Page 24 of The Faceless Mage

And it was onlytenguards because Lady Piperell hadn’t seemed to even consider the idea of offering tea to the Raven, who had taken up a post in one of the corners. He was, after all, wearing a mask, and there was no way for him to drink without taking it off. Perhaps he never took it off in front of others.

But as Leisa sat there watching the others nervously sip their tea while waiting for Captain Orvell’s return, the demon of curiosity (or perhaps sheer contrariness) began to plague her.

So she gestured to Lady Piperell for another cup. When the other woman held it out, steam rising sinuously from the surface of the russet liquid, Leisa deliberately ignored the voice in her head suggesting she was about to do something stupid, and took it. Then she made her way to the corner of the room where her new shadow lurked, silent and still.

“Would you care for tea?” She asked shyly, her eyes on the cup as she held it out in both hands.

From the general response, one might have thought she’d suggested he might like to eat a small child. All conversation in the room fell silent and was replaced by a sort of mesmerized horror, as if they knew something terrible was about to happen but couldn’t look away.

Leisa ignored them. Again, she felt that strange prickling sensation that she was convinced meant the Raven was watching her. But this time, she lifted her gaze and watched him back, focusing intently on the eyeholes in the mask. She wondered whether whoever was in there could feel her regard as she did his. Whether he even liked tea. Or why she even cared.

The steam from the cup curled through the air between them, the only motion in the room as she held out her offering, wondering how long her stupidity—or stubbornness—would demand that she stand there.

Too long, probably. Leisa finally let out a sigh and dropped her eyes to the tea. Perhaps she’d insulted him. Or perhaps she was assigning motives and emotions where none existed. She might as well drink it herself.

But before she could retreat, before she could lower the cup, one black-gauntleted hand covered hers. It never touched, merely hovered over the cup as if asking a question.

Leisa didn’t dare breathe, and from the silence around her, neither did anyone else in the room. She simply lifted the cup again, fractionally, to make clear that she intended him to take it.

When he did, she almost fell over.

Chapter 7

The cup seemed tiny and fragile in his hands. What had possessed him to take it? He couldn’t drink it, and the incongruous sight of a porcelain teacup in his gauntleted hands was likely to make him a figure more to be ridiculed than respected.

Especially now that he was stuck standing there like a statue with steam curling up in front of him, obscuring his vision when he needed it the most.

And what was the princess doing? After shocking him so profoundly?

She simply returned to her seat. As though there was nothing very surprising about either of their actions.

The spectators, however, gave the lie to that assumption. The moment she seated herself, it was as if the entire room began to breathe again. Had they been waiting for him to dash the cup to the ground? Behead her in cold fury? Or had they simply expected him to ignore her as he typically ignored everyone?

As heshouldhave done.

Why hadn’t he?

Interest seemed a poor excuse for his actions. Yes, she interested him, as precious little had interested him in the past ten years. Little, that is, except his desire for escape. For revenge. Those filled his heart and mind so completely, there should be room for nothing else.

So how had she suddenly captured his attention to the point of provoking him into behaving out of character?

He could blame her lies, or the secrets she carried behind her enigmatic green eyes. Blame her bizarre shifts from shy and stammering to pointed and provoking. Or he could blame that unfamiliar power that seethed beneath her skin, calling him as nothing else in this dry, magic-dead country had called to him in years.

She was smiling now, as she gazed into her tea—a mysterious expression that made her look… happy.

Why should it have made the princess happy to give him tea?

And why did she not smell so afraid anymore?

Ahah. Perhaps that was the explanation. She was still attempting to make him more real, more knowable. As she had in the ballroom, she was attacking her own fear by changing her perception of him.

The Raven experienced a moment of startled respect as he acknowledged her tactics and wondered whether he’d erred by allowing her to succeed.

Ifshe’d actually succeeded. And if shehad, it was only on her own behalf—no one else in the room was bold enough to allow their glances to wander in his direction. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one to be unnerved by their exchange.

But unnerved or not, now he was stuck with tea that he couldn’t get rid of.

Fortunately, he was saved from this dilemma by the return of Captain Orvell, an obsequious little weasel who lived to do his king’s bidding. He was an excellent captain in many ways, but he hadn’t a thought in his head that the king hadn’t put there and would probably hesitate to draw a breath without the king’s express permission.

---