Page 22 of Until the End of Ever (To the Cruel Gods #2)

KLEOS

I f my ego had needed a boost, it was getting it. As well as hundreds of compliments, I received no fewer than four proposals tonight—one of them was by Cassiopea herself, so I wasn’t sure it counted. But the cherry on top was the old curmudgeon waving a white flag.

“When are you opening a bakery?” she grumbled, a choux in each hand. “It better be in unders. There’s a spot on Life Avenue. Been closed since the old Olwen retired. Just say the word; I know the owner.”

“I just bake in my spare time,” I replied. “Making it a business would take the fun out of it.”

“You sound like my Lucian,” she replied. “Waste of talent, if you ask me. I don’t know what you did to these bloody balls but I can’t even feel my knees throbbing anymore.”

I hesitated for all of five seconds.

In a large crowd, I was always assaulted by the many aches of every person around me—which was one of the many reasons I had become a bit of an introvert by default. The healing spells in my creams had made this crowd less overwhelming, by a long shot, but Andrea Saltzin stood out.

“May I?” I asked.

The crone tilted her head. “May you what, break into a song, start dancing the Macarena?”

“Fix you,” I replied, managing a smile. “Just a little.”

“What’s to fix? I am perfection.”

While becoming as elegant and commanding as Cassiopea in a distant future was still very much a personal goal, I decided that after that, in maybe a thousand years or so, it might be fun to be an Andrea.

“Can I do my thing, or not?”

“Well, get on with it, then. If you break anything, I’ll break yours twice as hard.”

Rolling my eyes, I got started, bringing my hands to her head first, palms facing each other inches from her skin.

I let my energy flow between them, passing through her spine, from the base of her skull, then slowly lowered my hand to her shoulder, chest, midriff.

I winced, as the echoes of her many woes reverberated through my skin.

Not enough cartilage. And don’t get me started on the alignment of that spine! That would need a hands-on approach.

I took my time at her hips.

“Spicy hydra shit!” the crone yelped. “What are you doing to me?”

I looked into her eyes, canting a brow.

“Well, don’t stop now! Do my knees! Do my feet! And redo my bloody butt again!”

Chuckling, I crouched down to work on the lower half of her body.

When I was done, I couldn’t help but notice I had an audience. The noisiest of the guests had surrounded us, muttering amongst themselves as they watched. The more polite had remained where they were, but were still looking anyway. I didn’t let that bother me.

“Next I need to do something a little less pleasant if you’ll let me.”

The crone grasped one of my hands with both of hers, panting. “ Anything .”

I moved to her back, asked her cross her arms around her chest, before cracking her spine twice.

“Nghhaa!” she screamed.

I healed the spine all over again, focusing less on adding lubricant and more on ensuring the bones would set where I’d placed them.

“You’ve been abusing your spine for hundreds of years. You’ll need to see a bone weaver, or even a mortal chiropractor, from time to time,” I said, feeling like she would likely ignore the advice.

“Is this even my body?” Andrea mused, twisting her neck, this way and that, lifting her hands over her head. “Cassi, look!” she screamed at our hostess. “I can do the wave! Let’s go dancing like in the old days.”

And before my baffled eyes, the old woman proceeded to do just that, giving Michael Jackson a run for his money.

“I don’t think I can forgive you for this,” Lucian whispered behind me.

I jumped. For once, I hadn’t noticed him, focused on my work.

“I’m never going to forget that dance. It’ll haunt my nightmares.”

“You just wish you could dance as well as your grandma,” I shot back.

A woman in a butter-yellow sheath approached, clearing her throat. “If you wouldn’t mind. There’s a kink in my neck I never can get rid of.”

“Wait a minute, how about my arm!”

“—my little toe!”

“My teeth !”

Cassiopea clapped her hands. “That’s quite enough of that. Our generous guest is not to be accosted. She’ll think we have no manners in the underside. She no doubt needs a little rest.”

I smiled at her appreciatively. “I’m fine actually. And frankly, I feel better when people around me aren’t suffering, so if you could form a line?”

The rest of my evening was spent touching dozens of strangers, at their request, plied with wine offered by one or the other of the Saltzin-Regises.

It was rather nice, all things considered. I could count the times when I could just do my thing without anyone questioning my qualifications or a healer sulking about it.

My last patient seemed rather familiar, but I couldn’t place her, until she told Lucian, “I guess I’ll really get to dance with you at the next town meeting if your lady fixes me up!”

“Sessona!” I remembered.

We’d met on my first trip to The Royal Manor with Gideon.

“Aye, sweet cheeks. And you might have mentioned you could sort me out last week; I wouldn’t have been walking all about town with this limp.” She offered me her foot, and I got to work.

It was just a bit of an inflammation due to an old sprain. She favored the other foot out of habit.

“Up in the vale, they don’t like me butting into the field of certified healers.

” I shrugged. “I’m not used to just being able to help.

I’ll be honest: your limp is habit more than actual pain.

You’re going to have to strengthen your muscle in this leg.

I can’t do that for you. Swimming helps—running would make it worse. ”

“I am over three hundred years old! You think I can swim without expiring on the third lap?”

“Pretty certain you can, yes. You just don’t want to.”

She pouted and grumbled.

Remembering the cupcakes on the side of my kitchen counter, I levitated the basket to me, and handed her one. “For after the first swim, if there’s any aches. I spike the frosting.”

“Wait, you’re giving away my cupcakes?” Lucian protested, affronted.

I rolled my eyes, reminding him, “You still have a batch from this morning.”

“And why didn’t I get cupcakes?” said pretty much everyone. But Andrea started it.

Soon enough, the dozens of cupcakes and cookies I’d made just because Kaelius mentioned he was going to give leftovers away in town tomorrow were distributed amongst the guests. I only just managed to hide a dozen cookies in the basket for Elias.

Half of them ate them on the spot, ignoring stomachs still full of chocolate, lemon, or cream.

“Are you trying to get abducted and wedded to a dark wizard?” Lucian admonished in a whisper. “Because this’s how you get abducted and wedded to a dark wizard.”

I stared back at him, batting innocent lashes. “Cookies?”

To be honest, I knew I was playing the crowd, making them like me.

That skill had been instilled in me from the moment I could walk.

I was the daughter of two politicians. Most of the time in my everyday life, I didn’t attempt to earn anyone’s favor anymore.

But that didn’t change the fact that I knew precisely how to do it.

They’d nicknamed me the sweetheart of the vale for a reason.

I could live to the name when I wanted to.

And I wanted the unders to like me. I loved their side of town, though I’d only explored a small fraction of it.

It was nice that all it took for every single guest to adore me was to be myself. That never happened at home.

“Don’t you look at me with those big innocent eyes.” He rolled his. “You know what you did.”

“Hey, you can’t tell me your grandma has arthritis and bad knees and expect me to do nothing about it,” I reasoned. “I’m a healer.”

“I don’t see you healing willy-nilly in the Guard. In fact, Mother mentioned you needed to cause a distraction just to help out a friend up there.”

Rather than formulating a logical argument, I countered, “Willy-nilly? Are you three hundred years old? Should I also check your knees?”

“Come closer. Try. See where that lands you.”

And in the depth of his silver-gray eyes, I could see exactly where pushing this teasing would land me. Back under his sculpted body, holding on for dear life and trying not to scream his name too loud.

Except afterwards, we could barely talk for a day and a half. I was fairly certain that if we didn’t have the mystery of my curse to resolve, he would have shut me out entirely. He didn’t even look at me most of Monday morning.

We couldn’t have our easy, fun relationship and world-shifting, mind-blowing, entrails-rearranging sex. One threatened the other. And I wanted to keep him in my life, in whatever way I could.

Although it was a struggle, I made myself look away first. “Your knees are just fine, grandpa.”

The asshole laughed. “Coward.”

Bloody hell. This was going to be a problem.