Chapter 29
twenty-nine
Kas practices patience.
Patience, Kas. Patience, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time as he stood for his final fitting.
He’d hired a tailor to make him a new wardrobe since his old clothes got too small due to Nesrina’s constant reminders to eat.
Smirking, his thoughts drifted to her, yet again, and Kas found himself repeating his familiar mantra: Patience.
She hadn’t believed him, he didn’t think, when he said he’d make her his. But the timing was finally right for him to bring her around, to ramp up the courting, to propose. All would be well.
In the spirit of preparing for a holiday, he’d hammered out his newest article and mailed it that morning to the Mystical Sciences Review. Passing the packet to Thera prompted a flutter of anticipation in his gut, not unlike when he’d published his first article a decade before.
He’d grown tired of trying to pick the perfect phrasing.
At first, Kas intended to expound on the ideas Nesrina inspired while maintaining plausible deniability that he was Thanin and she was his muse.
Giving up had never felt so freeing. The world wouldn’t make the connection, but he had no doubt she would.
There was nothing for it anymore, and he was determined to take the reveal into his own hands.
A series of soft raps sounded on his apartment’s door. “Enter,” he called over the tailor’s head.
Thera poked her head in, but her eyes were pinched closed. “Are you decent?”
He chuckled at her expression. “I am. Come on in.”
Scurrying over, she handed him a letter, and he spied the royal seal before it left her hands. “This was delivered by an urgent courier.”
Kas scowled as he ripped open the missive. The line between his brow grew deeper as he read. “Change of plans. The trip is canceled, and my sister’s coming here.”
“Oh?” Thera tilted her head, asking for more.
Kas dipped his chin in the tailor’s direction, indicating he would share details later, when they were alone.
Thera scurried off to alert the rest of the household and reverse the preparations already underway.
Kas breathed deeply, in through his nose and out through his mouth, a trick he’d picked up from Nes. His whole plan, his whole timeline, had gone up in flames.
As the tailor wrapped up his fitting with a few final pins and lines of chalk, Kas’s thoughts were at the palace with Ehmet, who he’d learned was hurt. It was the impetus for his sister’s visit to Stormhill.
“An incident occurred,” she wrote. “Ehmet sustained an unexpected injury while hunting. I am on my way to you.”
Most injuries were unexpected, why had she added that adjective?
Not once did she use the word accident, which he would’ve expected in her short letter.
With the recent rumblings out of the capital, something about the situation didn’t sit right, but Kas would need Hevva to arrive to get all the details.
“Why can’t we go anyway, Uncle Kas?” Ataht asked, voice pitched into a whine as he dug into his dessert.
“Your mum’ll be here in a few days, and she’ll be able to tell you more than I can. Perhaps there are no clean sheets at Summer Cottage and the trip has to be postponed?” Kas offered, earning an incredulous glance from Miss Kiappa.
As supper wound down, the disappointed twins were dismissed from the dining chamber.
Nesrina folded her napkin neatly and placed it by her plate while Kas debated whether he should give her more information than he’d offered the children.
It was only fair to apprise her. He didn’t want Nes to be startled by the additional soldiers he’d ordered to stand guard around his property, out of an abundance of caution.
He hoped he was being overcautious. Perhaps Ehmet had taken a tumble from his horse?
But if it had been that, why hadn’t Hevva said so?
Nes stood abruptly, jolting Kas from his thoughts. Leaping to his feet, his thighs knocked the tabletop. “A word, Miss Kiappa?”
She looked startled. “Certainly.”
He inclined his head toward the side door to the room. “Shall we speak outside? It’s a warm night.” Every night was warm, it was summer. What the fates was wrong with him?
“I suppose.”
In a split second of madness, Kas grabbed a half-drunk bottle of wine and two glasses from the table. She followed him silently from the room.
When they were safely ensconced on the southern terrace, a rarely used patio tucked between the kitchens and a stairwell, he placed the two glasses atop the railing and began to fill the first.
“No sheets at Summer Cottage, Lord Kahoth?” Nesrina teased, opening the conversation, much to Kas’s delight.
“Ah.” He chuckled as he finished filling his drink. “I thought you might— Oops.” Kas looked down over the railing where Nes’s glass lay shattered upon the cobbled walkway below. His stupid nerves.
“You thought I might, what?” she asked, not commenting on the fallen goblet. She simply produced a new one with her magic.
“I thought you might— This is cold? How is it cold?” Kas was diverted when he took the magical glass from her. The stemware was icy.
She winked, sending his stomach into a tailspin. “A trick of my magic, I suppose. Haven’t you noticed the princess can change an item’s luminescence, and the prince can shift the temperature?”
Kas sucked his teeth. He had not noticed that. He was always so observant, when had that changed?
It’s impossible to see the stars while the sun shines.
Fair enough. He felt somewhat better about the oversight. “A subtrait of chaosweaving?”
“I believe so. My father could do the same temperature manipulation as me, my aunt too. Now what do you keep trying to tell me?” She accepted her wine from Kas and sipped it as she fixed her eyes on the distant night-shrouded trees.
“Is that how the twins made that dragon with the fiery pennant in its mouth?” He joined her to lean upon the railing.
Nes balked. “You saw that?”
Oops. “I did, from the library. You handled it masterfully, by the way.”
She elbowed him in the side. “Handled it masterfully? Please. That was insane. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my position on the first day.”
“Your position is certainly solidified by now, I don’t think you need to worry,” he offered, skirting around the fact that he’d inadvertently told Hevva himself.
“I hope not.” She ran her finger up and down the stem of her glass.
“I’m sure you don’t need to worry.”
“Are you positive?”
“Yes.”
She nodded softly. “Well then, to answer your question, yes, Della made the banner thing glow, and Ataht’s magic gave it the ability to burn. When they’re stronger, I have no doubt they’ll be able to create realistic looking flames that function as such, too.”
“Astonishing.”
“It is.”
They stood in silence for a moment before Kas returned them to their original topic. “No interruptions this time. I thought you might have noticed the flimsy excuse I gave the twins at supper.”
“Oh, I certainly did.” She laughed before her eye caught on something in the yard. “Is that . . .?”
Kas followed her gaze to where Aylin and Thera were out for an evening walk. They paused briefly, Thera swatted Aylin on the arm for something she said, and the maid rounded on the housekeeper before pecking her on the mouth. “Those two? Been married for longer than I’ve been alive.”
“Oh.” Nes’s mouth remained in the shape of the word for a few seconds. “I thought they might be a couple but kept forgetting to ask.”
“They are. That’s why Aylin stayed on as a chambermaid with a lady’s maid’s salary when Hevva moved to Serkath. I appreciate you putting her to work these past weeks. She missed it, I think.”
She smiled, watching the aging couple continue their walk into the woods. “There’s something you keep trying to say?”
“Yes.” Kas sighed. “Not to dampen the mood, but Ehmet was unexpectedly injured while hunting.”
Her brows pulled together as she glanced up at him. “Aren’t all injuries unexpected? Just say accident.”
“My thoughts precisely,” he murmured as a shiver of heat coursed through him.
Great minds, and all that. Kas filled her in on the curious letter he’d received from his sister.
Between Hevva’s expedient departure from Kirce, the canceled trip, the rumblings around the palace, and the clear lack of the word “accident” in her letter, Nesrina agreed with Kas that something was afoot.
They passed quite some time upon the southern terrace.
The first bottle of wine was gone around the time they finished discussing the king.
Kas used a thick cord of magic to lift open one of the kitchen windows and snag a new bottle from the countertop.
Cook screamed at the unexpected intrusion, but no real harm was done.
Laughing, they moved from leaning against the railing to sit at the top of the stairs.
Conversation shifted with their positions from consequential to casual.
“How did you play the pianoforte?” Nesrina asked.
“I know the songs and make my magic play in place of my hands.”
“A duke and a musician? Color me impressed, Lord Kahoth. I wasn’t sure if you were able to offer a mood, or if you had to play the keys correctly.”
“The latter, unfortunately. I made a few mistakes, didn’t you notice?”
“I did not.” Nesrina blushed prettily as she sipped her wine.
“What of your magic? Do you have to be very specific, or can you—what did you say? Offer a mood?”
“Oh, I have to be quite specific, unfortunately.” Her eyeroll ended in a grin as her feet tapped the stone steps.
“You’ve shown me the biggest thing you can create. What about the most complex?” Kas asked. “Or was the mountain one in the same?”
Nes scoffed. “The mountain wasn’t complicated. Hmm . . . let’s see . . .”
With a pop, a miniature instrument, no wider than his hand, burst onto the landing between them.
Kas studied it with great interest. “How did you craft such a perfect little pianoforte?”
She stifled a laugh. “Technically it’s a harpsichord, because of the plectrums.”
He nodded, digging in his memories for anything on the differences between harpsichords and pianofortes.
Something about hammers came up, and when she struck up a tinkling sonata on her creation, he recalled the rest of the details.
It was a welcomed trait of hers, that brilliant mind, and a huge part of why he liked her so very much.
“I know how to make it because it was one of Papa’s exams when I was his pupil.
” The night was growing dark, but he could make out the flash of her smile in the late-evening haze.
“Once you’ve had to memorize every key, every curve, the length of each string .
. . You don’t forget that sort of thing. ”
“Gods.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “You’re amazing, Nes.” Kas focused on his shoes, positive that if he chanced another glance at her, he’d toss his glass down to the cobbles and pull her in for a kiss. Patience, Kas!
Beside him, Nes’s slippered feet shuffled on the steps.
The next day he took his hounds out for a well-timed walk that should have, if he’d planned correctly, had him crossing paths with Nesrina and the twins as they returned from their lesson in the glade.
And there she was, emerging from the path flanked by a pair of unruly children. Her caramel hair caught the sun’s afternoon rays as it lit up her face, and when she smiled at him, he felt certain he was in the presence of Appia, the mother of Duhra, goddess of children, the home, and weaving.
Fitting.
Kas had fully intended to up his courting game at Summer Cottage.
Alas, plans had changed. After their rather delightful conversation the evening before, he’d revised his mission to be properly winning her over right at home.
At least he could put his time to good use while awaiting Hevva’s arrival.
Acting where Kas could not, Vites and Enoth let out excited yelps and bounded past the twins to the approaching tutor, stealing her attention from him.
Lellin let out a whine, and Kas glanced down to find her baleful eyes asking why he wasn’t joining the others in romping across the grass.
When it became apparent to his old hound that he wasn’t going to race off too, she left him and joined her kin to pester Nes.
Pausing, Nes greeted the dogs in turn, giving each a scratch behind the ears before she tried again to make her way to Kas and the twins.
The happy pups weren’t having it, and they pranced around her in circles, butting their noses against her palms as they begged for more attention.
Kas understood where they were coming from.
After a few more rounds of pets and scratches, Nes sighed in defeat.
Quick as a wink, she shoved her palm out and crafted a trio of leather-looking sticks that lobbed away from her extended hand like .
. . magic—which they were. The sticks rocketed off in different directions, each one followed by a galivanting wolfhound.
The twins cheered and clapped at the casual display of their brand of power.
“I love Miss Kiappa!” Della cheered as she tugged on Kas’s hand.
“Me too.” He chuckled softly, giving his niece a squeeze. It took Kas a moment to realize what he’d said, and when he did, he sucked in breath, his pulse skyrocketing.
He loved her.
Of course it was love. How could he have been so stupid?
All the signs were there. The way she pulled him out of his routine, bettering the balance in his life.
The way she struck his fancy in a manner no human had ever accomplished.
The way he could listen to her speak for hours.
The way she’d enraptured him for months.
No single topic, and certainly no single person, had ever achieved that.
She was brilliant, and the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, inside and out. How could he not love her?
With the dogs finally distracted, Nesrina continued across the lawn. He locked onto her, unable to focus on anything else, not whatever question Ataht threw his way, or to affirm whatever fact Della stated. As if feeling the weight of his gaze, Nes looked up, brows scrunched in question.
I love you, he said with his eyes, or at least, he hoped that’s what his gaze conveyed. The beginnings of a blush crept up her neck before she tore her eyes away and focused on the fat, ancient book in his hand.
It wasn’t exactly the greeting he’d hoped for, but it was a good segue. “This is for you. I don’t need it right now and thought you might like to poke through.” It was meant to be a sort of courting gift, a bit of insight into him and his mind.
She snatched the proffered text and immediately flipped it open. Kas chuckled and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder to guide her around obstacles as their group of humans and hounds headed back to the house.
Love. He smiled to himself, his steps light and free.