Chapter 8 #3
A knock on the door startled them both. Elloven turned away to clean her face while Jesstin answered. A couple of moments later, he kicked the door closed and carried a sloshing basin to the hearth on the other side of the room.
“Are you calling me filthy?” Jesstin laughed and dipped his finger in the water to test it. He splashed some over his face and rubbed at the dirt.
“It was, ah, for your clothing, but yes, wash yourself first, before you sully the water with—” She stopped. There was no recovering from that.
Jesstin grinned to himself as he stripped away his soiled clothing.
He caught Elloven watching, and she quickly spun away, more flustered than ever.
She’d been so cool and composed during their flirtations in the Night Soul, but she couldn’t even finish her words now.
Her discomposure was so powerful, she was certain the whole of the Infinitum could feel it with her.
“How’s the pain?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Much better after a rest. I thought the place had actually finished me off.”
“Your fresh clothing... Let me...” Elloven’s face was as hot as if she were sitting next to the fire. She gathered the fallen garb, dropping the shirt as she reached for the pants, then dropped that too. She collected it all and shuffled toward him, faced away, and released it without looking.
“You’re being awfully strange around me,” Jesstin said. From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of bare chest as he dried himself. “Was it the kissing?”
“I’m not really sure,” Elloven replied, because it was everything, really, all the moments and the incidents and the closeness and the betrayals.
And yes, the kisses, but she’d liked those and wanted more, despite her apprehension of saying so, which was at least in part due to the fear of rejection.
“My mind hasn’t caught up to the fact you’re really here. ”
The sound of fabric sliding over flesh filled the brief silence. “I told you I’d come.”
“You also said you would be here quickly, but you never explained how.” She’d thrown out the first of her many questions and felt lighter already. “I know you didn’t take the roads.”
“I’m decent. You can look.”
Elloven nearly lost her words again at the sight of him in the crisp cobalt blouse, freshly mended vest, and gray trousers.
It was so unlike what he normally wore, and she’d guessed a size too small, but that was only more distracting.
His clean, tan skin took on a golden hue in the warm light of the hearth.
“You’re evading the question. You evaded it when I asked before. ”
She was unprepared for his lopsided grin, same as she’d been the first time he’d turned it on her. It was surely the same one that worked on the women he paraded around at his tavern, and... probably with Lexsea as well.
“It’s a long story.” Jesstin finished buttoning his shirt. “This is your havre?”
“What?” she replied. He’d bewildered her with another sudden shift.
She shouldn’t let him off the hook so easily, but more than anything else, even more than the truth, she wanted them not to be at odds.
“It’s an inn, in the middle of a village that’s protected like the havres and cloisters are.
All I know is it’s called Everspell. It’s popular, and it reminds me of Mythgarde a bit, the abundance of ill repute excluded. ”
Jesstin’s smile grew broader and even warmer. “There’s always ill repute, Elloven, if you know where to look.”
Was she blushing? It certainly felt so. “Let me hang your clothes for you.” She moved to pick them up, but he caught her wrist in his fingers.
“We should talk about the night you... left.”
Her eyes followed the lump sliding down his throat.
So it was to be an entire evening of him taking her off her guard? Not this time, she decided. She had plenty to say about that night, but she didn’t have the heart to end their first evening together in quarrel. “How would you like to do something a little different instead?”
Jesstin’s hold on her relaxed. “You win. I’m intrigued.”
Elloven laughed under her breath. She was flirting. There was no other explanation for how incontestably tongue-tied she was in the heart of such strange exhilaration. “You’re a tavern man. I thought we might indulge in one of the Everspell establishments, for comparison’s sake.”
“We require neither food nor spirits...” He squinted one eye. “And you turn your nose at disreputable acts, so what’s left for us? You already know I don’t dance.”
“I never said...” Elloven scrunched her face. “Are you not even curious about this place?”
“I’m curious about the way you’re acting.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Would you like to accompany me or not, you stubborn mule?”
Jesstin cocked his head in amusement. “One thing about you, you always speak like a lady.”
Elloven batted his arm away instead of taking it. “Must be refreshing for you. But ladies only accept arms from respectable men.”
He doused her with a look that seemed to say your loss and swaggered past. She could only shake her head, wondering at how easily she’d gone from a suffocating, dread-filled existence to being silly with a man in the land of the dead.
Jesstin swung the door wide and walked out. He left his foot behind to hold it open just slightly for her, playing somewhere between a gentleman and the reprobate she’d lost her senses over. “Are you coming, or do I have to uphold my reputation all by myself?”
Elloven squeezed through the insultingly small gap, muttering curses under her breath.
“You’re dying to say something clever.” His eye twitched as he released the door. “But it’s not clever if you have to think about it.”
“Moonrise is young,” she retorted and lifted her skirt to trudge ahead. “I might surprise you.”
Everspell had all the makings of a proper town square, and it might have even felt like one if not for the way the buildings abruptly abutted the wild forest on all sides.
It was the “freshness” of the little enclave that Jesstin found off-putting.
It felt like walking through the erected set of a mummer’s play rather than a place lived in.
But the square was packed with revelers, dancing and laughing and drinking under strings of lights.
Musicians played instruments both familiar and foreign, and the vocalist carried a lively melody that was new to him.
His hand mindlessly tapped against his fresh trousers as they walked across the plaza, and he was surprised to find himself enjoying the rhythm.
Somewhere around the bottom of their tavern’s steps, his hand had found Elloven’s. She’d accepted it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Being with her was the most natural thing in the world... in any world.
The moment he’d seen her walk in with the stack of fresh clothes, he’d shelved the Conductor, the trials—all of it.
Nothing mattered more than getting her out of Infinita Mori.
Everything would change once she was free.
It had to. He’d chosen truth, and even if he could go back and alter his choice, he wouldn’t.
But he could not lose his focus. If he unburdened himself now, she’d abandon her faith in him, and he’d never get her out. He’d never bring her back to life.
“Nothing else here feels like this,” she mused aloud, her hand tucked warmly into his. “It’s almost...”
“Nice,” he said, finishing for her, and she nodded. A laughing couple brushed by, knocking Elloven sideways. Jesstin started to say something about it, but Elloven stopped him with a look. His frown became a laugh. “This was your idea, so why am I leading?”
“Your rescuer recommended the place across the way. I was just visiting the market when you showed up, like magic.”
He made a gagging face. “Decomposing magic.”
She laughed. “You look much better. It’s true what they say. Wounds are trivial here.”
Jesstin felt better. He’d been edging toward actual death when Elizabeth and her mother had found him. But the pain was nearly gone, and his mind was no longer mush. “What are they going to do, kill us twice?”
“Except you’re not dead, unless there’s something you’d like to tell me?”
He grinned at how nice it was to hear her voice. To feel the gentle breeze sweep by them... the easy melodies drifting from the other side of the square. Nothing so far had been so easy between them, but tonight, he’d let the magic carry them wherever it chose. “What I’d like is an ale.”
“There.” She pointed at a tavern on the other side, where most of the action seemed to be happening outside rather than in.
The outdoor bar was shoulder-to-shoulder with people who looked to be having the most fun of anyone in Everspell.
Woven through the packed tables were randomly scattered games.
One group huddled around a series of barrels, while a woman hurled small sacks at them.
Everyone around her cheered when one landed in a barrel.
A man took her place and squared up for his own turn.
Elloven tugged him along and broke his stare. “I recall you being fair at sport.”
Her allusion to the past made him wonder. Did she remember the day she’d comforted him during Mathias and Emrys’s blowout? “I don’t want to be the reason those eager men end the night alone in their beds.”
“Because you’d take all the women for yourself?” She blinked at him, dubious.
“Their humiliation would.” He nudged her with his shoulder. “And I’d rather spend time with you.”
Elloven glanced away, but he caught her shy smile.
“I’ll find a table.” She released him and went on ahead, squeezing through the throngs. He just shook his head as he watched. There was no chance. Groups everywhere were huddled around like vultures, waiting for others to leave.