A Starry Night
Chapter Five
A STARRY NIGHT
Ceri
C eri’s arrival in the dining hall wasn’t heralded by trumpets, but everyone at the long table at the head of the room stood as if it was. They were her soon-to-be professors, but they treated her as the honored guest, bowing and curtsying to her as she approached.
She had arrived on time, but there were only a few seats remaining at the table—a couple near Dean Whittaker near the center, and one at the end across from Leo.
If there was a feeling of her heart skipping a beat when she spotted him, it could surely be explained by the fact that he’d given her the fright of the century on their first encounter. It was a perfectly plausible explanation, and she would be entertaining no further thoughts.
Leo bowed to her, smirking.
No. Further. Thoughts.
She would not be thinking about where, exactly, she felt that smirk. She definitely would not be taking that seat across from him.
Ceri turned back to Dean Whittaker and addressed the table. “Thank you, but please don’t feel like you need to stand on my account. I plan on being here for quite some time, and I’d rather we dispense with the royal protocol.”
“But your majesty—” began Dean Whittaker.
“I’m not ‘your majesty’ yet,” said Ceri. She saw his embarrassment at the mistake; he was unaccustomed to dealing with all of these rules and formalities. In front of her father, she would have mocked him. Instead, she chose to soften the blow. “I do appreciate the courtesy. But while I’m here, I’d rather just be Ceri. If that would be alright with you, sir.”
Dean Whittaker sat upright, straightening his tie and reminding himself who he was. “Of course,” he said to Ceri. “You may be seated,” he said to the rest of the table. He gestured to Ceri to join him at one of the empty seats, and she accepted.
A servant filled her glass with a deep red wine as Dean Whittaker began to introduce her to the professors seated near them at the table. He spoke at length regarding their departments and research, and Ceri did her best to listen, trying to imagine herself studying Numbers or Loegrian or Philosophy. Her many tutors had equipped her well to at least follow the conversation, although their lessons had often come with a frankly unnecessary amount of corporal punishment. Ceri was looking forward to learning without fearing the smack of a ruler, truth be told.
The first course arrived with the clatter of a great number of silver serving dishes. Out of the corner of Ceri’s eye, she caught movement at Leo’s end of the table and then a louder crash—his chair had fallen backward.
Dean Whittaker stood to see what the commotion was about. “I say, are you alright—”
As the dean spoke, something fell from high above the table. It crashed into the exact spot where Leo had been seated earlier. A chandelier.
Several of the professors cried out. A serving dish was dropped, the echo of it rocking back and forth ringing through the room as the servants ran over.
Dean Whittaker rushed to Leo, with Ceri trailing behind.
“My Gods, you could have been killed! It must have come loose when they were installing the new upgraded ‘lectrics last month. I’ll have that builder’s neck, boy, don’t you worry.”
Dean Whittaker pulled Leo upright. He looked shaken, his spectacles crooked on his nose again, but he was unharmed.
“Thank you, sir. No harm no foul,” said Leo.
“Come, sit with us in the middle. There’s no chandelier over our heads, at least,” said Dean Whittaker.
The servants removed the busted chandelier as the people at the table took their seats once more.
Leo took the seat directly across from Ceri.
“Hello, again,” he whispered to her.
Ceri drew in a deep breath. It felt as though this school was conspiring to put them together. She was looking forward to the arrival of the other students. Maybe once the school was busy and crowded, it would be easier to avoid him.
Not that she needed to avoid him. There was nothing between them to be avoided.
Dean Whittaker began to talk about his experience with the builders and the doubts he’d had when they were working. Ceri recognized it as the sort of thing one says to save face after a humiliation. Of course he’d seen the problems coming all along. If he’d just trusted his gut and fired them at the beginning, none of this would have happened.
She wondered how much of this song and dance was on her behalf—did he worry that Ceri would leave the school if it seemed as though it was falling apart?
Leo, to his credit, seemed to take his near-death experience in stride.
“Professor Marin and I could make use of the old chandelier in our laboratory, if it’s going to be replaced,” he suggested.
“An excellent idea,” said Dean Whittaker. “Your highness, Leorias works for Professor Marin as a graduate researcher in the ‘Lectrics department. Professor Marin herself regrets that she hasn’t been able to greet you yet. It’s her understanding that you, like your brother, have some interest in ‘lectrics?”
Just my luck , thought Ceri. He works for the professor everyone is coming here to see.
There was going to be no avoiding Leo. If she wanted to keep her studies on track, she was going to have to find another way to fight whatever it was that had come over her since meeting him.
“Ceri has already offered to assist me with my research,” said Leo.
Dean Whittaker beamed at him and Ceri. “Excellent, excellent. Professor Marin does extraordinary work. I’m pleased that it’s finally receiving the attention it deserves.”
Ceri imagined that Dean Whittaker was pleased on behalf of the entire school, which would certainly be boosted by her family’s involvement.
The rest of the dinner passed without further disruption. Ceri kept finding ways to keep the dean talking until long after almost everyone else had left. If Leo noticed her stalling tactics, he gave no sign.
She didn’t know why she was trying to delay their evening plans. It was purely research—nothing else would be happening.
Finally, the dean gestured to a servant to take his wine glass. “I’m afraid it’s past my bedtime. Do you need someone to help you find your way back to your room, your highness?”
Leo looked at Ceri. Stop it, she told her heart. No fluttering allowed.
“I’ll manage,” she said to Dean Whittaker. “Thank you for allowing me to sit at the high table.”
Leo nodded his head towards one of the doors that led into the courtyard.
Ceri followed him.
The sun had set while they ate; the night air was cooler than Ceri had expected.
“Are you still feeling up to a hike? It’s not far to the observatory, but you’ll want some better shoes,” said Leo, gesturing to the heels on her loafers.
“These are excellent shoes,” said Ceri. She flicked her wrist towards the heels—the gesture was unnecessary, but it added a bit of pizzazz—and they shrunk, lowering her to the ground.
Leo had been taller than her even with the added inches of the heels, but now he towered over her. She wasn’t surprised: pretty much everyone did.
His lips had parted. He stared from her to the shoes. “The way you do that so casually. So effortlessly. Even the others here that have studied magic tend to struggle with it, if they can even do it at all. Myself included.”
Ceri shrugged her shoulders, trying to ignore how good his words made her feel. “You should see my brother. I learned what I know from him, and a little from my mother, when she was around.”
“I’m sorry, is she—”
“No, she’s alive.” What she was supposed to say next was that the queen had been forced to return to her homeland to settle a disagreement over her inheritance, and that she had to remain there until her uncle died or forfeit everything.
She couldn’t bring herself to lie again. “Are you ready to leave now?” she asked him.
“I need to collect some things from my lab,” said Leo. “You should grab a jumper as well. It’s colder at the top of the mountain.”
Ceri met him back in the courtyard a few minutes later. He was carrying a large rucksack and a metal container of some kind, and he’d also brought a quilted blanket. Ceri felt underprepared with just her Winwold jumper in her arms.
“Do you need help with anything?” she asked.
“I’ve got it,” said Leo, right as he dropped the metal container. It rolled on the grass and landed near Ceri’s feet. “Well, maybe if you could grab the tea.”
Ceri picked it up cautiously, expecting it to be hot. “There’s tea in here?”
Leo smiled. “It’s a vacuum flask. One of the chemistry fellows is testing them out. They keep drinks warm for hours.”
Ceri could have warmed the tea for them with her magic, but she didn’t feel the need to point it out. It felt like showing off.
“There’s no coffee in here, is there?”
“Only tea,” said Leo. “Although if you’d like to try my tea coffee, you need only ask.”
“I’d prefer to be able to sleep at some point this week.”
“Sleep is overrated,” said Leo. He cleared his throat, then quickly pointed at a path extending into the woods beyond the ruined cloister on the west side of the courtyard. “Shall we?”
He strode off for the path before Ceri could respond, leaving her wondering what she had missed.
She followed behind him as they climbed a bare dirt path under the trees. Leo retrieved a ‘lectric torch from his rucksack, which lit a narrow beam of light onto the path ahead. Ceri had to stay close to him to see the ground in front of her.
“This is an experiment too,” he explained, waving the torch. “A new type of power-saver. I would have brought one for you, but I’m not certain if it’s safe.”
“What could be wrong with it?” asked Ceri, backing a little further away.
“Well, it could always catch fire. Possibly violently.” Leo said it quite casually, as if this was an ordinary hazard when working with him.
Perhaps it was.
Despite his warning, the torch continued to function without trouble. The path climbed steeply through the darkened forest. There was nothing to see aside from the beam of light; everything around them was pitch dark. Ceri knew she would have been terribly afraid had Leo not been with her. Even with him there, it was difficult not to feel the darkness pressing in, particularly in the moments when the torch’s beam drifted too far ahead as Leo navigated the turns in the path.
After what felt like an hour but was probably only twenty minutes or so—Ceri regretted that her time spent flying and dancing around ballrooms had not prepared her physically for this much of a climb—they reached the observatory. It was a small building with a domed roof standing right at the top of the hill. Ceri had thought they had reached the top of the mountain after such a long climb, but a much larger mountain loomed behind the observatory.
Just as they were about to clear the last row of trees before the clearing, Ceri heard a cracking sound from overhead.
“Look out!” she shouted.
Leo turned the torch towards the canopy in time to see something dark streaking downwards towards them.
There was little time to think. Ceri reacted with a burst of her magic, sending the dark object—a large branch—careening into the trunk of a tree as Leo grabbed her by the waist, pulling her out of the way.
The torch fell to the ground. Ceri stood still, feeling her body pressed against Leo’s, hearing his heartbeat next to her ear.
She couldn’t move. She’d forgotten how.
“Are you alright?” he asked her. He removed his arm from her waist and bent to pick up the torch. He shined it on them and then on the branch, which had shattered at the base of a young pine.
“That could have killed us,” said Ceri slowly. How many near misses had they had today? Two, three?
“That was you, sending the branch into the tree?”
“Yes,” said Ceri. That one had cost her. The earlier spells—removing the tea coffee, adjusting her heels—had been minor feats. The force required to move the branch, as large and heavy as it was, had taken more out of her. She felt a bit lightheaded. “I think I need to sit down.”
“The observatory is just ahead,” said Leo. “Can you make it?” He offered her his arm.
She took it. She had no other choice.
Leo led her to the observatory steps and helped her take a seat. He looked her up and down, concerned. “Are you alright?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine in a minute,” said Ceri. “It’s like sprinting up the stairs, doing strong magic out of nowhere. It doesn’t help that I’m out of practice.”
“Will you be alright if I leave you for just a moment? I left everything in the woods.”
Ceri nodded. It was strange the way the air changed the moment he was hidden by the tree line, the sudden awareness it gave her of the darkness and a sense that although she was alone on the steps, there was something lurking out there.
A cool, strong breeze blew through, sending the hair on her arms up into goosebumps.
She felt a great sense of relief when Leo returned with the blanket, his rucksack, and the vacuum flask. He dropped the rucksack to the ground and wrapped the blanket around Ceri’s shoulders. Then he took a seat next to her, pouring the contents of the flask into the attached cup.
“Sorry I dropped it,” said Ceri.
He laughed. “I forgive you for dropping the tea while you were busy saving my life.” He handed her the cup, warning her it would be hot.
Ceri pulled the cup to her lips, blowing on it. She could have cooled it with magic, but it would be pushing it under the circumstances. She braved a sip.
“It’s delicious,” she said, looking at Leo in surprise. She felt instantly better. It was amazing how much the simple comforts of a warm blanket and a good cup of tea could improve almost any situation.
“A family recipe,” said Leo. “Lavender, lemon, and honey.”
“Are you close to your family?” asked Ceri. In truth, she was already feeling well enough to go inside, but she wasn’t quite ready to give up the comforts of the blanket and the tea.
Leo tilted his head, grimacing. “No, I wouldn’t say that. They are a bit—how do you say it?” He searched for the Loegrian word. “Unconventional. Different, even in Gallia, which is much more accepting of other ways of life than here.”
“How so?”
Leo reached into his pocket and pulled out a smaller hip flask. “I’ll need something a bit stronger if I’m going to talk about this,” he said.
“You don’t have to,” said Ceri, but now she was extremely curious. She held out her cup.
Leo smiled at her and tipped in the flask before taking a swig. “Wilderisen whisky,” he said. He started to speak but took one more swig first. “I told you I have no title. It’s not because my parents aren’t nobility—they are. But they’ve had too many children to pass on titles to each of us.”
This wasn’t uncommon. Like the Loegrian court, most courts gave lesser titles to the children of a noble until there were no further titles to give. Most ran out by the third or fourth child, and many couples had more children than that. “How many siblings do you have?”
He sighed. “Forty-one.”
Ceri nearly choked on her whisky-laced tea. “Forty-one children?”
“Er, well, forty-two including me. Those are my full siblings. If you count half siblings, it’s sixty or so still living. We think…”
He trailed off.
“I don’t understand,” said Ceri. “I mean, I can see you’re a full elf, and I know you live a long time—”
“My parents are over one thousand years old,” said Leo. “And my mother loves children. Every twenty years or so, she has another one. My parents are married, but a thousand years is a long time. There have been others. Sometimes several of them at once. Always with permission, never in secret. Sometimes it’s so romantic it's nauseating.”
This was so far from the world Ceri had grown up in, she didn’t know where to start. “I have so many questions.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Leo. “Go ahead.”
“You said you weren’t close. Is it just because there are so many of you? Do you even know all of their names?”
“Of course I know their names. Not all of the half-siblings, but that’s because some of them were gone before I was born. But no, that’s not why we aren’t close. Truthfully, I never quite fit in at home. My parents are all about free love and living in harmony with nature. They haven’t fit in within Gallic society for several generations, not even with most of the other elves. They live in a commune for free-thinkers, and I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t born to think freely. They sent me to Gallic schools—the first in the family to go in centuries. But I didn’t fit there either. Like I said, Gallia has turned its back on magic. But look at what you can do. It seems equally insane to me to deny the reality of that as it does to deny the benefits of science and technology.”
“So you’re from two worlds, but you’ve never fit in with either,” said Ceri. “Like me.”
“Like you?”
Ceri took a deep sip from the cup. The whisky made it even warmer. She didn’t know if it gave her courage, but at least it gave her some comfort. “My mother left us.”
Leo didn’t look surprised. He’d never heard the fiction they’d spun about the queen’s absence.
“It wasn’t her fault, not really. She tried to take us with her when I was a baby, but my father wouldn’t let her. We went to see her during the summers until a few years ago when my father stopped allowing that too.”
“I’m sorry,” said Leo. “That must have been hard.”
“My mother is from the Far East—Formosa, they call it here. But I don’t know her language. I knew some of it when I was little, but when she left and my brother went away to university, I lost it. The last time I visited, I could only speak to people who knew Loegrian. To them, I was Loegrian.”
“But to Loegrians, you’re Formosan.”
“Exactly,” said Ceri. “My father’s family treated us kindly, particularly my Aunt Chloe, who was the closest thing I had to a mother. But I spent most of my life feeling like I was different. Feeling like I had to pretend to be someone else.”
She left out the part about who she had pretended to be while trying to please her father. She didn’t want Leo to know.
In fact, she had said far too much already. The truth of Queen Yuling’s departure was a closely guarded secret, although there were, of course, a number of rumors floating around. He wasn’t the first person she’d told the truth, but look at how that had turned out for her.
The people she trusted had betrayed her. She had sworn she’d be more careful about trusting, and now here she was, pouring her heart out to a stranger because he was good looking and had offered her tea?
“This was a mistake,” she said, standing suddenly. “I’m sorry.”
“What? Ceri, what’s wrong?”
“I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have said any of that.”
She took off down the steps.
“Ceri, wait,” said Leo. “You won’t be able to see in the dark. I’ll take you back if you want.”
He was right that Ceri wouldn’t be able to see in the woods, but she wouldn’t need to.
In the space of a heartbeat, she transformed into a dragon.
“ Mes Dieux ,” said Leo. “Ceri—”
She turned towards him. She was much larger than him now, her pale skin now pearly white scales which glittered in the light of the crescent moon. She spread her grand wings and took flight.
Ceri rose quickly, the bare hilltop observatory and the looming dark forest shrinking beneath her as she soared towards the cloudless sky. The sky had darkened during their hike to near pitch, the first twinkling stars appearing.
Here, above the trees, she could see clearly.
Ceri looked down at the speck that was Leo still frozen on the stairs below. He had done nothing wrong. Was this kindness, leaving him like this? After she had promised to help him?
All because what—she’d let herself get too comfortable for a moment? And now she was going to punish him for it?
It was that same selfishness of hers again. He had shared with her something vulnerable about himself, and she had, unprompted, turned the conversation back to her, revealing more than she’d ever intended to. And then she got upset about it and allowed him to think it was his fault.
What the hell was wrong with her?
She dove, feeling the rush of air over her wings. She could not resist turning one flip—it helped her slow down, on top of looking really cool—before she touched back down and transformed back, her clothes transforming down to size with her. (It had been kind of him not to laugh at a dragon wearing a Winwold College uniform.)
“You did nothing,” she said, speaking to him as if nothing had happened. His mouth gaped open at her, but she ignored it. “I just said too much. I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?” He was shaking. Ceri realized he hadn’t seen a dragon before.
Great. She’d scared him half to death twice in one day.
“I don’t know. Whatever this is. Have friends. Be normal. I don’t know how to do it.”
“Friends,” said Leo with half a smile.
She didn’t know if she could be his friend. She didn’t know if she could be anybody’s friend, but maybe, if she wanted to truly start over and try to be a better person, she could try. It would be simpler than being…more than friends, at least. Maybe if she could think of him as merely a friend, those pesky thoughts she’d been having since they met would go away.
Leo had continued to speak during her realization. “You don’t have to be normal. Gods know I’m not. I think you’re—”
He stopped himself. She wished he hadn’t. She wanted to know what he thought of her: did he see the new Ceri or the old?
“You’re doing just fine,” he said, sighing and looking away. “Come on. Let’s go up. It’s going to be a beautiful night for research.”
Ceri followed him as he led her into the observatory, trying to be content with her new nothing-more-than-a-friend companion. There were a handful of people inside taking turns through a large central telescope. Leo waved hello to a couple that he knew without stopping. He led Ceri up a flight of stairs and out onto a balcony with wide, sweeping views of the mountains and the valley beyond. The ‘lectric lights of the college were tiny sparks in the distance.
There were others out on the balcony. They waved to them, but Leo led her down to an empty patio. There, he spread the blanket down and took a seat on it, inviting her to join him.
“It should be starting soon. You may be able to see a few even now,” he said, but he wasn’t looking up at the sky. He had opened his rucksack and was removing a number of items from within it: his leather notebook and ink pen; the brass device from earlier, which still looked slightly bent out of shape; a silver locket on a delicate but tarnished chain; a children’s doll with a painted porcelain face; a large hollow horn with elaborate carvings; a dagger with a rusty blade; and a lighter made of dwarven steel, worn from use. “I need to take my baseline readings,” he explained as he began scribbling in the journal, waving his device over the other items.
“What are these?” asked Ceri, picking up the doll. Its hair looked to be made of corn silk, and it gave Ceri a deep sense of unease looking at its smirking face.
“Be careful with that,” said Leo, grabbing the doll back then smiling in apology at the hasty gesture. “Each of these objects gives off a powerful—and, more importantly, measurable—magic field. I found them in charity shops in Norgate mainly, except for the lighter. That one I found right here in High House.”
"They’re enchanted?”
“I believe so. What I’m trying to understand is how the magic is stored in them. How it ebbs and flows, how it recharges. I have a theory that powerful magic events, events like the meteor shower, recharge them in some way. I’m hoping to measure it tonight.”
Ceri hadn’t realized that meteor showers had anything to do with magic. She’d heard superstitions, but she thought they were just that. “I’ve never felt anything particularly special during a meteor shower.”
“Have you seen one?”
“No,” she admitted. The castle was in an open area, but it was so close to Arcas Dyrne that the night sky never got truly dark there. “You said you wanted my help. What did you want me to do?”
“Just something small like what you did before. The spell you used to get the tea coffee out of your shirt, or the one you used on your shoes. I’d like to measure it before and during the meteor shower to see if there’s a difference.”
That seemed simple enough. Ceri was curious to see the measurements herself. She’d never heard of measuring magic before. “It’s your own design?” she asked, picking up the device.
“Yes,” said Leo. He smiled, pleased to be asked. “I call it a magimeter. It’s a modification of the devices we use to measure ‘lectricity. It has a small gem inside I found from talking to a shaman in a dwarven mine. They use gems like it to find certain rare ores. Mithril, for one.”
He was really quite clever, despite his penchant for attracting trouble. She watched him as he carefully held the magimeter to each object in turn, marking the readings down into a table.
“Strange,” he muttered.
“What is it?”
“The locket has never read this high before. I’m worried I may have broken the magimeter during our collision earlier.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ceri. If she hadn’t been nosing around where she wasn’t meant to be, that wouldn’t have happened.
“Entirely my fault,” he said. “Something in these objects, possibly in the magimeter itself, interacts with the library in a bad way. It’s…an opinionated place, and it likes to make its opinions known.”
“By throwing books at you?” Ceri remembered the library’s choice of books when she was there and blushed. Perhaps it had known her own mind better than she did.
Maybe now if they returned together, the library would offer her a book on friendship. She hoped it would, at least.
“And also by turning off the lights. Ah, that’s more like it,” he said, taking a third reading, this time leaning a bit away. “Perhaps it’s interference.” He gestured to Ceri’s shoes.
“Oh,” said Ceri. “I can turn them back.”
“Just a moment,” he said. “I’ll measure it when you do. I don’t want to waste your energy. Then you can flatten them again during the meteor shower.”
“But those aren’t exactly the same things,” said Ceri. Her science tutor had been particularly insistent on valid experimental design. “I’ll extend one heel now, then the other during the meteor shower. So it’s the same, you see? I can sit them out of the way so you can get the rest of your measurements.”
Leo beamed at her. Gods, his smile was bright. “That’s absolutely right. Very good thinking, Ceri.”
It felt entirely too good to hear his praise. Friends, Ceri told herself. I’m only here to make friends. Or I’m only here to study. Something! Stop it. Stop melting when he looks at you.
Ceri did as she had planned, doing her best not to notice how close he was to her when he waved the magimeter as she gestured near the heel.
“Hmm,” he said as he scribbled down the readings. “More power than I’d thought for such a spell. I’ll be intrigued to see how the readings change.”
He moved the objects to the opposite side of where Ceri had left the shoes and lay back on the blanket.
“Don’t you want to measure me again?”
“Sure,” said Leo. “But there will be plenty of time for that once it really gets going. Let’s just enjoy the view until then.”
He gestured to the spot on the blanket beside him.
Ceri’s heart began to race. How could he be so casual about this? Had he done this before? Did he invite loads of women up here during meteor showers?
Truthfully, Ceri doubted it. He didn’t seem the type to use something as romantic as this setting to woo someone. She wasn’t sure he saw any romance in it at all. It was just research to him. Perhaps that’s why he was able to be so calm about it.
She tried to channel that energy as she lay down next to him. The blanket was so small that there were only inches between them. He was so close she could hear his breath.
Looking at the wide-open sky with her back on the ground gave her the uncanny feeling that she would fall from the earth and land right in it, taking her place among the stars. It left her dizzy and wondering once again if this was all a mistake.
Leo grabbed her arm at her side then, pulling her back to solid ground. “Look!”
With his other hand, he pointed up and to Ceri’s left. Ceri just saw the trail of it, a bright streak of white.
“I saw it!” she said. And then: “There’s another one!”
She saw it first this time, just to the right of where she’d been looking before.
It was funny how exciting it was to spot them. They were out here looking for the shooting stars, so it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise when they saw them. And yet there was such a feeling of joy at catching one with her own eyes that she found herself laughing.
“Right there!” said Leo, pointing a bit closer to the horizon.
They continued watching the shooting stars for a long while. Every now and then, Ceri would turn to Leo. His face was as bright and merry as her own, and she found it so nice to share in the joy and wonder together.
On one occasion, when she turned to him, she caught him looking at her. She wanted to look away, but she didn’t. That dizzy feeling of falling was upon her again, only in a different direction.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” he whispered. He leaned closer to her.
She thought then of what she had been trying not to think about since she’d arrived at Winwold. She thought of Isaac telling her he couldn’t see her anymore. The regretful look in his eyes as he told her he’d fallen in love with someone else and that they were going to be married.
She thought of Jerta and Deepa and Elise and all the other ladies and gentlemen who had left her. Their stinging words. Their casual cruelty. The fact that she had deserved it.
The reason she was starting over.
Leo wasn’t like any of them. Not because he was an elf—though she hadn’t had any full elves in her inner circle before. But because he hadn’t grown up here, in this world of royalty and courtiers and all of the nonsense it entailed. It was alien to him; she could see that clearly. He didn’t care that she was the princess any more than he cared what color her eyes were or anything else about her.
Though, considering his proximity, perhaps he did care for some things about her.
She broke his gaze, sitting up. “It’s incredible. I never thought there would be so many.” Even as she said it, she spotted another. Somehow, it seemed a little less magical from up here. “I’ll get the shoe,” she said.
Leo coughed slightly, sitting up as well. “Of course,” he said. “Perfect timing.”
He measured his objects again while Ceri waited, and then he measured as she restored the heel on her other shoe. Once he was satisfied with his measurements, she flattened both heels again for the walk back.
“Anything interesting?”
“Possibly,” said Leo. “I’ll need to do some calculations. Understand the deviance from the baseline, compare it to previous measurements. The effect is small, if it’s there, but it’s a start.”
Ceri yawned. It has been a long day, and she found that even the small magic she had performed had worn on her quite a bit.
“Do you want to stay longer?” asked Leo. “I have what I need for my research, but I’m happy to stay if you’d like. Did you make all the wishes you wanted?”
Ceri hadn’t made a wish at all. Perhaps she should, but what would she wish for?
“Just one more minute,” she said, lying back and thinking.
The sky loomed above her. In her heart, she knew she was alone underneath it. That we were all alone, really, each of us living lonely under the infinite sea of stars, rarely even aware of what’s above us.
She spotted a shooting star, the brightest one yet, streaking across the sky.
She closed her eyes and wished.