Chapter 32 Pure Delight
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
PURE DELIGHT
ADELINE
“I’m going out,” I say.
“Don’t be stupid. You’ll get killed out there,” Ardruna growls.
“If I’m stuck here, I’m not going to sit on my hands. I know my herbs. I’ll gather what is edible.”
“You don’t even know they’re the same herbs you know from your world,” she counters.
“Not everything is different. You and I, we speak the common tongue. We obviously grew up with similar concepts and therefore can communicate. I’m sure I’ll find herbs I recognize.”
“And the monsters?” she reminds me.
“I’ll be careful. I just need to dress in something sturdier and warmer.” I kneel by the heap of clothes. “Talton found and carried all this from an abandoned house?”
“Roane must have lent him a hand.”
The thought of Roane getting these clothes for me sends an unwanted flash of warmth through me. “And where did he find a trunk full of women’s clothes if no women live here? Human or fae women. It makes no sense. Unless there are or have been human or fae women here before?”
“Not as far as I know.” Ardruna lifts a paw and starts licking her toes. “And it doesn’t have to make sense in the way it does in your world.”
She’s right. I keep forgetting this simple fact.
It’s not only the monsters and nasty creatures escaping books, but it’s also parts of stories floating about, merging here and there, creating new combinations and new directions.
This world is a bubbling cauldron of creation.
Such a pity that it’s cut off from the outside world.
I lift a long white dress, the bust stitched up with delicate blue flowers, the silken skirt covered in fine lace. My heart starts pounding. This is the sort of gown princesses wear in the fairytales Naida used to tell me. Expensive. Finely tailored. Romantic.
Not the sort of clothes one wears to explore a dangerous world.
Regretfully putting it aside, I select a pair of leather pants and a leather tunic, as well as a black undershirt and underpants.
Frowning, I give them an experimental sniff.
Are these clean? All I get is the scent of astringent herbs, much like the ones we use at home to preserve clothes—rosemary, mint and thyme.
“So you’re telling me you don’t know who these clothes belonged to?” I ask.
“I don’t even know where Talton found them.” Ardruna puts down her leg and blinks.
“He’s clever.”
“Sure he is. Pure delight to be around, when he’s not mourning his family.”
With a start, I look up to meet her eyes. “He lost his family? That’s so sad. When did that happen?”
“Before I met him.”
“I thought you were raised by Roane.”
“Oh, no. That was a joke. We were already adults when we met him.”
“I see. What happened? Were you out hunting and ran across him?”
“I don’t… know what I was doing before I met him,” Ardruna says, a note of reluctance in her voice. “My memory of that day is somewhat clouded.”
I frown at that, but focus on getting dressed, pulling off my petticoat and underpants to try the new ones on.
Strangely, they fit me like a glove. Using the same fabric belt I had on, I bind my breasts so I can move more easily, then drag the shirt on and button it down.
Even more impressively, the pants and the tunic fit me, too.
“It’s as if they were tailored to my measures,” I whisper, tying the laces on the sides of the pants and the tunic.
“Book magic,” Ardruna says. “The best kind of magic. Don’t question it.”
That would be like asking me not to breathe. I question everything and double-guess my every decision.
Like wanting to go out. But I have my reasons, including trying to understand how the magic of this world works. I remember the river starting to glow. It’s stuck in my mind. I need to test if what I think really happened.
“All ready to go.” I smooth my hands over my new attire. It’s a nice feeling, wearing clean, warm clothes.
Ardruna jumps to her feet. “Roane won’t like you leaving the building. He has done his best to protect you until now.”
“But now he doesn’t seem to care anymore.” I wave a hand. “His interest suddenly evaporated.”
She grunts. “Did he really treat you that badly?”
My face warms. How to explain what happened without sounding like an idiot? “He did save my life. And was… very sweet to me. Which I suppose is why I was so upset when he turned around and told me he had only been testing me, to see how far I’d go.”
“Oh, my. That’s… unkind.”
“Glad you agree.” Pulling on my shoes, stashing the egg in the nest and shoving Olm’s book against my breasts, I put out the fire. “Is there any basket I could borrow?”
“There is the satchel you brought the book in,” she says. “Over there.”
I thought it had been lost. Now I see it lying at the base of a column. Magic again? Or did Roane place it there?
She watches me, her blue eyes looking kind of sad. “Stay inside, girl. Wait until he returns. Then we could talk to him.”
“Look, I know it seems crazy, but I won’t stay cooped up in here. It may be safer, but it’s also stagnant. Dangerous or not, I need to take my fate into my own hands. Discover this world. Discover how I can exist in it.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
I sigh. “I thought you didn’t want to be around this silly human.”
“It’s… complicated.” She trots along as I retrace my steps up the stairs and to the great double doors of the building. “Roane is our friend and you accused him of being mean.”
“Unkind. Your words, not mine. And the way he treated you two today wasn’t kind, either.”
“Yeah, he’s acting weird. Listen, you don’t believe me, but he has never been nasty to us.”
“So all he had to do was look at me and his personality changed? All the more reason to believe he hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“Of course he does. Open your eyes and stop giving me bad advice. A man who treats me like that won’t change.
Always hot and cold. Saving me, then snapping at me.
Holding me and then insulting me. You tell me.
Unless he has two souls like the legendary dragon summoner Jaien, the one who wedded the sea dragon maiden Aethre centuries ago, he isn’t worth my time. ”
“Aline… he isn’t like that.”
“Believe what you want.”
“He’s not two-souled like the mythical Jaien,” she says. “And he has always been calm and kind.”
Silence spreads.
“You know…” I whisper. “I heard that Jaien and Aethre are still alive. Immortals. They have retreated from the world. Few people have seen them since the war that brought down the fae.”
“That sounds like a good ending to a life ravaged by war and death. Peace and quiet. Two soulmates living their days in love.”
Yeah. Who wouldn’t want an ending such as that? But I won’t find it with Roane, that’s for sure.