Chapter 54 #2
Of course he hadn’t wanted to kiss her. She was the Major Inconvenience. The tula. The Stealer of Friends and the Disturber of His Delicate Peace. And she’d done the nearly unforgivable unthinkable of calling him a coward. Yet, there had been a few times he’d been gentle with her, achingly so.
Millie thought she’d been successful at suppressing the maelstrom of emotions that had pestered her ever since that afternoon in the closet, but at the apprentice’s nearness, they came rushing back. Flustered, she practically threw the tray into the oven.
That seemed to scare the apprentice, who snatched the kettle off the stove and hustled to the faucet.
Good. Get him away from her before she grabbed him by the front of his robe, thrust her hairpin up under his jaw, and demand he tell her what spell he cast on her to make her body yearn for his touch.
How dare he use a seduction spell on her! How dare he not tell her he could incant again after all the help she’d given him. How dare he make her want to unravel every stoic, grumpy, aloof inch of him!
Now that would be an adventure and no mistake. One she might even want to repeat again and again.
“Piss and plagues,” she hissed.
“I just ran out of tisane,” he said quickly. “I’ll be gone in a minute.”
She reached into the cupboard. “The tin’s right here—”
“I got it—”
His hand trapped hers against the glass canister. It would take only a thought for his fingers to intertwine with hers.
Millie shucked her hand, and Bradley caught the canister before it could fall from the shelf. She slapped the flour from her apron before the pain of her ruined hands reminded her she shouldn’t be doing that. “Crone’s Crooked Tits!”
“Let me see your hands, Tula.” The apprentice didn’t wait for permission, he just took hold of her hand in that mild way of his and peeled back the bandage. “Are you using the seaweed ointment?”
“Every night,” she grumbled. “Just a little,” she amended quickly, so he didn’t think she was wasteful. “But it doesn’t seem to have the same effect as when you do it.”
Millie wanted to die from how pathetic she sounded. Where was the fierce and independent lady pirate now? Turned to mush?
“Maybe I could come by . . .”
Him, come to her room? While she had no qualms sneaking into his to replenish her bath oil supply, Millie found the prospect of him visiting hers thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.
“Y-you’re much too busy,” she said briskly, pulling away and pretending the teacake dough needed her attention, which it very much did not. “The tisane—bruise, hard boil, steep ten minutes.”
“Yeah.” He shuffled back to his side of the kitchen and retrieved the teapot.
Millie stared at the baking teacakes and Bradley waited for the water to boil. Self-conscious and in need of a distraction, she withdrew a piece of cord from her apron pocket and started fiddling.
He recognized the familiar loop and threading of a bowline immediately. “You’re learning knots now. Who’s teaching you that?”
She kept fiddling, not looking at him. “Beau.”
“Figured it would be Jax.”
“Until I can get on a real ship, Beau’s got only a handful of lessons left. I’m not in the mood to learn a new dance, and I can’t swim until my hands heal, so it was knots.”
The horizontal mambo. Bradley had bristled upon hearing the uncouth knight’s offer, and if the princess understood the innuendo, she didn’t let on.
The thought of that brute teaching her to dance, or skinny dipping in the name of swimming lessons, had him bashing the tisane into a pulp at the bottom of the mortar.
“I said bruise the herbs, Mr. Donmarin, not make a pesto.”
“Why does it sound like the kitchen is under attack?” Dirk swirled through the archway, a squirming ferret clutched in his front paws.
“Hello, Fink.” Millie immediately forgot her knot and cut off a sliver of butter for the dapper little creature.
“No treats. He’s in time-out. Got a little too nippy with the frog.”
“Is Henri alright?”
“He says only a princess’s kiss or chilled pinot grigio could cure what ails him, but he’s making do with a nap.
Now what is all this?” The dragon swirled over to the mess on the counter with a hearty sniff.
He immediately whirled on Bradley. “You said you were getting tea, Bradley, not treats! And nothing but crumbs left for me, I see. Hmph.”
“I can bring up the next tray just for you, Master Dirk.” Millie gave the luck dragon a quick kiss on the cheek. So close to his ear, she whispered, “Any luck on our trip to You Know Where?”
“Less than I’d like,” he whispered back.
“The man was born with two sets of eyes, Millie. One for his work and one for mine.” He deposited Fink into her apron pocket and flew back to the archway.
“I look forward to your confections, Millie. Bradley, were you coming back or were you going to fraternize for the rest of the day?”
“I’m not fraternizing.” Bradley snatched up the teapot and fled the kitchen.
In the workroom, Bradley was very mindful of the scrolls and books as he poured himself another cup of tisane and savored a large swallow.
It was sweetened with apples and crystallized honey this time, mellowing the woody bite of the rosemary and enhancing the refreshing thrill of the lemon balm. He liked this new blend.
He liked the princess’s teacakes even better.
No one had made him apology pastry before. Ever.
He couldn’t go back to his studies now, not when it felt like a school of flying fish had taken wing in his stomach. But he had no time to waste, either. He could think about those teacakes and the woman who had made them later. If he could sit still.
The sorcerer apprentice opened Small Magicks and took another gulp of tisane. It wasn’t true research, but reading a passage would make him feel accomplished and give the tisane time to settle and sharpen his mind for the real work.
An illustration of a fat toad with enormous eyes accompanied the Sino characters, and the more Bradley translated, the more his own eyes bulged. The apprentice lurched forward in his seat, frantic.
“Bradley?” Dirk peeked over the stack of books separating them. “Your blood is like wildfire in your veins. What is—”
“I’ve found it!” He jumped to his feet.
“Gah!” Dirk grabbed the teapot and redirected the tisane sloshing from its spout away from the books and into his bone china teacup. Calmer, but still clutching the teapot, the dragon flew to a hover above the apprentice as he dug through the sorcerous clutter like a madman. “Found what, Bradley?”
“I can’t believe it. It’s been staring at me right in the face this whole time!”
“What’s going on?” Millie asked, one hand braced against the trapdoor, the other full of a plate of chai teacakes with a mug of something hot and steaming nestled between the golden rounds.
Dirk flew to assist her, but mostly to help himself to the teacakes. He dunked a confection right into the pot. “Bradley’s finally cracked.”
“Ah-ha!” The apprentice emerged from the clutter with a familiar gold jewelry box clutched in his hands. He raced over to the desk to recheck his translation. “Caelus’s Stars, this is it.”
“Feel free to explain at any time.” Dirk dunked and devoured another treat. “These little nibbles are divine, Millie. What are they?”
“Teacakes.”
“When will you be making more?”
“Shhh.” She gave him the plate and stepped forward. “Mr. Donmarin?”
He glanced up from the jewelry box at her, and she found herself smiling at the boyish delight on his face. The relief. The unguarded hope. The fine lines that gave his face its serious countenance had vanished.
He’s really not that much older than me, she realized. It seemed they’d both forgotten that.
“Watch,” he whispered.
Bradley opened the jewelry box, eyes slitting as sunlight lanced off the golden lid like a shooting star. He lifted the nautilus necklace by its chain and approached the gray stone frog with the garnet carbuncle eyes.
“This isn’t a statue,” he said. “This is a Tianzi Toad.”
“Never seen one of those in my life,” Dirk said, voice thickened by the teacakes. He guzzled the tisane straight from the spout, burped.
“You wouldn’t have.”
“Is this another one of those things I wouldn’t know because I haven’t grown out my barbels yet?”
“They reside in caves, Dirk. Deep in the ground.”
“Ah, yes. That makes sense why I wouldn’t have seen one. Caves. Dreadful places. You can’t see the sky from there.” He helped himself to another teacake, content he wasn’t being insulted.
“You make it sound like it should be alive, Bradley.” Millie rapped her knuckles against the toad’s granite head. “It’s quite literally hard as a rock.”
“Just wait.” Holding his breath, Bradley placed the necklace into the laughing toad’s mouth.
The fat lips snapped shut, and its jeweled eyes flashed red.
“Egad,” the dragon cried.
The princess gasped.
Bradley sank to his knees, cradled his head in his hands, and wept.