She felt her smile fade. “I’m not afraid of you.”
He looked as if he were still trying to catch his breath that had run off to points unknown. “I’m torn between assuring you that you should be and being flattened that you have me so tamed.”
“Let me know when you decide.” She started to face her charred pile of wood, then something occurred to her. She looked at him. “I could just light evil mages on fire, I suppose.”
He looked genuinely shocked. “What a horrible idea.”
“What would you do?”
“Humiliate them with a well-chosen spell or two, then leave them on their knees in front of me, begging me for their lives,” he said with a shrug. “I would then look over their pitiful magic and walk away only after having pointed out to them that it wasn’t worth the effort of pilfering.”
“How is that any different?”
“Because I don’t think you could burn someone to cinders,” he said carefully.
“Could you?”
“Please don’t ask.”
She supposed she shouldn’t. “Then I’d best work on the other so you can do what you must.”
“That might be best,” he agreed.
She turned back to face what was left of the pile of wood in front of her, then decided perhaps she would take the king at his word and just believe. She felt ridiculous, but she repeated the words faithfully and with as much detachment as possible.
Fire appeared atop the wood as surely as if she’d brought it to life there by normal means. More to the point, it stayed where she’d put it.
Briefly.
She was certain she hadn’t added anything to it, but it suddenly burst into an inferno that she supposed would have singed them both if Acair hadn’t doused it immediately.
“Well, I daresay ’tis as we thought: your foul temper causes your spells to run away with you,” he said. “You might want to learn to control that.”
She made a rude gesture at him, one she wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t learned from his spell of death. He only breathed out a bit of a laugh, but she imagined he’d seen far worse.
She looked at her hands in his and supposed he was too much the gentleman to notice any stray tears of frustration she might have wept. She waited until she thought she could speak without her voice catching, then spat out what she’d been thinking for the past several days but hadn’t been able to say.
“What if I can’t do this?”
“I’m not sure we need to discuss what I’m willing to do to see that you don’t have to,” he said quietly. He squeezed her hands gently, then stood up, pulling her with him. “Let’s take a healthful walk about the chamber and examine your victim from all sides. I find it’s very useful to make a list of possible failings to point out during the appropriate moment.”
She nodded, but didn’t look at him. If he walked with her for more than a single turn about the king’s chamber, he didn’t make note of it.
She stopped by the door, set aside the very tempting idea of making use of it, then looked at him.
“I’m ready.”
He leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek, then took her hand. “Again, then.”
She nodded and walked with him back to their stools. She wasn’t sure she would ever manage to control what her forays into a magical arena produced, but perhaps in the end it wouldn’t matter. For all she knew, Acair would find a way to be able to use his magic and all she would need to do was stand by and, as he might have said, be astonished by his magnificence.
Surely she wouldn’t be responsible for anything more than that.
Surely.
Seven
Acair finished yet another restless circle of Uachdaran of Léige’s library and came to a stop in front of a surprisingly large window set in unsurprisingly thick walls where he had a full view of the darkness outside. The moon was but a sliver, but that didn’t trouble him. That ability to see well in the gloom was perhaps, as he tended to remind himself as he prowled about darkened solars without knocking over decanters of rare port, the only decent thing he’d inherited from his sire.
