Chapter 9 The Gift
THE GIFT
Diana stood before the small looking glass hanging on the wall in her little room and rolled her lips between her teeth. It helped with concentration.
“Pink,” she said. “Pink.”
The color of her hair wavered, but it did not stick.
She shook her hands out and rolled her shoulders. It was not in the physical concentration. Lips and teeth and headaches didn’t conjure a thing.
But light and air did.
She’d learned that in the week since her last long walk with Lord Knightly.
In an uncontrollable moment of emotion, she’d changed her hair pink, blamed it on a potion.
Oh God, if he ever discovered that potions used to dye hair did not appear as glamours, he’d know.
How would a man like him react? One moment he seemed hard and intimidating yet gentle, like a knight of old, ready to lay his life before his queen.
He appeared to be an intelligent, inquisitive man…
He might not immediately move to kill her.
Her best-case scenarios seemed rather… dim.
At least he’d given her a clue as to how to control this stolen talent.
When he’d spoken of how everyone—transcendent, alchemist, or otherwise—takes from the world around them to create, it had felt…
true. She’d tried it. Not consciously. She’d been thinking of how darkness fell on a bright pink sunset, heavy blue-black night sinking, orange-pink light pressing out of existence. And her hair had… changed back.
Nothing had come so easily as that first time. There was a trick to it, a patience. How did all these earls and dukes glamour their entire lives with such ease? Likely because they’d learned how to do it with breathing. It had been their birthright.
She’d stolen her power.
A knock on her door. When she answered it, Miss Maple grinned at her over the top of a large box.
“Package came for you,” she said, peeking into the room behind Diana. “Maybe whatever’s in it will liven this place up.”
Diana eyed the box like it contained a tangle of snakes. “I ordered nothing. And no one knows I’m here. That cannot be for me.”
Miss Maple nudged Diana out of the way and ambled into the room. She set the box on the bed and stretched her arms. “Thought you’d use your off-hours to spend some of your hard-earned money. But here you are. Hiding away.”
“I’m not hiding.” She was practicing because—
Damn Baron Knightly… he’d given her hope. If she could control her use of the magic, she might not have to hide. She could confront Apollo, then. And give the magic away.
“Well, I’m off,” Miss Maple said. But she hesitated in the doorway, clinging to the frame. “That baron of yours coming round tonight?”
“He’s not mine, and I do not know.” She slipped her hand into her pocket where the stone lay.
He’d given her one earlier in the week, and they’d cupped their hands together around it and another stone until their surfaces had burned hot against the skin of her palm, the pads of her fingertips.
He’d kept one and given her the other and told her to keep it close and clutch it tight if she needed him. He’d know, and he’d come.
He likely thought he was hers. He certainly acted like it.
And Diana found it… thrilling. She’d always belonged to others. Her grandfather’s nurse. Her cousin’s bride.
And now Lord Knightly was her alchemist. And a powerful one, too—the king’s favorite. Yet if Diana, friendless and hiding, held the stone in her pocket until it glowed, that man would come running.
She was not going to marry him, but… yes, thrilling.
“Too bad,” Miss Maple said. “The rest of us like looking at him. Alchemists always possess the finest shoulders, and the baron’s look right nice walking next to you round and round the square.” She sighed.
“You have a suitor, Madeline.”
The younger woman shrugged. “Just because I admire a set of shoulders doesn’t mean I want any other than Harold’s. Besides, Harold thinks the alchemist’s got nice shoulders, too.” She winked then disappeared down the hallway.
Diana closed the door and frowned at the box on her bed. It could not be hers. She should leave it alone. But the curiosity was suffocating. She would peek inside. Only a little.
As if she were opening a powder keg with a candle held aloft, she lifted the lid.
“Books? Books!” A folded bit of paper lay atop two neat piles within. She picked it up, unfolded it.
Miss Chester,
I liberated these from my father’s personal library. I thought you might find them particularly interesting. On nights I am not able to attend you, stay inside and read these instead of walking about.
Yours,
Temple Grant
Temple. The name suited a man like him—solid and serious and, she must admit, a little bit worth adoring because—oh! He’d given her books. The first book she pulled out was bound in bloodred cloth and faded gold letters glinted on the spine.
She read the title aloud. “Gods and Goddesses of the Old Days.” A new one she’d not read before. She hugged it to her. “It’s perfect.”
And so were the other books, all of which touched on topics they’d discussed in their short walks over the last week.
They’d had little time, two or three laps round the square before the little stone in his pocket glowed, burned.
The king had become rather a thorn in Diana’s side, pulling Temple away just when the conversation was getting good.
He’d not tried to kiss her again.
She should be thankful for that. Ha. Thankful?
When she’d practiced controlling her magic every morning, every evening, with thoughts of kissing circling her head.
If she could control the magic, she could kiss a man without worry.
If she could control it, she could kiss Temple and keep her secret, too.
She sat on the bed beside the box, stroking the books.
So long since she’d held one in her hands, since she’d smelled that old paper scent.
She could continue her research now, continue her search for answers.
Pressing her palm into her eye, she mumbled, “I will not cry.” Then she laughed because she had cried much in the last several weeks, but never happy tears.
And these welling now—oh, they were so very happy.
Yesterday, the potion mistresses had gathered in the roof garden with soap and water and little wands made of flexible twigs.
They’d pulled oil-slicked bubbles from water with the wands and chased them about before they popped or drifted high into the sky.
Diana felt like one of those bubbles now—impossibly light, lifted by merriment.
A knock on the door.
She wiped away her tears and rested her hand on the doorknob. “Miss Maple?”
“Not quite.” Temple’s voice.
Temple? Where had Lord Knightly gone? She could see only his name written in firm lines on the paper on her bed. It obliterated his title. He was Temple and nothing else.
She flung the door open and flung herself into his arms. “Thank you. Thank you.”
He’d not even been knocked back a single step by her exuberance, and he kept them both upright in the hallway, his arms held wide, not touching as she melted her cheek into his chest, hugged her arms around his ribs.
His back was a vast expanse for her hands to conquer and even flatting them on the tight planes of muscle, she took up very little space.
She’d never touched a man like this, so boldly, as if it were her right. But she felt… brave around him.
He seemed to have stopped breathing, and then he melted, too, between one breath and the next, his arms coming round her tightly, one hand cupping the back of her head and the other settling at the small of her back.
“What’s all this about?” he mumbled into her hair. “Not that I’m complaining.” He walked them into the room, still clutching at one another, and kicked the door closed.
She looked up at him, setting her chin into his chest. “The books. They are wonderful.”
“They’ve arrived, then.” He looked about the room, his gaze stopping on the bed. His throat bobbed with a swallow. “Ah. Excellent.” Putting his hands on her shoulders, he held her out at arm’s length. “Are you ready for our walk?”
“Yes, but first…” Be bold, Diana. And trust your practice. Difficult to trust, but she would have to if she truly wanted what she thought she did. “I simply wish to see…” She bit her lip then jumped.
She kissed him, bouncing up on her toes to meet his lips and shoving away every possible intrusion.
Light winked at her. She blocked it out.
Air pulsed around her. She calmed it. When his hands slipped off her shoulders and down her back to clasp about her waist and drag her body against his, she wavered.
When he tilted his head and slanted his lips with an open-mouth inhalation, she almost lost it.
But then he moaned, and in that sound, she knew the strength of her power.
She would not lose control. She could give in to this man, give in to her body, and not worry he’d look up and see another woman standing before him or a shower of falling stars on the ceiling.
Or a garden of thornless roses growing round them.
No more worrying that he’d see her entirely naked because she’d imagined herself so, open to his touch on every inch of her skin, and the magic had obliged.
If she could make Temple Grant moan, she could do anything.
So she abandoned fear and let herself exist only in the heated space of the kiss.