Page 38 of The Scent of the Ideal

Rafi was unclear if he was being asked to assist with Viau’s gardening experiments or not. Viau didn’t explain. He sat back, gaze distant as if lost in thought.

“Viau, am I distracting you from your work?” Rafi asked after a while. Viau raised his head, focusing on Rafi again.

“Yes. And what light remains is fading.” Viau smiled as if to apologize for his honesty. “But the bed is yours if you’re tired. No need to worry about manners here.”

Rafi suspected he truly meant that. “You were not with the others for the evening meal,” he pointed out. “Eat that peach, at least.”

He didn’t try to be polite; he’d been told not to.

Judging from his soft laugh, Viau was absolutely delighted by that. And he obeyed, facing his desk again and pulling a small knife from under his notebooks to slice up the peach.

Rafi removed his boots and his belt, and then, after some debate, his pants too, since no one slept in their trousers no matter what else was on their mind. He moved to the head of the bed to sit against the pillows and headboard while he watched Viau absently eat peach slices between examining leaves and scribbling onto various papers. Not interested in poetry, Rafi abandoned his book with the rest of his things and eased back as though he was in a haystack on a sunny day in one of his family’s fields.

Viau got sticky peach juice on his fingers, which he licked off absentmindedly only to notice too late that he’d gotten some on his papers. He licked that away too, or tried to, then shrugged and went back to work.

Rafi was thinking of his question, yet to be asked, but that worry was distant now that he’d been welcomed and teased. He didn’t even startle when Viau broke the silence.

“You don’t have to be a mouse. You’re not going to get thrown out of this room for taking up space.” Viau didn’t even look up from his writing.

Nex were never particularly large, but Rafi truly wasn’t small. He was also sitting comfortably on the favorite’s bed in only a shirt. He was hardly refusing to take up space, even if he wouldn’t have dared to sit like this yesterday.

“I am sitting how it suits me to sit,” Rafi answered quietly. “I’m a bit sore. I fell down today and bruised my knees.”

Viau snorted. “Your bruised knees are your own fault for tackling me. You do love to be close to those you kill, don’t you…?” He trailed off as he looked over, his hand going still as he looked at Rafi’s bare feet and then his bare legs, pausing at the knees, which were indeed bruised. His gaze met the hem of Rafi’s shirt, which fell over his thighs, before Viau dragged his attention up to Rafi’s face. “I didn’t glimpse any other bruises on you this morning,” he said huskily as he turned away again to stare down at his papers.

“I stopped sparring before aedis. I needed to rest.” Which Viau had advised Rafi to do, although Rafi didn’t know if Viau had written to Rafi’s instructors as he’d threatened. “But you told me to only wear your bruises and I have done my best to obey.”

Viau’s fingers tightened around the pencil. “Are you…?” He tapped the pencil against a paper, then looked over at Rafi again. “Is this sparring? You’re tricky, Rafeli Tizzan.”

Rafi didn’t think a single person in the entire world would describe him that way. “I’m not tricky.”

“You’re quiet and you hide.” Viau put down the pencil. “You’re innocent until you’re not.”

“Oh.” Rafi looked down. “I can….”

“If you are about to offer to leave, don’t. I’m not angry or disappointed with you. I’m astonished.”

Rafi raised his head and their eyes met. “You used my full name again.”

Viau pushed out a breath that seemed angry no matter what he’d said, then turned in the chair to face him.

“When Briene wrote to me about a student in need of help, I expected someone with a strong use of aer, because that was why someone else wouldn’t do.”

Disappointed, then. “And I wasn’t.”

Viau, the ideal, dragged his hands through his hair, pulling it from its ribbon, and rumbled unsteadily at the ceiling. The noise was not a word.

Then he got up, the ribbon trailing to the floor behind him as he came over to sit on the edge of the bed that was nearest the windows. He left his feet on the floor and looked at Rafi with an expression Rafi couldn’t interpret.

“You were strong, and you were pretty, and you avoided me, making you a mystery as well. You keep yourself quiet, and you don’t get into squabbles or arguments even when your temper is flaring—don’t pretend you have no temper, pretty liar.” Viau put a finger in the air when Rafi opened his mouth and only continued when Rafi closed it. “You don’t play the games miná and nex sometimes play before a heat, which miné enjoy very much and even play themselves if it suits them to. You don’t play at all, except for when you are sparring, and that took prompting. But once you’re in motion, you don’t hold back.” The corner of his lips turned up. “Did you know your aer is reaching for mine?”

Rafi twitched in surprise, but calling his aer back to himself was too little, too late, because he’d already felt the touch of Viau’s to control it.

“Unfurling tendrils,” Viau mused softly. “I think in terms of plants at times, and you are a vine in search of the sun.”

Rafi’s throat was tight. “I thought I was a storm cloud.”

“That too.” Viau didn’t make sense. “Vines or a storm, it’s all the same to those caught in them.”