“And aren’t being threatened by an evil sieve.”
“And that,” she said, snorting, “this might work. Start small, okay? And I’ll stay behind you so nothing else catches.”
“This is divine fire.” He lifted his hand again and called up the smallest flicker of it in his palm to show her. “It’s not meant to be smothered in the same way regular fire or even arcane fire can be. It’s meant to burn for the gods.”
“Well, this is noxscura,” she said, and she flicked at her locket. A shadow alighted the tip of her finger and wiggled like a flame itself. She brought her finger to his hand, and the shadow leapt off, encircling his arcana and squeezing.
Reeve could feel the grip of her magic around his, watching the way she curled her fingers and feeling the noxscura follow along. He could flare his own in response to hold it off, but in the moment he didn’t quite mind the snugness, and then his fire was snuffed out.
“It’s meant to destroy…everything, I guess,” she said, pulling her hand away just before their fingers touched.
“Fair point.”
“Dangerous point too,” said Sid, but Reeve chose to ignore him.
It was smoky at first. In the haze, they coughed out apologies for not keeping up with one another, making several attempts at a controlled burn that only seemed to produce more smoke than fire.
They let the greenhouse clear out and began again. After a few moments where all seemed well, Reeve pushed on, and then there was a burst of fire that jumped quickly to the ceiling. He tried to call it back, but Celeste’s noxscura had already glommed onto it, twisting around and dragging it downward to crash into a pile of dried out wood.
With more fuel, the fire flared on its own, and the noxscura answered in kind. As their magic fought, the two took a step back against the brambles and watched for a too-long moment before realizing they were capable of putting an end to things and finally did.
“It was a bad idea,” Reeve coughed.
“No, it’s not—it’s working, see?” She waved, and the noxscura gobbled up the smoke to reveal a bramble-less spot in the greenhouse. “Let’s give your idea one more try.”
Whether it was the surprising vote of confidence or the concern that it would be his fault if they were burnt alive, things went smoothly after. Reeve learned he could not simply set the whole place alight, and if Celeste remained close, they were able to move along steadily without choking themselves or causing more structural damage. But Celeste did have to remain close, and there was quite a lot of heat between the divine fire and the glass and the sun, but something about her shoulder brushing his really brought the sweat to the surface.
When they took a break, Reeve removed his surcoat, placing it on a stump just outside the greenhouse’s door but making sure to keep Sid strapped to him so he could properly channel his arcana. As he reentered, he took stock of the work they had done, tugging at the open neck of his tunic. Half of the building was clear, sunlight streaming through, and only ash lay where there had once been a tangle of brambles and death. He pushed the sleeves of his tunic up over his elbows and wiped sweat off his brow. “We’ve made quite the dent, haven’t we?”
Celeste stood in the middle of the greenhouse, sunlight falling on half of her, so bright it turned her black hair an intriguing shade of blue. The shadows of the dead tangles fell on her other half, hanging and gnarled and waiting to be burnt away. She had her arms wrapped around her middle as if she were cold, odd since a bead of sweat ran down her neck.
“Hmm?” She blinked. “What?”
“Halfway there,” he said, gesturing to what was left.
“Oh, yes!” As if she’d forgotten, she turned swiftly to the shadowy side of the greenhouse, her skirt swishing around her legs. She was wearing another of those dresses that ended just below the knee, and he lamented she had no layers to take off when she was likely feeling just as warm. Well, she could, probably, women usually wore something beneath dresses so light in color, otherwise they would be completely see-through and…Reeve shook his head—thoughts like that would undo all the hard work they’d put into focusing their magic to work together.
Reeve didn’t have the experience to know that thoughts like that could actually entangle magic in all sorts of interesting ways, but he would eventually find out.
Together, the second half went quicker than the first. They remained close, and Celeste’s elbow brushed him a time or two. Reeve tried very hard not to react to the touch, but his arcana did falter once, and one of the glass panes melted entirely. Nerves, he thought, with so much noxscura around, though it was funny—he hadn’t been worried about the darkness he was allowing his own skill to be entangled with at all while they worked.
“Well, she said she needed to get builders out here anyway,” offered Celeste, and then she cleared her throat. “But wewilltell Ima’riel the truth about it, that it was our fault, and see what she has to say.” Perhaps not everyone needed to lose an arm like Walter the Weathered to earn a bit of virtue.
When the work was complete, they presented the empty greenhouse to Ima’riel who heaped praise on them in her singsongy voice, didn’t care at all about the lost window, and then invited them inside for bread slathered in butter and tea that smelled of cherries and rain.
Kori sat herself away from the others on a stool in the corner, watching shrewdly as the three sat around Ima’riel’s tree stump table. A chipmunk skittered in through the window and up onto the stump, offering an acorn to the elf.
“Fourteen days?” she asked as she took it and looked it over.
The chipmunk shrugged a shoulder then reached out little paws.
Ima’riel handed the creature a crust of bread, and it scampered back out through the window. She placed the acorn in the table’s center. “I think we’ll go with fourteen days, but I could be off by up to three.”
“Thank the gods.” Despite her words, Kori didn’t actually seem all that thankful. “You’ve been exhausting yourself between all this gardening and those flowers.”
“They’re more than just flowers,” Ima’riel corrected but smiled delicately over at the other woman. “They’re Kvesarian sweetbriars, and there are more in Briarwyke than anywhere else I’ve ever seen.”
Kori leaned back against the wall, glaring out the window. “Whatever they are, they’re not worth hurting yourself over.”
