Page 60 of Never the Roses

“Not the road,” she replied with perplexing immediacy, her gaze shooting silver back to his. “Not anywhere,” she corrected. “It would be unwise of me to leave the protection of my wards.”

“Up until a moment ago, you were outside of them,” he pointed out.

“How do you know that?” She sounded more curious than defensive now.

He tapped his temple. “I know wards. When youlookedto see who knocked, I sensed that youlookedfrom outside your wards, rather than from within. Where were you?”

“Walking in the mountains,” she replied absently, her mind clearly still fixed on the question of him perceiving that she’dbeen outside her wards. “Could other sorcerers do that—sense when I’m outside my wards?”

“Maybe a handful in all the world,” he answered honestly, “and they’d have to know you like I do.”

“You don’tknowme, Stearanos,” she corrected stiffly.

“More than most,” he offered with a smile. Adsila flew into sight from over the edge of the cliff and arrowed downward. To the surprise of both humans, the kestrel shot to Stearanos’s shoulder. He was so pleased, he squelched the wince of pain as Adsila’s talons pierced the thin shirt he’d worn. He’d chosen it because a woman once commented that it suited him, and because it would demonstrate that he came unarmored and unarmed. Well, as much as a sorcerer ever could be. “Look, even Adsila approves.”

She fixed the tiny raptor with an irritated glare. “Traitor.”

Adsila chirped and rubbed her beak against Stearanos’s cheek. “Let me in, Oneira. I won’t harm you.”

She sniffed. “As if you could.”

“Exactly.”

Gazing at him a moment longer, she relented. “Oh, very well, but don’t make me regret this. And you leave the moment I tell you to.”

“All you have to do is ask.” The wards shifted, opening a passage the width of his shoulders, and he stepped through, wading the short distance to her. She held her ground, as always, inclining her head in a formal greeting. “Do I get a kiss hello?” he asked, unable to resist teasing her.

“So much for ‘only talk,’” she retorted.

“I feel I should point out that thisisonly talking and I did ask politely.”

“Nothing is everonlywith you, sorcerer,” she grumbled, but he caught the hint of amusement in her tone.

“I could say the same of you.”

They stood there a moment, face-to-face. Not close enough to kiss, but not far from it. She studied him, thoughts obscure behind those clear silver eyes. “Well, come up to the house then. Are you hungry?”

“For food made by your fair hands? Always.”

“Someone has been practicing his extravagant courtier’s flattery.”

He fell into step beside her, bemused by how right it felt. All this time of thinking about her and missing her should have been an indicator, and yet he hadn’t quite expected that this, just walking beside her, would settle the restless unhappiness that had been plaguing him. “Not flattery, because I mean it honestly, but I have been at court of late, and that obsequious language has likely filtered into my head. Think of my mind as ink stained and needing a good wash to restore it. Intelligent conversation with you will have it handled within an hour.”

She slid him a sideways look. “Should you be telling me that?”

Tempted as he was to riff on his metaphor, he figured he might as well not dance around it, as he’d have to admit to it before long, regardless. “No, but what I need to discuss with you all falls under the umbrella of confidential information I shouldn’t be sharing, so there we are.”

She stopped, one foot on the next step, looking upward and not at him. “I cannot advise you in a war against the queen. I gave my oath to Her Majesty.”

“Nor would I ask that of you,” he replied solemnly.

“Then what do you ask?”

“You want to discuss it here, halfway up the stairs?”

Glancing at him with a ghost of a smile, she said, “Apropos, as we seem to be caught between worlds in several ways.”

He answered her smile with a wry and rueful one. “Painfully true.”

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