Page 26 of Bound and Tide

She didn’t have to, she could feel his intent digging into her as if she’d propositioned him rather than threatened. He wasn’t afraid, that was obvious, but then she wasn’t either, was she? She was angry, yes, and confused, but if anyone could spoil and steal the el’erium growing in her walls, it was a blood mage, yet he let her bear down on him as if she were fully in control.

He could kill her easily and avoid the shop’s arcane defenses by simply slitting her throat with that dagger he’d been using on the herbs. And he already had access to the shop, she’d practically handed it over by assigning him chores that would have allowed him to be alone in the back room. Yet he hadn’t taken advantage of any of that.

Evangeline slid her other hand between them, wrapped fingers around his cock, and squeezed. “You are a brat.”

Xander’s eyes brightened, and he groaned shamelessly. “I know. What else?”

But she just as quickly let him go and instead snatched up the vial. All of the playfulness went out of his face as she yanked him further into a bent position by the cord around his neck. Magic fluttered against the glass just as it had up against her own over the dying hunter’s wounds, but there was something else inside the vial, something aged and strange and distressing.

“Fine, you’re a blood mage. You still haven’t explained—”

“I’ve been very forthcoming,” he cut in and tugged the vial from her grip, straightening. “And I’ve seen that big temple in the center of town that everyone flocks to in worship of one of your Empyrean gods. More holy knights troll Bendcrest’s streets than city guards. Is revealing myself in enemy territory not risk enough for you to answer any of my own questions?”

Evangeline crossed her arms and gestured with her chin over his shoulder. “Stew bowls are in that cabinet.”

“Wonderful!” Again he spun away from her as if they were not on the precipice of killing one another and began to ladle out stew. “I think you’ll find this to be much better than the swill you were—and I use this term generously—cooking.”

She took the filled bowl that he offered and turned her back on him. She remained unattacked when she reached the stool behind the counter.

Xander paced away from the hearth and into the center of her shop, tapping his mouth with a spoon. She watched, her elven arcana calming but keeping her alert enough to know he wasn’t casting about to feel for the apothecary’s defenses. What was he intending to do?

Xander finally took a bite. Well, he was eating, apparently.

“So, your apothecary,” he said, irises glittering as he took in the shelves with appreciation. “I first wandered in here because its proprietor is ravishing, but there is just something about it, isn’t there? What’s really in these walls?”

There was no use in hiding it, so Evangeline stirred her stew and watched the imps crawl out from behind the room’s corners to gather around Xander’s feet. “El’erium.”

“I heard you the first time, but we both know that’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. I may have been very young, but I remember that my mother came to Bendcrest with only two things: a small sack of coins and an el’erium seed. Feed them.”

Xander made a show of handing off his bowl to the imps and then got another for himself before coming up to the counter and lazing across from her. “But el’erium isn’t real.”

She gestured vaguely to the shop.

“Your mother fed you some fairytale, and now you’re going to pass it on to me? How sweet.”

“Are you going to shut up and listen to me, or are you going to mage-splain something that I know more about than you ever could?”

Xander clicked his tongue. “I’m going to shut up.” He stuffed another spoonful into his mouth.

She stirred her stew, and Evangeline’s shoulders lost their tension as she inhaled its warmth. It was difficult to speak about Maisie at times, but the words felt a little easier with a hot bowl warming her hands, especially since it had been given to her instead of ladled out herself. “It was nearly thirty years ago when she decided to leave the Kvesari Wood and her tribe. She never said why, but I presume it was not easy having me there.”

“Ears weren’t pointy enough?”

“That’s not shutting up.” She finally took a bite and was too pleased at the taste to stay mad at him. “We traveled for over a year until she found this place. I was very young and couldn’t see what she did—it was such a mess like everything else on this road, the ceiling was caving in, there was damp in nearly every beam, and a couple direrats had turned the back room into a breeding ground. But it was cheap, and the el’erium seed was drawn to the soil beneath the floorboards, so she purchased the place from Lord Terrin. It’s one of my clearest memories, sitting on her lap while she signed the deed. And anyway, she told me it would be a wonderful adventure, and it was.”

Evangeline took another bite, nostalgia tickling at the back of her mind, and as she told him, she could see it again, the office in the massive estate that she had then thought was a castle, the golden pen the man had used to sign the parchment, the trading away of every coin her mother had left.

Gaze lifting to Xander, she was taken aback by the change to his face, softness to his eyes and lips. She shook her head and tugged the corners of her mouth back down. “So, she cleaned this place up, and she offered her wares for a reasonable price. People didn’t want to trust her at first as she was the only elf in town, but the shop prospered because they felt that same thing that you did when they wandered inside, only they didn’t know it was magic convincing them to see past their intolerance.”

“The el’erium,” he said with a tinge of distrust.

She nodded.

“I’ve been to the Kvesari Wood, you know. I even have a little el’erium seed trinket I nicked from a Dil’wator’wovl shrine. Never once saw the actual plant nor did I meet anyone who could say for certain whether it existed.”

“Then everyone you met was smart enough to keep it from you.” She took another spoonful and again any annoyance she had with him was swallowed away.

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