Celeste couldn’t hold back the traitorous little giggle that forced its way up her throat – but luckily, she managed to mostly swallow it down before it could come out of her mouth.
“But I hope I’ll see you in town,” Celeste said, ignoring the stare Gordon was sending boring into the side of her face. She was a grown woman, and she’d make a date with an old friend if she wanted to – she might have a sacred duty, but Gordon wasn’t in charge of her. He could think what he wanted.
“I hope so too, Celeste,” Pierce said, his voice returning to the rich, warm, deep tone she knew so well, and which never failed to send a delicious shiver down her spine. “Well, I’ll let you get to your business. I’m sorry if I interrupted anything.”
“Apology accepted,” Gordon said, before Celeste could get a word out. “Now, come along my dear. We should get started.”
Celeste cast a quick look over her shoulder, mouthingI’m sorryat Pierce as she and Gordon turned away. Pierce at least seemed to acceptherapology, giving her a quick shrug and a small smile before he too turned away.
Despite herself, Celeste felt a flame of anger kindling in her stomach. Even if they were on an island and it wasn’t like Pierce was going anywhere, she was still angry at Gordon’s rudeness. It was true he was one of the most learned wizards in the world, but that didn’t give him the right to act like an ass and treat her as if she was a child!
“I invited you here to give me some advice, not to be so rude to my friends,” she snapped at him, as soon as she was sure they were out of range of Pierce’s hearing. “That really was incredibly bad-mannered.”
Gordon didn’t seem affected by the accusation at all – he simply sniffed. “Who even was that man?” he asked, peering back over his shoulder. “And what were you about to tell him when I walked in?”
Celeste’s mouth snapped shut. She had to admit, Gordon had her there.
“I wasn’t telling him anything,” she said, which was only a half-truth, she supposed. “But he said he was here to investigate the earth tremors, and he was asking me some questions about them. I was only trying to give him some answers, without revealing what I suspected.”Or nottoomuch of it, anyway.
Gordon sniffed again. “So he’s a seismologist, is he?”
“Well, he didn’tsaythat, but I suppose so,” Celeste said, suddenly realizing she hadn’t really asked, either. She’d been too thrown by the fact that he was here because of the earth tremors – which sheknewweren’t the result of unusual seismic activity in the area – to think of asking him for more details about his work. “I wasn’t going to say anything. Why would I? And just to remind you, I’ve been here for almost twenty years, and in all that time no one has ever found out anything about my work – I’ve never told a soul. So please remember that the next time you decide to start accusing me of… whatever it is you think I was going to do.”
“Point taken,” Gordon conceded, though he said it just as haughtily as everything else he’d said so far today. “I shan’t assume so much in future. Nonetheless…”
Celeste glanced at him sharply, but Gordon didn’t finish his sentence, instead lapsing into what she assumed was a thoughtful silence until they reached the pier where her small boat was moored.
“Well. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much in the way of creature comforts,” Gordon said as, gingerly, he stepped into the swaying boat. “Honestly, Celeste dear, if I’d known the conditions you lived in I’d have sent you some helplongago. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I don’t mind it?” Celeste said, all but jumping into the boat and making it sway in the water, just to see Gordon clutching the sides. She knew she was being childish, but she was annoyed by Gordon’s attitude about her living situationandabout her curtailed… well, notdate, because that wasn’t what it had been, but her meal with Pierce. “Really, it’s fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Hmmm,” Gordon said, as, rolling her eyes, Celeste started up the boat’s engine, before guiding them out of the harbor.
It didn’t take long to get to the mooring place at the lighthouse, even with the ocean as choppy as it was. Gordon seemed to have spent the entire ten-minute journey grabbing onto anything within reach for dear life, as if he expected the ocean to roll up into the boat and carry him away with it – but, Celeste supposed, he was an academic wizard, not a practical one. So he probably spent most of his time cloistered with his books.
“We’ll be inside soon,” Celeste said as she helped him up out of the boat, feeling just a little remorseful for snapping at him and then rocking the boat so much. He’d come here to help her, after all, no matter how irritated she was about having to cut things short with Pierce.
It wasn’t meant to be back then, after all,she thought wistfully as she opened the red wooden door that led inside the lighthouse.And it’s probably not meant to be now. I mean, I’m still here in the lighthouse. And that’s where I’ll stay for the foreseeable future. It’s not like anything’s changed.
She swallowed down the cold lump that had risen in her chest. Maybe it was for the best that Gordon had shown up when he did. Remembering just how much Pierce made her heart race, her spine tingle, her stomach clench… nothing good could come of that. He’d leave the island once his vacation was over, and she’d still be here. Nothing about what she had to do had changed since the day she’d been forced to leave him twenty years ago.
I probably shouldn’t see him again,she thought, blinking back the hot tears that had sprung into her eyes.It’ll only make things harder. I could leave him back then… barely. I don’t know if I could do it again now.
She didn’t have much choice, though – it wasn’t as if sacred duties just stopped having to be performed because the ex she’d never gotten over just happened to be in town.
“Anyway, my dear, you should show me up to where you’ve been keeping the wards,” Gordon said, breaking into her thoughts. He was looking around her humble home alittlemore appreciatively, at least – probably admiring the masses of books on her shelves.
“I keep them up in the tower,” Celeste said, crossing the room to the curving stairs that lead up to where, back when this had been a functioning lighthouse, the keepers had kept the light going to warn ships away from the rugged coast, with its jagged rocks. “Follow me.”
The climb was a long one, and despite the fact Celeste had assumed Gordon didn’t get out much, he was barely puffing even at the top of the long climb up to the lantern room. The windows had been blacked out long ago, and so there was no chance of anyone seeing the faintly glowing magical wards Celeste tended to here from the island or from the more distant coast of the mainland.
They didn’tlookany different at all – just a faintly glowing screen, shimmering from orange to red to pink to blue, and then back again. But theyfeltdifferent – just like the sunshine going behind a cloud, like Celeste had tried to explain it to her parents all those years ago. They were weakening, and no matter what Celeste did, she couldn’t seem to strengthen them again.
And what will happen if they weaken too much, or, even worse, fail altogether?
She could see that Gordon could sense the problem as soon as he walked into the room. A deep frown crossed his face, and he seemed perplexed.
“Well, I certainly see why you were worried,” he said after a minute. “This is not very good at all. Not at all!”
