Chapter Four #3
Sera craned her head to observe the entire structure of the Spire from the ground. Her body bent further and further. Her eyes traveled higher and higher. Kieran reached out to steady her, but pulled away before contact. No more lapses.
“What’s in there? I can’t even imagine all the stairs,” she said, but he was already at the door.
He heard the light tap of her feet as she hustled to keep up.
He entered the two-story building that comprised the base of the Spire, where most of his work took place.
The Spire was a symbol, more than anything. He hadn’t gone inside in over a year.
Inside the office was a steady bustle of activity.
Carpet runners muffled the sound of shoes, and were bordered on either side by elaborate marbled floor.
A flight of stairs went to an upper balcony that held the offices for the nine alderman—one representative for each race including all four fae Courts—with lower level government workers and employees scattered below.
Though he knew every face that passed him.
No one offered him a wave or hello. Kieran did a habitual sweep of the room, checking for any shadows that may have appeared since yesterday.
There was one shadow that lingered each day.
It hovered behind a clerk with a persistent medical condition for the past two years.
Most days it was unchanged, then the clerk would be absent for a week and when he returned the shadow would be a touch larger, clearer.
Kieran hadn’t told him about the shadow, as there was nothing to be done.
The clerk noticed Kieran enter and scurried to look away.
Today, the shadow was at his back, fully formed. A month. Maybe two.
None expressed hatred or revulsion to the idea of Kieran’s gift, but it had caused a division. Like it was Kieran waiting to claim their souls. Kieran had grown used to their fearful distance over the years and rarely felt the isolating shame anymore.
He ascended the stairs to his office, the first in the horseshoe configuration that bordered the base of the Spire. The entrance was marked by a circular archway and small antechamber with a desk and chairs. It served as a waiting area and a place for assistants or secretaries to work.
The desk was empty, vacated for several years now. The combination of his high degree of self-sufficiency, other’s distaste for his brisk manner, and his own need to sever any traces of emotional attachment had him cycling through secretaries faster than was prudent. So he had ceased to employ one.
Still, even his efficiency wasn’t enough to maintain every aspect of his work, so there were oversights.
His workload had nearly doubled in the fallout of the Yarrow Graves debacle, supplies were running low and he’d filled two boxes with overlooked pages that needed to be properly filed.
He’d spent the two weeks creating a list for her.
“Is this my desk?” she asked, hopping into the accompanying chair and immediately swiveling and spinning in incessant, fidgeting patterns. “I’ve never had a desk before.” She pulled the chair up and straightened her spine. “I feel so important.”
“Amusing,” he commented, tone droll and therefore shifting the admission into sarcasm.
“I have a list of tasks for you.” He began to extract the list he’d written in neat, bulleted lines from an inner pocket.
“What few supplies I had on hand are here.” He motioned to a box on the desk.
“For you to arrange how you like. There’s no need to complete every task today. ”
She eyed the paper in his hand, but made no move to take it from him as her smile dropped. “Oh… does this job require a lot of reading?”
“To a degree, yes.” Her posture slumped, her genuine smile falling fully into a frown.
Was it possible she couldn’t read? He hadn’t thought to ask.
No matter. He returned the list to his pocket.
He’d simply alter it so that none of her tasks involved reading and instead appoint a single task each day verbally. There. Problem solved.
“For today, you can arrange your desk with the supplies I left for you. Now, I’m going to attempt to get some work done. I ask that you stay here until I return.”
“What do I do all day?”
“Sit,” he instructed. “Arrange.” He slid the box toward her, nearly hiding her completely until she rose from the chair.
“What if I have to use the bathroom?”
“Down the hall, to the left.” He pointed, then returned his arm behind his back.
“Don’t talk to anyone and don’t leave this floor.
You have no clearance and no credentials, I filed the paperwork the morning you arrived, but…
” his voice dropped, “Accounts can be inefficient, to say the least. And I have yet to receive your worker’s pass. ”
“Can I see your office?” She got up without invitation and scooted past him.
Resigned, he followed her.
“You know what,” she turned a slow circle in the center of the room, “it’s exactly as I pictured.
Everything in its neat little place. Not a pin out of alignment.
No art on the walls. No family pictures.
” She perched on the edge of his desk. “How hard would I have to look to find a missed detail? A pencil out of place? A book not properly alphabetized?”
More games. He did not have time for games, though… it did sound more appealing than staring at the same pieces of paper he had for the past three weeks to no result.
“Perfection is an impossible standard,” he said. “I’m not sure what sort of flaws in my system you might find if you looked, but I do my best to avoid and minimize inefficiency.”
“Of course you do.” She crossed her legs, drawing the hem of her skirts further up her leg.
Her calves were visible, which was not a sight typically seen in these offices as women’s fashion included longer skirts and they did not typically lounge on top of desks with their legs crossed. Kieran closed the door.
The fact that she was human and he a Winter Fae would cause a stir of gossip he’d rather avoid.
Graves had not married Miss Wilde, as the papers had suggested, and the long list of Graves's crimes against the city had surfaced after his death a couple weeks ago. Kieran may not hold racial preferences, but the rest of the world would latch onto the fleetest whisper of a romantic connection between him and a human and he wasn’t eager to fuel their gossip unnecessarily.
Because there would be no connection to Sera outside of professional and ensuring her safety.
Once the latter was resolved, then all ties to her would be immediately severed.
“Aha, this is where you admit that you didn’t need a secretary, after all.” Her voice was a sultry purr and Kieran felt the dance of her words like the gentle scratch of her fingers down his spine.
“I’m trying to avoid gossip and questions about a woman sitting on my desk.”
She leaned back, her hips pushing the pencil cup askew. His eyes snapped to the disturbance, but he refrained from leaping to correct it. “Do you often have women on your desk?”
He didn’t respond. Partly so as not to rise to the obvious bait, but also… he couldn’t remember the last time anyone was in this office. For any reason.
He took steady steps toward her. A prowling sort of approach that sent her chest lifting with deeper breaths, her lips drawing open in anticipation that he might just prove her theory on his motivations for bringing her here. And the idea was not without temptation.
When he was close enough, their eyes locked for several heartbeats, he reached decidedly around her body and readjusted the pencil cup. He was careful that no part of him was in contact with her, he did not need to be reminded of the potency of her touch.
Her frown was instant and satisfying.
“Out,” he ordered, stepping aside for her to pass without risk of contact.
She climbed down and, once she was free of the room, he stayed standing for a few seconds more.
Too many things. He had too many things to carry.
He crossed to his chair and when he sat, his perfect posture gave. The scent of her lingered on his desk. Some sort of feminine almond concoction.
He was not religious. Did not expend much thought on the Divine or even the old gods of the fae, but here, now, he might have prayed for strength.
The papers that Sera’s pleasantly rounded, if misplaced, backside had scattered and disordered stared back at him.
He made no attempt to arrange the sheets properly.
The papers pertained to the logistics of replacing the iron throughout the city with fae-refined steel and other non-toxic materials.
Kieran’s plan was for a full overhaul of the city.
However, it quickly became evident that if he wanted to get approval and support, he needed to start small.
The local parks around the Garrison held benches, small footbridges over ponds, street lights, and trash bins that all contained iron.
The mechanics of replacement had proved outside Kieran’s expertise.
He had been scanning the pages for weeks, trying to come up with a way to make the adjustments without obliterating the laughable budget he was expected to utilize.
With every passing day, it was becoming clear that the solution to this problem was in the hands of a professional.
Maybe this was the kind of job Sera could manage for him, finding someone with the inclination for mechanical engineering. At this point, he’d settle for an extremely seasoned blacksmith with a mind for structures, if not an outright professional.