Page 62 of Wizards & Weavers
He turned around, gaze falling on the open door of the bedroom he’d only just emerged from — and then he noticed the fourth door in the corner. Huh. Braiden could have sworn that wasn’t there the night before, or even this morning. How could he have missed an entire other room?
Whatever. Fists balled, chin upraised, he took long, determined strides toward the fourth door, ready to fight — only for all his muscles to relax as he stepped past the threshold.
It was a garden, only indoors. A very, very sparse one, by the looks of it, only grass and a few bushes, but Braiden still marveled at the impossibility of the environment. The room had its four usual walls, covered in leaves instead of wallpaper.
He gazed up at the ceiling, jaw dropping when he saw that it wasn’t the roof at all, but a forest canopy. Between the boughs and branches — were those slivers of moonlight, or was it the glow of distant stars?
So fascinated was Braiden by the unexpected sight that he hadn’t even noted how the Wizard of Weathervale was raking leaves along the forest — no, along the room’s floor. His muscles bulged and flexed as he worked, which was very easy to see because Augustin had apparently decided to strip himself to the waist.
The annoyingly enticing sight took some of the steam out of the boiling kettle of Braiden’s anger, even though the room itself was somewhat steamy. It was humid and quite a bit hotter than the rest of the house. Akin to standing in a jungle, Braiden imagined.
“How?” Braiden breathed, unable to keep the question to himself. It was hard to stay so annoyed with such lovely sights for his tired eyes to savor.
He meant the impossible miniature forest, naturally, and not the sweaty, olive-skinned, leanly muscled man presently raking leaves over indoor grass.
“The house appears to expand when it’s necessary,” Augustin answered, his tone just polite enough. “Now that there’s four of us, it’s making room. Literally. This must be the new expansion.”
Braiden could still detect the barest hint of animosity in there somewhere. Both a good and a bad thing, really. They were so close to the end of their dungeon adventure. This wasn’t the time for a blowup between Braiden and his strongest ally, certainly not one over a silly misunderstanding.
A misunderstanding over the Il-venessi coins, that is. Augustin still needed to explain all the nonsense with his whistle stone and how he knew — or how much he knew — about the elementals before they began the expedition.
Braiden approached Augustin’s side of the room, eyeing the tools he’d placed in the corner. “And I suppose you’re helping the process along? By pruning and cleaning, I mean.”
The wizard gave a grunt, his powerful shoulders shrugging.
“Mind if I help?” Braiden asked, picking up a pair of gardening shears.
Augustin grunted again. It was a better response than yelling, at least. The sulking, Braiden could deal with. It didn’t hurt as much as when the wizard had given him a look of such wounded betrayal back out in the icy cavern.
“Found them in one of the storage cupboards,” Augustin said, gesturing at the pile of tools. “You can start over there if you like.”
Braiden stared at the shears, then at one of the large bushes that Augustin had indicated. He didn’t know the first thing aboutgardening, but a pair of shears was really just an oversized pair of scissors, wasn’t it? This wouldn’t be any different than, say, shaping a bobble of yarn to attach to the tip of a knitted hat, or trimming some felted wool.
That they were very large scissors to begin with should have been warning enough for Braiden’s underused muscles. He snuck woeful glances at the wizard’s remarkably toned arms, telling himself he was only admiring them out of athletic curiosity and for no other reason.
Snip. Clip. And between the snips and clips came the rustle of leaves as Augustin raked them away from the floor. This was going to take forever — more and more of the leaves kept falling from the walls — but the room had to be cleared if they ever hoped to put any furniture in.
And the air, Braiden decided, very much needed some clearing, too. Breathing felt harder here, but he knew it wasn’t the moisture in the air. He had to say something.
But the wizard said something first.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” he said softly, sullenly.
It was still a kind sentiment, Braiden knew, and almost very sweet.
“Thank you,” Braiden said. “For thinking of me. And for carrying me indoors. That was very nice of you.”
Augustin shrugged. “I’m sorry I didn’t pick up the coins for you. Elyssandra was very quick. She collected them before they could freeze to the floor.”
Braiden lowered his shears and palmed the sweat from his forehead. “I hope you know that I didn’t take the coins to betray you. Elder Orora pushed them on me with a promise to pay her back. With interest.”
The wizard snorted. “I believe you on that, at least. That sounds exactly like something she would do.”
“I have every intention of giving the coins back,” Braiden continued. “And I won’t lie to you. Your grandmother and I, our goals just happened to align. Neither of us wanted you to seal the dungeon. She just asked me to keep an eye on you along the way.”
Augustin balanced the rake on the ground and leaned his forearm against its shaft, taking a break to talk. “I don’t blame you, you know. You did say that your family’s shop wasn’t doing so well. Those dragons would help a lot. Very rare. It just stings that grandmother still doesn’t trust me enough to do the thing that I’m known for.”
Braiden stabbed his shears into the earth. “I told you, I’m going to give them back. I don’t want to owe anything to the Lighthouse, and certainly not to Orora Arcosa. No offense. And the burrowfolk — well, Grandest Mother Magda promised me I could harvest as much moongrass filament as I could carry if I helped to stop the source of the dungeon’s danger.”
