She pulled back and looked at him them. “Did they live?”
“Aye, but no thanks to me.”
“Well, that might qualify as something rather terrible,” she said. “Anything else?”
He sighed and pulled away, but she realized he had only gone as far as the chair set near the fire. He held open his arms and looked at her expectantly. She supposed she might have more answers than not if she kept him pinned in a chair, so she went to sit on his lap.
“Well?”
He looked more hesitant than she’d ever seen him. She considered fetching him a large glass of whisky, but she supposed that what he had to tell her might be too serious for even that.
“There was once a mage in Tosan,” he began slowly.
“Sladaiche?”
He shook his head. “Not him. Not a man without power, either, and one who favored my father’s magic.”
“Were you defending your father’s honor?” she asked.
“Hardly,” he said with a snort. “We were simply insulting each other with words and spells, as mages do absent anything else useful with which to amuse themselves, and I didn’t care for the way he treated his wife.”
“You?”
He smiled wearily. “Aye, me, the one always in the running for the mage everyone wants to slay.”
“Very near the top, I daresay.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled. “Go on.”
“I drove him mad until he lost all sense and ran off the edge of a cliff into the sea.”
“I see,” she said slowly. “And what did you do to his widow?”
“For,” he corrected. He considered, then shrugged lightly. “It doesn’t merit a mention.”
She only watched him silently.
He blew his hair out of his eyes. “Very well, I gave her a purse that endlessly spilled out Nerochian gold sovereigns. The spell was constructed to outlast her until the youngest of her ten children had breathed his last.”
“You,” she said seriously, “are shockingly bad at black magery.”
“Do not spread that about, woman. I will deny it to my dying breath.” He dragged both his hands through his hair. “I either need to fly or kiss you until we’ve both forgotten this recent conversation.”
“Why not both?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Now, there’s a thought. Would you like to fly with me? I could change your shape for you.”
“Could you?” she squeaked.
Damnation, tears and sounding like a ten-year-old gel. She wondered what else the day might lay upon her that would be worse.
“Darling, you might be surprised what I can do.”
“I imagine I might not be.”
He didn’t move. “Do you trust me that far?”
