Page 23 of The Fire Apprentice (Sylvania #5)

J ane untied her apron and hung it on the peg by the door. The fires in the firepots were banked and dying, the sacks of coal brought in for tomorrow, and the blade for Ms. Ferguson’s plow waited by the back wall for her to pick it up the next morning. All the farmers had been bringing in their broken and worn tools for mending and sharpening now that the crops were in. Thank the skies the ironworks had gotten that ore from the mine and resumed processing it into the bars and plates the blacksmiths needed.

Master Smith had locked the front door when he left. She’d let Benny and James go home an hour ago to beat the sunset.

Jane fastened the back door and headed to the narrow steps tucked between her shop and the farrier’s. They led to the small living space over the blacksmith shop, usually taken by one or more of the apprentices. Rowan had moved in last spring—on the day she met him—and hadn’t spent even one night there before he’d left with her to find Elle. He still lived there, only now she and Elle lived with him. And now she was the blacksmith’s apprentice.

She hadn’t noticed the wintry chill in the air all afternoon with the fires burning and the work of hammering, but it stole under her clothes as she ascended the steps. The sky emerged a pale pink with one bright star out. Rowan and Elle were usually home by this time, but no lights shone in the upstairs windows.

How cold was it up in the mountains? The mine was running, but the miners would halt for the winter soon. Jane was eager to meet Os and Derek and the other miners again, assuming they came to Woods Rest for the winter. She had only a hazy memory of their first meeting on the horrible night when she’d found them locked up, and she’d been whisked away by Axe before she ever got to thank them for helping her. It would be nice to replace the memory of that night with new ones. Maybe they could get ales in the pub some evening and get to know each other.

After he finally met them, Rowan said he’d liked them. After collecting all of his things from Sunshine’s peak, he’d stopped by the mine to retrieve the belongings Jane had abandoned in the weeds behind the shack where he’d been held captive. She hadn’t needed her things back, but Rowan wasn’t about to start leaving detritus throughout the forest—not like a human would.

Hopefully Sunshine was warm, curled in her cave for the winter. Jane smiled as she unlocked the door and went in. Sunshine was sticking around. She would hibernate through the cold moons and return to Elle in the spring for another season, and who knew how many more after that. Sage had told Jane most fairies with fire magic worked with several dragons throughout their lives. One dragon would return to their home among the lakes and hot mineral springs in the western mountains and a few summers later another one would arrive.

But Elle was young and she and Sunshine were devoted to each other. Sage suspected Sunshine would stay around until Elle was grown.

As for Rowan... He and Axe had worked together all summer and now Rowan could catch flames easily and use his magic to do basic tasks like put out a fire or make fire powder. But more importantly, the two of them had spent time together, all that time that had been stolen from them ages ago. Axe had never given up on teaching Rowan. He’d been living on his peak for eight winters, hoping Rowan would return. And Rowan finally had.

As autumn had neared, Axe had at long last returned to his home in the west. No one knew if another dragon would come to replace him.

Rowan said he was content with the skills he had learned. But he made many visits to the ironworks and kept mulling over the ways dragon fire could be used to make the blast furnace and foundry more efficient, or to make the forge hearths function without emitting the dark smoke of a human-made coal fire. Maybe someday the entire ironworks and all the other human industry in Woods Rest would be up to fairy ecological standards.

While Elle and Rowan learned magic all summer, Jane studied blacksmithing. Master Smith had taught her the steps of making a hook before she left Woods Rest, and one of the fairies at the enclave had shared basic skills. The stone courtyard at the enclave included an anvil and firepot tucked under a ledge, and with the help of young fairies to work the bellows, Jane had built fires and hammered out a few dozen hooks and then decorative leaves and towel racks and even one iron rose.

Jane hadn’t seen Larch once all summer.

Now they were back in Woods Rest and she was receiving more rigorous training from the master blacksmith, and smithing was every bit as fun as she’d always imagined. While she worked, Elle was off with Rowan or Maryanne. Maryanne had accepted Rowan’s help, grudgingly at first, but once she realized she could have an entire day to herself to frolic with Wells, she’d warmed up to having a fairy around as a co-parent. Wells, on the other hand, Jane wasn’t so sure about. He might’ve preferred their former arrangement.

Over the summer, Elle and Rowan had resupplied the fairy enclave with fire powder, and in exchange, the fairies had stocked their larder (and Maryanne’s) with enough herbs and medicines and preserves and root vegetables for a dozen winters, plus a few bottles of their infamous elderberry wine, which Maryanne had hidden in the linen closet to avoid Wells getting his hands on it. They’d even had enough fire powder left to start trading with humans.

Jane pulled off her boots and work clothes and hung them by the window before pulling up the sash to let a breeze into the room. It was sparsely furnished with a basic kitchen and two beds hidden behind curtains, but it was enough. They spent much of their days out in the village anyway. And when Elle was off with Maryanne’s crew, and she and Rowan were alone... well, they didn’t need a palace for what they got up to then.

She washed up and tugged on the pair of stretchy leggings, the name the fairies finally settled on, that Rose had given her. Unlike Rose’s forest-green pair, Jane’s were fiery orange, and they were every bit as comfortable as Rose had said. She donned a tunic long enough to cover her bottom and brushed out her hair before re-braiding it. Beside her brush on the dresser was the letter from her brother. She’d written to her family over the summer—a real letter, letting them know everything that had happened to her—and her brother had replied. They would plan a visit soon, so Jane could see her family and introduce them to Rowan and Elle, and Elle could meet her new young cousins.

Something fluttered at the window and Jane turned. The open window was empty. A bird must’ve landed and flown away. But a small parcel rested on the sill.

Excitement welled up as Jane walked to the window. Had Rose sent it? It was a bundle of fabric about the size and shape of a golden melon and when she picked it up, it was heavier than she expected. A piece of twine held it closed.

Jane took the parcel and sat on the edge of her bed, pushing aside the curtain. She undid the twine and unrolled the fabric. Whatever was inside was heavy and hard—what in the skies was it? The fabric fell away and Jane stared at the object in her hand.

It was made of white stone. Or quartz crystal, she thought as she held it up and the last rays of sunshine sparkled through it. And it was shaped...

Jane swallowed. It wasn’t exactly shaped like a man’s erection but that’s what it made her think of. It was smooth and long and rounded, but it had a gentle curve to it and the end had a little knob. She ran a finger down it and startled when a glow pulsed out of the crystal.

It began to vibrate.

“Oh skies!” Jane whispered. It was a fairy wand, exactly as Rowan had described it.

She’d begun to think he’d been teasing her about them. But over the summer she had spoken with Thistle, the fairies’ most experienced healer, about the pain she experienced when she tried to have a man inside her. Thistle had confirmed everything Synne said—in fact, the two of them were friends from long ago—but she’d had new ideas about ways Jane could help the muscles inside her relax. And one of those ideas had been to use vibrations—like a massage on her insides.

Thistle had pointed out something Jane had never considered—that her condition wasn’t inherently a problem. It only became a problem if she wanted to have things inside her. But she’d considered it all summer and she did want that. Knowing Rowan accepted her regardless was a huge comfort, but she wanted to try having him inside her without it hurting. She wanted to be able to share that experience with him.

Jane listened. The alley outside the window was silent. No babbling Elle coming home with Rowan. In fact, all she could hear was a gentle hum from the wand, vibrating in her hand.

She licked her lips and lifted the hem of her tunic. Her leggings were thin as silk. When she touched the tip of the wand below her belly, the vibrations came right through. In fact, the wand seemed to vibrate a little more forcefully. It was kind of like a purring cat. Maybe Maple the inventor had employed new helpers.

Jane lay back and rubbed the wand down a little lower and it hummed in response. She poked it between her legs and oh, skies that was nice. Her cheeks flushed and her body reacted instantly. She rolled it around against her and when she pressed harder, it thrummed in response. Hummingbird wings? It was more like a hive of bees. She nudged it down between her legs and all at once the shape made sense. As her rising climax threatened to tip over, she pressed the whole curve of the wand against her body and the knobby end fit right in against her entrance, and the buzzing sensations overwhelmed her. She gasped and rubbed as much as she could with the barrier of her clothing, and her body heated and shook until the waves passed.

The wand went still in her hand. Jane caught her breath, staring at the open window. That had been way too easy. And she had wanted that knobby end inside her. Next time she was doing this with her leggings off.

Footsteps sounded below. Jane flew up off the bed and across to the dresser. She yanked open the top drawer and nestled the stone wand and its packaging in among her underclothes before pushing the drawer shut and turning.

The door opened and Rowan burst in. “You have to—”

Jane smiled brightly and lifted her brow.

“Are you okay?” he asked, coming inside. His hair was shaggier than it had been at the start of the summer. He wore it pulled back in a tie and his hair stayed tucked behind his ears now. He left the door open.

“Yes!” Her voice came out a pitch higher than usual. She cleared her throat. “What’s going on? Where’s Elle?”

“She’s staying with Maryanne tonight. There was a casserole and something about apples?” He shook his head.

“Ah, Maryanne’s famous apple squares.”

“That’s it.”

“She waited to make them this fall until we were home from the fairy enclave, so Elle wouldn’t miss it. What were you excited about?” She stepped away from the dresser and smoothed down the front of her tunic.

“Come see,” Rowan said and held out a hand.

Jane followed him out the door and down the steps. Behind the shop, he led her across the stubbly meadow to the edge of the forest.

“Maryanne told me about the big persimmon tree. I wanted to find it and I spotted... there.”

Jane followed his pointing finger to a small, smooth trunk with a branch poking out. A silver-white strand hung from the branch like a fat piece of yarn but shiny, and it twisted back and forth. She followed it down a few hands’ widths to the bottom where... something hung on the end.

“Is that a snake?” Jane asked, peering closer. It had the narrow gray body of a snake but wrapped up on itself, all twined together and wriggling as she watched, and spinning. The strand of... whatever that material was that it hung from was spinning back and forth from its motion.

“Look closer.”

One bit of the mass pulled back. It was speckled and it had tiny antennas.

“It’s a slug!”

“Two slugs.”

Now she could see the two bodies. They were wrapped around each other in a slimy embrace, coiling and sliding in goo.

“Are they mating?” Jane whispered.

Rowan’s arms came around her and he pulled her back against his chest. “They’re about to,” he whispered in her ear.

The slugs settled into a rhythm that twisted their strand of goo farther, coiling it up one way before unspinning it the other. Their two bodies tightened around each other and locked into place. Something poked out the end of each—iridescent blue—and grew longer and weirder until the two protuberances met and they wrapped around each other. Jane leaned forward against Rowan’s hold to observe the coiled slugs as they twisted and writhed, on and on, spinning madly as a minute passed, and another, until they abruptly stopped moving.

They held on as the motion caused by their coupling faded. The blue extensions retracted and the tops of their bodies broke free. Their heads peeked up from the coil, looking about.

Jane steadied her breathing. Hopefully Rowan hadn’t noticed—

He kissed behind her ear. “You liked it,” he murmured.

She exhaled one last pant. “Fine. Yes.”

“I told you it was romantic.”

“The way they held on to each other...”

Rowan kissed her more and her heart rate picked back up. Over on the tree, one of the slugs had crawled onto the trunk while the other still hung from the strand. Maybe it needed a moment to recover. She would have, after that.

“It’s late in the season for slugs to be out,” she pressed on, trying to distract herself even as her fingers found Rowan’s leg behind her and dug in, holding him against her. She couldn’t tumble Rowan now—not here on the damp autumn leaves after the sight of two slugs fornicating had turned her on. But twilight had fallen and no one would see them in the fading light. And the slugs weren’t watching. The first had slithered out of sight and the second was crawling back onto the tree.

“Maybe they only recently found each other,” Rowan said, licking her ear.

“Maybe.”

He kissed her ear and let her go with a sigh. She stopped herself before she whimpered.

“I meant to tell you,” Rowan said as she turned to face him, “a package is coming.”

“Oh?” Her attempt at surprise sounded like a squeaky hinge.

“It’s a present for you.”

Jane whistled out an exhale and stared into the forest. “It, um, it might have arrived.”

“Did it?” Rowan was hiding a smile.

“Yes, all right, it did.”

“You opened it.”

“Yes. It wasn’t labeled to you.”

He tilted his head. “What did you think?”

She scuffed at the grass but broke into a smile. “I liked it. Thank you.”

“You tried it?”

“Yes.”

Rowan’s hand curled around the back of her neck and he kissed the top of her head. “Maybe sometime you can show me how you used it. If you want.”

“Sometime?” She gazed up with wide eyes.

He grinned. “Or now.”

Jane took his hand and tugged him back toward the smithy.