Lucien knelt on the rug at Thea's skirts, taking her hands in his. "Expression is incredibly powerful, more so than harnessing your will, but so dangerous, Thea. So uncontrollable. That is why we use ritual and meditation to teach ourselves to harness our will."
Thea looked eminently subdued. "What if I cannot learn to do so?"
Miss Martin kissed Thea's forehead and hugged her. "I remember a time when I was certain I would never learn to harness my will. The more I could not do it, the more frustrated and impatient I became. But it finally happened, and once learned, it became so much easier, Thea. That is why we set you such complicated tasks to study at first—to unknot a rope with your mind, or to use telekinesis to move a wooden puzzle piece from the bottom of a tower of them whilst holding the others in place—because whilst Expression is powerful, it cannot perform complicated tasks. It will come, Thea. Trust me in this."
Thea nodded.
"Finish your breakfast," Miss Martin pressed. "No more talk of Expression and dire disasters. I believe we have enough on our plate as it is." She glanced his way, finishing the last mouthful of her tea. "Have you quite finished, my lord? I believe we have an old acquaintance of Morgana's to question this morning about her potential whereabouts and a Relic Infernal to find?"
Lucien stood. "Actually, I was starting to wonder at your lack of enthusiasm this morning. You seem quite calm, considering someone—possibly a dangerous sorceress with a price on her head and a yearning for revenge—has stolen two infamous relics."
"One relic, Rathbourne. We're not quite certain she has the other in hand yet. As for lack of impatience, Drake sent out Sensitive's to comb the streets of London last night for hints of sorcery. If they'd found anything, we'd already know it." She flashed a warm smile at Thea. "I want you to continue trying to freeze and boil the tea. However, if you find yourself growing irritable, you are to set aside such a task and return to your meditation. Use your rituals to simply gather your power to the point where your skin is brimming with it, then disperse it and do it again. The more you use ritual, the more your mind will form that path, until it becomes instinct, not emotional channels. I shall see you tonight, hopefully."
They left her staring forlornly at the dining table.
Lucien leaned back in the carriage and tried not to stare at the woman bound to him. He could sense her emotions pricking at his skin like needles, and the color wash of it over her face was immense, despite her expressionless face.
She was staring, arrested, at a pair of young children playing in the park across the street. The girls couldn't have been more than nine or ten and were laughing as they deliberately splashed each other, stomping their boots into puddles. Ianthe fingered the locket at her throat and looked as though the world might not have existed around her.
Through the bond, it felt as though her heart was breaking.
Lucien looked again at the girls. Happy young lasses, wrapped up in bonnets with a plaid shawl thrown over their shoulders. One of them had shiny black hair knotted into a plaited chignon, and the other wore pigtails.
He couldn't for the life of him figure out why the sight of them ached within her so much. Pressing a hand to his chest, he squeezed, but it was merely a phantom emotion. The bond between them was strengthening. If he wasn't careful, he'd begin to hear her more outspoken thoughts—and she his.
"You are fond of Thea," he said, both out of curiosity and also to see if he could discover what had set her emotions roiling.
"You sound as if you're surprised."
"Perhaps I am. I would never have suspected you to own a maternal side."
Ianthe reacted as if he'd slapped her. "You do not know me at all. I know you hold me partly to blame for your incarceration, but that does not mean I am a cold, wicked woman, devoid of feelings."
"I know." Lucien cleared his throat. "My apologies. I didn't mean to offend you. I just... I was trying to understand you."
"What you must think of me." She gave a tight, pressed-lip smile. "All these words you throw my way: mistress, whore, unmotherly—"
"I never called you a whore," he said sharply.
A flash of violet eyes. He had hurt her. "And yet, what have you demanded of me?" At his own flinch, she smiled bitterly. "It's all right, Rathbourne. I'm used to it."
Then she turned to look out of the window again.
And he suddenly felt quite ill and ashamed of himself.
"I'm sorry that you feel that way. I did not think of our agreement as such, no more than I thought myself a lesser man for bending to your will during the day. I wanted you, and I feared the imbalance of submitting to your will with no recourse, which is why I demanded such a thing of you." His gaze lowered. "Perhaps it was wrong of me."
There was an echoing moment of silence. When he looked up, Ianthe's eyes were wide, and she looked surprisingly young. "Well. Look at the pair of us, treating each other kindly. That was something I did not expect."
"Perhaps we have both made assumptions about each other?"
More silence. It was awkward, and she looked flushed and somewhat sweet.
"What is your relationship with the Prime?" He was beginning to suspect that he'd been very, very wrong in regards to everything he knew about her.
"Why?"
"So I can stop making assumptions about you, and perhaps because last night was rather... intimate. I'm curious about you. You have the body of a courtesan, but in bed, you're somewhat... Not shy. That's not the word I'm looking for. Perhaps not quite certain of what I was doing to you at times or what my intentions were. You kept hesitating."
