“There are dragons in the flames.”
“Are there? Hadn’t noticed.”
“Did you do that?” she said, watching the flames with an expression of wonder on her face.
“Might have.”
She turned that look on him. “For me?”
“Well, I don’t see any other red-haired lassies who breathe fire hereabouts.”
She smiled. “Who are you?”
“Today, darling, I have absolutely no idea.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed. He rested his cheek against her hair and watched the flames dance. He had to admit he was a bit surprised that his grandmother’s magic hadn’t first done what he’d asked, then suddenly turned on him and incinerated him, but perhaps she was fonder of him than he supposed.
Taking air that was simply air and not full of the seeds of fire waiting to be magically harvested, so to speak, then forcing it into fiery shapes where it lingered in a more permanent state than he was accustomed to finding it…now, that was something. He half expected Soilléir to come charging into the garden to protest someone using anything that came close to his own mighty magic.
“Did you call that fire or make it?”
“Neither.”
She lifted her head and looked at him in astonishment. “Did you meddle?”
“I did,” he said, feeling a bit awed by the same.
“Would your grandmother be proud or furious?”
“Well, she did give me the spell,” he said. “I’m half afraid to look around lest using it has cracked the world in two in places I can’t see.”
“How long will it last?”
“That is the question, isn’t it? I’m not certain I have the patience to wait it out, and I’m certainly not going to leave you out here to do the work for me.”
“I’m not sure I want to stay out here without you,” she said seriously. She watched the flames for a bit longer, then frowned. “There’s something about it that seems familiar.”
“Lingering indigestion from substances imbibed at my granny’s tea-table, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” she agreed.
He sat with her in what turned out to be a lovely, companionable silence for perhaps longer than he should have, but the work that lay ahead of him was going to be heavy. He wasn’t afraid of it, naturally, though he had to admit the thought of leaving Léirsinn on her own whilst he was senseless from the efforts gave him pause.
The fire burned out eventually, though it took a good hour before it even began to fade. He watched, his arm around a lovely, courageous woman who didn’t seem to mind just sitting with him there and waiting until the flames disappeared as if they had never been there to start with.
He sighed. “Well, there’s that. How about breakfast, then I’ll be about my labors? I’ll need to make a list of vile things that might be useful, which fortunately won’t take all that long.”
She caught his arm before he rose. “Look.”
He stopped in mid crouch, then straightened as she stood up next to him. He realized what she was looking at, but imagined no one else needed to make any note of it. He nodded slightly, then walked with her back into the house, shut the door, then dropped a spell over it to lock it. He looked at her.
“I didn’t imagine them?”
“Those dragon shapes burned into the wood?” she asked. “Not unless I’m dreaming with you.”
“We’re close enough to Bruadair where that might be possible,” he admitted, “but in this case, I imagine not. I wonder what that means?”
“Are you going to investigate?”
He smiled. “You know I will. Later, though.”
“I’ll leave you to it—”
“Nay, stay,” he said. He paused. “If you will. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
“If you like.”
What he would have liked was an entire afternoon with nothing more to do but walk on the shore with her, but things were what they were and he had serious business to see to.
The sooner it was finished, the happier he would be.
An hour later, he sat at the kitchen table and considered what lay there in front of him. He’d decided on coins from Sàraichte only because Léirsinn was familiar with them. Not that she couldn’t have learned another country’s coinage, of course. He just knew that if she wound up needing to use one of them, she would be under a decent amount of duress. The less she had to think through things instead of simply reaching for a weapon and using it, the better.
He glanced at her, sitting next to him at that comfortable round table in front of the fire, and realized she was watching him, not what he’d laid out there. He blinked in surprise.
“What is it?”
“Just watching you think,” she said.
He shook his head. “I forget to be discreet in your company.”
“I’d rather know,” she said simply. “You don’t seem overly concerned.”
Obviously she wasn’t able to hear the blood pounding in his ears and those damned spells intertwined in his chest setting up a frantic chorus of something that might have resembled cries of warning if he’d been susceptible to that sort of thing. He decided to credit it to questionable porridge a pair of hours ago and move on.
“We should think about what you’ll need,” he said, deciding it might be best to simply side-step the question.
“But you’ll be there.”
He paused and considered what he might say that would be true but not disheartening. He reached out and covered her hands that were clasped together on that rather lovely wooden table.
“I plan to be,” he said carefully.
“You won’t like what I do to you if you aren’t.”
He leaned over and kissed her, partly because her hands were shaking even though the hearthfire felt uncomfortably warm to him, and partly because he was simply besotted. She wasn’t what he’d expected and losing his heart to her was…well, at the moment he realized it had been inevitable.
“I’m properly cowed,” he said, pulling away. “No wonder those ponies in your barn never misbehave.”
She didn’t look particularly comforted, but she nodded just the same.
“You’ll be there,” she said firmly.
“I will, but should I be momentarily distracted by the odd mug of drinkable ale or sparkling spell, I want you to have a full complement of things at the ready.”