“The fact we’ve failed to locate the originating source is very worrisome, considering how much magic is afoot. I really expected to arrive at Dôlylleuad and be met by a single trove venting thaumaturgic energy, rather than all this mess. The only thing I can conclude is that pressure is building in the unmapped deposit, wherever it is. The leakage through geographical vulnerabilities, such as the village graveyard and these sodden fields, is strong enough to cause all this intense spillage. I worry it could explode at any moment.”
“I agree,” Gabriel said. “The source lode must be immense.” He paused, his thoughts sparking with theories and concerns. “It might even contain platinum.”
“Or it may have absorbed the energy of the original trove beneath the mine site,” Elodie said, “which would explain why that was completely drained.”
Considering this, Gabriel shrugged his mouth then nodded. “That’s a reasonable hypothesis.”
“Vampire minerals!” She grinned, and Gabriel had all he could do not to grin in response. It sent alarm bells through him, for he was not a grinning man. He was a man who considered amusement a precursor to anarchy, and the fact that he’d been close to it all day suggested an imminent and catastrophic failure of dignity. Why, the last time he’d smiled had been—
Abruptly the thought was slammed into silence by a vanguard of self-restraint. His countenance hardened, and his heart followed suit. Safe again, Gabriel exhaled quietly in relief.
Alas, however, his breath trembled just a little, sigh-like, and emotions took this encouragement to rush in again…
Elodie, unaware of his internal struggle, continued to smile and shine and generally light up the world with her presence. “Mark my words,” she said, “we’re dealing with something even stronger than level five. When it does erupt, it could trigger the fey line into cascade.”
“Hm,” he said.
She huffed a little. “Might you perhaps expatiate further than one syllable?”
“I’m thinking.” And it was true. He thought about her luxuriant beauty. He thought about the softness of her lips, and about how glorious it had been to taste the magic on them. He thought as well about what a bloody fool he’d been to do so. A disaster zone was not an appropriate place to reacquaint oneself with the charms of one’s wife. He should be focusing instead on the far more deadly charms of ensorcelled meadows and potentially explosive rocks.
It was just that every time he tried to do so, all he saw was Elodie standing in the sunlight, with her wild fair hair and stormy eyes flashing with magic.
Gabriel was at a loss to understand what was happening to him. Many, many times he’d escaped life-threatening thaumaturgic squalls in the company of associates and felt no subsequent desire to kiss them (perhaps because the majority possessed greasy mustaches and an odor of pipe smoke). But he’d been physically unable to stop himself from kissing Elodie, despite how wet and filthy they’d both been. Had he studied biology, he’d have been able to reason through this situation in cool, scientific terms. As it was, the only explanation he could generate wasidiocy.
“We should return to Dôlylleuad to consult a topographical map,” Elodie said, clearly having given up on waiting for his reply. It was sensible advice, and in fact what he himself would have suggested were he in better control of his brain right now. Back at the Queen Mab, they could not only chart the morning’s experiences and run theoreticals, but also change out of their filthy clothes. Gabriel envisioned it: a crisp map, a shining protractor, and Elodie undressing, cotton and candlelight drifting over her bare skin, revealing curves that both softened and hardened a man, making him want to…To listen to the woman now as she spoke, he interrupted himself sternly. She was talking about potentially evacuating Dôlylleuad. Her voice was like velvet soaked in honey. He might lick it from her tongue…
Ahem,he interrupted himself again, and adjusted the iron and gold hook around his ear, since obviously magic was messing with his mind.
“And I want to telegraph the Home Office,” Elodiecontinued. “I doubt Professor Jackson remembered to do so, and we really are going to need a bigger team here.”
She sighed at the thought. Gabriel couldn’t discern why, and he wondered whether he’d done something to cause it.
“I agree,” he ventured, since that seemed the safest response.
Elodie nodded. Then she wrapped her arms around herself, gazing over his shoulder at the magical light show (the profusion of aeriform thaumaturgic materialization,thank you very much, his intelligence corrected him indignantly). It washed her over with rainbows and gleaming blue-green shadows, and Gabriel would have sworn she was more lovely than any enchanted sky could ever be. If only he might kiss her even one more time in his life…
Then again, he was no doubt confusing a desire for dinner with desire for his wife, and a good serving of steak and potatoes would soon cure him of this undignified romantic nonsense.
“Let’s get going,” he said gruffly, rubbing a thumb knuckle against his forehead. He needed to get back on track, walk a straight line, and perform other cartographical metaphors that would stabilize his thinking.
They began trekking toward the distant village. “Do you think the tourists will have transformed back by now?” Elodie asked.
“Impossible to say,” Gabriel answered disinterestedly.
“Perhaps they’ll take it as a lesson. Too many people treat the environment as property…a resource…entertainment, rather than a community to which we all belong. I don’t wish to criticize the villagers—”
“I’m entirely comfortable criticizing them,” Gabriel interposed. “They’re money hungry.”
“Or just hungry,” she suggested.
“The mice in this field were hungry too, no doubt, until the moment thaumaturgic energy smashed through them.”
Elodie winced. “True. And without those mice to scatter seeds, make tunnels that aerate the soil, and so on, the environment that people want to give them crops and orchards wouldn’t be so healthy. It’s all a magic web with colors gay.”
“Poetry,”Gabriel muttered, managing to fit an entire critique of the genre into three syllables.
“It’s that too,” she answered, then grinned at him. Why did she insist on doing that so often? Was she deliberately trying to set him off-balance? If he kissed her, would she stop? He should try!
