Chapter 19
~19~
A lise awoke sometime later, the room dim, the sky out the window a winter painting of slate gray, snowflakes swirling in the meager light shining from the window. Most of that light came through the open door to the living area, golden from the lamps and the little fireplace where the fire elemental danced, gradually devouring the wood chips fed to it.
The rich aroma of gingerbread flowed in also, and she smiled, touched that Cillian took her whim so seriously. Her stomach rumbled with interest, too. Slipping out from under the covers he’d clearly pulled over her, she stretched, feeling the delicious ache in every part of her body, then went naked to the window and gazed out.
Convocation Academy lay still under the snow, golden lights shining out from various windows illuminating the pristine cloak. Alise had never borne much affection for the school, but in this moment the old turrets and towers, the stone wings and boxy courtyards, looked almost romantic. It was simply a structure—saturated with magic, yes—but neither good nor bad in and of itself. The people housed within made their choices, pursued their dreams and schemes, plotted to win or merely to survive. They were the ones to decide on their paths. The school simply taught them what they needed to know.
More than anything else, Alise needed those skills. She could accomplish nothing without understanding her own abilities. Deciding what to do with them could come later. The grief over Maman’s senseless death, and Alise’s culpability in that, would never fully leave her. But somehow, in that brilliantly intimate time with Cillian, something inside her had settled. Not healed over, not now nor anytime soon, but she felt less raw. No longer so unmoored, like a ship in full sail with no crew or rudder, plunging through storm after storm, emerging from each battering a bit more ragged than before.
No, it would be up to her to learn to steer this ship, to trim the sails, and take the measure of the wind and waves. Somewhere along the journey, she’d abdicated that responsibility, what she owed to herself.
“I thought I felt you stir,” Cillian said from the doorway, a lean silhouette with wild curls. “Everything all right?”
“More than all right.” She went to him with a smile, feeling sensual and replete with relaxed abandon. Winding her arms around his neck, she kissed him, long and lingeringly, loving how his hands drifted over her body, as if savoring her, one hand palming her bottom and the other between her shoulder blades, holding her close to him.
Cillian had donned a soft robe, made of a felted material she didn’t recognize, and it rubbed tantalizingly against her nude body. When he drew back from the kiss, he grinned at her sound of protest and resisted her efforts to recapture him. “No, darling Alise,” he said with real amusement. “I am impervious to your wiles until you’re properly fed.”
“Feeding me is all you think about.”
“Not all .” His grin became a leer as his gaze swept her body. “Still, keeping you alive and well enough to handle the many stones being hurled in your direction is a priority for me. There’s fresh gingerbread,” he added with a purr of enticement.
“So I smell,” she replied, trying to sound grudging, but her stomach chose that moment to growl in audible demand. She clapped a hand to it, groaning theatrically. “I swear, all I do around you is eat and sleep.”
“Not all,” he repeated with a salacious grin, ducking when she swatted him. “You need both and I’m happy to facilitate that.” He tipped up her chin and gave her a sweet, chaste kiss. “Be a good girl and we can see about more of this later. I left pajamas for you on the end of the bed there.” Taking her shoulders, he turned her to point her that way, then gave her bottom a pat. “You know where the bathing facilities are. Take your time. I’ll dish up dinner when you’re ready.”
“Dinner?” she called after him as he left the room. “I thought I was having fresh gingerbread!”
“You’ll have a proper meal, first,” he called back. “Then dessert, if you behave.”
It was absurd to be charmed by him saying such things to her, but a silly smile stretched her cheeks and she rolled her eyes at herself. Apparently she’d lost all sense along with her virginity.
Alise emerged from Cillian’s bedroom wearing his old pajamas. Or, it might have been more precise to say they were wearing her, as she was nearly swallowed up by them. And he wasn’t all that big of a guy. She looked like one of his sisters’ porcelain dolls: delicately lovely, lustrous eyes dominating her heart-shaped face, and wearing the clothes from an entirely different doll. She’d rolled up the fleece bottoms at the ankles, where they hovered in fat rolls above her slender feet. The sight of her adorable pink toes did something to him.
She gave him a wry look, flapping her arms in the baggy top. He noticed she had the spirit bottle in one hand. Keeping it close. He supposed that was the best solution for the moment. “I feel like I’m wearing a tent,” Alise informed him.
“Have you ever been in a tent?” he asked curiously. He liked to sleep out in the hills in a tent, but that didn’t seem like something a daughter of Lord Elal would do.
She lifted her nose. “I don’t have to have slept in one to know what it is. Or what it feels like to be draped in one,” she added. “My clothes seem to have disappeared.”
“I gave them to the cleaning imps. They’ll be done soon. Besides, I thought you’d be more comfortable in pajamas. It’s getting cold out there.”
“I can get the fire elemental to increase the heat, if you want?”
“That would be excellent.” The old building tended to be drafty, the generous heat provided by the elementals dispersing rapidly, especially when it got windy, as this night promised to be. He was lucky to have the little fireplace, but his sole fire elemental could only do so much. Or, it seemed. Turned out the creature hadn’t been doing as much as it could, after all. While he dished up their supper, he observed with interest as Alise crouched before the flickering elemental a faint scent of roses in the air as she spoke to it in low tones, sounding not unlike someone speaking to a pet cat.
When she rose to her feet again, the fire elemental had doubled in size, dancing with increased vigor over the wood chips.
“What did you do?” he asked, carrying their bowls to the small dining table he almost never used. “I thought fire elementals were one size and strength.”
“The kind already tamed and bound for household use are,” she answered. “That’s part of House Elal product standardization. I didn’t even realize you had a dining table. I thought this was a desk or bookshelf,” she teased.
He loved her humor, especially since she so rarely let it emerge. “I picked some things up, to accommodate an actual human being here.”
“Don’t you count as an actual human?”
“Not at all,” he answered in his most serious voice. “I’m book-adjacent and serve their whims.”
She laughed, a low, sensual sound. Setting the bowls down, he leaned over to kiss her, delighted to have her there, relaxed and happy. She gave him a curious smile. “What was that for?”
“Just saying hi.”
She blushed lightly. “Hi.”
“Go ahead and sit. Start eating. I’ll grab the bread.”
“This looks really lovely. And like hours of work.”
He brought the basket of warm bread back to the table and sat opposite her. “You slept several hours.”
“And you didn’t.”
“Unlike other people at this table, I regularly get sufficient sleep, so no, I did not take a nap.” Instead he’d started the breads, made the stew and put it on simmer, then picked up the apartment so it would be more orderly, all the while comforted to know Alise was in the little bedroom, the scent of her drowsy magic comforting as a glass of warmed wine.
“Ha ha.” She dipped her spoon into the bowl, moving pieces around. “What am I eating?”
“Beef stew, with mushrooms.”
She took a bite and closed her eyes in an expression of such utter bliss that his cock stirred with renewed hunger for her. “This is delicious. Way better than anything the dining hall serves.”
“Now you know why I like to cook for myself.”
“Except when you’re lurking in the dining hall in order to spy on me.”
“To look out for you,” he corrected easily. “Now that I can feed you myself, I won’t worry so much.”
“As previously noted, you worry too much.”
She needed someone to be concerned about her, but he decided that wouldn’t be a productive conversation. “Tell me more about what you did with the fire elemental.”
“Changing the subject?”
“Absolutely.” He offered her the bread basket, waiting for her to take a slice, then helped himself and swirled it in the thick sauce of the stew. Taking a sopping bite, he rolled the flavor on his tongue. Quite good, he decided. The mushrooms added a nice richness, and the red wine he’d used in the sauté reminded him of Alise’s flavor.
“You like to dip stuff,” Alise observed, watching him.
“I do. I love the contrast of crunchiness and creaminess.” Demonstrating, he popped a bit of dripping crust in his mouth and chewed. He’d gotten the crust on the bread just right, too. “Perfect.” And so was she. Alise looked exactly right sitting at his table, her magic softening the air, turning winter to rose-laden summer.
She tipped her head. “You’re surprisingly sensual for someone so in his head.”
“Why is that surprising? There’s no conflict between thinking and feeling. I can do both.”
“Yes, you can. Do you really want to know more about the fire elemental?”
“Very much.”
“Why?”
“I’m curious.” Also, he wanted to know everything about her. He particularly liked how her face lit up when she talked about her magic-working. She was deeply conflicted about it, too—and he wasn’t sure why—but at least this aspect of her talents brought her joy and Alise didn’t have nearly enough of that.
“Hmm.” She sounded unconvinced, but kept going. “I gave the fire elemental more magic, for one. As I was saying before, the production line wizards employed by House Elal summon the elementals, then bind them according to a standardized protocol. That process includes a packet of magic along with a set of instructions. The elementals can use a favored material to supplement that magic—like earth elementals eating dirt—but they can only ‘charge’ to a certain point. The excess goes nowhere. Otherwise, we’d end up with earth elementals growing to enormous size and power in the sewage pits. And no one wants that !”
He loved this side of her and mock shuddered. “A daunting image—and also something I’d never thought about.”
She shrugged a little, forking up some beef and chewing. “Why would you? This kind of thing falls under the realm of house arcania, establishing a consistent product line. Of course, the process of standardizing elementals for household use happened centuries ago, crafted by my Elal ancestors, and only tweaked since then. Why fix what isn’t broken?”
“Why, indeed?”
She smirked at his reply. “A commonality to high houses, I believe, clinging to tradition. Anyway, these elementals being the size and shape they are has been consistent for not only our entire lives, but our parents’ lives and grandparents’ and before. So it’s natural to accept that as the default without examination.”
“I don’t much like to think of myself as having accepted something as a fundamental truth without having examined it,” he admitted.
She gazed at him thoughtfully. “No, you wouldn’t. But look where your curiosity has led you: examination of the banal.” She grinned impishly. “So, because I have Elal blood, it’s relatively easy for me to tinker with the default settings on an Elal product. I simply adjusted the metrics that had been binding the fire elemental to the standard size and heat output, fed it some extra magic to compensate for the increases, and promised it some gingerbread as a treat.”
That gave him pause. “A fire elemental can consume more than wood or oil?”
“Oh yes. They particularly like anything with heat elements, like spices.”
“Like ginger.”
She pointed a bread crust at him. “Exactly.”
“So, will it eventually revert to standard?”
“Yours?” She shook her head. “No, it will stay this way, unless you want me to reset it. Or you could get some other Elal wizard to do it.”
“You are the only Elal wizard I want mucking with my elementals.”
She fluttered her lashes. “Such a romantic.”
Only for you, he nearly said, but restrained the words.
“Anyway, I’m talking too much,” she said.
She rarely spoke so freely, it was true, which meant he didn’t want her to stop. “I asked,” he pointed out simply. “And I’m delighted to keep my improved fire elemental.”
“Good.” Her lips curved in a satisfied smile, her dark gaze warm, and he savored seeing her in such a relaxed mood. He even allowed himself a bit of self-congratulation at having helped get her there. “More stew? Or are you ready for the gingerbread you commanded me to make?”
She groaned patting her concave stomach as if that demonstrated anything. “If I eat any more stew, I won’t have room for gingerbread.”
“That’s a decision then.” He stood and gathered their empty plates.
“I can help with that,” she said, starting to rise.
“No need. Sit and relax.”
“I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing,” she grumbled.
“For once in your life,” he agreed. “You’ll need to practice more before you get a good feel for it.”
“I just don’t want you to have to wait on me.”
“Take care of you,” he corrected. “Which I like to do, so you’re pleasing me by allowing it.”
She was quiet and he glanced at her, finding that she was frowning at him. “That seems backward,” she explained, catching his look.
“You’ve been through a traumatic experience.” He said it as calmly as he could, stacking the empty plates in the bin for the earth elementals to scour, controlling the immediate swell of rage as best he could. “I couldn’t help you before, but I can do this much.”
“I didn’t expect you to help me before,” she said quietly.
Ah, well, if that didn’t only make him angrier. “I know.” Because you didn’t trust me, he didn’t say. Because you don’t think I’m capable. Because you don’t need me like I need you. He didn’t say any of it, though. Instead he focused on slicing the gingerbread.
The next moment, the scent of roses thickened and she slid slender arms around him from behind. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He set down the knife he’d been gripping too hard and laid his hands over hers, aware she pressed her cheek between his shoulder blades—and that this was the first truly spontaneous gesture of affection she’d shown him. Tempted to deny it, to brush it off, he reconsidered. If they had any future with each other—unlikely, but regardless—he should give her emotional honesty. “I understand why you didn’t. I also think it wasn’t only the geas or the threats that kept you silent.”
She didn’t say anything for a while, but she also didn’t move away. “I’m used to being on my own,” she finally said, sounding bleak enough that he wanted to kick himself for making her sad when she’d been so happy just moments before.
Turning, he faced her and leaned against the counter, drawing her close and cupping her head against his chest. He kissed her sleek hair, fragrant with the scent of her magic. “You don’t have to be.”
She tipped her chin up, searching his face. “I think I’m maybe not good at asking for help.”
“Have you ever asked for help and been refused?”
A laugh escaped, bitter-edged. “Piers Elal believes firmly that only the weak rely on anyone but themselves.”
“Oh, darling.” He smoothed comforting hands down her back. “It’s not true.”
She smiled a little, but it didn’t reach her eyes where doubt lingered.
“How about some gingerbread with brandy sauce?” he suggested, rather than pushing her further into unhappiness.
“That sounds amazing,” she admitted, then narrowed her eyes at him. “But I feel it’s important to clarify that I didn’t ‘command’ you make it.”
“Very nearly.” He chucked her under her adorably pointed chin. “All high-house lady ordering her minions about.”
“Cillian!” She looked outraged but also contained a laugh. “That is so unfair.”
“Don’t fret, my lady,” he continued, setting her back from him so he could check the consistency of the brandy sauce. “I’m a very happy minion.”