“Thanks, but no; must go do some mucking,” he says lightly, then turns his gaze to me and bows, one of his ridiculous low bows. “Your Most Serene Worship.”
“Young man,” Mother says. “You take liberties.”
“Please, Mother,” I say. “It’s fine. We’re friends.”
“He may be yourfriend,” she says, “but I am hisqueen. Andhe does not treat you with the respect bespeaking your rank and station in life.”
“He does!” I say, a little desperately. “He just teases. It’s his way of showing affection.”
The room goes suddenly very cold, and very still.
“Affection,” Mother repeats, sounding outraged. “Is that man yourlover?”
I feel heat flooding my face. How does one answer this question? If a lover is one who makes love, what constitutes lovemaking? And if someone is making love to someone else, does that make them lovers? Why, when every tragic romance I’ve ever read refers to everything from whispered platitudes to full sexual congress as “lovemaking,” is it so difficult to know whether one has a lover? He flirts with me; is that lovemaking? It’s not like any lovemaking I’ve ever read about; that’s generally made up of sighs and whispered promises and the occasional outright declaration. Quite a lot of weeping, usually. We’ve never even kissed. Surely having someone tease one isn’t lovemaking. No one ever teases anyone in my tragic romances. Surely someone has to be in love with you in order for them to be your lover.
Does he love me? Do I love him? Do I love Bash?
I risk a horrified glance up at my mother, whose expression grows darker with every moment I fail to answer her question. Do I tell her he’s my lover if I love him? He doesn’t love me, so does that make him my lover? Or am I simply his lover, by the act of being in love with him?
Am I in love with him?
My gaze travels over her shoulder, to where he’s watching me, his expression carefully blank. Oh no; if I love him, and he doesn’t love me, perhaps that makes me his lover, but he isn’t my lover. I can feel panic bubbling up inside me as the realizationovertakes my thoughts: I’m in love with him. How long have I been in love with him? When did it start? How can I be in love with him? All he does is tease me and steal cobwebs and old teacups from me.
And he doesn’t love me; he can’t possibly.
“No,” I burst out, and it’s the closest approximation to the truth—at least, the emotional truth—of the matter. “He’s not my lover.”
Something flickers across his face, some emotion I can’t name, but it happens so quickly I barely have time to register it before it’s gone. I look back at my mother, and she can see the honesty in me, I think, because she sighs and puts a hand to her chest.
“Thank heavens for that, at least,” she says, glancing over at my father. He’s gone quite pink in the cheeks and shrugs in response.
“I should go,” Bash says.
“Yes, young man, I rather think you should,” Mother says, and with another impenetrable glance at me he’s gone, through the door and into the night.
Chapter 43
I lead the way down the little flight of stairs to my apartment. I dread what’ll happen once I bring my parents into my room. Whatever they think about what’s going on with me, however much they hate it, they’re going to hate it a lot more in a moment.
I murmur the little spell that makes the banked embers in the grate glow as I step through the door, and the fire merrily blazes to life. My room is tidy: bed made, dishes washed, chairs neatly arranged. I even have a bunch of leaves and berries arranged in a cup on the sideboard. Amaritha’s original drawing of my new sign is fixed over the fireplace, and the little bowl holding Bash’s first gifts—or whatever they were—is to one side of the mantelpiece; the straw figures he’s left me are propped up next to it. Only the little shell is missing—it’s still on the chain around my neck.
“Oh, Tandy,” Mother breathes, sounding a little heartbrokenas she takes in my room. “You’ve been living here all this time?Here?”
“It’s not—” If I tell her it’s not so bad, she’ll think I’m lying. If I tell her I am happy here, she’ll probably start to cry. “I think it’s very cozy,” I eventually manage. “There’s even a bookstore cat.” I turn to my father. “An illusive cat. She’s probably even about somewhere.”
“Anillusivecat,” my father says, his face lighting up. He loves rare animals. “Somewhere nearby, do you think?” he adds, hopefully.
“And there’s a little nest of bluecaps in the box bed.”
Father, at least, is intrigued by this. “Bluecaps! I’ve never seen an entire nest of ’em.”
Mother drops into a chair while I show him the nest, glowing warmly in the darkness of my box bed. “They’re wonderfully helpful,” I say. “They can find anything. If a customer comes in and wants something, and I haven’t any idea where it might be, they just drift off and lead the way to something lovely.”
“Extraordinary,” Father says.
“Customers,” Mother says.
Father and I exchange a look, and then he makes a little movement of his head, a clear signal for me to stop wasting time and go calm my mother down.
