Another hiss, lower this time, guttural and sustained. Balthazar rose from his cushion and began to pace—three tight, agitated lengths of the hearthstone, his tail lashing, his movements sharp and coiled.
“Forgive me,” Kazrian said. “I did not mean to distress you. And I am, regrettably, rather less fluent in your responses than Lucie is, so I confess I cannot determine whether you are expressing a general objection to the man himself, or whether you are telling me that she does, in fact, return his interest.”
The idea sent something hot and unpleasant through his chest, a feeling he had no right to and could not, despite his best efforts, prevent.
“I should be happy for her,” he said quietly. “If she feels something for him.”
Balthazar stopped pacing. He turned and fixed Kazrian with a look of such undisguised incredulity that Kazrian could not help a small, reluctant laugh. “No? Well. You have me there, Balthazar, since I find I am unable to produce anything that even closely resembleshappinessat the idea.”
He was quiet for a moment, feeling the thread beneath his hand, the pulse of it gentling under his magic.
“There is something about him,” he continued slowly. “Something I cannot quite …” He frowned, searching for the right words. “He seems agreeable enough, I grant you. Friendly. Attentive. He appears to hold Lucie in genuine esteem. And if he visits his sister here with such regularity, that speaks to a devotion to family, which is a quality I can hardly fault.” He paused. “And yet I cannot rid myself of the feeling that something is … not quite right.”
He shifted his hand along the wall, following the thread. “But I am aware,” he added, “that I am hardly an impartial observer. I have ample reason to find fault with the man, and very little reason to trust my own judgment in the matter.” The thread pulsed once more beneath his fingers—fainter now, almost smooth. “I have been wrong before, about reading people. Spectacularly wrong. So it is entirely possible that I am wrong about this as well, and that Mr Stratton is precisely the good, decent man he appears to be.”
Balthazar turned tail and stalked back to his cushion, where he sat down with his back to Kazrian and his gaze fixed firmly on the far wall. The dismissal was so complete that Kazrian could only assume this meant he considered those last words to be the most profoundly idiotic thing he had said all evening.
Well then.
Kazrian worked on in silence as the last of the daylight retreated from the kitchen and the faelights began to brighten. At leasttheywere cooperating. He would take his victories where he found them. Eventually, when the lumyrite thread felt clean and steady beneath his hand, he lowered it and stepped back.
Now. A test.
He looked around the kitchen. The lemon—the same lemon that had been so unceremoniously ejected that morning—was sitting in a small bowl of fruit beneath the shelf where Lucie’s honey light bottles lived. He picked up the lemon, crossed the kitchen, and placed it on the offending shelf.
Then he stepped back and waited.
One breath. Two. Three.
Nothing happened. The lemon sat where he had placed it, round and yellow and entirely unbothered.
“There,” Kazrian murmured. “Finally.”
And then a trickle of water appeared.
It came from nowhere he could discern, simply a thin rivulet that materialized at the back of the shelf, ran forward across the wood—which Kazrian now noted, was not perfectly level—and dripped off the front edge onto the stone floor.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
He stared at it. Then he sighed. “Very well,” he said. “I concede. For this evening, at least.” He looked around the room. “The ovens are functional. The cabinets are sound. That will have to be enough for now.”
He found a bucket in the back courtyard among the pots of herbs and flowers and set it on the floor beneath the drip. The sound of water striking the bottom of an empty bucket rang through the quiet kitchen.
He glanced at Balthazar. The cat’s ears had rotated toward the bucket, and his expression had arranged itself into something as close to horror as a cat’s face could credibly produce.
“One moment,” Kazrian said, and searched through several drawers until he found a collection of folded cloths. He placed it at the bottom of the bucket, and the next drip landed with a muffledtapinstead of a ringingplonk. Better. Not ideal, but better.
“Well. Good night, Balthazar,” he said as he lifted his coat from the peg beside the back door.
A small flick of a dark tail. No hiss.
Progress, Kazrian decided, then stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him.
Chapter Fourteen
