“I am perfectly fine, I assure you.”
“You are trapped beneath an oven!”
“Pinned,” he corrected mildly. “There is a meaningful distinction.”
She released the ring and pressed her hands to the floor as she bent to get another look beneath the oven. “I told you not to attempt this ridiculous spell!”
“Did you?”
She paused. “I thought it very loudly.”
A brief silence, in which she could almost feel him deciding not to laugh.
“Well, I shall simply … free myself,” he said. “If I adjust the enchantment, I can lift the ovens a marginal amount, and?—”
“Absolutely not.” She shifted forward on her knees until she was right at the edge of the ovens, close enough that Kazrian’s boots extended past her head. “You will not so much asthinkabout that spell again. If you lift the ovens and they drop a second time, you will not be making jokes about your trousers. You will be?—”
She could not finish that sentence.
“All right. All right.” His voice gentled. “No spell. But I cannot pull free. The fabric’s caught fast. I don’t suppose you have kitchen shears to hand? If you cut part of the trouser leg away, it should be easy for me to slide out.”
Shears. A plan. Something she coulddo.
She was across the kitchen before he had finished speaking, wrenching open the drawer where the kitchen shears lived. She dropped back to thefloor beside the ovens, bent down, and reached beneath the tipped one, stretching until her fingers found the pinned fabric, caught tight where the oven’s iron edge pressed it flat against the stone.
“Hold still.”
“I am not going anywhere.”
She worked the shears into position, angling awkwardly in the narrow space. The fabric gave way with a satisfying snip, and her next fear was immediate.
“Oh, stars, did I?—”
“No, no. I am quite all?—”
“What if I cut your?—”
“Lucie, you will not cut my leg,” he said calmly. “I have pulled it to the far side of the trouser leg. If you cut close to the portion that is caught, there is nothing but fabric.”
She allowed herself a slow and steadying breath before snipping again. She felt the moment the fabric released, the shift of movement as Kazrian pulled his leg the other way.
She scurried backward and stood, heart still hammering. “There. Move.Carefully.”
Kazrian shifted beneath the ovens, working himself side to side in a series of ungainly movements until he emerged, feet first, on the open side of the kitchen in a slightly dusty but otherwise unharmed state. He sat up and brushed dust from his hands and sleeves.
“There. All good. Nothing to it.”
Lucie took a few uncertain steps backward, met the counter’s edge, and sat down right there on the floor, exhaling a long and shaky breath. Balthazar was at her side immediately, pressing his warm, solid weight against her ribcage. She dropped a hand to his fur.
Kazrian looked across at her, frowning. “Are you all right?”
A laugh that sounded embarrassingly close to a sob came out of her. “AmIall right? You very nearlydied, and you ask whether?—”
“I did not nearly die. I was, at most, mildly inconvenienced about the trousers.” He considered her a moment, then gathered himself and came to sit beside her, close, but not too close. “I am sorry,” he said quietly. “I did not mean to scare you. It was … a momentary lapse in concentration. But I caught hold of the enchantment the moment I lost it.” He hesitated a moment longer, then added, “Now that everyone is safe, do I have your permission to end the spell and lower the ovens the final distance?”
“Well, you are certainly not going back beneath them,” she said, her voice still unsteady, “so yes. You may as well lower them properly.”
Kazrian rose swiftly and crossed back to the ovens. Lucie watched from the floor as he placed one hand against the wall beside them, and a brief flare of blue-white light traced the base of the ovens before they began to lower. There was a moment—a horrible, scraping lurch as iron caught against the stone wall—and the screeching sound tore through the kitchen again, sharp enough to make her flinch.
