“I have already told you about the first time I felt your magic in your human bakery. When I felt that hope.” Elden nodded.
“Have you felt it any time since?” I asked, careful not to look too closely at the pleasant curve of his long nose.
But a sly smile crossed Elden’s face as if recalling a particularly good memory. “The night of our dinner.”
His molten eyes met mine and heat rose in my cheeks.
“Thatnight?” I raised my eyebrows. That night had ended in a fight, I’d stormed out and fled into the dark gardens beyond the palace, then I’d been bitten by that shade monster. Elden’s father, if it all was to be believed.
“You were—” I started.
“I was—” Elden said.
“No, please go ahead.” I offered.
“Horrible.” Elden’s smile fell. “I was terrible to you that night because I had taken you from your family and was worried that perhaps I had been wrong.”
“Wrong about my magic?” Worry squirmed down my stomach.
But Elden shook his head. “No, there is no denying the magic, but I was wrong in the way I was treating you.”
I tilted my head and smiled. “true.”
“And it takes me some time to come to terms with my own ineptitude.” Elden glanced down at me through his black lashes,his golden eyes shining brighter than any glowing gemstone lining the streets.
I cleared my throat. “So, you are not used to being wrong very often?”
Elden smiled. “I amveryused to being wrong, it is when I am called to answer for it that I let my pride have a try first.”
I softened, “I’m the same in some ways. When my mother gets something in her head, I will fight it just for the sake of proving her wrong.”
Like the time Mother insisted I take her thicker coat to school because of an unseasonably mighty downpour, but I refused. No one else wore their mother’s coats, especially ones with bright orange cuffs, and I was embarrassed. I hated to stand out. So I wore my thinner coat in the rain. That night I was sicker than I’d ever been. I missed school for a week while I recovered. Mother never said it, but I knew she’d quietly been thinking, “I told you so”.
Elden chuckled. “We are a funny pair.”
This moment, this tension. I didn’t like it. It felt as if one step could have me falling in love and losing my heart to this elf, this enemy who stole me away from my family. No. He was the reason I couldn’t see that smug look of “I told you so” on my mother’s face and strangely, I missed it.
“So,” I said eager to stay on a task. “When did you feel the magic?”
“After you left and ran out into the night. After Serrina and Aldaar scolded me, of course.” Elden shook his head with a tender smile and squeezed my arm into his side. “I wished to drown my sorrows.”
Aldaar scolding him, that I could see. But Serrina? I had no idea the female would ever rise to my aid.
“Drown your sorrows?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Not in wine. That is for the unoriginal.” Elden nodded. “So, I reached for your tart. I was eager to prove to you, but more to myself, that you were a fraud. That the hope I had felt, that magic, was not what I thought it was.”
“And then?” I breathed.
“And then your magic hit me with that first bite.” Elden and I approached the entrance to a great open square surrounded by a circle of trees that soared into the dark night above. Song and laughter floated on the cool breeze.
My mincemeat tarts had been magic and I’d baked them with Aldaar’s help. No, having help did not affect my magic. So, if baking with someone else did not affect it, what did? I’d need to ask more questions. Try more experiments.
Fireflies danced about; gemstones shone in glittering flashes.
“Peace,” Elden said into the glittering night. “I felt it warm my heart with a kind of fire. A jolt. I ran out to you then. I had to find you to tell you I was wrong. I wished to beg for your forgiveness at my complete lack of kindness and that was when I heard you scream.”
My blood chilled. My legs ached with a sharp stabbing. I stumbled, then withdrew Jel’s potion from my satchel and took a quick sip.
