“Watch.”He wiggled his fingers.
“What am I watching?”
“Shh.I must concentrate.”He wiggled his fingers again.And this time the pot shook.The soil inside it shook, vibrated, the clods and specks shifting, then flying upward.He closed his hand into a fist.“Got it.”
He rotated his fist fingernails up, and Diana stepped closer.Their arms brushed.He opened his palm.
“Dirt?”she said.
“Iron.”
“How did you get it to fly up like that?Alchemists are good with metals, but you are not?—”
“Magic?”
Precisely.But he’d moved the earth without touching it.“How?”
“I have an affinity for iron.I can work the other metals, but iron… sings to me.”
“Fanciful image.”
“Truth.”
My, he looked smug as he brushed off his palms, dropping the dirt back into the pot.“I can shape raw iron and heated iron with my bare hands.I can bring its best qualities to life, make the most of them by creating new things.”
“No you cannot.”His bare hands?Nonsense.Alchemists used tools.Like blacksmiths.Not that she’d ever seen one work.Or read any books on them or… interesting how little she knew about them, after all.Yet, he could not be telling the truth.It was too much like magic to shape molten metal with the hands.And suggesting an alchemist had magic was like…
Suggesting a woman could inherit transcendent powers.
She reached for a nearby wicker chair and dropped into it, her body suddenly heavy.
He leaned against a column holding up a small overhang that shaded several rows of plants.“Your turn, little mouse.Now that I’ve shared something of myself with you, share with me.”
“What do you wish to know?”This was dangerous ground they tread.Did he, perhaps,know?
“I want to know how I can help you.”
“Oh.”She did not have to ask what with.“There is nothing you can do.Apollo holds all the power.If he… if he wishes to hurt me, he can.”She dared a peek up at him.“All I can do is disappear.”
His jaw was working side to side, his gaze fixated on something in the distance.His hands clenched and unclenched, hammers becoming blades becoming hammers.“Has he discovered your intentions with the potion?”
“No.”She couldn’t tell him what Apollo had discovered.That secret must go to her grave.“He simply… I am an obstacle to something he wants.Desperately.”
“He wishes to marry you, and you have refused.”
“Mm.”She picked at her apron.“Exactly.”It was true she did not wish to marry him.And it was true Apollo did not wish to marry her.He wished to kill her.
“What do you plan to do, then?”
“He’s a marquess.There is not much I can do but hide.”
“That is not a long-term solution, Miss Chester.I will?—”
“You will do nothing!”She jumped to her feet.She stood close to him, so very close, and she had to tip her chin up to see his eyes.She could read them as well as she could a sky.Anger, there.Frustration.Not aimed at her, though.Oh God, he was the kind of man who liked to play knight, wasn’t he?She’d only ever read about them.If she didn’t know better, she’d say the potion still boiled his blood.She did not need his help, though.She could not have his attention.She’d been working in her little room above the potions shop on casting and banishing illusions.Her control was still so precarious.To form close bonds was to court discovery.High emotions seemed to trigger her talent, and she would cast glamours without thinking, without trying.
“Please do nothing,” she said softly.“It is my problem to solve.”
A wind blew between them, ruffling the plants and pushing a cloud over the sun.She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
