Chapter Fifteen Taissa #4
“Oh?” Alun looks slightly surprised. “Why, then?” A dimpled smile suddenly appears. “If you’re looking for a third, well, color me intrigued.”
Her face flushes as his meaning sinks in. “Oh, that’s not—”
“I had a lot of fun with you, Taissa,” says Alun with a wink.
In the years since she’s seen him (albeit however fleetingly), Alun seems to have become rather cocky, hasn’t he?
Especially considering his, ah, time limit.
“Wouldn’t mind doing it again…Or with him, either.
And”—Alun winks again—“I’ve improved in…
performance. I met the five-minute mark recently. Can you believe it?”
Never before has Taissa been so immensely flabbergasted. All she can do is stare at the síceach with her mouth agape, torn between laughter and absolute humiliation.
On the couch, Kion shifts closer to her, and she nearly jumps out of her skin as his ungloved hand—rough with calluses—closes around hers.
“Out of the question,” he says, but he sounds amused, probably at her plight. Alun still has not deigned to put on trousers. “She’s mine—only mine.”
Taissa casts him an irritated look even as warmth traitorously blooms in her stomach, and tries not to swat his shoulders. Instead, she quirks an eyebrow, careful not to let Alun (who, to his credit, looks slightly embarrassed) see. He’s laying it on a bit thick.
Locke looks evenly back at her just as she clears her throat. His hand is still holding hers. (Not that she cares, or even notices, really.)
“Actually, Alun, we were hoping you might be able to do an aura reading for us.”
The síceach blinks. “Oh. We’re going in a much different direction than I thought we’d be.”
He sounds so disappointed. Kion makes a sound of impatience deep in his throat. “Look,” he bites out, his hand tightening around hers, “we need to know whether we—the NCL Stymphs—have been cursed or not. Cho seems to think you can tell us.”
Recovering admirably, Alun plops down onto the floor in front of them, legs crossed. Taissa closes her eyes as she unfortunately catches a peek of a vaguely familiar part of his anatomy.
(“Charming,” mutters Kion under his breath.)
“I can do that,” agrees Alun.
“Thank you so—” she begins.
“For a price.”
Taissa swallows her gratitude. “How much?” she asks tightly.
The sign-on advance for her joining the team is measly, and although Niamh’s emailed her about a few parties interested in giving opportunities to her and Kion, her bank account is still in dire straits.
Kion’s probably better off, but with the way he’s glaring at Alun (and at Alun #2), she’s not sure that he’s in the mood for negotiations.
Alun shrugs innocently before naming the most obscene, absurd price Taissa’s ever heard in her life. “Are you shitting me?” she hisses, and Alun holds up his hands in surrender.
“A lad’s gotta eat. And if you really need the services of a síceach, well, you should be willing to pay for them, no? This is my livelihood, after all.”
Coming here was a mistake. Giving him that fee would clear half of her bank account.
“You owe me, Alun,” she snaps. Best to come right out with it. Locke raises his brows.
Alun doesn’t look swayed. “As far I’m concerned, we experienced mutual bliss.”
“In thirty seconds?”
Locke makes a sound like he’s choking. Alun reddens.
“Time is nothing but a social construct.”
“Time is not a social construct, you absolute—”
Abruptly, Kion mutters a curse, pulling out his phone. “You take FaeFund?”
“I don’t see why not,” says Alun smoothly.
“Locke,” Taissa says quietly, “it’s not worth it.” Not for the simple yes/no answer Alun will provide.
Enough to just assume they’re cursed, and leave this (badly dressed) síceach behind.
But Kion’s jaw is tight. It’s clear that he needs that absolute yes/no answer—for his team.
Especially as they balance on the precipice of losing it all.
She supposes she can understand. If it really is the Blunduns, then as captain and coach, he’s responsible.
But if it’s a curse, well, that weight on his shoulders would be eased.
And Locke seems to have rather a lot on his shoulders. She’s surprised he hasn’t crumpled underneath the pressure of it all.
“Oh, I can throw in more to sweeten the deal,” the síceach says hurriedly. “I can tell you what type of curse it is, if you are, of course, cursed.”
That would narrow it down, Taissa admits reluctantly to herself. And it would be enough to take to the authorities.
Kion makes a low sound of irritation. “I’ll pay you after you’ve delivered. Yeah?”
Alun tips an imaginary hat at him. “Sure. Sure.” He eyes them coyly. “Right, then. Let’s see.”
With bated breath, Taissa watches as Alun’s eyes begin to fog over, like clouds suddenly rolling across the sky on a clear day.
She’s never seen anyone do this before, never seen a síceach use the Sight.
As that glowing white gaze fixes on her and Kion, trepidation skitters down her spine like spiders.
The síceach tips his head, first one way, then the other.
Fidgeting, she wonders what their auras look like—how Alun will be able to tell whether the stain of dark magic is upon them.
Kion shifts slightly on the sofa, and his hand is still in hers.
Does he realize that his thumb is drawing absentminded circles along her skin?
Her heart is suddenly thump-thump-thumping in her chest in a way that has nothing to do with Alun’s strange, scrutinizing gaze.
When Alun’s eyes finally blink back to green, Taissa feels as jumpy as the jellies hopping around the perimeter of the sitting room (one of them, she’s noted, is her favorite flavor: Sugared Pear).
“Oh,” says Alun, adjusting his tie (in order to make it more unadjusted, it seems). “That was interesting.”
“What did you see?” Taissa asks breathlessly.
“Well…” Alun jumps to his feet (she has to close her eyes again) and hurries to the bookcase, crushing one of the Jumping Jellies underfoot in the process.
The confectionary bean emits a sad, squeaking sound underneath Alun’s bare foot as he turns back on his heel, a worn book gripped triumphantly in his hand.
The embossed title reads, Agatha Jar’s Properties of Auras.
Sitting down before them again, Alun opens the book as if it’s Reading Time in kindergarten, and she and Kion are two children in need of entertainment.
He’s flipped to a page filled with colors—a color chart.
Every color imaginable fills the two pages, crammed in beside one another, with spidery ink listing each color’s—each aura’s, she realizes—attributes below.
“We’ll start with you, Taissa.” With a finger, Alun taps a lovely lilac color. “This is the base color of your aura.”
“Oh,” says Taissa, pleased. “It’s pretty.”
“It means you’re suffering.”
“Oh,” says Taissa again, less amused.
Alun looks thoughtful. “Lilac auras usually emerge after some traumatic event. They signify a lingering hurt, and a strong, almost poisoning, bitterness.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out when her aura changed from whatever it was to lilac. Taissa slumps backward on the sofa, seething at the reminder of The Scandal. “Interestingly,” says Alun, “Kion’s base color is the same.”
Surprised, Taissa sneaks a sideways peek at Kion, who’s suddenly as stiff as a plank of wood, and not in the more amusing way. His hand is suddenly crushing her own, and Taissa winces, but for some reason she can’t bring herself to pull away.
His aura is also lilac…She wouldn’t have expected it. At all. To her surprise, she’s found that there are things she doesn’t know about Kion Locke despite her die-hard fangirl stage (even recalling it, she reddens)—maybe things that nobody knows.
But what?
“Are we cursed?” Kion bites out.
“I’m getting there.” Alun looks like he’s enjoying himself as he taps a nail against a new color, this one a light pink. “Lilac isn’t the only color your auras share in common. You also share this.”
She doesn’t like the look of that color.
“Attraction,” concludes Alun. “Nice to have confirmation of what you already know, hey?”
This time, Taissa’s hand does leap out of Kion’s, like a frog dashing back into water. “No,” she says automatically, even as her brain goes to the Tent-Pitching Catastrophe and, also, the various posters she used to own of him, and how good he smells sometimes (fine, all of the time).