Chapter 18
The door opened for me as it had before, and I rushed down the hallway, into Alandris’ room with little regard for his privacy. My distress overwhelmed any concern for decorum. “Alandris!”
I stopped in the doorway, spotting him there.
His attire was much more casual than usual; he wore a black shirt, half-unbuttoned, with matching pants tucked into boots that were propped up on the desk.
A glass of mead was halfway to his lips where he paused, half-lidded eyes raking over my body as if he was determining whether I was a figment of his imagination.
I had half a mind to pretend I wasn’t real and take the opportunity to leave while I had a chance.
“Bad time?” I asked warily, though I stepped closer all the same.
He righted himself, but not before downing the rest of his glass.
“No, I suppose I did not explicitly say not to use your newfound ability to open my locked doors at your leisure without forewarning me of your arrival. Or knocking. Perhaps I should revoke your privileges.” His teasing was familiar, but his voice was off. Slow and… tired. Different.
“I am not sure why you gave me such privileges to begin with,” I retorted. “My behavior toward you has been hostile ever since we met. I’ve made it quite clear my opinion of you.”
His eyes darkened, and he poured himself another glass. “You have.”
Why did that make me feel so guilty? “I—it isn’t like that. Things are different now.”
He raised a brow. “Are they now?”
Something about his off-kilter demeanor had me so flustered I couldn’t stand it.
I’d come with intentions of telling him off once more.
I’d planned to tell him of the odd experience from earlier, to ask him what it’d meant.
But seeing him as he was now had stopped me in my tracks.
My concern for his obvious distress overshadowed my frustration with the fool.
He was a ghost of his usual self. There was no enjoyment in biting if he wasn’t going to bite back.
I blew out a breath, hoping to alleviate the pressure building in my chest. “Yes. And I normally wouldn’t admit to something like this, but well—you look so… well, dejected, that I am compelled to be honest.” I moved farther into the room until I was positioned in front of his desk.
“Well, don’t leave me waiting.” He waved his hand in front of him, an invitation to continue.
“I regret what I said,” I said so quickly the words all ran together.
“What was that?” I swear, the corner of his lip tugged up the tiniest bit.
“I. Regret. What. I. Said.” I turned my head away, unable to meet his eyes.
“Comparing you to those from my childhood was a mistake. I don’t know why it bothered you so much, unless you know more about me than you let on.
You probably do. You always seem to. Regardless, I am sorry. It’s too cruel a comparison.”
“Nairu, come sit.” I looked at him, confused, and he patted the desk in front of him.
I don’t know why I listened, but I did. I swung around to his side of the desk and jumped up on top of the wood, my legs dangling just in front of his.
“I don’t blame you for your words,” he continued. “It was my intention to keep my distance. I’ve prodded you on more than one occasion, and said things I never meant—never would mean. It’s a natural response for you to hate me.”
I gripped the edges of the desk. “Why would you do that?”
“It’s safer.”
“It’s safer?” I scoffed. “What does that even mean?”
I grabbed the bottle of mead off of his desk and took a sip. He hadn’t offered me a glass, and I was going to need to be at least half as drunk as he likely was to deal with his riddles.
“You have no idea how badly I want to tell you.”
“How badly?”
I took another sip, and he watched the motion like a hawk. “Badly.” He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. “Why are you really here, Nairu?”
“I heard a voice in my head, but it wasn’t Zaelos’s. It was too fuzzy to make out. It felt like I was remembering something, but it started to give me an awful headache, so Kaelias pulled me out of my… trance, I suppose.”
That seemed to sober him slightly. “What did the voice say?”
“Don’t you dare look at me like you want to say goodbye because I am not letting you die,” I repeated, shrugging.
“Lorian was talking about how he wouldn’t let anything harm me.
It made me think about what you’d said… about how you wouldn’t let anything happen to me, and then I heard those words, too. ”
Alandris stared at me, unblinking. “You don’t know who said them?”
I shook my head. “Do you think it is a memory that belongs to Zaelos? Maybe I can hear his thoughts as he can hear mine.”
He grabbed the bottle from my hands and drank, not bothering with his glass. I watched his throat bob. Once. Twice. Thrice. He stopped and set the bottle down on the desk. “No, you shouldn’t be able to hear anything Zaelos doesn’t want you to hear.”
“You said I should let you know if things like that happen, so that’s why I’m here,” I explained.
It sounded like a pathetic half-truth even as the words left my lips.
Remembering Alandris’ vow to protect me had made me remember how kind and gentle he’d been with me, and it’d made me feel sick when I thought about what I’d said to him.
I’d compared him to people I regarded as literal monsters. People who had…
“Why do you look like you’re going to cry?”
I bit down on my bottom lip. “I’m tired, Alandris.”
His gaze softened. “I know.”
“No, I—I’m tired of hating you. Can we please stop this game?
” I wiped at my eyes. “Whatever it is you are doing—saying things you don’t mean and keeping from me the things you do actually mean.
Can’t we just be normal to one another? You are one of the few people I can trust with everything that’s happening to me.
I don’t know when that changed, but it has, and I—”
He’d moved so quickly, and I’d been so stunned by the action, I barely had time to comprehend what he’d done.
Hooking his arm behind my knees, he’d dragged me from the top of his desk and into his lap.
I sat sideways across him, arms braced against his chest, staring at him in shock as he wrapped his arms around my back.
“I don’t know if I can do normal,” he mumbled. “So, let me comfort you just this once, and that will be the end of it. It is all that I can offer you.”
I don’t know what possessed me to do so, but I leaned my head against his chest, falling against his body and letting his warmth envelop me completely.
His heartbeat was audible, and its pace—at least as rapid as my own—offered me comfort.
I wasn’t the only one losing my mind right now. Damn, mead. Probably.
He ran a hand through my hair, the other still holding me firmly in place. “Everything will be alright, Nairu. I promise.” I promise. He repeated the word like a chant with each pass of his fingers through my hair.
At some point, I dared to look up at him and found him looking down at me.
We held each other’s gaze, neither of us wanting to speak.
And we stayed like that for a long time, tangled in each other’s arms. Longer than should have been, and what could have been forever, had a knock not sounded at the door, stirring us both from whatever temporary stasis we’d been plunged into.
“It’s Jyuri,” he said, voice groggy.
I practically jumped from his lap and back to the other side of the desk. “Uh—yes. How do you know?”
“It’s the way he knocks.” He frowned. “Do you mind grabbing it?”
I used the opportunity to catch my breath. I opened the door, but Jyuri paid no mind to my presence, walking past me without a care and forcing me to hustle to catch up to him. He stood in the doorway to Alandris’ room while I took my place back on the opposite side of the desk.
“Hm.” Jyuri sniffed at the air. “Why does it smell of poor decisions?”
Alandris choked on the mead he was swallowing while I covered my mouth in horror. Thankfully, Alandris spared me the responsibility of having to answer, for I surely wouldn’t have maintained my composure as well as he had. “We were drinking. Talking.”
“Odd. I have supernatural hearing, and I did not hear much talking from beyond the door.”
Alandris narrowed his eyes at the Fae. “Did you hear something else you’d like to enlighten us of?”
Please don’t.
Jyuri grinned. “No. I’m not so impolite as to prod you further.”
“To what do I owe the honor of your presence?”
“I procured what you have asked for.” He pulled a small bottle from the inside of his robes. “Catch.”
Alandris caught it by the tips of his fingers, cursing. “Was that truly necessary?”
“Should always keep your wits about you, Grand Arch Magus. Drinking with your students in the middle of the night—how untoward!” Jyuri cackled. “Do you show all of your students such special treatment?”
“Hilarious,” Alandris bit back. “Get out. I can’t deal with you today.”
“No. Besides, don’t you want to know how it works?”
The bottle held a swirling blue liquid, faintly glowing in the dim light.
As Alandris turned the bottle over in his hands, the light caught the liquid, and it seemed to shimmer in shades of silver, purple, and green— each color refracting like shards of glass.
The bottle itself was unadorned, save for a metal stopper topped with a butterfly wing.
“No, thank you,” Alandris said, setting the small bottle on his desk. “Given the request I made of you, I’m certain I can figure it out.”
“Of course, Grand Arch Magus, how could I question your wisdom?” Jyuri smiled at the prickly reaction the full title gave Alandris. “Two drops on the tongue. Amorphael sends her regards.”
Amorphael? I turned my head towards Alandris, but I didn’t question him until I’d heard the click of the door—the sure indication of Jyuri having left the quarters.
“That is from Amorphael?” I asked, grateful for the distraction.
The arrival of the strange potion had provided the opportunity to discuss something other than whatever it was we’d just done.
That would be better discussed internally, later.
I could stare up at my ceiling and ask, why did you do something so stupid, Nairu?
Why did you make things infinitely more complicated?
“It is. She made it for you.”
I raised a brow. “Should I really drink a potion brewed by a Fae?”
He smiled. “Under normal circumstances, I would advise against it, but Amorphael is a trusted companion. I resented her at one point, but she has proven herself dedicated to our current mutual goal. I trust she has not tampered with it in any way beyond its intended purposes.”
“Which are?”
He clicked his tongue. “I cannot tell you until you drink it.”
“You do realize how horrible that sounds, right?”
He nodded, pursing his lips. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Give it here.”
He obliged, and I took a moment to examine the liquid once more.
I unstoppered the bottle and sniffed the contents.
It had a floral scent—something sweet and perfumed.
Nothing I recognized outright as being poisonous.
Two drops. Before I could question my sanity further, I tipped the bottle back and let them fall onto my tongue. One. Two.
The taste wasn’t awful—sour and a tad bitter, but with underlying hints of fruit that made it more pleasant. It made my mouth water and my tongue grow numb, but I didn’t feel any other effects. I was sure I was supposed to feel something else, even if I wasn’t sure what exactly it was.
As I was questioning if it had all been some sort of strange joke, I felt it.
An odd sense of silence washed over me. I could normally feel a presence in the back of my mind.
At first, I’d not known it was Zaelos that I was sensing, but it was something that was ever present, nonetheless.
Once I’d discovered it was him, it had felt darker.
More solid. A constant scratch at the inside of my mind, a claw trying to rip me open and break free.
Now, it was gone, and I felt so much lighter, like an ache I’d lived with for my entire life had finally been relieved.
“Did the potion get rid of him?”
Alandris frowned. “I’m sorry. It won’t be that simple. It will quiet him for some time, though. How does it feel?”
“Odd,” I admitted. “Odd, but nice. I’ve had him in my head for so long, I don’t know how to feel about the sudden emptiness. He didn’t always speak, but I could feel him there, you know? A pressure.”
I looked at the bottle in my hand. There were likely enough doses to last a couple of months. “Is extended use something I should be concerned about? Are there side effects?”
“I am more worried about Zaelos figuring out what we are doing. Don’t take it unless absolutely necessary. The potion itself is safe, but I don’t trust that he won’t retaliate.”
I nodded. “Fine, but what are we doing?”
“Plotting his removal.” Alandris stood from his chair. “There is something I must show you. In three days’ time, take two drops, and meet me here at dawn.”