Page 99 of A Touch of Poison
“I’ll get these out of our way,” he muttered.
The purple pair he swept away with his foot, but the other slippers, he scooped up like I’d scooped up Vespera when she was a kitten. He placed them beside the fire, then gestured for me to take the chair they’d sat before.
I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was taking someone else’s spot, even though I knew he lived alone. Or at least he did now.
I gave him a small, tight smile.
“Take off your gloves.”
“But—”
“I’m nowhere near you,” he said, sinking into the other armchair. “We won’t touch—I don’t have a death wish. But the marks on your fingers are part of your magic. I want to be able to see them.”
With a sigh, I obeyed. “I thought this was about my thoughts.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You think these things are separate?”
“I think I have no idea what my magic is, just that it’s here and I can do nothing with it… except risk killing someone with a careless touch.”
“Then listen to me, young human. I’ve been doing this longer than your people have been speaking Albionic.”
My eyes widened. “Wait, how old are you?”
“Old enough that I know what I’m doing. Now,” his voice pitched lower, “look into the fire.”
I probably shouldn’t trust the random fae I’d met on the street. But he’d had opportunities to hurt me or steal thoughts from my mind and hadn’t. This couldn’t be any more risky than that.
The flames licked in the fireplace with that odd orange-pink hue. The magic meant they could call the fire into being with a word and extinguish it just as easily. It also didn’t burn flesh and could only escape its fireplace with outside influence. There were no accidental house fires in Elfhame.
“Now what?” I threw him a glance.
“Now, you learn some patience. Stars above, human attention spans are as short as a gnat’s.” He huffed. “Youkeeplooking at the fire. Focus on it.”
I did as he asked, waiting for the next instruction. This couldn’t beit, right?
“Let your breaths slow,” he murmured. “We’re not trying to get rid of thoughts or emotions. They are important and necessary.”
I wasn’t sure emotions were. They were nothing but confusing. Thoroughly impractical.
“But we need some stillness and perspective on them too. We don’t want them to control us.”
That I could understand. I didn’t wantanythingto control me. Too many things had.
Fear. My father. My uncle.
The hairs on my arms prickled, but I kept my eyes on the flames.
“Thoughts and feelings will come, just acknowledge, then nudge them away. They’ll soon float off, like clouds in the sky.”
Dutifully, I did just that. Goodbye, fear. Goodbye, Father. Goodbye, Uncle Rufus.
“All you need to focus on is the fire. What do you see? What can you feel? Scent, colour, shape—focus on your senses.”
Its warmth pushed away the lingering chill from outside. But I’d thought fae fires scentless. I drew a deeper breath. The hint of woodsmoke and something faintly herbal.
The longer I watched, the more I saw. As well as the coral pink and deep sunset orange, other colours leapt in the flames. Yellow frilled its edges. Sparking green and deep blue tangled at its centre, hugging the burning wood.
There were shapes, too. Just flashing for an instant. Huge hulking beasts with long tusks. The Great Yew, with its split trunk and spreading branches, followed a blink later by Dawn’s Great Oak, upright and proud. A couple locked in a spinning dance.
