“I take that as a no.”
“My brothers grew up with metal bits in their pockets!They were encouraged to carry them about, but me?My gowns didn’t even possess pockets at first.One day Temple and Hesperus and Helios simply knew they were iron and silver and… I have no idea.I’ve tried to figure it out, but none of them… seem right.Or they all seem right or”—she gave a little growl—“oh, I don’t know.”
A sensitive subject, then.He picked his way across the minefield carefully.“Have you any metal with you?Raw?”
“Of course.”Her gaze flicked to her traveling satchel.“Copper and iron and silver and some lead.”
“Good.”He reached into his pocket and handed over his gold.“Here, try this too.”
“That’s yours.”
He shrugged.“I have never felt particularly connected to it.Perhaps you will.”He let the front legs of his chair drop back to the ground then he stood.
“Wait!”She stood too.“I don’t know what you want me to do with the metals.”
“I think we need to discover what your innate metal is first.But we can’t do that without a real forge.”
“I know there’s a test… but I do not know what it is like.No one talks about it.Do you remember your test?”
He nodded.“I cheated.You’re supposed to stick your hand into the fire, a real fire, but Stone knew I couldn’t do it.He had me dip my arms into some sort of liquid first.It protected me, and I just grabbed the first rock I found.”
“You don’t even know if gold is your metal, then!”
He shrugged.“Might as well be.That’s what I want, after all.Gold.Money.Power.Do you have pocketsnow, princess?”
“Yes.”
“Fill them up.Keep the metals close.Live with them.Sleep with them.And when we can access a proper forge, I’ll test you.You won’t cheat, I’m sure.”
She stumbled around the corner of the bed and toward him.Stars had fallen from the heavens into her eyes, and her lips—soft and pink and slightly parted—were fucking poetry when she said, “I won’t.But… will you really?Test me?”
He nodded, swallowed a lump in his throat, and took a large step backward.“Night, Miss Grant.”
He made it all the way to his room, resisting the urge to look back at her, to see those stars again, the soft fields of pink where she’d breathed those two pitiful words.You will?As if she couldn’t believe it.As if he was giving her what she’d always wanted, and he was the only one who could.
Whowould.
Men were idiots, all of them.Including himself.Especially himself.
He sat at the table in his room—a mirror image of hers—and lit the candle with the brimstone stick.
He’d been told his whole life he was better than everyone, women included, because of his birth.Eldest son of an eldest son in a very old family with a title.He’d learned with the alphabet that everything was his, and he must do nothing to earn it.The lie had almost destroyed him.Because of the lie, he’d almost destroyed his cousin.
At least he’d eventually learned the lesson—he wasn’t inherently better than anyone, and many were much better than him, including women.
The candle’s flame shrank, and that wasn’t what he was supposed to be about at all!He sat up straighter, rubbing his palms together, cupping them, then breathing into them.
“All right… How would Sybil do this?”
Do not dominate.Coerce.
Seduce.
He grinned and held his cupped palms over the candle flame.“Come along, little thing.You can do it.”
But the flame did not grow.
“I know you wish to bite me.I’ll allow it.Oh!”That reminded him.He found his satchel nearby and opened it, pulled the aloe plant out of it.“Poor dear.You’ve lost a bit of soil.I’ll replace it.”He set it on the table.
