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“Most alluring,” he commented.
“The cowboys always thought so.”
He snorted out a laugh, making me wonder what image he’d gotten from my quip. I’d meant more as a general thing, cowboys liking girls in jeans, not me in particular.
With a courtly wave of his hand, he gestured for me to go in. Now, I was from mountain country where one just didn’t wander into inviting dark caves unless you were really excited to see a grizzly or cougar up close and personal.
“Afraid?”
“Justifiably cautious.”
He chuckled and preceded me into the cave. I followed close behind, suppressing the urge to wind my fingers into the back of his cloak. I clutched my own instead. The meager light from outside barely filtered in, then diminished into black as we turned a corner.
“Hold on to my cloak,” Rogue said quietly, “unless those cat’s eyes of yours see in the dark.”
I wished. Rogue’s cloak, though damp, felt soft as angora in my hands. Only the rain clinging to it kept me from burrowing in. We walked for some while this way. I’d always been terrible at judging the passage of time, but it seemed we walked for ten or fifteen minutes. How Rogue could keep us from clonking into a rock wall I didn’t know. The cave was completely lightless. More of that magic vision, most likely.
Rogue finally slowed, then stopped. We stood in the lightless space. Just as I was about to make a smart remark about how incrediblyuninteresting this was, the room came ablaze.
“Ack!” I covered my eyes, cringing from the sudden onslaught. My eyes adjusted, slowly, to the crash of bright light. We stood in a chamber about as big as my tent but entirely rimmed with crystal. It was as if we stood inside an enormous, diamond-bright geode. Light shards ricocheted and repeated, mirroring and amplifying.
“It’s like Merlin’s cave,” I whispered in awe.
“He uses it from time to time,” Rogue answered.
I narrowed my eyes at him, unsure if he was teasing me. He returned my gaze with bland indifference. Maybe we weren’t talking about the same person. Who knew how that translated?
“Where’s the original source of the light?”
He shrugged out of his cloak and tossed it on a rock outcropping just outside the entrance, a lightless and narrow opening in the blazing radiance of the cave. “Does it matter? It’s a good place for focusing and intensifying magic. Crucial for certain kinds of magic.”
“Like what?”
“Do you want to discuss or learn?”
“Both.”
Rogue tipped the hood off my head, running a hand over my hair in affection. “Take off your cloak. We’ll be here for a bit.”
Obediently I draped my cloak next to Rogue’s. He settled himself into a smooth glassy spot on the floor and gestured me to sit opposite. I plopped down with far less grace, cross-legged, as we did in elementary school, ever so grateful I’d changed into the Levi’s. Rogue raised that supercilious eyebrow but refrained from commenting.
The crystal we sat on echoed infinitely clear, with facets running deep within. It reminded me of being on a glass-bottom boat, only instead of fish, below us stretched what seemed to be endless depths of shining crystal. Was the entire inside of the small mountain made of it?
Rogue watched me, navy-dark eyes somehow just as brilliant as the blazing crystal around him. He held out a hand, so I scooted closer to lay mine in his. He tugged a bit, so I got closer, until our knees touched. Or more precisely, my knees lay over his lower legs, which lay flat against the floor, flexible as any yogi. I had become accustomed to the inhuman length of the fae’s limbs and noted it far less, until something jarred me—like Rogue’s knees extending a good half a foot on either side of mine. It seemed almost insectile.
“It would be better if we held both hands,” he said with careful quiet and I could understand why. Now that we sat in the middle of the domed room, his voice amplified, running over the crystal and returning in echoing murmurs. “Can I have a two-hand dispensation for this room only?”
“Okay,” I agreed, only realizing when I saw the flash in his eyes that I’d been too dazzled to remember to limit the time frame. I gave myself a swift mental kick and gave Rogue my other hand.
“Close your eyes.” The cave whispered the words back at me. “Quiet your mind.”
I allowed my eyes to close, shutting out the fantastic prismatic radiance. And found Rogue in my head. Startled, I nearly opened my eyes again, but he soothed me, almost like a hand against my cheek.
“I will show you three things, curious Gwynn. Pay attention.”
He rarely spoke directly mind-to-mind. In this chamber, though, I imagined we were sealed in, the mental energy reverberating back as the sourceless light did. Funny, too—I’d long become accustomed to his habit of prefacing the name he’d given me with various adjectives. Hearing it directly from his thoughts, it became more clear that these words were simply my interpretation. I’d never quite understood why he picked “Gwynn” except that it was an old Celtic variation of my name. But it was me who put that spin on it. Rogue simply called me “you,” colored with however he was thinking of me.
“True. You named yourself, clever Gwynn. I simply gave voice to it.”
