Tatiana gestured for Antigone to go ahead and then followed behind her, as if she were a flight risk that needed guarding. And she was, if recent events were to be relied upon as judge. Tatiana herself would have never agreed to such an empty bargain—though Tatiana herself would never have run away in the first place.

She had spent a great deal of her spare time reading up on Unbreakable Vows since her brother’s request—a refresher, really, for she had investigated them over the years whenever someone had annoyed her. Confidently, she moved to stand between the two armchairs, wand in hand and looking surprisingly serene considering how much excitement welled up within her.

Lightly, she rested the tip of her wand upon the clasped hands of husband and wife, nodding at her brother.

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With Tiberius on one side and Tatiana on the other, she felt like a criminal being escorted to the gallows. Upon reflection, she supposed that it was a more apt description than she realized. She had provoked her husband's ire and now she was being put in line with a suspended death sentence. Even had her pride allowed her to fall to her knees and beg for a less permanent and deadly alternative, she highly doubted she'd be appeased.

Tig took her seat opposite Tiberius and with a heavy heart, extended her hand for him to take. She noticed his smile and while it didn't look like a sneer, she was fairly confident it was a sign he was taking pleasure in the proceedings. Needless to say, she did not smile back, if anything her expression soured. Tatiana of course already her wand out; clearly she was as eager as he was.

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Right then. Nothing left to do except begin. Tiberius had scribbled out the conditions on a piece of paper that was resting on the nearby side table, but he didn't anticipate actually needing it. How often did one get to perform an Unbreakable Vow? He had, understandably, put a lot of thought into the conditions of the Vow, and unless he was seized by some unexpected fit of nerves he thought he had them memorized.

"Do you, Antigone Lorelei Lestrange, vow to stay within the confines of Great Britain, unless given prior approval to leave by me, Tiberius?" he asked, his eyes meeting hers steadily.

  

If it was possible, her expression grew even more sour. "I do," she murmured. She hoped they could both sense her loathing of them. Everything about her current situation sucked and they were both awful people whom she hoped dropped dead before she did but that was obviously about to become a whole lot less likely.

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Everything was going exactly according to plan so far. Tiberius smiled. "And do you vow to keep yourself free from any attachments or engagements, emotional or physical, with any man who is not me, your husband?" he continued.

  

Emotional? Had that been in the draft he'd given her or was she just now realizing how vague it seemed? It wasn't as though she had any intention of seeking out the attentions of another man - not that she had Tiberius' but he could keep them anyway - but what if somehow she accidentally befriended in a very platonic fashion a member of the opposite sex and then dropped dead? What if it happened without her realizing? He had to mean of a romantic sort but what if by wording it extended to anything beyond an acquaintance? What could she possibly say now to point this out and avoid an untimely demise? Was it already too late? What happened if she didn't voice her agreement to it, would the spell not bind? She was also aware that staying silent after that wouldn't exactly go down well.

Panic was rising in her chest and she realized there had been a long delay since he'd spoken. She dug her fingernails into the arm of the chair and stared at her husband, wide-eyed and tense.

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Her silence may as well have been, in Tiberius' mind, an admission of guilt. She hadn't objected to the clause originally, though, and that struck him as odd--if she was keen on avoiding it, she would have tried to snake her way out of it earlier. He glanced at the note he'd kept to one side, scanning the language for some crucial difference, and found one quickly: on the parchment he'd handed her, he'd written start any romantic engagements, and a moment ago he'd been more general, asking her to vow to keep herself free from any engagements.

It would never have occurred to Tiberius that emotional might be the key hang-up; emotional affairs were something he knew vaguely to exist but in which he had absolutely no experience, and the word's presence in the vow was more the equivalent of verbal set dressing than anything he thought she might care about. What this meant, in Tiberius' mind, was clearly that she had already begun some sort of affair. She'd been content to swear as long as it only affected new affairs, secure in the knowledge that as long as she had her current lover, whoever he was, she would never need another.

His eyebrows lowered dangerously as he leveled his gaze upon her once again. She was going to swear to this clause, and in this moment Tiberius didn't particularly care if she dropped dead the very instant that she did. The only thing that kept him from striking her was the fact that he wasn't sure what would become of the Unbreakable Vow in progress if he let go of her hand. Instead, he clutched it tighter--so tightly that the veins in his hands were standing out in stark relief against the rest of his pale skin--and continued to glare at her, unsympathetic to her obvious terror.

  

From the way his hold on her became a vice grip, she had to draw the conclusion that he was displeased that she wasn't saying anything. If that hadn't convinced her, his expression did. She couldn't say she was entirely surprised, he had been very insistent on the vow in the first place and now she wasn't letting it progress suddenly, not to mention she'd fallen silent at the loyalty part which probably made it seem like she wanted to go off and have some affairs. Still, he was gripping her hand very hard and she didn't much care for it. He was also disturbingly silent, was that because if he said anything it might be detrimental to the spell?

What could she do? Was not agreeing to it a safer option than avoiding all men for the rest of her life? Perhaps it wouldn't be too difficult to avoid friendships with men, she couldn't say that she really had any at present and who was to say that would ever change? She didn't really have that many friendships with females either, she now realized. She probably ought to find some more friends in case Brynn got married soon and died in childbirth. With great reluctance she finally made up her mind, "I do."

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She said the words, and she didn't drop dead. Maybe she wouldn't, until the spell was completed--or maybe she wouldn't drop dead at all. At this point, Tiberius couldn't really claim to care much one way or another. He was going to proceed with the Vow, and if he had a wife left at the end of it, she'd be behaving herself for the foreseeable future. If she didn't survive the process, well, she was better off dead--and the quick death caused by the breaking of the Vow was likely far kinder than what she would receive at Tiberius' hands, if he were to discover independently that she'd been seeing someone else.

There would be an interrogation about that. But for now, the rest of the Vow needed to be performed. Tiberius had to glance at his notes, somewhat distracted by the delay in this last clause. "Do you vow not to perform any illegal activities or acts of dark magic, unless you inform me of said activities?" The wording could probably have been more formal on that one, but he'd been thrown out of his groove by this last little hiccup, so he was more or less reading from the paper this time.

  

"I do," she near mumbled, still dwelling on the last term she had agreed. She'd just have to give all men the cold shoulder if they tried to approach her in a more friendly capacity than acquaintanceship called for. That was probably what he wanted, though it was deeply insulting to her that he thought it necessary to bind her so tightly against infidelity when she had as much inclination to stray as a coma patient.

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Good, there hadn't been any hesitation for that clause. There was only one remaining, and it was a very important one--one he didn't foresee Antigone objecting to but which, if he was being honest with himself, he thought was probably most likely to result in her untimely death (except for his new suspicion regarding her fidelity).

"And do you vow to never publicly speak ill of a member of the Lestrange family, or of our close relations, and say nothing which would damage the reputation of the Lestrange name?"

  

"I do." That was the last of it, right? Now how long until she dropped dead? On the upside, being married to Tiberius was only until death... That thought was not the source of comfort she had hoped it would be.

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A silent snicker rocked Tatiana’s shoulders at the mention of the particular company Antigone might keep. She had not thought the younger witch would be fool enough to consider making a cuckold of Tiberius, but evidently the bonds of marriage were no longer enough to keep her isolated to his bed and his alone. She had already proved a lack of common sense. It seemed, however, that Tatiana was the only one of the trio to find the clause at all amusing; the tension before her was palpable. After what seemed like an eternity, however, Antigone agreed. It should have come more quickly, Tatiana thought—there was hardly any chance that a woman could find a better man than Tiberius.

With each I do, the light encircling their wrists grew brighter, signifying a bond more powerful than those matrimonial could ever hope to be. When the last clause was accepted, the fire burned brightly for one last moment before disappearing altogether, allowing Tatiana to replace her wand once more.

“I suppose you really are family, now, Antigone,” she offered sweetly before offhandedly adding, “pity you’ve not the brains for it.”

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Tiberius released Antigone's hand as soon as the firey bands disappeared, so forcefully that he might as well have thrown it from him, like some disgusting thing he'd been tricked into picking up. He ought to have been pleased that the Vow had gone through successfully, but the lengthy pause before her acceptance of the fidelity clause was still leaving a bad taste in his mouth.

"You're dismissed, Antigone," he spat harshly. He'd deal with the question of her fidelity later; right now, he didn't want to see her.

  

Tig would have glowered harder at Tatiana were she not suddenly told to leave. What was Tiberius' problem? He'd seemed in fine spirits pre-vow, and now he seemed... not. That said, she was quite happy to get the hell away from the pair of them so she shot him a bemused frown and departed without another word. She didn't see why he should be irritable when she was the one with the death sentence constantly looming over her head now.

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