“No,” Gabriel said brusquely. Dropping her hand, he rose and turned away, yanking his gloves back on with such violence, he risked tearing their seams. Breath strained in his throat. The rain tried to pound him into senselessness. On the road, something burned despite the weather, and he stared at it with a frown more thunderous than the sky. He didn’t really see it, however. All he saw was the memory of Elodie lying on the ground as if she was—was—
Crack!The small fire exploded, turning raindrops briefly into flames. Behind him came the even more disturbing sound of Elodie muttering as she struggled to push herself up.
Good,he thought ruthlessly. Sheoughtto struggle, considering how his heart was still riotous and his mental discipline unraveled. She ought to just stay lying in the graveyard all night, thinking about what she’d done.
Then he turned back around and held out a hand, not looking at her. After the slightest pause, Elodie took it. He hauled her up. As she stood, she stumbled a little, alerting Gabriel’severy nerve to the possibility of collision. But she managed to stop herself, although the distance between them remained so slight, Gabriel could hear her breathing through blue-tinged lips that were slightly parted, as if awaiting a kiss to warm them. The alert became a wailing siren.
Just be calm,he told himself. She wasn’t his wife in truth, nor his lover. And certainly she wasn’t his student. He had no right to chastise her. He needed simply to inquire in a reasonable, professional manner as to the rationale behind her actions…
“Jesus Christ, Elodie, what the bloody hell possessed you?!”
She blinked as a rapid succession of emotions shot through her expression. Gabriel recognized less than half of them before quiet dignity ended the procession, stamping itself hard and unrelenting on the normally gentle planes of her face. “My job,” she said.
“Suicide isn’t in the job definition.”
“I knew what I was doing.”
“That makes it bloodyworse, woman!”
The moment he said the words, he wanted to haul them back into silence. And sure enough, Elodie’s dignity crumpled into an outraged frown. Gabriel considered backing down, but he was toodistresseddisapproving to manage it. He clenched his jaw—her eyes darkened—and both suddenly realized they were still holding hands.
They snatched them apart so rapidly, Elodie almost lost her balance again. She pressed her feet more firmly on the sodden ground, lifted her chin, and glared at Gabriel defiantly. She looked terrifying and enthralling, with wet strands of hair streaking her face like witch light, and a fire of formidable intelligence in her eyes.
“Pish tosh!” she declared. “I stopped the magic and saved the village from disaster. Although,” she added with reluctant self-honesty, “it is particularly good fortune that the diverted energy just happened to miss all the gravesites.”
They both flicked a glance at the ground beside her, where a three-feet-deep gash was sparking with bright fragments of magic. Elodie seemed to appreciate all of a sudden that it represented what might very easily have become of her, and she shuffled to obscure Gabriel’s view of it. Immediately, instinctively, he reached out, grabbing her wrist—
And pulled her forward just before she tumbled into the crevasse. Their bodies collided with a shock of what must have been residual magic. They scowled at each other across the hazardous distance of five inches.
“You areincorrigible,” Gabriel said furiously.
“I certainly hope so,” Elodie retorted, “or nothing would get done.Youare a pedant.”
“If it is pedantic to not want my wi—colleague dying before the assignment is complete, then I stand guilty as charged.” He released her wrist and stepped back, his angry frown tilting a little with confusion. “How the hell did you stop ignis fatuus just by touching it?”
“You’re Welsh,” Elodie replied—taking their conversation and throwing it in a completely different direction, as usual.
He blinked at her, seriously aggravated, and only just managing to stop himself from falling to his knees again in gratitude that she was still alive to aggravate him like this. (Which, of course, he would feel aboutanycolleague under the circumstances.)
“And?” he said curtly.
She held up her left hand, the back of it toward him. “Thiswedding ring, it’s Welsh gold, isn’t it? There’s a dragon stamp on the inner side of the band.”
Gabriel turned to stone, as if he’d been blindsided by magic, or at least by a metaphor that made his brain hurt. If he truly were stone, he’d not feel on the verge of internal combustion. “Hm” was all he said.
“You said your father came from Snowdonia, and Dolgellau is located there—a gold-rich area that’s one of the most powerful troves on the 3-SEQ fey line. I speculated that you or one of your predecessors may have got the ring from there.” Watching his face for a reaction, she suddenly grinned, her frown disappearing like shadows defeated by the return of sunlight. “You gave me a magic ring.”
Well, damn. She was right. The ring had belonged to his paternal grandmother, and its gold was indeed sourced from Dolgellau. But Gabriel had never intended for her to know that he’d given her a precious family heirloom (merely to save money, of course, no other reason whatsoever), and he now felt an actual blush spread across his cheeks. Aghast, he scowled so vehemently, the warmth fled faster than a student leaving for home at the end of term.
“You risked your life on the basis of a wild guess like that?” He shook his head. “I’ve never heard of anything more foolhardy, reckless, insane—”
“Successful,” she countered. “Gold is a powerful thaumaturgic inhibitor in any case, and I felt it reasonable to suppose that gold from a level five Welsh trove would be especially effective on the magic of another Welsh fey line. I simply used the ring as a shield to stop the ignis fatuus. And it worked.”
“You got lucky.”
His words seemed to strike her like a whip. Her smile vanished, taking its sunshine with it. “I did not. I may have a uterus—oh for heaven’s sake don’t wince, you’re a scientist—but I can think better than most men in this country, despite what they believe. I analyzed the evidence before me and used it to form a reasonable plan of action. Within seconds, I might add. And although I don’t need to excuse myself, risk assessment was part of that plan. Even if the ring hadn’t been magic, it’s still gold, and there was a decent chance of that being enough to counter ignis fatuus. So do not accuse me of beinglucky, thank you. I am far too clever for luck.”
Gabriel stared at her unblinking as the rain poured down their faces like years of regret, and the air gasped with wind and unspoken emotion. He knew full well that Elodie had chosen to study geography only because she loved the idea of magic. She was a scientist because it allowed her to be a professional dreamer. And yet, it was that imagination, alongside her eternally restless curiosity and the sheer joy of her mind, that had led her to become the best exigent thaumaturgy analyst in Britain—even better than him, Gabriel could admit (privately, behind several mental barricades and a forbidding glower). Elodie was the kind of person who would dance on a rooftop if dared (or even if not), whereas he was, quite properly, a ladders and read-the-safety-manual-in-its-entirety man. Dôlylleuad would be burning right now if he’d been on-site alone, since he’d never have thought to stop ignis fatuus magic by using a gold ring, of all things. His brain simply couldn’t make a sharp turn sideways like that.
