Chapter 9 Brook
“Shouldn’t you be at the Dun Steorra Cultural Dance?” Papa asked sharply.
Brook winced and took a deep breath. She should’ve gone invisible before coming down the front stairs, but she’d been hoping to pick up a snack from the bar on her way out. “Shouldn’t you?” she replied.
“Hmm,” was Papa’s only reply.
Brook turned around and headed into the little sitting room.
The fireplace was enchanted not to heat the room, but to still burn bright and cozy; another charm protected the fire from the magical breeze blowing in from the windows.
Papa sat on his favorite fluffy chair, his feet up, his glass of good wine in one hand, his book in another.
Different book, she noticed. He was tearing through them this summer.
“Off to see that fiancée of yours?” Papa asked.
Brook flopped into the seat across from him, letting her legs sprawl out before her. “Sort of. I don’t know.”
Papa frowned. “You seemed very happy together the other evening. I almost believed it was a real engagement.” A slight smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
“Me too,” Brook muttered.
Papa raised one eyebrow. “Did you, now?”
“She said she doesn’t want my help at the stall anymore. Which I’m sure Mama will like to hear; surprised she didn’t kick up a stink about me marrying a vendor, let alone a baker.”
“From a very good family of engineers,” Papa pointed out.
“Still.”
Papa closed his book and set aside his wine glass. Then began pouring another from the table between them. When he finished, he held it out to her.
Brook leaned forward and accepted, then stared into it blankly.
This had never happened to her before. Especially not after a night like that. Not that she’d ever had a night exactly like that. Not only was Aisling’s tongue a magnificent thing, but that tail, and the little noises she made when she was happy, and the way she moaned into Brook’s hair as she—
“You know your mother and I were not a love marriage,” Papa interrupted her thoughts.
“Yes,” Brook said, vaguely irritated.
He sipped at his wine again. “But your Mama had many would-be suitors, and her father thought me the best of them. She accepted her duty.”
“As did my perfect brother,” she said.
“Yes, but Harald had a list from which to choose, and he met them all that summer at the market. His choice was his own in that sense.”
“Still.”
“I didn’t want to marry a stranger, but with my name and my parents, it wasn’t so much a question of if—it was more when. But after I married your mother, and I came to respect her, even love her—don’t look like that, you know I do.”
Brook had been about to roll her eyes but stopped. She sipped the sweet after-dinner wine instead. It was rich and ripe. It’d be lovely with one of Aisling’s custard cakes.
“After I came to love her, I made her promise me that if we had children, and if they ever fell in love, we would allow them to marry for it. I don’t think she expected it would ever happen—no child of hers would be so frivolous.” His smile was fond, though. Soft. “Alas, her husband was and is.”
“Is this your way of saying that me losing the one person I’ve ever been interested in keeping is also me losing my one chance at marrying for love?”
“No. It’s—”
“Why should I marry at all?” She set down her glass a little too hard, so it sloshed. She bit back an impulse to apologize for it.
“Some elves do better alone. Some do better in a large family group. Others need a life partner or three to provide them with something they can’t find within themselves. To balance them out.”
“Oh? And in what way am I so deficient?”
“You need someone to care for. Because you won’t care for yourself enough to do all the things I know you’re capable of in life; you’ve long since given up on that.
Oh, it’s my fault—and your mother’s, I know.
We didn’t prepare you for anything useful, but we rather enjoyed growing up that way. You’re different, like Aunt Florinda.”
“The mad hedge witch who lives alone at the edge of the Emberleigh forest in spite of her royal blood and fortune?” Not exactly the comparison Brook would hope for.
“Yes,” he replied easily. “Except she’s not mad, no more than you or I. She just wanted to do something more important to her than governing or stewarding or all the other things we nobles are useful for. And there aren’t many, I’ll tell you.”
Brook snorted out a laugh. The sensation relaxed her, so her shoulders slumped and she slid further down in the chair.
Papa went on, “I watched you come into your magic with no guidance, no teacher. I watched you squander your curiosity on fling after fling and shiny thing after pretty object.”
“As in elves, or actual objects?”
“Yes,” Papa said. “And I admit, I hoped that in your search for someone to pretend to marry you, you might come across someone who’d actually inspire you to find your own important thing.
Even if you didn’t marry them, you’d know who you wanted to be for the next few decades. You’d stop floating aimlessly.”
“I’m not aimless,” she lied.
“Pleasure is an aim, but perhaps not a sustainable one.” He smiled wryly.
“Well, let’s hope it wasn’t Aisling,” Brook muttered, cheeks flaring hot.
“I thought it might be. She had you waking up and going to work. Not that work makes the elf, of course, but it was lovely to see you eager like that.”
“Eager to do something productive, you mean.”
“Britheue.” Papa almost never called her by her real name.
Not unless he was cross or frustrated. But his face was calm, his eyes wide and dark, dancing with the firelight.
“You cannot truly love another until you love yourself. But you have to want to, and if this Aisling can show you how, then I’ll be happy. ”
“I love myself,” she protested.
“You’re forty-one, sweetling. An elf fully grown.” Papa smiled. “It’s time to decide who you want to be. And if that’s someone that makes your mother angry, so be it.”
“Oh, you say that now. Before it was, Well, fall in love, or at least pretend to!”
“That would be the path of least resistance. But if you insist on creating your own resistance, there’s not much I can do about that.”
She snorted. “I’ll travel again.”
“Yes. You could.” Papa picked up his book again. “Or you could find Aisling and discuss why, exactly, you’re here instead of with her tonight, and make it better. And perhaps have a traveling companion.”
“You’re infuriating.” She drank the rest of the wine in three gulps, set it down, and headed out of the inn.
And if she was looking for Aisling, it wasn’t because her father told her to. So there.
But Aisling’s stall was empty, and there was no one in her wagon at the campsite. So Brook went back to The Webbed Foot, drank another glass of wine—this time by herself—ordered a bath for tomorrow, and went to bed.
The next morning, she dressed her bath with sweet-smelling, luxurious oils, and had a real, proper soak.
As she washed her hair, she had nothing else to do but think, and so she did.
And she still couldn’t understand what had happened with Aisling yesterday morning.
As a seeker of pleasure, as her father so gently put it, Brook was very good at detecting her fellow rakes.
The type of elf who was looking for a fun roll in the hay, not a partner to inspire them to new heights, to help them find themselves, or whatever nonsense Papa was talking. She recognized her own.
Aisling wasn’t like her. Aisling was focused and intense, a bright light in the darkness that attracted Brook like a campfire on a cold night.
She’d told Brook, she’d said it without prompting, that she didn’t mind Brook “distracting” her from her work.
And she’d certainly been eager enough the other night, once they’d finally gotten past what Brook had then assumed was their final stumbling block.
Was it really possible that an elf like Aisling would throw a lover like Brook away like that? Even Brook wasn’t that heartless with lovers when…
Well, she had run from Sunny. But the poetry. So much poetry. She cringed thinking of it even now, goddess bless that ridiculous elf.
Was this how he’d felt when she’d abandoned the market without so much as a proper goodbye? When she’d disappeared right before his eyes the other day in a clear attempt to avoid him? At least Aisling had the stomach to tell Brook to go away; Brook hadn’t even had that much decency with Sunny.
She deserved this. She deserved a taste of her own physick.
But she still fucking hated it.
Brook took her time getting ready that afternoon. She chose her softest, most form-hugging leathers, her best simple-but-elegant jewelry for her ears, and even had Azalea come up and brush out her wild curls until they looked like spun mandisilk.
She thought about stopping by the archery competition to cheer on Raylen—and ask about his beau—but no.
She’d taken too long trying to make herself pretty; she had very little time now.
Aisling would only be open another few hours, and then she’d close up shop and be hard to find once more. And Brook had things to say to her.
She wasn’t sure what, exactly. But things would be said. Or she’d explode.
All that resolved melted when she spotted the shuttered stall. Plenty of customers were still milling around the food stalls—it was barely dinner time—but the Cloud Cake stall was shut up tight. Heart in her throat, Brook went around the back. She raised her hand to knock. Paused.
Then turned around and walked away quickly.
A few deep breaths, a quick glass of stone fruit wine from one of her favorite stalls, and Brook finally told herself to stop being a tragic waster and do something.
She’d regret it if she didn’t—and seeing as she’d never felt that way about any of other lover after things had gone awry, it must mean something.
So she knocked on Aisling’s door.
“Go away.” Aisling’s voice was thick and wet, followed by unmistakable sobs.
“Aisling?” Brook asked. “Are you all right?”