.

"I cannot wait to have a wife and children of my own. I'd always have them in my presence and shower them with love and devotion. I vowed a long time ago not to end up like my mother and father. But I suppose if my mother gets her way then I'll marry a pureblood woman who is so obsessed with her appearance that the only love she'd need is the golden kind from my Gringotts account. I don't want to end up like that, Mia."

Elijah only whispered the last part and he wondered if she had caught it. He was feeling the fatigue setting back into his body. He hadn't realised what a swirl of emotions would do to him. He had always tried to block out his 'family' and wanted to focus on the future instead of his present. He wanted his own family, a real one. One where everyone would be equal and the amount of gold in his account would be ignored and instead of having the latest robes or brooms, his children would perhaps be content with having a slightly older model and happily play Quidditch with him out in the garden.

He wouldn't deny his children the best money could buy but he wouldn't want them to become ignorant of the world around them. He would want them to be generous loving people that would hopefully lead a better life than he had done - especially in his childhood. Elijah had no idea where his escape would be, whether or not he could finally settle down and not feel as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders with the added baggage of a banshee of a mother. He wondered if there was such a future for him.

"What of your parents?" Eli asked hesitantly, hoping that he wasn't prying into places that he should not have been. "You must have better relations with them than I have with my own. You must."

((Sorry for the exceedingly long post. I was just trying to respond to the best of my abilities, and sometimes explaining Amelia's feelings and motivations takes longer than for other characters.))

Amelia could tell immediately after she asked the question that she had done exactly what she always accused others of doing – asked a question that was none of her business. She was about to retract the question, correct her mistake, but before she could find the words to do so, Elijah began speaking. It happened slowly, at first, but it seemed once he got started the words and descriptions flowed from his like water, once held back by a strong damn, but when once the first drops made it through the cracks the whole wave came rushing out.

Amelia was surprised at his willingness to share such personal information with her. She was, after all, still a relative stranger to him, though he had said he considered her a friend. How he could have determined they were “friends” in such a short period of having known her, Amelia could never have guessed, but it seemed he was serious about it. His descriptions were detailed, but blunt. Although it could have been an emotional telling, Elijah seemed to have distanced himself from his family, much the way Amelia distanced herself from the rest of the world. He spoke of them without the tone of reminiscence most people got when they thought of home, which is what made Amelia realize that he didn’t miss it. He didn’t speak of his family fondly or compassionately, as he did about more trivial things. Elijah had put more passion into the conversation about high heels than he had when he spoke of his biological lineage.

It was surprising, to hear that Elijah’s voice was capable of being void of emotion. Where Amelia guarded her words and recited them mentally before speaking, Elijah had a way of conversing that left no question as to what he was feeling. He was usually animated, his features changing as his words did. It was what made him such a fascinating person to converse with, and perhaps the reason Amelia had consented to spending as much time as she had with him (though it was relatively little in the grand scheme of things, it was considerable in Amelia’s book). As a natural people-watcher, Amelia loved to interpret the fleeting images of Elijah’s personality and soul which fluttered across his face as he spoke. This time, though, his face lacked that life which she had come to depend upon to ensure that she was in control of the situation (or at least thought she was).

The void which overtook Elijah’s face when he talked about his parents did not carry over when the conversation shifted to his future family, however. As soon as he mentioned what might one day be – instead of what had already been – his face took on the light and determination she had seen last night and this morning already. He was passionate about what he was saying, that much was certain. His voice carried easily in the empty entrance way where the pair of them had stopped, Elijah no longer leading the way and Amelia too busy listening to notice they had ceased motion. It was only when he reached his last sentence that his voice faded away, though the words were so wrought with emotion that Amelia had no trouble discerning them.

Amelia was taken aback by what Elijah said, so much so that she failed even to notice that he had used her new nickname. Her eyes were wide and unblinking as she watched him, the emotions he was feeling evident on his face and in his posture. His honesty scared her, almost to the point where she could feel herself physically trembling. Elijah was so in touch with his feelings and the things he believed; Amelia focused almost all of her energy into forcing her feelings into submission or pretending not to have any at all. Elijah was afraid of ending up in a household where he would feel alone; Amelia was afraid of committing to spending a lifetime with someone. The two were so tragically different, Amelia could not see that the friendship Elijah proposed would ever come to fruition.

Amelia stood in contemplative silence, so long that Elijah must have noticed her reaction. When he posed his question to break the silence, Amelia blinked several times before she could pull herself out of the impromptu introspection she had somehow fallen into, her eyes returning to their normal size after she shook her head to clear it.

She should have expected the question. People had a tendency to volley questions back once they were asked, which is why Amelia generally preferred to get her questions answered through observation rather than direct inquiry. Her parents were not a terribly private matter, though. They were relatively known throughout the world, her father for his advancements and her mother for her arpeggios. Amelia had to think for a moment about her relationship with them before she could honestly answer his question, not to mention the minute it took her to gently remove the barriers in her mind which would allow her to answer the question at all.

“My parents are very talented,” Amelia finally answered, her hand automatically rising to the back of her neck in a nervous habit, “They are renowned in their fields of expertise, and well loved in social circles. Whether that love is related to their personalities or their societal influence would not be difficult to say,” she admitted, continuing more hesitantly as she got to the part about their relationship, both because she wasn’t entire sure of it and because it was harder for her to express things which were not concrete facts.

“My relationship with them is more what you might expect of a teacher and a student,” Amelia finally continued, her voice a little less confident now, “I see them quite often, but it is not the family reunion one might expect. My parents encourage me to achieve everything I am capable of, and their expectations of me are quite high. They want to see me succeed, so they provide me with anything I could ever need in order to achieve their,” Amelia cleared her throat, knowing she had accidentally spoken more truthfully than she intended, “Ahem, my goals. They are strict with me, but only because they want the best. I can’t say I have ever had a deeply emotional connection with my parents, but they have been the most consistent and supportive aspects of my life.”

Supportive because they are living vicariously through you… her subconscious reminded her, nagging at a point which Amelia was all too aware of. She hadn’t spoken untruthfully in what she told Elijah. She really did believe her parents wanted the best for her, and she appreciated their efforts. They gave her every tool to become successful, and showered her with everything she could have ever wanted, and many things she didn’t want (like four-inch heels, for example). But her parents, being academics, had never shown her the affection most parents felt for their children. They were not bad parents – not by a long shot – but they were not particularly loving. They were the type of parents that might result if a scientist attempted to create a pair of robot parents. They performed all the right functions, but they lacked the emotional connection. Without an example of how normal people interact with others, Amelia had never learned to make and maintain human connections. As she grew older, she had found logical and rational reasons to prolong her avoidance of her peers and the adults in her life, resulting in the girl who now stood before Elijah Krum.

"They sound interesting enough." Elijah smiled. "I couldn't help but catch something you had not meant to say, Amelia."
Elijah stopped them again and carefully turned Amelia to face him without using too much bodily contact. He curled a piece of hair behind her ear and smiled gently.

"You shouldn't let them live through you, Mia. It isn't fair for you. You should be able to fail a class and not have to worry about repercussions. You should be able to disappear and go and climb Mount Everest with someone you've never met- wait no that was what I did." he smirked, fondly thinking for a second about the memory and continued. "Maybe you shouldn't do that but you need to live through yourself, Mia. Live your life on your own terms and maybe get to know people a little better. There is only so much study you can do before it consumes you. You may be a little hard to figure out, Mia, but I am not going to give up on you. Take a chance."

Elijah couldn't help but think about that stupid Everest climb he did the year prior. He'd skipped out on Durmstrang and took a broom with him to the Himalayas. He spent weeks climbing thing with someone called Kellan. Nice guy, bit on the porky side but went after Elijah when he turned himself into the hugest snow ball that mountain has probably ever seen.

"Maybe we should go and climb that." he suggested with a laugh. "I'd like to see you try and thaw me out. Merlin knows it was cold up there." he smile and decided to add something. "Look, if you are sat on a mountain thawing out a friend instead of leaving him in a snow drift or backpacking across a desert with a spitting camel trailing off behind you. If you are living the way you want to then for goodness sake, thaw a friend out or slap the spitting bloody camel just do it because you're happy. I can see you don't want to be a scholar or esteemed, well I suppose everyone wants to be rich and famous but that can happen with time and investments. Heck, I'd give you a loan if you'd thaw me out on a mountain somewhere. It would be nicer than leaving me. Just try and do what you want to do. If it means sticking it to your parents and really showing some balls then do it. At least you'll be happy. Merlin knows I can't wait for the day when I can lock that harpie of a mother in a trunk and throw her into the ocean for some pirates to pick up."

See what happens when you’re not careful? Amelia’s mind reprimanded her as she averted her eyes from Elijah, knowing she had been caught. Anyone else likely would not have been observant enough to pick up on the stumble in her words, but as usual, Elijah was not like anyone else. She would have kept her eyes on the floor, but when she felt Elijah’s gentle pressure on her arms to turn her toward him, her eyes seemed to be magnetically pulled to his face, if only to see the expression which accompanied his words; it was, after all, the only way she could even marginally begin to understand him.

Amelia didn’t shudder this time when he placed a tendril of hair behind her ear, his smile genuine as she knew it to be. She held perfectly still, her eyes meeting his as he began to speak once again. Amelia knew how one-sided the conversation was before, but this time Elijah wasn’t asking a question or proposing a thought. This time Elijah was unloading all of his thoughts about her, based only on the stumble in her words.

The more difficult part, though, was how right he was. The things he said about her parents living through her, the worry she felt about even the smallest failure, the effort she put in to ensure that her parents would never be disappointed – he had hit the nail on the head. He was pushing her to step out of her comfort zone, do something spontaneous, or just something out of character. His eyes were serious as the y focused on hers, looking almost as though he were pleading. In another situation, Amelia would have laughed at the impracticality of climbing Mt. Everest – What is the point of exerting that much effort to get to the top, when you just have to come back down afterward? – but this time she kept silent. This was exactly the point Elijah was trying to make – he was telling her to do something not because it was worthwhile to the rest of the world, but because it was worthwhile to her.

How Elijah managed to speak seriously and laugh at himself, Amelia would never know. She had never inherited nor acquired the ability to laugh at herself, mostly because of the extreme pressure she was always under. Ever since Raoul had run off, Amelia had bore the weight of her parents expectations – meant for two people, now placed on one. But Elijah had gotten one thing wrong: she wasn’t unhappy. Not as far as she could tell. She wasn’t miserable in her life. She wanted to be successful, and many of the dreams her parents had were here dreams as well. She wasn’t unhappy, but she wasn’t happy either. She just was. Emotions, for her, never played a large role in the story of her life. She went through the motions, pushing aside even the emotion of joy, seeing it as a distraction from reaching her goal. Perhaps the robotic parenting had rubbed off; from the way she was thinking of herself, a robot wouldn’t have been far off.

“Why…” Amelia began after a long pause, the typical silence which followed anything Elijah said to her, “Why do you care so much about my happiness, Elijah?” Amelia asked quietly, knowing the question was blunt and potentially offensive, but it needed to be asked. She couldn’t understand why the Slytherin boy she had met only yesterday was so invested in her contentment. Her parents cared about her success, but not necessarily about her happiness. She had no friends to speak of, save for Elijah - who she was not sure counted yet – but he seemed to care more about her happiness than even she did. He seemed to hold her happiness at a higher esteem than anything she might accomplish. The idea was so foreign to Amelia that she needed to ask point blank for an answer, for she could not come up with one on her own.

"I care because I see more in a person than the average teenager would do. I see a little ray of light in each and every person, so delicate it reminds me of a flame on the wick of a candle. I am honest with myself, I haven't been happy at any point in my life. I have been content in screwing other people around for years but I don't want to do that anymore. I am sick of seeing people that have no hope in having a decent life anymore. I have accepted my fate and I want to do something about it before it's too late but then that brings me back to you.

I look at you and I see the most beautiful, delicate flower. One I want to hold and cherish until it shows its true colours because it wants to. I want you to be happy because I see people around here so stupidly happy because they've got someone to go home to at night or because they've got something that makes life worth living. You just seem to exist and it seems as if there is nothing more to it than that."

Elijah dipped his head down and felt some tears prickle at the sides of his eyes. He sighed and met Amelia's eyes again with a shy smile. He wasn't sure what else he could say. He felt passionately about Amelia's happiness because she seemed to be void of any emotions. He wanted to see a smile tug at her lips and reach all the way to her eyes. He wanted to see her cheeks redden with excitement and he wanted to see her get angry at him. He had a feeling that if it it was that emotion specifically then Eli would sweep her up in a hug.

"I care because I want to see pure emotions from you. Ones that aren't being changed by overhanging worries or sadness or hesitation because it's not socially acceptable. As long as you don't get hexed then you can do whatever you want to do! Mia I can't explain to you accurately why I care because I can't form a sentence that could explain to you just how much and why I care about you specifically and your happiness. I just... want the best for you 'tis all."

Elijah sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He didn't know what else he could say. He wanted to hold her close to him and breath in her scent. He wanted to bury his face in her golden locks and hide from the world forever. He wanted to look after her. He wanted to be able to see the girl before him blossom into the woman he knew she could be. After all, he wanted his pictures to hold some kind of meaning.

"I drew this for you or, well… it is you." Eli said quietly. He put his hand in the back pocket of his jeans and took out a folded piece of sketching paper. He unfolded it and handed the picture to Amelia. She was smiling, she was happy. There were tears of mirth in her eyes and her cheeks were flushed from the biting cold of the scene around her but despite it all. She was purely, irrevocably happy.

It took Elijah less time to answer what Amelia thought to be a deep question than it had taken her to figure out how to ask it. The boy did not speak without though - his words were eloquent enough – but he did speak without a filter. From everything he had said in the two conversations since they had met, Amelia knew Elijah did not operate in the same way as she did. Not by a long shot. The boy was full of life and ideas, and not at all afraid to express any of that. He wasn’t only walking through life like she did. He was dancing through it.

From what he said, Elijah wanted to see Amelia dancing too. The light he described, the one he said existed in every person, seemed foreign to her. Looking at who she was, the way she separated herself from the world, Amelia had always thought of herself as dark and twisty, too many passages to get to where the light may or may not be. He saw her as she was – simply existing, a pale impression of what a teenage girl should be – but was able to look past it. He believed she was capable of being something more: a flower, beautiful, happy; words she never would have attributed to herself.

Elijah saw much more of Amelia than she would have ever revealed, which made him that much more intimidating to her. The muscles, the height, the build – these are the things about Elijah which would have intimidated most people. But these, to Amelia, were manageable. They didn’t threaten her. But his words and knack for perception, those made Amelia scared beyond reason. She heard everything he said, but could not understand it. He saw the same things about her as everyone else did: the cold exterior, the inability to connect, the barriers she put up around herself. And yet, he didn’t do what everyone else did. Instead of changing his mind, Elijah attempted to change Amelia’s mind and the way she thought about herself. He was the first person ever to try.

Amelia pushed a hand through her hair just as Elijah did the same, and she softened a bit at their shared gesture. They might be drastically different in almost every way that mattered, but there was something that made it seem like this – all of this that Elijah suggested – might actually be possible. It wasn’t hope, exactly. Amelia didn’t believe in hoping. But Elijah’s determination, the way he promised her happiness without knowing for sure that she was capable of it – it made even Amelia’s more rational side concede that there might be more to this boy than met the eye, and that something might be just what Amelia needed.

Amelia lowered her hand from her hair as Elijah extended a bit of paper toward her. She extended her arm to take the stiff white paper from him, the creases from where it was folded still bent, quartering the sketch into slightly uneven fourths. As her eyes dropped from Elijah to the sketch in her hand, Amelia was overcome looking at what she saw.

The sketch was of her, that was clear from the features, but there was something wrong with it that it took her nearly a minute to recognize. Although she could pick out nearly any emotion in the faces of the people she observed, she did not immediately recognize the one depicted. Happiness Amelia realized after staring at the paper she held delicately in her hand, breathing in sharply when she came to the conclusion. The blush in her cheeks was not embarrassment, the tears not sadness. She was smiling, and everything else was a product of a joy which came from within. She had never seen this reflection when she looked in the mirror, nor could she think of a time when anyone else might have either.

Amelia did not fear being happy, but rather the emotions that often went along with happiness. The feelings of love, of dependence, of needing someone in your life - these were the things she feared. She also feared what came when the happiness ended: loss, hurt, having to miss someone or something. She did not intuitively fight against being happy, but rather she fought to protect herself from what she might feel when the happiness faded away.

Is this what he is talking about? Amelia wondered, her eyes now affixed to the paper, going over its every detail and attempting to find flaw. But there were none to find. Amelia looked up at Elijah, all too ready to tell him he had made a mistake, that she wasn’t the girl in the picture, but when she saw his kind, shy eyes, waiting for her response, the words which escaped her lips were not those than she had planned or rehearsed.

“I don’t look like this,” Amelia said honestly, her eyes darting down to the sketch quickly before returning to meet Elijah’s again, speaking again, but at barely a whisper this time, “But I would like to.”

Elijah looked down at the sketch and thought about exactly what he could have done with it. He wanted his oil paints badly. He wanted to take Amelia to the Room of Requirement and paint her to his hearts content. All he did was add some red to her hair and colour her cheeks with the same pencil. Other than that he had just shaded and added bits to it.

"It can be you." Elijah said gently. His thoughts broke for a minute and he wondered about Christmas. He had specifically put Mia in the snow and he wondered if he could recreate that and make it more... real. "What are you doing for Christmas?" he blurted it out before he had a chance to think it through and he heard Nachash curse in irritation. He had spoken out of turn and too soon, the snake knew that.

Elijah couldn't do anything to prevent the blood that flew to his cheeks as the embarrassment took over. He looked bashfully at Amelia and smiled slightly. He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. He needed to do somethign with his hands. He was getting restless and the thick smog of tension wasn't helping him in the slightest, it was making him feel more awkward if anything.

"Sorry." he blushed again and looked down at his feet. "I just thought that maybe ... we could go out in the snow or something. I mean if you're not going home or anything. I just thought it could be fun to play in the snow. Snow forts are fun to make um... Ugh, I'm digging myself a hole here."

Eli chuckled and tugged on his shirt. He wasn't uncomfortable, he just wasn't sure what Mia was going to say. That was the question though. He couldn't predict her next move and that left him anxious most of the time.

Immediately after Amelia let slip her real thoughts, her mind went into hyper-drive. Her subconscious began its attack on her actions, while the more rational part of her prepared to throw up every barrier in its arsenal. She averted her eyes from Elijah, dropping them to the floor where she would not have to see the reaction to her words.

How could you have been so foolish? her mind demanded, somehow taking on the voice of her mother and sounding that much more intimidating. You barely know this boy. He could be anyone. Everything he said may have been a lie.

But as fast as her mind spun, Elijah’s response brought them to a halt. Despite the qualms her mind had with letting that secret slip, Amelia’s rationality for once stepped in. If he had been lying Amelia would have noticed. He was too sincere in everything he said. And when she gave away a little piece of what she was really thinking – a rarity, to be sure – he did not laugh at what he heard. Instead, he gave a short, but meaningful reply that Amelia didn’t know if she believed, but she did know that she wanted to believe him.

In the silence after his response, Amelia felt her mind calming from the tornado which had ripped through it only a few moments earlier. While she was settling herself again, Elijah threw a wrench into the calming. His question was innocent and likely without any malinent, but the fact that it had come so out of left field meant Amelia did not have an answer prepared.

“Um…” she replied, sounding far less eloquent than her usual self. She was kept from being embarrassed by her less-than-proper response, though, by the fact that Elijah seemed even more embarrassed than she felt. For once, it was his face which flushed with color, making him look more boyish than he usually did. He rubbed the back of his neck in the same way she did when she knew she was caught in a tight spot. Amelia smiled lightly, not a forced smile like she usually did, but rather one that came of its own accord, stemming from another realization that she and Elijah might have one more small thing in common.

His apology and explanation came before she could form a proper response, and she should have stopped him, but he was sort of cute when he was embarrassed. His honesty and spontaneity of speech made Amelia’s smile linger, not because she was laughing at him but because it wasn’t a side of people she usually got to see. Because she was so rehearsed in her speech, it often had the effect of making others also weigh their words when talking to her. Elijah, however, seemed to lose all filter for what he said, especially when he was nervous, and the unfiltered words seemed to be a direct connection with whatever the boy was thinking. No interpretation necessary.

“It’s okay,” Amelia finally answered after watching more of his nervous habits – the shirt tugging, the nervous laugh, “I’m actually staying here for Christmas. My parents have been invited to speak at the minister’s annual Holiday Dinner, but the invitation was not extended to me. I’m not sure what a ‘snow fort’ is…” she continued, knowing that her lack of childhood was showing, “But um… we could give it a try, maybe.”

Completely out of character and out of her element, Amelia surprised even herself by agreeing to Elijah’s suggestion. In any other situation, she likely would have come up with an excuse on the spot, some reason why she could not engage in such frivolity as playing in the snow. But Elijah had gained some sort of upper hand over her that her mind could neither explain nor banish. Although she knew he was making an attack on her defenses, she was not immediately sending backup. Instead, she was the queen sitting in her icy tower, waiting to see if it was friend or foe who was beating down the castle walls.