“And will it bea jolly japeif you come down with pneumonia?” Gabriel countered.
Dinner managed to be almost charming, partly due to the candlelight, but mostly because they were both too tired to argue and too hungry to care that they were eating corned beef and peaches from tins. Elodie attempted some fun conversation.
“If the new thaumaturgic trove does contain magically charged sulfur, it may have originated from pyrite. We should get a map of the regional mining operations.”
“I have one, back at the inn,” Gabriel said.
“Of course you do,” Elodie murmured, then felt a clenching of her stomach that wasn’t entirely due to the corned beef. “I meant that as a compliment,” she added hastily. “You’re always so prepared, I’m quite envious of it. I really ought to work harder to follow your excellent example, because the most—”
“It’s fine,” Gabriel interrupted. “I know what you meant; I wasn’t offended.”
“Oh.” She stared at her tinned beef ruefully. “Good.”
A peaceful quiet followed, with the rain outside making soft—
“Are you sure you’re not offended?” Elodie blurted out. “Because it came out all wrong, I really did mean it in a positive way.”
Gabriel gave her a calm, steady look. “I know.”
“I’m always putting my foot in my mouth. Which, by the by, is what this corned beef tastes like.”
“Hm,” Gabriel agreed. In fact he did not seem to mind the beef so much, but was clearly struggling with everything else, from the table’s weathered surface to the crookedness of his chair to the very air he breathed, which was rather pungent with tallow smoke.
“We should have just camped in the woods,” he grumbled.
“Nonsense!” Elodie said with a touch too much good cheer, even for her. She winced privately, then resolved to keep her chin up. After all, the world was what one made of it. “Yes, the house is a little rustic, to be sure, but it’s not so bad as you’re making it out to be. Really, you ought to try relaxing your scruples.”
“If I did, the spiders would come down and eat them,” Gabriel muttered.
Elodie stared at him. “Was that a joke?”
Glowering, he stabbed the corned beef with his fork. “What do you think? Have you ever known me to joke?”
This casual acknowledgment that she knew him well made Elodie’s blood tingle. As they returned to silently eating, she began to weave a romantic tale in her imagination of her and Gabriel as a genuinely married couple sitting together at their dining table, a little weary after working all day, a little grouchy, and wholly comfortable being so with each other. She sighed.
“What?” Gabriel asked.
“Nothing.”
“Do you have enough food? I can open another can of corned beef for you.”
“No, thanks.” She smiled at him; he frowned in return, of course. She didn’t mind that, not truly; it was just who he was. Self-defended, suspecting trouble from the world all the time. And what it most made her feel, beneath her protestations of annoyance, was hope that one day she might win a path through those defenses, to his heart.
Suddenly he reached across the table and turned her peach can to a new angle that presumably satisfied him better. Elodie gave him a surprised look; he gazed back unblinking. Something capricious in her heart flared in response to such inexplicable fastidiousness. She took hold of the peach can to move it in one haphazard direction or another—and stopped, seeing the ragged metal at the edge that he’d turned to be farthest from her.
She flushed. “Thank you.”
“Hm,” Gabriel said, and stabbed the corned beef again.
The silence returned, newly awkward as Elodie was forced to acknowledge to herself that some of Gabriel’s defensesprobably existed because of her. He’d done her a kindness, ensuring she wasn’t hurt by ragged metal, and she’d automatically assumed he was just being finickity. Really, no wonder the man hated her. She wasn’t so fond of herself in this moment.
“I’m sorry,” she said—then lost courage for explaining why, since no doubt her words would come out all wrong, and she’d make things even more difficult than they already were. “I know this shelter is not ideal,” she said instead. “But we’re really quite lucky to have found it. We must try to cheer up. A bit of dust won’t hurt us. We can—aaaggghhhh!”
Her scream pierced the candlelight.
Chapter Fifteen
You are not in the world,
