To my surprise, the Queen chuckles before she looks back at the vellum. “So, you’re going to create... an experience, is it?”
I move a little closer to her, leaning my hip casually against the table at her right hand. “Of a sort. Going into winter, who doesn’t love a bit of entertainment? And though it certainly will be entertaining, that's not the purpose of it.”
“What other purpose could a-a skin show serve?” the Queen asks, though there’s something distinctly flustered poking through her impassivity. Her eyes have grown just a little too big as she looks at my proposal.
I turn, bracing my hands against the table. My chest just peeks from the plunging neckline of the dress I’m wearing under my robes. My spells hang prettily in my cleavage, and I can’t help but push my bust up a little as I lean on the table.
When the Queen finally looks up, her eyes widen just slightly, focusing right where I expected them to. “The point of this,” I say, grinning as her eyes flick up to meet mine, “is to demystify magic.”
“Everyone knows how it’s made,” she says, but her scoff wavers.
“Everyonethinksthey know how it’s made,” I correct before I lean a little closer, entering her space just slightly. Her cheeks gain a hint of color, and it’s a struggle to keep my smile from widening.
I can put people off guard, too.
“You fuck, you cum, you get magic, right?” Tramella’s lips purse at the crude language, but I continue before she can find her tongue, pointing out my white illusion mastery ribbon on my sleeve. “Yet to earn this, no one even touched me.”
"Oh?" Tramella asks, brows knitting.
I smile, head tilted just so as I look at her. She’s closer to Arlon’s age than mine, but she wears the years regally. Brown hair is threaded with silver and gray, but her pale cheeks color a little further as she looks at me.
“Would you like me to tell you?” I ask.
Tramella wars with herself before she leans back in the chair, letting my proposal rest open on the table in front of her. “So long as this story is going somewhere.”
“I wouldn’t dare waste Your Majesty’s time,” I say, amused. “Right after we got back from the Tower, I was... anxious. Jumpy, even. No doubt Your Majesty remembers how restless of a time that was?”
The Queen gives a huff of wry amusement. Who could forget the interrogation of my sister, the negotiations with my kinswomen from Kenitka? For a while, the promise of war had felt like a riptide, dragging us all out to sea. But Straetham hadn’t wanted to face a budding conflict on two different fronts, so King Thermilious settled for a renegotiated peace. A settlement that the Queen had been very pleased by, if I remember right.
“It reached a point where I needed to be redirected, so I asked Arlon to do something for me,” I say, grinning at the memory of the mastery petition I’d written up. I was working my conjuration simultaneously, and I’m still proud of the idea that allowed me to double-dip schools.
“What was that?” the Queen asks, curiosity underlying her droll tone.
“I asked him to blindfold me for an entire day,” I say. “My hands were bound loosely in front of me, more ropes circling under my clothes,justtight enough that I could never forget they were there.”
The Queen goes quiet, and I grin as I circle behind her chair. I don’t dare touch her, but I trace my fingers across the ridges of the wood back. “I still attended meetings, talked through problems with Arlon, but the entire day, he had to direct me. At first, I’d bump into walls, stumble when Arlon missed warning me about a catch in the stone. We had moments of complete frustration with one another in the beginning, but do you want to know something incredible?”
The Queen is looking at me as if she can’t quite pick me apart. Equal parts curiosity and bemusement. “You ask too many questions, Grandmaster,” she says curtly, which I take as a yes.
“By the end of the day, it was like we could read each other’s minds,” I say, remembering all that we talked about once the blindfold and ropes were off. “We both adapted to the situation so completely, so well that it was like we created an entire language just between the two of us. A perfect understanding of one another.”
I can’t help a fond smile, and it might be a mistake to admit this, but it feels important that she know. “I don’t think Arlon truly believed I could take the responsibility of this position until we cast that spell.Thatwas the magic of it.”
The Queen studies me, her face carefully unreadable. “What spell did it create?”
I smile as I find the focus on my necklace. It glows a pale white, like linens waving on a sunny day. I hold a hand out to her. “Would you like me to show you?”
Surprise flashes across her face. She knows I wouldn’t dare hurt her, but even so, she hesitates for a moment before she puts her hand in mine.
I release the spell, but I focus on keeping it as much of a one-way stream as possible. The Queen lets out a gasp as my idea flows through to her. Without a word spoken between us, my proposal takes a solid shape in her mind.
It’s a place where one could come to witness magic being made. An instruction and demystification at once. Unlike the temple in Laodeiros, a stage will separate those with magic from those without. This trust is still new, and I don’t want to endanger any wizard who would put themselves on display. Nor would I endanger anyone who steps through the doors. Adults only, with safeguards in place and rules laid out upfront. So much about making magic is trust, and that trust needs to go both directions.
The idea breaks down into its component parts. The building, the layout, the financials and supplies. I’ve outlined every detail, and I let them flow into the Queen through the simple contact of our hands.
The excitement, the passion, the conviction I hold that this idea will help rebuild the trust that was lost. It takes only moments. Quicker than it would take to even read the full proposal. Though I do my best not to let the spell give me insight into the Queen’s thoughts, I feel the warm caress of something like pleasant surprise. I slow the stream of magic before I snuff it entirely, leaving me fully in my own head once again.
The Queen stares at me with wonder, lips slightly parted. My hands are still wrapped around hers, but she doesn’t seem inclined to pull away.
