Kaz’s tongue shot out and he gagged, and Damien glared at him. “Back to your chamber where she gets in bed withyou,Master.”
Damien’s body went hot, but not with anger. Yet another reason to pity himself for not managing to wake sooner, preferably in the middle of the night. He stuffed the rest of the meat into his mouth and had to poke his head into the oven to completely conceal the grin that threatened it.
“But,” said Kaz with a strangling apprehension that drained all the pleasure out of Damien, “she always changes your bandages first, just like in the morning, and she has to blather to you thewholetime even though you’re clearly unconscious. She calls ittaking care of you,as if a blood mage would ever needthat.” He jumped up onto a counter then and lifted the lid off a massive pot to peer inside. “What are we looking for?”
Damien’s lips quirked up while Kaz was preoccupied, but he swallowed back all the other strange, fluttery feelings in his throat. “An exit. A way back to Eiren, or The Wilds, or even Aszath Koth could be anywhere.”
“I haven’t seen one of those,” the imp’s voice echoed into the cast iron.
Damien sighed, standing straight and taking a long look around. Ice, everywhere, blue and cold and dreary. Amma would not want to stay in this place no matter how attractive that fae king made it or himself appear to be. She was smarter, more ambitious, too enamored of living things to remain in a world destined to hibernate forever. A place like this. Or, he thought suddenly and depressingly, a place like Aszath Koth.
Damien frowned, taking a breath and testing his arcana again. Gently, slowly, carefully, he felt the palace around him, not looking for anything in particular this time, but only feeling the weird, wobbling magic of the Everdarque. It truly was empty, not a living creature anywhere, though the entire place buzzed with magic. Of course, everything was constructed by that fae and his dizzying powers of what equated, in Damien’s opinion, to naught but illusion, but there was a stronger ping now that he was open to feeling for anything, and he went toward the source.
Wandering out of the kitchen, Kaz on his heels, the two passed through a long dining room and then straight into a second one and a third, each variations on the theme of blue and white crystals. Ridiculous, useless, a grand show of nothing but pointless wealth and opulence, he thought as he followed that magical hum back to the throne room which was equally big and ostentatious and stupid.
A little like the throne room back home.
Damien shook his head and passed into that strange chamber Amma had pointed out, the one she’d innocently said Wil had been “playing with himself” inside, following the strain of magic that tugged at him right to the table. Carved into the table’s frosty top was a map of sorts, though the labels were all in Ouranic. Of course fae favored the language of the gods—they thought very highly of themselves.
He placed a hand over one of the words to feel the carvings, but an unexpected pulse shot back up at him so strong he was knocked right back into one of the icy chairs. Damien’s hand smoked, noxscura angrily buzzing over his skin to mend the blistering that had been done to it, his magic working a little better, but only just—he hadn’t sensed how powerful the table was. Nauseated like when he had been in that temple in Durendreg, he leaned forward to keep the room from spinning. “What the fuck?” he murmured to himself, pushing back his hair from his face.
Beneath sat two buckets, predictably made of ice as well, but not for vomiting into when one was shocked by the arcana in the table, apparently. Instead, each was filled with small figurines, the one nearest him giving off a golden glow. Damien very carefully pulled one out, and it pulsed with a similar magic to the table, but the arcana was contained by its glass exterior. The vague shape of a human with a flat base to set it upright, though nothing to give it any characteristics, the figure was filled with a swirling yellow liquid.
No, not a liquid. Luxerna.
Eyes darting to the second bucket, its silvery glow told him that the figures inside were similarly filled with noxscura. His stomach twisted itself into knots. One hundred and forty-two knots, to be exact, but there was no time to count. It was one thing to have noxscura swimming in his own veins, passed down from his father, filtered through his blood, slipping out as smoke and winnowed down to be weaker than its origin, but to see it likethis? To be holding a pure and unbridled source of arcana was harrowing, even for a blood mage.
But of course that was how the fae would see noxscura and luxerna—just a pretty decoration and part of some silly game. Damien always knew fae were dangerous, and the discovery didn’t shock him, but his thoughts immediately went to Amma. Wil had tried to teach her to play—what if one of the figures had broken? Chances of her surviving direct contact with the stuff were abysmally low, and if she did? That may have been worse.
He stood, wanting to be far from the chamber, and strode out its back entry into a courtyard, a dark, moonless sky above. Kaz followed dutifully, sniffing around and poking at everything. The courtyard was free of snow, a few benches scattered about, and holly bushes lined a path to its center where a grand fountain was spouting more ice.
Beyond the courtyard lay another grandiose chamber, visible through sheer, icy doors, and he could just see the forms of Amma and Wil walking beside one another, pointing to the ceiling and speaking together. Despite the cold, sweat had gathered on Damien’s forehead, and his heart had yet to completely settle. Amma turned, and her eyes found him through the door. She was smiling at first, but then that look turned to worry, and she took a few steps toward the courtyard.
Damien shook away the sickly feeling of the too-pure arcana from the other room and instead pushed his way into the ballroom, ushering her back the way she’d come. “Fine,” he said, answering a question that hadn’t been asked and grinning at the fae king. “How goes it?”
Wil turned up his lip, displeased at Damien’s arrival which only satisfied the blood mage. “Better than your search for appropriate attire, apparently.” He snapped, and a thick tunic appeared in his hand which he passed to Damien then pointed vaguely to the room with those long, spider-like fingers. “We were discussing garland. Just here and here and here.”
“And maybe a tree,” said Amma, eyes glittering.
“Inside?” Damien asked.
“It can be done with magic, can’t it?”
King Wil grinned. “Yes, of course, anything can.”
Damien remained close as they traversed the rest of the palace, discussing decor and menu items and activities until Amma eventually insisted they had to retire. She had been yawning for some time, but the fae was hard-pressed to let them go, no sign of exhaustion himself. Damien was relieved when they finally reached the bedchamber, as was Kaz who cuddled up on the divan by the door and fell asleep right away.
Damien too was feeling exhausted, not quite as healed as he would have liked, and he pulled off his boots as Amma did the same, murmuring to one another about the length of the day and being bewildered by the constant darkness. Without much thought or propriety, Damien had mostly undressed, and Amma had nearly done the same, both making their way to the single bed in the room’s center, and then they stopped short.
“Oh.” Amma’s eyes went wide, the sleepiness run out of them. “I just thought—well, I’ve been, um…” Her face turned the most glorious shade of red.
“You’ve what?” he asked, pretending to forget everything Kaz had told him.
“Well, you were there…” She giggled nervously, pointing to the bed. “And I guess I sort of, you know, wanted to make sure you were still breathing at night.”
Damien made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat. “I appreciate your concern.”
“You put out a lot of heat when you sleep.” She couldn’t seem to look at him, throat bobbing as she swallowed.
