In the Shadow of a Wish, page 8
Auri wasn’t exactly sure what he meant.
“Why don’t you choose a book, then I’ll escort you back to your quarters.”
She nodded and looked around. There were so many books. Colorful spines with gilt titles, none of which she knew. “I don’t know where to begin,” she admitted.
“I could select one for you?”
She drew her folded hands to her heart. “Yes. Please.”
Nix held up his hand, and a book appeared. The green cover was plain, and etched silver writing indicated the title. He offered it to her. “Since you’re interested in kissing.” He grinned, but the look in his eye was mischievous. “I liked this one.”
“You’ve read it?”
“I have. A few times.”
She took it, her fingers brushing his as she did, and read the title aloud. “The Romance of Lady Miriam.” She glanced at Nix. “What did you choose for me?”
He offered his elbow. “A devilishly decadent book that might teach you about more than kissing.” His grin deepened. “Maybe even offer a few grand gestures for someone who may or may not be a romantic.”
Auri slipped her arm around his offered one, linking them. “More than kissing?” Heat moved through the fabric, dancing across her skin, and the place where her arm brushed against Nix’s lit up with sparks of energy.
Without leaving their place on the second floor of the library, the room dissolved into a hallway. Nix walked her through it at an unhurried pace. “I think a lot can be learned between the covers of a book.” He gave her a sidelong glance.
She thought about all the ways she’d read. Her books, the papers, her father’s almanac. “Yes. That is very true.”
The walk through the manor’s maze seemed extended with many twists and turns. They walked up stairs, down other sets, and around stone turret bends single file. There were doors upon doors, and though Auri had the impression that Nix could think them into the room and she would be there, still they ambled arm in arm through the many hallways.
“What has it been like?” she asked him as they descended a wide staircase toward a hallway of paintings. Once they walked through, it was gallery of portraits.
“What has what been like?”
She stopped and looked at a portrait of an overweight man. He wore a golden crown on his head and held a golden goblet. A bowl of grapes rested near his elbow. “Being here.”
He tensed. “This is my Uncle Revel.”
“He looked like he enjoyed drinking.”
He chuckled. “That he does. I don’t think he allows himself to feel the effect.”
“I might have guessed as much.”
They continued through the room, stopping to talk about the family he’d displayed, all of them with funny stories.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Auri said as they walked through a doorway into another hallway.
“I would rather not ruin the moment.”
She made a humming sound, but the answer told her enough. She could imagine all the ways being here, despite the opulence, decadence, and beauty, wouldn’t change the fact that he had been alone but for the company of conjurings, who seemed to offer no more than what was created for them, or key keepers, who’d left him alone.
When they stopped in front of a door, which she assumed was finally her room, Nix turned to her. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Auri Fareview.” He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her skin.
Tingles wound their way up her arm, effervesced near her shoulder, and compelled her to step toward him, but Auri held her ground, unwilling to drop her guard with him completely.
He released her hand and stepped away. “It has been immensely pleasurable.”
“Thank you. For the book.” She waved it back and forth. “And the tour. And the dinner.”
He smiled, his eyes caught on the book. Then his gaze returned to her face. “Remember, if you need anything, all you need to do is call my name. I’ll be there.” He dipped his head. “Good night.”
Auri watched him disappear, the hallway dropping away with gold dust to reveal she was standing alone inside her bedroom without having had to move at all.
Nixus Uraiahs didn’t believe he was prone to whimsy. But as he leaned against the door of his bedroom, that’s exactly what he knew the seventh key keeper had awakened in him. He didn’t like it. Or need it. Or want it.
“Fuck,” he said aloud as he pushed away from the door, tugged the jacket off his shoulders, and stalked across the room.
Unsettled. That was the best way to describe what he was feeling, he decided. The seventh key keeper had him unsettled.
He stopped in front of the fireplace in his chambers and flung the jacket over a chair, then yanked at the shirt, pulling it from the waist of his black trousers. He plucked at the pearl buttons of his shirt, first the wrists, then at his neck, picturing Auri the moment she walked into the dining room.
His stomach clenched recalling it. She’d been dressed in wide, dark-as-night trousers and an ivory linen shirt tucked into the waistband that billowed around her torso and showcased her slim waist. In the right light, he’d seen the hint of her body’s silhouette. She’d braided her brown hair; the thick plait had draped over her shoulder, the end resting on her breast, right where he imagined her nipple would be. Her smile had been easy even if her eyes still expressed skepticism, bordering on wonder, and her cheeks had warmed to a gentle rosy glow. He’d noticed a smattering of freckles across her cheeks, just a few, and found himself counting them. Seventeen.
When she’d walked through the door, he’d stood, surprised, and there wasn’t a lot that surprised him. Of all the choices he knew to be in that wardrobe, she’d chosen something understated. She could have chosen a revealing dress to seduce, or perhaps a gown speckled with gems to demonstrate her love of wealth and entice with her beauty. Her choice of clothing and manner of presenting herself told him a story. Auri Fareview was comfortable in her own skin. She was practical. She candid and approachable.
She was different.
A pulse of warmth had started then, right in the center of his chest. And the longer they’d spoken, the more questions she’d asked—questions no key keeper had ever asked—the more intense the heat had become, pinching his heart and making him uncomfortable.
Then, despite having all the facts about the bargain, she hadn’t made her first wish. They all made a wish the first day. Always. And it was always about their immediate needs in their current lives. Often, a wish about wealth. Like he’d thought hers would be. But she’d said, “I need more information.”
Then her questions. Her observations. Those intuitive sharp points shot at him like arrows and hit him right in the center of his chest where he was already smarting. Why did he allow himself to feel the pain? Had he considered it before? No. How did he feel being alone? Who’d ever cared about his feelings? And the kicker: the library—his favorite room he’d conjured in the manor—being a gift.
Fuck.
Nix groaned and yanked his shirt from his arms, tossing it on the jacket. He knew he was wasting movement, but like allowing himself to feel hungover, it was satisfying to jerk it from his body. The movement expressed his annoyance at the way he responded to the key keeper. All these years, all the key keepers, with the first one being the exception, he’d kept his head.
Yes, Auri not making a wish had him unsettled. But the way she’d looked, the way she moved, walking across any room, her talk about kissing, that little smile accompanied by the blush, her questions and statements that flipped him upside down, those things had him frustrated. That realization seemed ridiculous. He could summon a conjuring to kiss, a conjuring to fuck, a conjuring to fulfill his every desire, except that wasn’t satisfying. It hadn’t been for a very long time.
He stopped moving, his hands on his hips and head tipped forward, chin to his chest, then took a deep breath.
He was frustrated and unsettled. Both.
Feeling this frustrated about a woman he’d just met seemed ludicrous, but it would be a lie to say he wasn’t attracted to her. The more time he spent in her company, the more attracted he felt, and that was worrisome. The spell would use it against him.
Magic—the spell—didn’t have its own consciousness. It was a set of words imbibed with power that created the enchantment, but it fed from him as the wish granter. That was clear when he’d faced the first obligations with the first key keeper. Each of her wishes forced a consequence, at which he was at the heart. In the end, after her final wish, she’d achieved her desires, loathed him, and left.
The attraction to Auri couldn’t be nurtured. She would make her wishes, and she too would leave. Hope was fragile, easily broken, and his hope had been smashed and drained of its substance long ago.
When the second key keeper had appeared, Nix had been determined to try and get out. He’d thought that if he could be accommodating, ingratiate himself as a friend with the key keeper—Penrowe had been his name—that forged bond might prove stronger. It hadn’t. Penrowe had taken his wishes and left.
When the third key keeper had arrived—Ama—Nix had tried harder. This time he was compassionate and alluring, sweet and helpful. But the wishes were the same, the obligations painful, and he was always at the heart of that pain. Ama left him the same as the first two, and Nix understood there was nothing he could do to change the outcome of the spell. He would always be the villain.
Auri might be the seventh key keeper, and his heart might have been trying to tell him she was different, but the spell wasn’t. As unique as she was, Nix couldn’t let himself think that the outcome would change. It wouldn’t, and he didn’t want to cultivate any personal emotions that would offer the spell fodder to use to hurt either of them.
The next morning, Nix avoided her, which might have been cowardly, but the avoidance also seemed to be self-preservation for him, and in the long-term, for her too, he reasoned. He took breakfast in the yellow room but led her to the dining room for her own repast. As he sipped his coffee, he pictured Auri, brown hair spread out like moonbeams on a pillow, her body arched toward him, mouth open in ecstasy as he moved between her legs.
He set his coffee cup in the saucer with enough force the liquid sloshed over the lip of the cup.
He’d dreamt about her.
He couldn’t remember ever having dreamt about a specific woman but considering the attraction he felt to her the night before, maybe it wasn’t surprising. She was gorgeous, but it wasn’t only that. There was the huskiness of her laugh that twisted his insides into knots, and a brightness in her smile that lit her eyes. Her curiosity and intelligence had his mind pinging with interest about how her thoughts moved. The way the library had made her defenses crumble. The way she talked of kissing, then immediately blushed intrigued him and made his body tight with anticipation.
After he’d eaten, he locked himself in the conjured office. He’d considered the library but wondered if she’d go there and refused to look and see. Instead, he conjured the boxing ring and a sparring partner. After time spent expending energy there, he returned to the office and tried reading, but his mind meandered from the book back to thoughts about her. He tried resetting his thoughts only to have them slip back to memories, curious wonderings, and the dream, back and forth until he slammed the book shut.
“Fuck.”
He needed just a dose. As if he were potion addled. A single dose would satisfy his need. A moment couldn’t hurt, and perhaps, he justified, she had her first wish. If he wanted her to get to wishing, then he needed to be around to grant them. Yes. It made sense in his mind, so he closed his eyes, seeking her with his senses, unable to contain the buzz of current that slipped through his body at the thought of just a moment with her.
He opened his eyes.
Auri was lounging in a chair in the room where they’d sat the night before talking about kissing. Rather than sitting properly, her legs were draped over an arm of the chair, one of which swung back and forth, a gentle rhythm of contentment. Her back was to the door. She was twisting a lock of her hair around her finger. He could see the edge of the book he’d given her in her lap, and though he couldn’t see her face, he imagined she was smiling, not widely, but just enough it softened her features.
The fire fluttered in the fireplace beyond her, warming the room. The windows were dark. He gentled their starkness to a morning twilight, conjuring the Elcadian countryside. If he were to peer out the window, it would be a vista where grapes grew over trellises in rows on terraces cut into the hillside, and the mountains would rise in the distance like sentries guarding a treasure.
She noticed the change in light and looked up from her book.
“Hello,” Nix said.
She jumped from her chair and spun, the book falling to the floor with a thud. A blush raced across her cheeks. She bent and scooped up the book, drawing it tightly against her chest. “Hello.” She couldn’t quite meet his gaze, but tried, then smoothed the front of her jade-colored dress. It wasn’t fancy, just a normal, everyday sort of cotton dress with buttons from neckline to waist and a full skirt. The neck scooped, revealing the sharpness of her collarbone and offering a lovely glimpse of her neck—tinted with her blush—but the rest he had to imagine.
And he did. She was tall and lithe, though more from necessity of the difficult life she’d hinted at, but her shape inspired his imagination as the fabric addressed her curves.
Nix smiled, recalling what she was probably reading, and wondered where in the story she might be. Miss Miriam’s romantic adventures were quite an education. “Enjoying the story?”
She nodded, and the tint of the blush deepened. She drew the book away from her body and looked down at it. “I think perhaps you chose a book with far more than kissing.”
He laughed, really laughed, delighted she wasn’t coy or evasive, saying exactly what was on her mind. “I told you that last night.”
She nodded with wide, sparkling silver eyes. “A real education.” She grinned, waving the book, and he noticed she had a dimple in her left cheek, a fingertip from the corner of her mouth.
“I found myself needing to move and wondered if you might join me,” he asked and felt immediately ridiculous. Needing to move? He’d already boxed that morning. Needing to move, indeed.
She set the book in the chair. “Yes! I was thinking this morning how I’m never idle at home. It has been a treat, but I was beginning to feel a bit restless. Your timing is impeccable. Though I have a feeling it probably always is.”
“A wish?” he asked, reminding himself he had a job to do—that wasn’t standing there ogling her. But he watched her anyway, noticing her smile and that dimple, and impulsively thought about rubbing his thumb over that cute divot. His heart did an acrobatic move, and he resisted the impulse, embarrassed by it. What was wrong with him?
She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to be frivolous with such an important endeavor.”
For some reason, that brought him relief and he was able to take a deep breath, which made little sense. He needed the opposite. He offered her his arm, anyway, if only to be able to touch her. Just for a moment. “I could conjure you some work. What would you like to do?”
“A garden?”
He hummed, liking the image of her bent over in the dirt, liking the image and cleared his throat. “Why a garden?”
“I love being outdoors.”
“I’m doubly sorry then.”
She drew him closer with a squeeze of her arm. “No. I said it only because it’s a truth. My mother is a healer of sorts. We spend an inordinate amount of time growing, harvesting, mixing, and brewing for her.”
“A garden it is then.”
The sitting room melted around them, revealing the endless hallway lined with many doors in both directions.
He watched her glance over his shoulder in one direction, then turn and look in the other direction. “Oh my. This is daunting.”
“I know exactly where we’ll go. What kind of garden?” he asked.
“Flowers?”
The hallway rushed past them.
“I thought you wanted to move?” She grinned at him.
He liked that smile. He liked that little dimple, his eyes drawn to it. He licked his lower lip and scolded himself to keep himself together. Just a moment with her. You checked on the wish. He decided to take her to the garden and leave. It was the right thing to do.
“You’re right. I did say that. But I think we’d rather walk in a garden than through the hallway.” No, fool! It was an equivocation. He could have just opened any door. The hallway slowed to a stop. He hadn’t needed to go through with all the hallway theatrics, but it had allowed him to look at her rather than walk. “How about you unlock it,” he suggested. She didn’t really need to, but for some reason, he wanted to please her, and somehow knew she enjoyed feeling useful.
He was right, because she smiled, and withdrew the key from her pocket.
He sensed the heat of her skin as she touched it, a strange sensation. His heart leapt in his chest, sputtering to life and warming. He swallowed as she inserted the key into the door, twisted the knob, and opened it.
Inside, he conjured his mother’s rose garden at their country manor in the countryside of Elcadia at twilight. A dark green hedge maze dominated the core of the garden, at the center of which was a fountain. Pathways meandered around the fountain, with lit torches and trellises darkened with overgrown ivy and other creeping plants, some flowering with buds of white and pink. Rose bushes of every kind lined the walkway. Fireflies fluttered, blinking lights in the dim blue of the coming night.
“Oh!” she breathed.
He blinked, his dream surfacing in his mind. Her gasping for breath as he entered her.
She stepped into the mindscape he’d created. “It’s so beautiful.” She let go of his arm and walked into space.
He hated that he missed her touch but was glad for it, since his mind was misbehaving.
She took a deep breath and sighed.
He saw her sigh beneath him, her eyes closed, her lips plump and wet from his kiss, the way her skin glistened with the firelight of his mind.
