Page 64 of Malady

“You are staring.”

I startle so badly that I nearly drop my basket, catching it against my hip before the whole bloody lot ends up on the floor.

“I’m checking for claws,” I mutter, shrugging off my cloak and setting the basket on the counter.

Iscairn props the poker against the hearth and glances over at me, firelight sliding across the pale curve of his mask. “I was human once, Ophelia. Most of the original architecture remains intact.”

Heat slips low through my belly, settling somewhere considerably more embarrassing and making me shift where I stand.

Does that mean he still has a⁠—

Oh, Ophelia. What are you doing? What is wrong with you?

There must be some sensible explanation for this that has absolutely nothing to do with Iscairn, or what may or may not remain beneath all those layers of black fabric.

Perhaps it’s the moon. People are forever blaming the moon when a woman’s body starts behaving strangely, as though it spends its nights tugging at our blood and stirring up trouble for the amusement of it, and at present I’m perfectly willing to let it take responsibility for mine.

Except I bled two weeks ago, and I’m not due again for another two.

Ah. Halfway between bleedings. So this is my body being ridiculous, and nothing whatsoever to do with Iscairn’s⁠—

No. Absolutely not.

I busy my hands with the tea, desperate for a distraction, while the scent of sweet herbs and woodsmoke drifts through the shop. I pull the chamomile from the shelf and add a little dried mint before reaching for the crushed cardamom pods Iscairn has been quietly leaving on my counter to placate me for most of a week. A careful quarter-spoon of those, too.

Before I can reach for the kettle, Iscairn steps up beside me, lifting it from the hook with his bare hands—seemingly unbothered by the scalding metal—and pours the steaming water over the leaves himself.

“Thank you,” I murmur, reaching for the chipped cup when he offers it to me.

Our fingers meet against the clay.

It should be nothing more than that, the same thoughtless brush of hands that’s happened many a time while passing instruments and jars between us, but this time I feel it everywhere. His fingers are wonderfully warm beneath mine, his thumb resting against the side of my hand, and for some reason neither of us moves. His skin isn’t rough, either. No cracked knuckles or calloused palms from all those years spent working with his hands, and before I can quite help myself, I’m thinking about what the rest of him might feel like.

Pack it in.

I pull the cup from his grip, sloshing hot tea over the rim, and pivot towards the hearth, blowing the steam from the surface.

This is nothing. Less than nothing. I’m halfway between bleedings; my body has apparently decided it is desperate to be filled with child, and standing within arm’s reach of a man while I’m carrying on like a fox in heat is clearly a poor idea.

Particularly when said man is not entirely a man.

Iscairn leans back against the edge of the counter opposite me, folding his arms across his chest while those amber lenses settle on my face with enough attention to make me suddenly very interested in my tea.

“You are on edge this evening.”

“Can you blame me? I’ve spent long enough looking at that beak and black leather. I’d made my peace with the idea. But now...” I gesture to his bare hands. “It was much easier when I thought you were covered in warts or rotting away. I fear the curiosity is worse now I know you have nice hands.”

His posture stiffens. “It is merely skin and bone. Nothing worthy of such intense speculation.”

I set my cup aside and take a step towards him, close enough now that I have to tip my head back to look at his mask. I’ve wondered for weeks what the peculiar thing might feel like, and I’m quite tired of wondering. Besides, he’s hardly going to bite my fingers off for touching it. I hope.

I lift my hand, giving him a moment to protest before resting my fingertips against the pale curve of his beak. It’s smoother than I expected, almost silky beneath my touch, and I cannot resist running my fingers a little farther along it. Only when my thumb passes over the ridge do I feel the tiny imperfections in the bone, the hairline cracks and faint unevenness of something that was once living.

Bone. It really is bone.

His hand closes around my wrist, and he gently draws my fingers away from the beak. Slowly, he steps back with me still caught in his grasp, moving out of the firelight, then lowers my hand between us and lets go.

“No,” he says, folding his arms over his chest and hiding those beautiful hands from me again. “Mortals have delicate constitutions. You have grown used to a doctor in a mask, Ophelia. You look at me and tell yourself the beak is only a beak, and everything beneath it is close enough to human. If I remove it, you lose that luxury. You will stop seeing your colleague and remember what I am. Do not ask for things you are not prepared to live with.”