Chapter Ten
Lucia watched Yorwell as he almost scampered to answer the door. He took something from the courier and closed the door. He walked back proudly.
“While you said you wanted pie and cake and ice cream, I thought we would start with a more practical sort of pie.” He set the boxes from the savoury pie shop down on the table and waved his hand over them, murmuring softly.
She felt the warmth coming off the boxes and looked at the stack of plates he had set out with different forks and pie servers. “That is sneaky and very welcome. What did you order?”
“A cottage pie, chicken pie, a pork pot pie, and turkey dinner pie. And in case you need a palate cleanser, a lemon meringue pie.”
Lucia washed her hands and sat at the table. “May I?”
“You may. Where are you going to start?”
“Small pieces of everything.” She grinned. She took the pie servers and began cutting one-inch slivers for her and leaving the implement for him to stab his own food.
“Excellent choice.”
“The variety is lovely. Look, pigeon eggs in the pork pie.”
He grinned. “I am glad you like them. Now start eating. The next course arrives in twenty minutes.”
“Cake and ice cream?”
“Of course. You clearly stated a need, and it was simple to satisfy that need.”
She swallowed. “You listened. People rarely listen to me.”
“That is about to change. Is your cousin coming by to get her nails done?”
“Oh, shoot. How long do you think the food orgy will take, and do you mind someone else picking at the desserts?”
He chuckled. “The food will be here in eighteen minutes, and I think you have the stamina to last an hour after that. Working will be a distraction, and then you can come back.”
She smiled and looked down at her empty plate. “Again!” She cut the same slivers and loaded her plate again.
They sat and discussed their favourites and the reasons for it. One had the best crust, one had the novelty of the small egg, and one felt like a mouthful of holiday. Different but equal.
She prodded the cottage pie. “This tastes like something to eat on a cold winter’s day, curled up by a fire.”
“That sounds wonderful. I have a spectacular fireplace.”
“Carved stone?”
“Of course. Do you want to see it?”
She had her mouth full and nodded.
“Pie is portable. Come on.”
Lucia stood with her plate and her fork.
She followed Yorwell into the living room that she had been too numb actually to appreciate earlier.
Despite her jokes about the hot tub, she had only looked at it as they walked past. Now, she appreciated the size of the carved surface all around it. “Oh, wow.”
He smiled. “It’s a frieze of how my parents met, skipping some of the more gory details. It starts here.”
She looked at the image of a woman in very pretty armour covered with all kinds of glyphs and sigils, firing an energy beam from a staff at a very tall man, who was knocked off his feet and arching backward as he flipped away from the blast.
“Mom was his instructor. Boy, was he surprised.”
She followed the courtship. The dancing in decidedly formal clothing and the fighting an alien species on a world with three moons. Then came the family. All the family.
She looked at him. “Which one are you?”
“The middle one with the uncontrollable hair. Apparently, my grandfather had the same issue, so he showed me how to make the product for it.” He smiled. “Here, I use comparable items or magic.”
“Wait, so your hair sticks up like big ears?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“That’s cute. As a kid you were adorable.”
“As a kid? I am still cute.”
She glanced at him and was glad that he hadn’t said what she would agonize about. That other people thought he was adorable.
“The empress pinched my cheeks and patted my butt and said to go find a mate before some psychotic ogress grabbed me and used me to make little grey monsters.”
“That sounds violent.”
“Very. The ogres aren’t quite into the whole consent thing, from either party. They are very impulse-driven when it comes to mating, and the emperor doesn’t invite them into polite company.”
“Ouch.”
“Right. But they mate with other species?”
“Completely. They don’t mate back into ogre lines. They aren’t attracted to their own kind. They want their partners soft and weak. It is easier to threaten them with being eaten.”
“Oh. Gross. Do you know any nice ogres?”
“Five. They all refuse to introduce me to their families, which means they hold me in affection.”
“All mages?”
“You are very clever.”
She beamed. “Not just a marble face.”
He took her plate and set it on the mantle, hugging her. “You aren’t marble. You are stone to flesh. You are flesh now.”
She smiled. “Fine. I will put that on the list of affirmations.”
“May I ask some of the things on the list?”
“Basically, if someone compliments me, take it. Agree with them. Thank them if necessary.”
He whispered as he held her. “You are gorgeous, you are strong, you are fierce, and you are a survivor.”
She looked up at him. “I am gorgeous, I am strong, I am fierce, and I am a survivor. Yes, thank you.”
He smiled and brushed a soft kiss on her lips. She went up on her toes, and he chuckled. “Don’t worry. I am built for this.”
There was a soft knock at the door.
Lucia grinned. “I was built for cake.”
He chuckled and let her go to answer the door. Lucia blinked. Avor, Ira, and Regis were standing there, each holding a bag. Ira grinned. “I brought the ice cream.”
Yorwell looked at Avor. “Really?”
He shrugged. “They heard a mention of another woman in the same situation.”
Lucia nodded. “She’s stable. If everyone is ready for another morning curse breaking, we can do it just after dawn.”
Regis nodded. “Good. Now, can we share dessert?”
Yorwell sighed and opened the door. “Come on in.”
Lucia smiled. “We are having something my mother would never let me have.”
Ira looked at her. “What’s that?”
“Pie, cake, and ice cream.”
“Oh, what kind of pie?”
Lucia smiled and walked her to the kitchen. “Meat pies.”
Ira brought the ice cream, and Regis brought boxes and boxes of cakes. When the table was covered, an ice cream scooper was provided by Yorwell, and they all picked what looked like a favourite.
Yorwell wrapped his arm around her waist and grinned as Avor was making happy noises going over the leftover pies. “We may need to seek out new leftovers tomorrow.”
“Yeah, that is looking likely.”
Regis was helping Ira, and she looked up in amusement. “I had no idea he had a meat pie fetish.”
Avor grinned. “My mother used to make a bunch of them in an effort to keep her family from bugging her one night per week. These look good.”
Yorwell chuckled. “They are near one of the museums I did some work for.”
Avor tilted his head. “What did you do?”
“Greek battle replica for the new touring exhibit last year.”
Ira smiled. “The carved wall? We saw that on a field trip. They covered the guy bits with Post-It notes when we came in.”
Regis snorted. “Good.”
Ira stabbed her ice cream with a spoon. “They didn’t look like alphas.”
Avor said, “They weren’t. Over a thousand years ago, there was an event that created the alphas, betas, and omegas. The genes appeared and spread across the world in those thousand years.”
Ira asked, “Where did they come from?”
Avor was suddenly the focus in the room. “Ah, I believe it was the scouts for the colony that began to involve the locals.”
Regis snorted. “Involve.”
Avor calmly covered her mouth with his hand.
Lucia asked softly, “Have you spoken to all the surviving scouts?”
Avor looked at her curiously. “I have met with the pixies and a local surgeon. Are there more?”
Lucia paused. “I think I have seen two, but they ended up in the same body. I don’t know where he went. He was flickering in and out of visibility.”
Avor was slightly eager when he said, “When was this?” He jumped and ruefully removed his hand from Regis’s mouth.
“Two years ago, near the edge of my territory, or what you folks would call cell coverage area.”
Yorwell blinked. “You were restricted?”
“If I wanted the chance to communicate with anyone, yes. Plus, I wanted to stay near my family.”
Avor said, “Do you know where you saw him?”
She nodded. “Sure. Got a map?”
She ate her cake and ice cream while Yorwell produced a map and rolled it out on the kitchen counter. She looked, closed her eyes, and opened them to tap her fingers to the trees near the natural caverns that were popular with coupling couples in the area.
“I saw him here. His skin was blue-green—”
Avor and Yorwell said, “Green-blue.”
“Right. Anyway. His ears were funny. They weren’t like the other green guys. They stuck out two or three inches straight out of his head.”
Avor looked positively excited. “I would say we should hunt him now, but Regis would kill me.”
Yorwell smiled. “There are enough orcs out there to find him.”
Avor got a thoughtful look. “If he wants to be found.”
Regis mumbled around some cake, “Why wouldn’t he want to be found?”
Yorwell cocked his head. “It is unlikely after all this time.”
Avor nodded. “I will ask some of his people to find out if they have seen him.”
To Lucia’s amusement, he pulled out his phone and started typing.
Regis grinned. “I know, I thought he would do everything with magic, but nope, he likes cellphones.”
Lucia listened to the conversations, and she tilted her head. “What’s a gerblin?”
Avor grinned. “A typo. I have big fingers. You are eavesdropping?”
“Text dropping, I guess. I can’t help it.
It is the sound that I hear and the voices in my thoughts.
” She looked at Ira. “Do you and your mommy want your nails done? Yorwell gave me a studio set up somewhere, and the distraction will keep me from listening so hard. I will invite my cousin, and she can come, too. I am putting little robots on her fingers.”
She glanced at Yorwell, and he nodded to her with a smile. She was doing a people thing.
Regis smiled. “I work with my hands, so I don’t know how long polish would last.”
Yorwell said, “Third door to the right of the fireplace. Toward the back of the house.”