Chapter 9 A Kiss in the Dark #2
And why not. Tonight they would officially begin their training.
Sybil’s heart raced, and she stuck her hands in both her pockets as she left her room for his.
The metals were there as they had been all day—iron, copper, lead, silver, and gold.
So many other metals to try, but these were the most common for alchemists to bond with.
They enjoyed a companionable silence as they ate, and by the time their bellies were full, the fire was roaring.
“What should we do first?” he asked, his gaze on the fire as he rolled his sleeves to his elbows.
Once more she noticed his forearms. Noticed? More like she’d been waiting for him to unveil them.
“Sybil?” He waved a hand in front of her face.
“Oh! Yes. Show me what you did last night.”
“Ah. Last night. Yes. I suppose I’ll show you what I did last night.” He busied himself with a candle and brimstone stick across the room.
“Why are you acting so odd?”
“Because I am odd.”
“You’re not. You’re flippant. It’s entirely different.”
“Just watch,” he grumbled, closing his eyes as a flame flickered to life on the wick.
He cupped his hands and held them above the flame, and very soon it jumped higher, then higher, then his eyes were open and dancing and he was playing with the flame like a pet dog that jumped at its owner’s command.
“Bravo!” She clapped. “Perfect. And so quickly. I thought you said you’ve achieved nothing so far.”
He shrugged. “I haven’t. It’s the teacher’s success, not mine.”
Her belly flipped. What a wonderful thing for him to say. She wrapped her arms around her belly because she felt like hugging someone, and it could not be him.
“Your turn, princess.”
“Yes.” She smoothed her skirts, suddenly nervous. “What shall I do?”
He stood before the roaring fire. “Are the metals in your pocket?”
She pulled them out.
“Good. Hold one in your palm.”
She slipped all but the silver inside her pocket and held that before the fire. “I’ve always liked silver. All my jewelry is silver. Like moonlight.”
“I would have thought you a gold sort of woman.”
She shook her head. “Now what?”
He cleared his throat. “Now look at the fire through the silver. Make your vision go… fuzzy. Until everything is wavy and the colors of the fire and the silver are bleeding together.”
She did. The metal warmed in her hand and everything her sight fell on bled together in an unfocused haze.
“Is it hotter?”
“No.”
“It should be hotter. Try again.”
She did.
“Now?”
“No! What is the purpose of this exercise?”
He shrugged. “Stone never said, and everyone but me knew how to do it.”
“It must be something they learn from their fathers first or see their fathers doing. This is impossible.”
“I hate to be the optimist between the two of us, but we can’t give up after one failure.”
“My failure, not yours.”
“Yes, well… are you… working with the flame instead of against it? I heard from a wonderfully talented teacher that’s the way to do it, and it seems to work for me.
” One hand crept behind his neck as red blossomed across his cheeks.
Without looking at her, he somehow found a curl laying against her neck, tweaked it.
“Have faith, princess.” He seemed almost… shy, unsure.
She inhaled, exhaled. “You’re right. Let’s try it again.”
And she did try.
She tried. She did. Again and again and again. Not only with the silver but with the other metals, too. She did it with Apollo nearby giving instruction and with him off practicing with the candle.
But it never came. She could never call that heat, even so very near, from the grate to the metal in her hand.
Her feet went numb. Her fingers tingled.
Her arms, held in front of her, outstretched toward the unforgiving fire, trembled with their own weight.
Sweat beaded on her brow and dampened the hair at her temples, her neck as she called it, pleaded with it.
She closed her eyes and imagined it wrapping around the chunk of unshaped metal.
She would not fear it. She promised. She’d played with fire before, coming to it, giving it her body, and they’d been good friends.
But still again.
And again.
She failed.
Iron this time. Then silver again. Lead. Lead, lead, lead. Her arms like lead. Her neck ready to snap under the leaden weight of her head.
But still again.
Gold. Apollo’s golden disk held like an offering to Hestia, who did not love her. Vulcan, then. Please.
Please, please.
“Good God, Sybil.” Warm hands on her shoulder, her bare neck, the dark shape of a body stepping between her and the fire.
She tried to struggle past it.
“You’ve had enough. I should have paid closer attention.”
She blinked and blinked and blinked and finally the world sharpened. His face came into focus. Apollo. He curled her hand closed around his gold, and her arms—so heavy, too heavy—dropped to her side.
He stepped closer. “How long have you been like this? Crying? You? Let’s get you to bed.” His voice rough.
The world tilted, and he was holding her like a babe, safe against his chest.
“No. I can do more.” Her throat felt raw, and her words sounded small.
“No.” He laid her carefully atop his bed.
She swatted his shoulder. “Do not manhandle me.” No weight to the words.
He took off her shoes and stockings, his hands gentle, his touch light. For a moment—so slight she might have imagined it—he slipped his hand beneath her skirts, caressed her calf. Then he cursed and covered her with the blankets. “Stay there.”
She’d run out of fight. The bed was too comfortable. She curled up on her side, and by the time he returned, she’d all but fallen asleep, one hand beneath the pillow.
He knelt before her with a cup of wine. “Drink some of this. There’s a sleeping potion in here.
” He held it to her lips, and she hesitated.
“If you’re left to fall asleep on your own, you’ll do nothing but think about why it didn’t work and blame yourself and chastise yourself, and”—he sighed—“just drink it.”
“This is your bed. Mine is in the”—she yawned—“other room.”
“We’re switching.”
She nodded, sipped the drink. It had been years since someone had taken care of her.
Not since she had been, oh, thirteen or fourteen and sick with a fever.
Her mother had pressed cold cloths to her head all night long.
But now Sybil did the pressing, the organizing, the managing, the remembering. The general of the Grant Army.
She hadn’t seen her family since the day Stone’s henchmen had grabbed her.
She wiped a tear from her eye before it could fall. “No one takes care of generals.”
“What does that mean?” His gaze roved over her face.
She yawned again. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”
“You’re absurd.”
She closed her eyes, and a wind brushed across her cheek. No, not the wind. More solid than that.
Skin. Bone. Fingers?
And then there was wind across her forehead, warm and soothing, and not wind. Breath. Because lips followed it—firm yet gentle and pressed just above her brow.
“Sweet dreams, princess.”
The slap of footsteps, the creak of a hinge, then silence.
Sleep came swiftly.
And it felt like a kiss in the dark.