Page 50

AN UNEXPECTED SHED

W aking was a soft, painfully sweet affair, making it easy to bury her anxieties under the persuasive influence of daylight and Mal’s caresses. Easy to think no further than simple, gold-limned pleasure and pretend that was all that mattered.

She couldn’t help searching his arm for the wound she’d given him. He obediently extended it for inspection; there was only a faint white scar. She traced the spiralling lines over his lean chest. “Is there a meaning attached to the designs?”

He stretched under her attention, warping the golden lines. “I was hatched with some of them. This one, for instance.” He gestured south with a wry smile. “But the rest appeared each time I granted a heart-wish.”

Her fingers stilled. “Which one?—”

Taking her hand, he drew it to rest below the left side of his collarbone. “This was your mother’s wish.”

There wasn’t anything to set the golden lines there apart from any of the others, nor did it spark anything when she touched it except the odd dissonance of thinking of him as old enough to have known her mother before she was born. “How many wishes have you granted?”

He rolled to face her. “Fourteen. Far fewer than the number of nightmares I have manifested. I can only manifest a single heart-wish for each person but endless numbers of fears.”

“Did you grant him a wish?” she asked quietly.

There was no need for Mal to ask which ‘him’ she was referring to. Mal shook his head. “No,” he answered, equally quiet. “I would have, if he’d asked, but he always said he’d rather not waste it until it was needed.”

“Do you know what his wish would have been?”

Mal picked his way along one of the lines running down his side, not meeting her eyes.

“Heart-wishes aren’t always straightforward.

The heart often longs for an outcome without considering the how or the why.

And wishes can change. When we were first together, his deepest desire was security for his court and his position in it.

The nuances of exactly what that meant fluctuated.

By the time everything fell apart so spectacularly, he had shielded his heart from me. ” He sighed deeply.

“You loved him.” It was half a question. She didn’t want to talk about his ex-lover and yet simultaneously wanted to know every excruciating detail.

“I was young and stupid. I should have realised how deep his ambitions ran, how far he would go to achieve them. But at the time, I only admired his strong will without considering how that will was directed. He radiated a—how do I describe it?—a certainty of purpose. A confidence I had always lacked.” Mal grimaced.

“I can understand that,” she admitted reluctantly.

She didn’t want to find any admirable qualities in Avern, especially ones that she fell short in.

“Confidence is attractive in and of itself. Not that I approve of what he did with that confidence, but I’ve often reflected how nice it must be to vacillate less. ”

He turned to her in surprise. “That’s how you see yourself?”

“It took me forty years to come and find you,” she reminded him. “Not exactly the sign of a decisive personality.”

He studied her face. “Forty years of perseverance in the face of a fate you never deserved, and all of it driven by trying to honour your family and what you saw as your duty. And when you finally came here, to face what you thought was a terrifying evil, you were driven by that same duty to something larger than yourself. There is no lack of strength in you. You are the bravest person I know.”

She didn’t know how to respond. His description didn’t bear any resemblance to her own self-image, and yet he couldn’t lie, could he? But it was too startling a lurch in perspective.

He grinned, suddenly wry. “I, for one, am glad that you gave up on me showing any strength of character whatsoever and came to stab some sense into me instead. I’m enjoying the fringe benefits considerably.”

“Oh, are you?” she said wrathfully, but the way his hands moved just then mollified her.

Dawn had well and truly passed by the time they made it out of bed. Gisele returned to her own room to dress and was both amused and annoyed to find herself blushing as she crept along the hallway, as if there were anyone here to see or care about her leaving Mal’s room in yesterday’s rumpled gown!

Well, Apfela technically could be here, but what reason would the woman have for coming into this part of the house?

And Apfela would hardly be scandalised by her behaviour, although imagining her frank commentary made Gisele’s cheeks heat further.

It was a relief to make it safely back to her room without mishap.

After sorting herself out— how had Mal kept a straight face when her hair looked like it had lost a terrible battle with a bird’s nest?

—she made her way down to the kitchen, halting every so often to examine the cracks in the house.

Was it wishful thinking, or had they improved since yesterday?

Skymallow at least felt more settled, the house humming quietly against her palm when she set it against the wall.

The staircase, too, behaved itself as she descended.

She halted on the kitchen threshold, met unexpectedly by a pair of bright blue eyes burning in the middle of the hearthfire. They blinked, and the creature they belonged to leapt joyfully back into the flames, like a dolphin frolicking in fiery waves.

Zingiber sat riveted in front of it, whiskers twitching as he tracked the creature’s movements.

“Is that… a salamander?” she asked, creeping closer as she dredged the name up from the bestiary.

Fire mouse , Zingiber grumbled, tail lashing. I’m gonna get it.

The salamander waggled its tail at the cat in a manner that could only be described as provocative.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’ll burn yourself,” she told the cat. She felt Mal come into the room. “We have another invader—although Skymallow doesn’t seem to think it is.” It was hard to interpret her new sense of the house, but if anything, Skymallow seemed faintly pleased with itself.

Without warning, the salamander leapt, flinging itself out of the fire straight towards her arms, heedless of Zingiber’s attempt to catch it.

Out of instinct, Gisele caught the creature and then nearly dropped it, not because it was hot but because it wasn’t.

The salamander scrambled happily up her arm, swimming around her wrist as if she were merely another log of wood.

The sight of flames licking around its body without burning her was deeply unsettling.

“Ah—hello?” she said to the creature. “Mal? What is going on?”

Mal’s ears had fluffed out in a sure sign of alarm, but his fur began to lie flat again as he took in her unhurt state.

“My house is once again making unilateral decisions without me is what’s going on,” he said, scowling at the hearth.

“Hearth-salamanders don’t burn anyone connected to the siden they’re bonded to. ”

The salamander made a happy hissing sort of noise and launched itself back into the hearth. Zingiber failed once again to catch it.

Mal eyeballed the ceiling in an exasperated fashion. “Fine,” he said to the house. “You might as well adopt brownies too while you’re at it. It’s not as if it’s going to make much difference at this point.”

He stomped off to make tea. Gisele left him to his temper while she inquired of the salamander how it felt about toast and was pleased to discover that it loved toast and would provide perfectly browned pieces for the small price of the occasional slice that it kept for itself.

Mal had mostly stopped grumbling by the time they sat down, accepting buttered toast with wry amusement.

Gisele refused Mal’s offer of tea and began to put together the ingredients of Agnodice’s Mixture from her collection of dried herbs.

Mal canted his head, watching her. “What are you making?”

Colour rose to her cheeks despite herself, but dammit this ought to be his problem too. He hadn’t said anything about it last night, and he should have.

She was too old to be coy. “A preventative,” she said. At his entirely blank expression, she added, “You know, to prevent pregnancy. Not that that’s likely, but…you know. A complication best avoided.”

His expression cleared, and he waved his toast. “Oh. That’s not necessary.”

She stared at him. Was he truly that reckless, or did he… think it was an acceptable complication? “And you’ve just decided that for me, have you?”

Correctly reading the danger in her tone, he spoke hastily. “No, I meant it’s not my fertile time. I would have said something last night, otherwise.”

Her rising anger pulled up short. “Oh. Is that… a standard fae thing?”

He set his toast down and raised an eyebrow. “It’s a standard me thing. I make no representations for anyone else.”

She twisted her tea ingredients. “And you’re sure about this?”

Pink bloomed in his cheeks. “Very sure. That time is rather unmistakable for anything else,” he added, voice roughening slightly.

“All right, then.” She set the mixture aside. Mal offered her more usual tea again, and she accepted this time.

She drank it thoughtfully, watching the salamander dance. “I hate to say it, but is it wise to encourage more creatures in the house if there’s a chance that the prince might come here? Won’t they be in danger?”

Mal shook his head. “He’s not a danger to them, or at least, not directly.

He’s not… He wouldn’t slaughter innocents without cause.

If I’m taken, and the house fails without me…

they’ll simply have to go back to wherever they were living before.

” His expression had tightened, the mismatched colour of his eyes more exaggerated than normal.

“Maybe Apfela would be able to hold the house alone. I don’t know. ”

“We need to tell her about the hunting spell,” Gisele said. “Even if he’s not looking for her, this affects her too now.”

“Yes,” he agreed with a sigh.