Page 92 of The Witching Hours

Again, there was a pause and a deep breath before he said, “Alright.”

I had to give him credit. I was proud to have David as a student, and was just as glad he hadn’t witnessed my humiliation by Aeskilas. The ambassador, and I call him that since he’s refused to be categorized, was clearly leagues out of my league. Frankly, I was feeling lucky to have survived the encounter. So far.

I ended the call and looked up at Aeskilas. He rose to his feet and, to my surprise, extended his hand in invitation to helpme up off the floor. A gentleman demon.Huh!It was an offer I couldn’t refuse even though I would have liked to.

I placed my white hand in Aeskilas’s large, bluish one and felt myself lifted to my feet without visible effort on my part or his.

Like so many modern urbanites, I tended to think silence was awkward and sought to remedy that even at the risk of sounding inane.

“So. You come back and forth to our, um…”

He grinned. “World. Dimension. Reality. Words are so inadequate. Did you know you can’t have a thought without a word attached to it? You had that ability as a newborn, but it quickly surrendered to linguistic limitations.”

“I guess you don’t have any. Linguistic limitations?”

He shook his head. “No. Consequently, I can consider things you can’t.”

“I get the sense that you’ve categorized species on a sliding scale.”

He cocked his head and squinted. “Are you saying we’re as silly as humans?”

My jaw dropped. My eyes bugged. I sputtered. “No. No, I wasn’t saying that at all. For one thing, I don’t think humans are silly. For the most part,” I added. “So, I wouldn’t have been comparing.”

“Relax, Ms. Valerie Campbell Danann. I was having fun at your expense.”

“Let’s go sit in the tearoom,” he said.

“There’s not a…”

When I turned to motion toward the back wall of the adjacent living room, what appeared there was not the backyard on the other side of a bank of windows, but a white iron greenhouse structure right out of a fantasy movie set. It had a dome that any architect would be pleased to submit as agraduate studies project, a pink terrazzo floor, ornate white iron furniture, hundreds of exotic plants many of which were in full bloom, and two peacocks strutting about.

“Oh,” I said, conveying admiration as I drifted toward the newly created room. “This is quite a talent. I can’t help but wonder how it might feel to instantly create anything you can think of.”

“Since I’ve never known existence without that ability, I couldn’t compare. To me it’s as natural as breathing is to you.” He motioned for me to take a chair. “Please.”

I looked away for a fraction of a second and in that time a full tea service appeared on the glass-top table. The china was like none I’d ever seen before, deep cobalt clue with ornate gilt trim. It was similar to Japanese dragon ware, but looked even richer.

Steam was coming out of three pots.

“Name your poison as they say.” He chuckled.

“Poison? I’d, ah, rather not.”

“Joking.” He fancied himself quite the comic. “Do you want coffee? Tea? Soup? Name your hot drink.”

“You can make anything. Right?”

“Certainly.”

“This is so beautiful. So civilized and so unforgettable. But I’d rather have a virgin strawberry daiquiri.”

Instantly it appeared in front of me. A heavy crystal goblet with cobalt-blue stem and base containing yummy pink frozen daiquiri and a spiral striped straw.

I wasn’t afraid of poison. It had been made abundantly clear that if he wished me harm, I’d be a stain on the floor, if even that much was left of me. I took a sip.

Heaven.

“I gather from the smile that it’s acceptable,” he said.