Страница 46 из 72
known. But we can’t dally.” He took hold of his robes in both hands, lifting them above his ankles, and
hurried toward the shadowed end of the cave.
124
www.samhainpublishing.com
Tatterdemalion
It knows much. Lindsay let himself be led along, looking up at the lichen a little longer. But what did it know? He was begi
They went through another narrow passage, this time with the water all the way to their ankles,
washing their feet and numbing their toes. They emerged into the light. The vaulted ceiling went up high to a crack in the roof where the sun came in and caught on the crystal edges of the stone, lighting up the whole room.
All around them was the sound of water ru
spring that welled out of the rock at the far end of the room, but there were little tributaries falling from the ceiling, seeping from the floor, rippling down the walls. The floor was worn with wandering silver streams, tiny veins leading to the pool that rushed out to feed the side of the mountain and the forest.
U
floor and walls. At first, Lindsay thought they were gilded, but there was only stone when he stopped to look at one. The shimmer he was seeing was magic, not gold.
It was real. Magic was real. Like stone, like water, like light, it was real and Lindsay could feel it all
around him. He could feel his own broken magic yearning for it and falling short.
Ezqel’s equipment was in the cave also. Lindsay had seen movies like Frankenstein and thought them
laughable, but here was the real thing: brass and glass instruments, blue flames and coiling tubes and
burbling liquids, shimmering crystals and clockwork gears. A magical laboratory hidden in the side of a
mountain, in the heart of a thinking, knowing forest. And in that laboratory, a faerie scientist was working, just like in a fairytale.
“Are you ready?” Izia stepped away from the table that she had been helping prepare, wiping her
hands on a rag. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright, as though she’d been working hard since
she’d sent them to shower. Ezqel had his back to them, bent over a workbench so that Lindsay couldn’t see
what held his attention. “I was about to come find you.”
“More than,” Dane grumbled, before Lindsay could apologize for being slow going up the mountain.
The way Dane sounded, it was Ezqel and Izia who’d been slow.
“I need to take some notes.” Taniel bobbed at them, a fu
and scampered off. Lindsay liked him more all the time. He wondered if he would have been like Taniel if
his parents hadn’t wanted him to be something he wasn’t.
“You first.” Izia gave Lindsay a smile, rolling down her sleeves and smoothing out her robe.
“Me…?” Lindsay wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. What had he been expecting?
The doctor’s office? More and more, he felt the huge gap between his knowledge and his new reality.
Awareness was only a small step toward knowing. He had so far to go.
“Unless you want to see your friend go first,” Ezqel said, not turning around. “But I don’t think he’d
like that.”
www.samhainpublishing.com
125
Anah Crow and Dia
Izia held out her hands. “I’ll take your robe. You won’t need it until after.”
Oh. It wasn’t like Lindsay had any shame, not about that. He just felt so exposed already. “I…” He started to speak, but Ezqel turned to look at him and Lindsay really was ashamed. Coward. “Here.” He slid the robe from his shoulders, surrendering it to her.
The tiny purr of approval that Lindsay heard from Dane made him flush and stand straighter at once.
Dane liked the look of him. Even that small thing made Lindsay’s vanity—silent so long he’d thought it
dead—rise up and give him more strength.
“On the table.” Ezqel’s voice filled the room effortlessly. The fae mage stood and came over to the
table. Taniel was a step behind with a tray of instruments, including an inkwell and quill, in his hands. “I’ll deal with you later,” Ezqel said to Dane. There was a dismissive chill in his voice that gave Lindsay pause.
Izia was trying to help him up onto the table, using a small wooden step stool, but Lindsay froze. The
fact that he was broken and naked didn’t matter a damn. He wasn’t doing anything as long as Ezqel was
speaking to Dane that way. “I want him to stay,” Lindsay blurted out. Something in him whispered that,
though Ezqel was doing him a favor, he’d done one for Ezqel too, something no one else could do.
Everyone turned to look at Lindsay and he sat on the cold stone table quickly, hands in his lap, trying
not to shiver, trying to stay brave. “Please,” he added quietly. Please don’t send him away.
The silence was unbearable, finally broken by the shifting of velvet as Ezqel shrugged. “It’s not my
healing,” he said flatly, as though it really were.
Lindsay couldn’t look at Dane, in case Dane was disappointed in him or, worse, embarrassed. Instead,
he turned his attention to the stone table that was freezing his backside. It was dark silver granite inset with metal and stones, white and red and black. The metal had been shaped into runes that he thought he
remembered from somewhere. Maybe from the floor.
“Are you sure?” Izia’s voice was soft. She put a gentle hand on Lindsay’s arm. “Taniel and I will be
here with you. If he stays, he will see you.”
The way Izia said that word, see, made Lindsay realize that she was talking about something other
than seeing him naked. Dane would see something about him that even lovers wouldn’t normally share.
The moment his eyes met Dane’s dark stare, he knew. “I’m sure.”
Dane stepped into his range of vision, keeping himself the focus for Lindsay’s attention. His arms
were crossed over his chest and his expression was calm. “You’re going to be fine,” he said, his voice low.
Lindsay met Dane’s gaze again and nodded. He would be.
“I was able to identify the particular artifact used on you.” Ezqel turned to Taniel, who was standing
by a small cart with all kinds of equipment arranged on it, a tall black glass cylinder in the center. From the tray Taniel held, Ezqel took a small gold pot of ink and a black crow’s quill. “That will make it easy to reverse the spells.”
126
www.samhainpublishing.com
Tatterdemalion
Ezqel brought the ink and quill over to Lindsay. “I’ll make the proper inscriptions to lay the
groundwork for the second half of the process, then we’ll attach the heart artifact. I only bother explaining this to you so that, possibly, you will stop being quite so anxious. It interferes with my concentration.”
“I’ll try to stop,” Lindsay promised, glancing at Ezqel apologetically. He didn’t mean to make
anything more difficult.
“I could distract him.” Dane smiled at Lindsay. Izia and Taniel both gave Dane discouraging looks
and Ezqel exhaled sharply.
Blushing fiercely, Lindsay shot Dane a glare that was softened by the grin tugging at his lips, and
ducked his head to hide behind his hair. Dane chuckled.
“Hold out your hands.” There was an edge to Ezqel’s voice that Lindsay remembered well enough
from his childhood—the sound of him trying someone’s patience with his wretched needs. Lindsay flushed
and obeyed, trying to keep his hands steady. “Don’t move.”