Sharing Warmth
“I can see you shivering. Do you want to join me?” She lifts up her layers of blankets, revealing a scratchier hemp sheet which covers the ground under her.
I blink. It’s just her, three trees at most, and a bounty of warm fabrics.
“I didn’t know you were here,” I stammer.
“Piero made a big deal of it, and you were going; I thought it would be fun.”
“Is it?” I slowly join her under the blankets.
Her warmth radiates under them like I’m caught in an oven. Every direction is a hug from her.
“I got to see my favorite hazel eyes, so I think so.”
I cinch my eyes shut and lower my head to the ground. “I nearly got hit on.”
“How did it go?” she asks, so much excitement pervading her voice.
“She stopped when I said I was a consort.”
“I’m sorry, Kate.”
I feel the blanket bend and stretch as she lays next to me, barely not touching. “She was so forthright, desperate.”
“You’ve felt how much magic has changed you; people will do anything and try anything to get it. Her desperation doesn’t say anything about you.”
“I wasn’t desperate…” I roll over to face her, pink eyes glimmering with a blue flare from lights hanging in the trees.
“I had to do so little to gain access to the Ring. I barely tried, was barely even interested in magic when you told me I would become a necromancer. I wanted something else, tried pathetically little for it, and you gave me everything.”
Just like the Great Ring, picking its favorites and uplifting them.
Vincenza shudders. “Nobody else came to the parlour. I didn’t want them to.”
“What?”
“I didn’t advertise in any newspaper. I didn’t have posters up while the parlour was open. I didn’t turn even turn the lights on. I was aggressive to you and hoped you would quit.”
“I don’t understand. W-why did you have me in for an interview at all if you didn’t want an apprentice?”
“I promised Nascia—“ Her words seize. “You don’t deserve to deal with this story. Not on such a beautiful night. Don’t waste your time with me.”
I ride an arm over her torso, nearly halfway into a hug. “No moment I spend with you is a waste. Can you tell me? I don’t mind if it’s sad.”
Her mouth cycles open and shut before settling on any words. “I promised my wife… I promised Nascia that I would try to keep the parlour going. It was our dream. But, I was tired of being alive without her.
“I thought I would give it one chance, and I did everything I thought of to sabotage it. I was waiting to say that I tried. I promised her I would try. Then, I could be with her.”
Suddenly, I feel like I’m looking at a ghost, and all my nerves simultaneously numb like it. “Vincenza…”
“It was never a burden I should have put on you. Of all the deeply unfair things in this world, I added one more onto you.” She sighs.
“I’m not planning on anything like that, for if nothing else, then because I can’t stand the idea that I made it your responsibility.
It’s not. No matter what you do, what anyone does, I’ll stay here. ”
“You better.” My arms work against my own will to pull her towards me, my voice commanding weakly, “you will.”
“I will.” She accepts my closeness, tucking a hand behind my hair. “I was just in a terrible state that I didn’t want to get out of. I wanted every day I had without her to be suffering, but I didn’t want to suffer. It’s terrifying, the thought that I’ll one day be happy—and it won’t be with her.”
“Have you not been happy at all recently?”
“I have, and I'm terrified.”
“Even if you didn’t care about me, and I didn’t know you, Piero would miss you. Your patrons—some of them surely know you. Stella referred to you like you were a common guest. You can’t—“
“I know. I just… didn’t care if it hurt them.”
“I don’t care about that either! I care about you. Piero would’ve cared. He wouldn’t neglect you if you needed his support, would he?”
“He wouldn’t. I’m not sure if I would care for it—he’s always been a misogynist—but he wouldn’t give up my life.”
“I wouldn’t give it up either. I know I’m—I know our relationship is… I don’t care if I’m supposed to or not, I would support you.”
“I couldn’t put that pressure on you,” she whispers. “I’m only barely fine with this confession because it’s a promise: I’m staying here. Anything more…”
“Vincenza.” I back myself off her just enough to look into her eyes, glow refracting prismatically through her tears.
“I’ve never realized how bound I was by being a consort until you taught me I could be something.
I hate being bound by this… fucking trivial title of apprentice.
Fire me right here if that’s the cost of letting me care.
Because I will. I will support you whenever you need me. ”
“I’m afraid that I would. The moment I’d need support, it feels like I’d want you.” She grabs my hand, skeletal fingers bound in soft skin wrapping around mine. “I’ll make sure I won’t need it.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
“Nothing is guaranteed.” She stands up, pulling me with her. “I hate seeing you worry over me like I’m not four decades your senior. You can lay down and stargaze with me or give us somewhere to go.”
“I want to dance with you, but I don’t think I’ll just be over what you said.”
She echoes, “you want to dance with me?”
“A-and what’s wrong with that?” I hastily reply before I act more stupid.
“Nothing.” She leads me down the hill, and I clutch myself to her chest.
Somehow, it slipped past my mind that I asked her for a dance. It almost slipped past me that we’re now walking together, with me in her arms, to a public place so that others can see us close.
But the moment finally caught on something in my mind, and now my anxiety is piling. “Aren’t you worried about your eyes?”
“It’s a Lights Festival. But do tell me if you see Piero.”
“Have you seen him?”
“A couple times.”
I can’t put together why she’s being so close to me. I can understand that she’d want me near after being so vulnerable, but I don’t get how I earned her vulnerability in the first place. My heart wants to hope, believe in the Ring’s guidance.
I inhale the cool air. It’s easier to have long hopes than to constantly remind myself of why they won’t work out.
“That’s a fun mechanism.” Vincenza points out a large goat of paper, gears, and internal lights walking down the wider path.
“It’s cute.” I get to spend extra time watching it as she focuses on not crashing us into other people. “I was thinking of adopting a rescued salamander, by the way… Can I?”
“I wouldn’t mind a pet. Were you thinking of keeping it in your room, the parlour, or our living room?”
Our living room. It is… strange to consider myself an equal resident, when I was more or less living in a sublet dorm for so long.
“If it’s on the table, I would like the living room, so we both get to interact with them. And it’s more convenient to wash our hands with the sink right there.”
I blink and look down to our hands. She’s not restrained with how she’s holding me; our fingers are intertwined. It feels like a scandal.
“Don’t squeeze my hand too hard. My bones haven’t taken necromancy well.” Her grip tightens to stop my hand from retreating in shame. “I’m not letting you get lost.”
“Sorry, Mistress.” I wouldn’t hide from her.
“Tonight, I’m not your mistress. You can say no to me.”
I tilt my head, feeling the slightest bit bratty. “No. I’m gonna call you Mistress over and over and obey everything you ask.”
“Mm… you’re gonna regret that,” she teases.
I steady, eyes narrowing to watch her. I truly feel the distance between us wearing so thin, and I don’t know what she’ll want when there is none.
She looks down at me and snickers. “Don’t look so cute.”
I smirk. “No thanks, Mistress. I’ll look however I want.”
“You’re just testing me, aren’t you? You make me wish I could discipline you.”
If I open my mouth to speak, my heart might just hop out. So I keep my thoughts stuffed into my warm chest.
Vincenza stops us outside a fenced off attraction, open air and filled with people slowly dancing under a truly absurd number of string lights. She writes out a check for our entrance, and I’m stuck looking at everyone around us.
What do we look like to them? A couple? A mother and daughter? The second one’s a stretch as we really only share similar clothing and a general sickliness from necromancy, but people thought I was Lucia’s sister for less.
And it’s the first option that’s making breathing feel so tense.
I know I’m not looking at Vincenza as an apprentice should look at their mistress. This is hardly educational. It barely even feels like it’s my wants leading. I want to make her lead me.
What if Lucia saw? Where would it go from there? What would she think, accuse?
Vincenza takes me inside, humming some Lawrinian lyrics. “...I’m aware you had some trouble earlier, but I hope you will come out having enjoyed this night.”
“I think I’m enjoying it so far.”
“Good.” She puts her hands on me, and guides me through slow movements. “You’re free to leave once I start to bore you; I don’t mind stargazing alone.”
“You’re not very good at being a bore; I’m certainly not leaving your side until you make me.”
“I might have to if you refuse to go on your own, teach you some independence.”
I frown.
She giggles, cherry smelling breath landing on my lips. “Don’t worry. You’ve been independently operating the parlour for long enough that I don’t need to teach you. Still, it’s an option if you find your friends and wish to join them.”
“I’d rather not fourth wheel them.”
She confidently moves me in her arms like she’s proud to be holding me.
I want to be her prize. I want her to try and earn me.
I back off slightly, teasingly, hoping she’ll desperately claw me back—and she does! I didn’t even get to begin the verbal taunting part of the campaign.
“You can dance here with me, or leave. No teasing,” she warns.
“I will allow myself to tease if I want, Mistress.”
Her face goes red; her grip tightens. The Great Ring feels so close to us.