With This Ring
By: ChocolateEclar

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to own Chrestomanci or the Related Worlds. I only own the random children that appear to mess up things every once in a while. Everything else but the plot is the property of Diana Wynne Jones.

A/N: Sorry, sorry! I recently expressed hope in an email to a reader named Sarah that I would update before the end of 2007, but I guess I'm eight days late (Vacation and procrastination does that to me sometimes). Oops. Thanks again to my reviewers (hopefully some of you are still here…).

Enjoy!

Last time…

Christopher offered her his arm, as he said, "Of course. On to see your double!" Millie threaded her arm through his. "I wonder how you two compare," he added thoughtfully. "I suspect she would be better than you at cricket. One of your others must."

Millie lightly shoved him and said, "None of that, please."

Christopher laughed, as they lightly called up a spell to travel to London.

Chapter Nine: Double

"Christopher?" Millie asked when they had popped out into the rain. Millie frowned up at the sky disapprovingly. Really, she thought, as if it is not bad enough that I have been covered in mud!

"Mmm?" responded the other, as he untangled their arms in order to step up to the corner of the street to peer up at the street sign.

"Where were your parents?" she asked. "I didn't see them."

Christopher gave the sign a nod before twirling back around to her. Anti-wear and weather spells were keeping the bottoms of his neatly hemmed trousers from being soaked in the water that splashed up from the puddles, while Millie had given up on keeping appearances. She had at least gotten to remove the mud from her skirts before they had left, but her hair was still hanging in lank, dirty chunks so terrible that the heads at her school would have probably expelled her on sight. "Oh," said Christopher, "we banished them to the tower with the children in order to keep them out of the way. My father and Gabriel had a row over customs and how 'unfairly' we were treating Gin and all that blather when we were first attacked. Gabriel got the last laugh after my father took a good look at the candlestick turning into a man with a knife behind them and had the strangest expression on his face."

"I would be angry too, if I had been a candlestick," Millie said. "All that wax dripping on you… Christopher, are you even pay – What are you looking at?"

Christopher pointed up the street to a little café. Millie did not notice anything amiss until she realized that there was a person sitting alone under the overhang of the restaurant. Wearing a floral skirt that Millie found to be atrocious, Aspen was staring at them, while the water dripped off of the overhang and into a puddle.

Where are the other people? Millie wondered. The rain could not have hidden everyone for miles.

But the street and its surroundings were deathly quiet, as Aspen leaned back casually in her chair.

"She is a spitting likeness," Christopher thoughtfully remarked, "but she really should know better than to wear that shade of yellow. Even you don't wear that yellow jumper that Miss Rosalie made you for your birthday last year, and you are unfathomably polite."

"One of us has to be," Millie replied.

"Are you going to stop muttering and get over here?" her double hissed. The snarling frown was something Millie was fairly sure that her face had never formed.

"I assume that your lady sent you a message," sighed Christopher, as the two stepped closer. "It is disappointing that it would have to come to this, but I must insist that you tell me where Mordecai Roberts and Henrietta Hogan are."

"Oh, around," Aspen replied. Her smile was poisonous as she tossed her dark hair over one shoulder. Somehow, Aspen had had time to clean up, and Millie envied her for it. "I think we have more pressing concerns between Millie and me."

"Such as?" asked Christopher coldly. He and Millie stopped walking a few steps from the table. The restaurant was dark and empty behind Aspen, and Millie shivered from a combination of Christopher's tone and the chilly air.

"The ring," Aspen stated. "I need it."

"Want and need are a bit different – " Christopher began to point out before Aspen sprang from her seat and straight for Millie. Christopher shoved Millie out of the way so that she went sprawling into a puddle on the sidewalk, while Aspen raked her long nails across Christopher's cheek. When he stumbled away clutching his face, Aspen dove at Millie. Millie kicked out at her double, causing her shoe to fly off. While Aspen dodged the kick, Millie hurled a burst of spell at her that pushed her backwards and into the table.

Christopher took his hand away from his face to reveal three long scratch marks down one cheek. Millie winced sympathetically and then watched Christopher curl his fist to invoke a banishing spell. Angrily, Aspen launched herself at him before he could finish. He struggled to dislodge her, but she had dug her nails into his arms. The spells on his clothes easily repelled dirt and water as they tussled on the ground, but Christopher's hair had gone wild.

He managed to pin Aspen under him with his hands firmly locking her arms on the ground. She smiled wickedly and said, "Oh, I should've known that this is where we'd end up considering my face."

Christopher's face blanched, as Millie let out an indignant squawk. It was a long enough moment for Aspen to free one hand and remove the silver brooch from her blouse. She tossed it at Christopher, who jumped back and away from her and the silver.

Letting out a triumphant shout, Aspen jumped to her feet and grabbed Millie's left hand. "So it is true," Aspen said. "Gin had me deliver an order for a silver coffin from Series Seven, so I asked around among her boys." Millie tried to twist her hand away, but Aspen was pressing her pinky finger backwards.

"That sounds nice," said Christopher sarcastically, breathing heavily. "Now, let go of Millie. I shan't fall for any more of your tricks."

"Release your spells attaching this ring to her finger before I break her fingers," Aspen warned.

"I think I have a say in this," Millie hissed.

"I think not," Aspen said. Then, with a jerk, she pushed Millie's pinky in the wrong direction. Millie let out a stifled yelp. "Now. The spells."

"Christopher, don't you dare – " insisted Millie, as she tried to toss a spell at Aspen with her right hand and to ignore the pain spreading through her other hand. Aspen glared at her in annoyance, but otherwise did not seem affected. Millie wondered if it had something to do with being her double but Worlds were not a topic she had studied in school like Gabriel had engrained in Christopher.

Christopher shook his head slowly and motioned with his hands. Like a great weight being lifted, his spells disappeared so that only Millie's own remained.

"I don't need much to get rid of these," said Aspen with a smirk. She tugged on the spells so that they tore away. Millie struggled to pull away with the help of her right hand, but somehow, in the struggle, her ring finger snapped and the ring went freely into Aspen's hands.

"No!" Millie yelled. Aspen released her just as Millie let out a volley of propelling spell. Aspen was thrown backwards, and when Millie went after her, she disappeared back into the Place Between. Millie attempted to open the portal behind her, but Christopher grabbed her shoulders.

"Millie," he panted. The rainwater was not helping his hair any more than hers now that he was tired. It was drooping into his eyes in wet hanks.

"Don't," Millie said with the tears welling up in her eyes unbearably. "I am such a fool. If it wasn't for me, your life would not have been lost."

"Millie," sighed Christopher. Millie tried not to look at him, but the scratches on his cheek were slowly healing so that only faint marks remained.

"I mean, nothing ever goes right for me!" she went on. "I thought it was great to be the Living Asheth and then I was nearly sacrificed! And afterwards, I finally get to my dream school, and it's absolutely horrible! The girls at that first school hated me! And Gabriel would not listen to me, so I had to run away, and then I got stuck in those horrible possibility worlds! And – "

"Millie!" Christopher shouted with a weary smile. "You are certainly not a fool and all of those things turned out right in the end, did they not?"

"Yes, but – " Millie tried to say.

"Yes, but that is what makes this no different," Christopher said.

"Fine then," said Millie, trying to smile. "This is partly your fault too. I can mend fingers, you know. You did not have to – "

"Oh, but I did have to," Christopher sighed, as he smiled too. "Besides, I have no intention of allowing that woman to keep my life or, for that matter, your engagement ring."

"The life is a bit more important, don't you think?" Millie choked out in between bursts where her eyes felt like they would leak tears.

"I should hope you don't really think that," said Christopher. "After all, I have more than one life, darling." He had come to stand close beside her, and then Millie felt his hands rest awkwardly on her shoulders. "Millie, I know you feel bad about losing my life to Gin, but there is no need to worry about it. She doesn't have the real flesh and blood me under her control, nor does she have the best enchantress around under her control."

Millie sighed wearily. "She does have Aspen."

"Aspen just… fights unfairly," Christopher said uncomfortably.

Millie laughed. She felt better for it until a thought occurred to her. "You called me 'darling.' I really do not need you to use your mother's favorite word, Christopher."

"It's the thought that counts, if you ask me."

"I do not need endearments anyway."

Christopher chuckled into her hair. "Darling, darling, darling," he breathed.

"Oh, stop it," Millie said, laughing. However, her expression sobered quickly. "Oh, Henrietta and Mordecai. What has happened to them?"

"I suspect, as Conrad would say, if we moved to the right possibility, they would appear," Christopher said. "Haven't you noticed that no one else is here?"

Millie nodded. "It should fix itself soon with Aspen gone. I do worry that Aspen can manipulate them though."

"I'll ask Conrad about it when we return to the castle," Christopher said thoughtfully.

They waited for a few minutes, but it did not take long before a familiar voice shouted, "Over here, you two!"

Suddenly, the street was bustling again and they were two among many as the possibilities shifted. Mordecai and Henrietta came hurrying up to them. "She gave us the slip," Mordecai sighed, as Christopher rested his chin on Millie's head.

"We noticed," Christopher muttered. Louder, he added, "We need to return to the castle. Gin will have the ring in no time."

"She took the ring?" Henrietta gasped. She peered at Millie looking for injuries. Millie hid her left hand behind her. The broken fingers sent flashes of pain through her arm, but she ignored it.

"Come on," Mordecai said. "Lead the way."

Christopher and Millie transported all of them because the wards over the castle and many of Gin's spells were making it impossible for most to get inside. In the office, Henrietta rushed off to see Jason, while Mordecai discussed something with Gabriel in hushed tones.

Millie sat down on the couch and worked magic over her fingers. The realigning of the bones was the worst part to perform on yourself, she decided. Christopher sat dutifully beside her and insisted that they would get the ring back.

Truth be told, it did not put Millie much at ease.