Page 37 of The Deadliest Candidate (The Last Grand Archivist #1)

Chapter thirty-seven

The Mistake

Lautric slipped in through the narrow space Fern opened in the door; she closed it as soon as she could with the feeling of having committed some clandestine act. They stood in her small vestibule, bathed in the golden light of the table lamp.

“Thank you, I wanted to, um…” Lautric stuttered and faltered to a stop. He blinked, his gaze sweeping over Fern. “I’m sorry, I, ah, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Fern glanced down. Her shirt was half unbuttoned, falling open to reveal her bra, a simple garment of dark green cotton. She looked up. Lautric’s face was flushed a dull pink underneath his freckles.

She had never been particularly self-conscious: nudity in St Jerome had been bony and sterile, and privacy was a luxury that had been beyond the orphans’ means. As a result, Fern’s sense of her own body was detached and practical.

But Lautric’s soft stutter and flushed cheeks made her suddenly aware of herself as a woman rather than a librarian—a woman standing alone with a young man in her apartment. Though Fern considered him a Lautric first and a man second, she could not deny that he was handsome, with his pretty features and tall frame. And his gaze made it clear he was not looking at her the way one ought to look at a professional rival or an assignment partner.

Fern had stepped, without meaning to, into a hazy, otherworldly mire—the mire of her and Lautric alone in her apartment with the smell of marzipan enveloping them—one she knew not how to navigate.

She cleared her throat. “Ah, I’m sorry, you’ve caught me at a bad moment. Please, take a seat.”

She led him inside the apartment and pointed at her desk chair, the most professional and uncompromising place she could think of putting him.

“Oh, Inkwell,” Lautric said.

Fern had almost forgotten her first conversation with Lautric outside Carthane’s gate. So much had happened since. She hastily tried to fasten her buttons while Lautric walked over to Inkwell and watched with some surprise as the small black cat allowed Lautric to scratch beneath his chin.

“He’s not normally so friendly,” she said.

Lautric turned with a half-smile, “Just like y—” He leapt back to his feet, startling both Fern and her cat. “Your arm!” He stepped towards Fern, Inkwell sweeping petulantly away from him as he did. “Are you alright? What happened?”

Fern stepped back. “It’s nothing, I fell. I’m fine, I assure you. It’s nothing.”

“Is it broken?”

“I…” Fern hesitated. “I’m not sure. ”

“Would you like me to check?”

Yes , thought Fern, but, more wisely, she said, “No, thank you. I’m sure it will be quite fine.”

“Fern.” Lautric’s tone was gentle; he moved towards her slowly, hands up, as though approaching some nervous forest creature. “Let me help. I am in your debt, after all. Consider it a repayment.”

After a moment of silence, Fern nodded. He was right, after all, she’d helped him with his poisoned leg. In a way, it meant she could accept his help without becoming indebted to him. And besides, she could not deny she was relieved for his presence, though she would not have admitted it aloud for all the books in Carthane.

“Let me look at your arm,” said Lautric, now standing in front of her.

Fern shook her head, gesturing at her shirt. “The sleeves are too narrow to push back. I need to take it off.”

Lautric said nothing and simply nodded. Colour had risen to his cheeks again, though he remained outwardly calm. Fern dropped her gaze, her heartbeat in her throat. She was sure she would not be so nervous if his cheeks weren’t so flushed. She reached for her buttons, clumsily pulling them free with one hand; the quicker she got this situation over with, the better.

“Here,” Lautric said. “Let me.”

Fern dropped her arms and turned her head to the side, refusing to make eye contact. Lautric undid her buttons, taking meticulous care to do so without touching her. The smell of him, the rich sweetness of brown sugar, seemed to fill the air .

Fern glanced at Inkwell, where he lay curled up on her coat. He stared back, blinking slowly, almost conspiratorially.

Buttons undone, Lautric slid the shirt back over Fern’s shoulders, pulling the right sleeve off first, then, with the utmost care, the left sleeve. Fern was painfully aware that she was now standing in her bra in front of Lautric, but he was gallant as ever, focusing completely on her left arm.

First, he gently lifted it, inspecting it with a concerned frown. Fern followed his gaze: her upper arm was fine, but an ugly bruise darkened her elbow where it had landed hard against the stone floor of the passageway. The skin below the bruise was swollen, almost deformed.

Fern closed her eyes. She should have been more careful.

“I’m going to touch you now,” Lautric said, voice low. “To feel if the bone is broken. It might hurt.”

Fern nodded, clenching her jaw. “Alright.”

“Would you like to sit down?”

“Yes.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, and Lautric knelt in front of her, eyes raised up to hers. “Are you ready?”

“Mm-hm.”

He slid his long, slender fingers over her forearm, prodding lightly. His touch was warm and light, though it still sent fresh waves of agony up her arm when he reached her elbow. Fern bit down hard, swallowing back the whimpers of pain rising to her throat.

“You’ve definitely broken something in your elbow,” Lautric said. “I can try something—it’ll help a little rather than fix it entirely, but it’s probably going to hurt for a while, and you should almost certainly try to give it plenty of rest. Probably keep it in a sling until it feels better.”

He hesitated, then added, “An alchemist could probably fix your arm and create a salve for the pain, and a skilled elemencer might have a spell for speeding up cellular regeneration, but my spell is only a small alchemical symbol for restoration and the mending of broken things. I could take you to Anoush, if you wanted, or Emmeline and her brother.”

“No.” Fern sighed and rubbed her eyes. She was too tired for this. Oddly, she felt on the verge of tears. More oddly still, she wished for nothing but to stay here in her rooms, with Inkwell and Lautric. “Your alchemical spell is fine. Go ahead.”

Her voice was hoarse, the cool professionalism eroded away by the pain and emotions and exhaustion of the week.

Lautric pulled a pen from his pocket, biting off the cap. He held her arm gently, eyelids drooping over his eyes in concentration. He lay the tip of his pen on the inside of Fern’s arm, the cold touch of metal and ink sending shivers through her as she watched him build his alchemical spell, symbol by symbol.

First and central, the phoenix feather, for renewal, and with it, the Rebis, for the combining of broken things into a whole. Then the grounding circles surrounding it: salt for stability and restoration, gold for perfection.

Fern looked up at Lautric. His eyelashes were dark and long, fanning over his cheek like the rays of a black sun. His flush had disappeared, the colour draining from his face as he spent his energy on the spell. His alchemical symbol was very simple, but it was drawn perfectly. Its magic was small and precise, not grand and potent like the work of a great mage, but something more akin to household magic: common, clever and tidy.

The inner workings of Fern’s arms grew warm and soft in compliance, the shattered bones and traumatised muscles answering Lautric’s gentle command to knit themselves.

When he was done, the alchemical symbol disappeared as though her skin had absorbed it, and the pain, as if it had been held back by a dam, came flooding back in. Pain, processed by the brain, always lingered after a healing spell, while the body processed the unnatural speed of its own fixing.

Lautric, still holding her arm, looked up.

“How’s the pain?”

“It’s alright.”

Lautric gave a sad half-smile. “You’re trembling.”

She was. Fern shook her head and tried to pull her arm free, but Lautric said, “Let me dress your arm.”

“I can do it myself,” Fern said.

“Yes,” he said. “But you don’t have to.”

An unexpected and unwanted lump rose in Fern’s throat, and for a second, she was paralysed by the fear that she might cry in front of him. Desperate to conceal the sudden burst of inappropriate emotion, she nodded at Lautric and fetched the small cloth case in which she stored plasters, disinfectant and gauze.

She sat back down on the bed and watched Lautric as he worked .

He was silent and conscientious, daubing the gauze with disinfectant and brushing away the crusted blood gathering at the cut. Fern raised her eyes to his face. The cut on his lips from the previous night was healing into a satiny pink line.

Who had hurt him? She’d never asked, that night she’d bumped into him, and their attention had been diverted to the scream in the Arboretum. And now, Lautric had not pressed her for an explanation of her injury, so she could not press him on his, yet her curiosity burnt vividly. He looked up, and she was suddenly aware that while she was deep in thought, her gaze had remained on his mouth.

“Try to rest your arm as best you can.” He gave a small, sad smile. “I’m sorry to see you hurt.”

Unbidden, tears rose to Fern’s eyes, dropping from her eyelashes onto her cheeks. She daubed them away, surprised at herself and a little disappointed.

“Oh,” she whispered. She had not intended to cry; she rarely did. “I’m sorry.”

Without a word, Lautric took Fern into his arms. She stiffened, and tried to grasp the reins of her emotions, only for them all to come spilling out. Josefa scared in the darkness, Fern’s parents calling to her in her dream, Oscar hundreds of miles away, Essouadi’s tumour and Baudet searching for Vittoria.

Fern’s body slumped as though the mettle had been ripped out of her spine. She buried her face into Lautric’s shoulder; it was better than letting him see her cry. His woollen jumper smelled exactly like him, that sweet comforting smell, and something smokey and dark, like ashes or liquorice .

He held her in his embrace, one hand brushing up and down her bare back as she wept noiselessly. His skin on hers sent warm shivers shimmering through her like spellcraft; when was the last time she’d felt someone else’s skin on hers? She wanted to pull away from him, and at the same time she wanted to melt closer, to crawl underneath the soft wool of his jumper and plaster her heartbeat to his.

She tried to pull away, but Lautric held her face in his hands and brushed back the strands of hair sticking to her wet cheeks.

“Are you alright?” he breathed.

Fern nodded. She was hot with embarrassment and pain and longing. In his arms, she had never felt her own loneliness more acutely.

“Thank you for all your help,” she said, voice husky with tears, trying to reassert some professionalism into her conduct. “Consider your debt repaid.”

“There is no debt at all, Fern,” he murmured. “I would do it all over again, and for no other reason than wanting to. You must know this.”

His gaze lingered over her, almost tender. Fern’s face was ablaze; she desperately hoped she wasn’t blushing. It did not matter anyhow, because Lautric had leaned forward to kiss her tear-stained cheek, and Fern, without meaning to, had turned to catch his kiss on the corner of her mouth. She let out a gasp of a breath—Lautric caught it between his lips.

He kissed her mouth sweetly and chastely, his hands gliding gently down her cheek to her neck, his fingers slipping into her hair, cradling her skull. Fern opened her mouth, a silent invitation, and Lautric tasted her, his tongue against hers a delicate intrusion, sending a curl of heat all through Fern until her entire body ached.

She did not know what complex alchemy in their kiss made her fall back into her pillows with her good arm curled around Lautric’s neck. He followed without protest, his mouth melted to hers, and broke their kiss only to slide his mouth against the hot column of her neck, sucking the frantic flutter of her pulse.

His kisses were clumsy and earnest and hungry, and a terrible surge of desire and affection hit Fern with the force of an avalanche, bringing her crashing back to the reality of what she was doing.

She wrenched herself away from Lautric with a gasp of horror, pushing him away with her good arm and scrambling off the bed.

Lautric rose to follow her, his eyes glazed and his mouth a pink wet mess, and said, “What’s the matter?”

His voice was hoarse.

“We should stop,” Fern said.

“Yes,” replied Lautric emphatically, and leaned down with his arms behind his back to catch her mouth in another kiss.

Less innocent, this time, his lips and tongue a question, a command, an entreaty. Fern blossomed open to the kiss, her mouth a flower unfurling to sunlight. Lautric’s fingers brushed the curvature of her waist, pulling her to him, an invitation from his body to hers, and she thought: why not?

And her mind answered: because you ought to know better.

Fern tore herself away from Lautric with a sigh of frustration. His mouth traced a wet line across her cheek and into her hair as she swept past him. She all but ran to her door, and yanked it open, and said, “I’m sorry. This was a mistake. You should go.”

And, because he looked as though he was about to kiss her again, and Fern was not quite sure she would find it within herself to pull away one more time, she breathed, “Please.”

Lautric nodded, and straightened himself, and wiped his wet lips with his thumb.

“Ah—of course. I’m sorry for—no, I’m not.” He shook his head, and smiled a strange, tilted smile. “Goodnight, Fern. I wish you well in tomorrow’s assignment.”

“And yourself.”

Fern closed the door after him and locked it with trembling hands. She rested her forehead against the panel and let out a long, shuddering sigh.

This night had been a disaster on every front, and none of it more disastrous than what she had just done. She squeezed her eyes closed. How could she do this? How could she make such a mistake? As though she didn’t have a thousand things to worry about, as though there wasn’t enough chaos to contend with.

She could not believe herself.

She had been beyond reckless, appallingly foolish, and, worst of all, utterly lacking in professionalism.

Too late, she realised she hadn’t even found out his reason for coming to her room in the first place.