***
The following day, I couldn’t find the sorcerer. Eventually, having exhausted all the unlocked rooms (and pressed my ear to all the locked ones), I climbed the long, winding staircase that led to the battlements. There he stood amid the fog, constructs crouched frozen around him like gargoyles.
“Oh, hey,” I called, clutching my dress as a sharp wind tore at it, its passage whipping the fog into a roiling mass. “There you are. Say, were you thinking of lunch anytime soon? Because I’m feeling peckish, and I figure, if you’re not doing anything else, then—”
A construct stepped into my path, blocking my advance. “Well, that’s a bit much,” I shouted over the gale. “You only had to say, ‘No thanks, maybe later.’”
“Cameron!” the sorcerer shouted back at me. “I am in combat. Do not distract me.”
“Oh, against the Order?” I slipped past the construct, edging through the fog toward him, the wind stinging at my eyes. “That’s alright, I can wait.”
Some combination of churning fog and my own tearing eyes made me misjudge the boundaries of the battlement, so that I knocked into a corner with an “oof.” I’d only just begun to tip over the edge when wooden talons caught my shoulder, pulling me sharply backward. “Sorry! I’ll just, uh, sit right here.”
It got cold fast. The sorcerer’s flashing eye cast a green light against the surrounding fog, and his face furrowed in concentration, focused on something I could not see. If this was a regular habit, it was no wonder his face had so many lines.
For my part, I rubbed at my arms and tried to tuck my feet beneath the fabric of my dress. I hoped the chattering of my teeth wouldn’t carry, as no doubt that would lead him to further label me a distraction.
Something heavy dropped onto my shoulders. I jumped, before realizing it was a blanket.
It smelled of magic.
When I looked up, the sorcerer stood before me. Fatigue showed in his drooping posture, but his face was sharp, alive with fury and satisfaction.
I pitched my voice to be heard above the gusting wails. “Did you win, then?”
“I always do. If those mindless little knights would just—”
“They’re not completely stupid,” I interrupted, then stopped, surprised to find that the most tenuous thread of comradery persisted. “Most are hoping to serve a few years, earn a convenient injury, then retire to lordship—or more provincial pursuits, for the lower born—with the Church’s favour secured. And then, some are like me. It’s a fairly open secret that my father sent me off hoping I’d be slaughtered, so my brother could inherit.” I smiled. “You see, even without the prophecy, I was already supposed to die.”
Merulo looked genuinely outraged. “That’s obscene,” he said. “Your own father? Granted, you can be quite annoying—”
“Oh, it wasn’t that. My father didn’t think I’d make a good heir, as I’m not appropriately masculine.” I sighed, my breasts heaving. “Which is ridiculous, of course.”
“Er, yes,” said the sorcerer, avoiding my eyes. “That is of course . . . an absurd notion.”
Another howl of wind thrashed the fog around us and set the sorcerer’s robes to flapping madly. With a shiver, I pulled the blanket close about myself.
“Aren’t you cold? I mean, you don’t have much in the way of insulation, if you catch my drift.” A worry struck me that I was being too opaque. “As in, I have all this fat and muscle, but you—”
“Yes, understood.” His eye flashed and he muttered something; cleaning up the last scraps of resistance, I assumed. “I don’t suffer from the cold easily.”
“No need to be stoic. It’s freezing up here, and you’re only human.” To use one of Glenda’s favourite expressions.
Merulo cleared his throat, looking about shiftily in a manner that had me scrutinizing his ears and skin tone, but nope: not a drop of elf blood. I shrugged off the blanket and, standing on my tiptoes, threw it about his bony shoulders. “From one human to another, this isn’t good for your health. Don’t stay out here long.” Feeling bold, I pressed my mouth to his gaunt cheek, then withdrew, my own cheeks flaming. Navigating the wind and fog, I scurried from the battlements before he could respond, only stopping when I was safely in the stairwell to catch my breath.
Free from the wind and cold, the muggy dark of the castle felt welcoming, homely even. “I can be quite charming,” I said, leaning against a wall and tracing its roughness with a finger. “It’s not just in my head; he looked absolutely smitten with me. Hey, watch it please!”
A construct lumbered past me on the spiraling stairwell, taking up most of the space so that I had to squeeze tight against the stone. “Asshole,” I called after it. “Piece of shit!”
It swung its head back at me, and I felt my stomach drop. “Sorry, sorry, Merulo. I didn’t realize you were in there.”
“It’s fine,” said the sorcerer, from the top of the stairwell. I waited for him to descend, watching with some satisfaction as he pressed himself flat to inch past another oversized construct. “I will say, this is not an ideal location for monologues.”
I hid my wince by looking elsewhere as he descended. “You heard?”
“Apparently, I’m being charmed, though by what I can’t imagine. By your complete lack of spatial awareness? Or perhaps the grace with which you pursue hypothermia? Or is it the constant neediness; is that what I’m being charmed by?”
The blanket still lay across his shoulders, a warm yellow against his black robes. I wondered if he’d forgotten about it.
