Page 46 of Twisted Magic

“Yes.” Fearing she’d fall asleep the moment she stopped moving, Alise elected not to sit after all and instead wandered around the cozy room. A fireplace, currently unlit, was neatly laid, and the glimpse of his bedchamber showed more piles of books on the table next to the bed, but the bed itself had been made, the counterpane unwrinkled. “No doubt your Harahel wizardry and training are at work there, allowing you to catalog everything. I bet you always know exactly where everything is. Enviable, really.”

“True. I’m good at keeping order for other people in the library, but for myself—why bother? I could spend my time in such more interesting ways. Cinnamon roll?”

“Excuse me?”

He held out a plate. “Cinnamon roll. I made them myself.”

She took the plate, set it on a rare, clear corner of the counter, perched on a stool there, and peeled off the outer coil. The sweet yeasty smell made her want to gobble the whole thing, but she restrained herself to a polite nibble. Sugary and warmly spicy, she nearly moaned aloud at the deliciousness, chewing thoroughly before indulging in another, bigger bite. Realizing she’d closed her eyes, she opened them to find Cillian watching her with a grin.

“Good?” he asked, though he clearly knew that wasn’t in question.

“Amazingly good.” She peeled off another layer of outer coil. “Is baking an interesting way to spend your time?”

“It lets me think about interesting things. And it’s soothing. And I get to have cinnamon rolls, so it’s a win all around.” Something sizzled on another elemental-heated surface and he turned to deal with it. The scent of frying meat hit the air, a savory counterpoint to the sweet roll. “How do you like your eggs?”

“As long as they’re not hard as old gum, I don’t care.”

“I know what you mean. How a person eats a cinnamon roll tells you a lot about them,” he continued conversationally, his back still to her.

“Oh?” Alise studied her half-eaten roll, which looked more like a tower than a circle now, with the gooey center exposed and upright. She hated to think what that said about her.

“Yes. Some people just bite in and eat it like any bun. Others, like you, uncoil it. Unlike you, however, most uncoilers eat the soft center first.” He set a mug of steaming tea before her, fragrant as midsummer blossoms.

“All right, I’ll bite, so to speak—what does this tell you about me?” She sipped gingerly, suppressing a sigh at the zinging heat of spices.

Turning, he set a plate in front of her with several strips of bacon, softly scrambled eggs with bits of chive in them, and pile of fresh blueberries. “Meticulous, careful, controlled.”

That wasn’t wrong, but it also sounded dreadfully boring.

“And you either save the best for last or deny yourself the best part altogether,” he added with a nod at the cinnamon roll center still perched on her plate. “We’ve established you prefer your food soft, not hard, so…”

She popped the final piece of roll into her mouth, where it practically melted in a blaze of sweet goo. “Maybe that’s just eggs,” she said after swallowing, then dug into said eggs.

“Maybe.” He had a way of saying the word like he utterly disagreed but didn’t want to say so.

“Besides,” she added, stung by his noncommittal reply, “life is difficult. There’s no sense avoiding the hard parts and pretending the sweet is there without suffering through the rest.”

“Why, Wizard Alise, how astonishingly cynical you are at such a tender age.”

“I just turned eighteen. Hardly a tender age.”

“A matter of perspective.” Digging into his own food, he said nothing more.

She noticed he ate the center of his cinnamon roll first, and before anything else, leaving the discarded outer coils in an untidy heap. Attempting to think of a neutral bit of conversation to fill the void, she startled at the knock on the door.

“Ah, that’s Marah, no doubt.” He went to the door cheerfully greeting the woman who entered.

She was middle-aged, with brown hair and matching eyes, a veiled weariness to her, though her smile for Cillian seemed sincere. She was also a familiar. “Need a topping off, Wizard Cillian?” she was asking. “You must be working hard as it’s only been a few—” She stopped short at the sight of Alise. “No, I don’t do students. Them academy folks don’t like me interfering with their programs.”

“As a personal favor, Marah,” Cillian coaxed. “This is Alise and she’s wrung out. I need her help with a project and I can’t do that if she’s out of juice.”

Marah studied her, not in a friendly way either. “Alise Elal, is it? You’re the one that done run off.”

“It’s Alise Phel now,” Alise answered with all the composure she could muster. “And you need not give me your magic. Cillian made an assumption.”

“She’s a cool one, ain’t she?” Marah asked Cillian. “Breakfast smells good.”

“Let me make you a plate,” Cillian said as if nothing could please him more.

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