Rogue's Pawn (15 page)

Darling purred his approval, then sent me an image of myself with enormous breasts. I swatted him.

“No, I like them fine, thank you! And what is a cat doing thinking about human breasts?”

He winked slyly at me, most un-catlike. I really hoped he wouldn’t turn out to be some kind of shape-shifter who’d show up in human form someday. Darling perked up and sent me an image of him changing into a handsome man who knelt at my feet with an armload of blossoms.

“So sweet,” I said, scratching under his chin. “For your reward, you may share my bed.”

In my pre-dinner complacency, I hadn’t yet created my futon, and I really didn’t want to deal now. Resigned to an aching back in the morning, I grabbed my camp blankets—quilted silk, not army wool—piled together some of the flatter pillows in the corner, and lay down.

I closed my eyes and saw it all play out again, across the screen of my eyelids.

Burning pillows sailing through the night. That little page, hands blistering and cracking as he laid hold of each one, until he, too, was a little stuffed silk luxury ablaze.

I’d better not think about it, as emotional as I was, or I could re-create the whole horrid event.

My gut congealed in an icy fist. Maybe I had unthinkingly created the event in the first place, wondering about the fire hazards of Dragonfly’s candles. The magic sometimes worked that way, manifesting general circumstances that you daydreamed about.

It paid to keep your fantasies happy ones.

Chapter
Sixteen

In Which I Return to the Laboratory

The Bell Jar experiment failed spectacularly. That night I dreamed of Rogue, more vividly than ever.

He sat back on a bed I’d never before seen, massive with wood and velvety materials. Dressed in his customary black, Rogue leaned back against mounded pillows in shades of dark ruby and midnight emerald, his legs crossed at the ankles. His hair fell loose, spilling around his shoulders. His face impassive behind the winding inky lines, he watched me where I stood next to the bed.

In front of me, draped over the velvet coverlet, streamed something in pale lace, nearly white, but blue enough to pick up the navy-dark highlights in all the inky covers of the bed.

Put it on,
he told me, though I don’t recall hearing his voice.

I slid out of my dress, standing naked in the light of the room before I slipped on the confection of lace. It was the kind of thing that made you feel more nude than simple nakedness. The bodice dropped low over my breasts, hugging the curves so that the lacy swirls just barely covered my nipples. Looking down, I could see them, hard and bright pink, pressing through the fragile strands. The lace fell in streamers down my legs, tantalizing with what it revealed and hid.

Rogue watched me, burning. My skin heated where his gaze traveled and I looked down, vulnerable to the intensity of it. A green silk sash was also draped on the bed. Longing welled up in me, a dark hope that he’d bind my wrists with it. I wanted him to command me to give it to him and then lie on the bed with my wrists crossed over my head while he tied my hands to the headboard. I trembled with the desire, desperate for the command, terrified that he’d taste my desire in my thoughts and do it.

Terrified that he wouldn’t do it.

I half-awoke to dreamy sunlight and fierce arousal. Moisture trickled uncomfortably between my thighs. Naked under my blankets, I slid a finger between my legs. It only took a few strokes and I shuddered in the fierce, bright orgasm. The energy of it pulsed through me in long waves, sweet and cleansing. For that drowsy moment, I didn’t even mind that it was Rogue’s eyes that blazed in my mind, or the scent of sandalwood and lilies that warmed the morning air.

Dragonfly came singing in, breaking the sensual daze.

Fully awake, I now felt the deep bruising in my breast. The surreal horror of the night before. And here I lay, drowning in erotic fantasies about the man who was probably my greatest enemy here.

Well, tossup between him, Falcon, the Dog, the Monochromatic Sadistic Twins. So many nemeses to choose from.

Rogue hadn’t stopped playing me. He’d found those dark fantasies hidden in the corners of my heart, the raw wounds still bleeding from my trainers’ attentions, and was using it all to try to control me.

Dragonfly brought me a dressing robe I didn’t remember ever trying on and I slipped into it. I made myself use the chamber pot, fitting the lid tightly afterward. I thought about taking it somewhere to empty myself but still had no idea where to go. Not exactly a glamorous lifestyle.

I kicked pillows aside as I made my way over to study the Rogue Lily, resplendent inside the glass, dewy fresh and luminous as ever. I sniffed the air, but the scent of lilies and sandalwood had faded. The dusky blue of the flower’s throat drew my attention, reminding me of the slow burn in Rogue’s eyes watching me in the lace lingerie. Waiting for me to hand him that dammed silk sash.

With a sharp thought fueled by the anger, I shattered the glass.

Dragonfly squealed and I ignored her.

A feeling of power surged through me. Bright and jewel-toned. The daylight side. My own magic. I was no one’s pet. No one’s sex slave. If I wanted to remain my own person, then I needed to take steps.

Starting with destroying Rogue’s “gift.”

I understood the gift-thing now. By accepting the lily, I had opened a door between us. By keeping it, I allowed a connection between Rogue and me. One that just happened to be toxic to my well-being. At least Rogue hadn’t tried to convince me that it was all about love. There was an honesty in that, I supposed.

This would be my honest answer.

Hopefully Falcon wouldn’t be checking up on me too soon. It was possible Dragonfly reported back to him. I thought I could be convincing, however, that all my work was research into light-emanating objects. Lord knew that sort of shell-game worked with grant agencies.

I set Dragonfly to clearing one end of the tent—while I grabbed something from the breakfast tray she’d brought—piling the pillows into neat columns, removing the broken glass. Some of her fellow worker bees brought in more tables to be my workbenches. While I disliked the helplessness of having to ask for everything I needed, the assistance was definitely a perk.

With the ceiling flaps pinned back, I had good light to work with. I laid the lily in the bright sunbeam and studied it. It lay there, sultry and sweet. I twisted my hair into a knot and studied the treacherous flower. I had always been most myself when working out a problem.

“My lady sorceress, would you like to bathe and dress?”

“Later.”

“But my lady…”

“Dragonfly,” I said, not looking away from the flower. I tried to think of something better than “go away.”

Failed.

“Go away.”

“I don’t understand?”

“Go outside of the tent and don’t bother me until I’m done, okay?”

It must have worked because she stopped talking to me. I examined the lily without touching it. More and more I thought the wise course would be to incinerate the thing. My reluctance to do so was probably part of the magic. But first, there were things I needed to know.

Ironically, the dream had worked me up so much that I had plenty of power to draw from.

I stilled my mind, seeking that quietness that had become my greatest refuge, and dipped into the flower, sinking into the scent, falling through the blues, letting it sweep me up—though I kept my right hand on my left pulse, anchoring to my body, to what was real. Not sure what I was looking for, I drifted through the blossom, feeling the aliveness of it, the magic—oh yes, now that felt like Rogue, the black wings brushing my mind in front of the fire. Not my own light-filled idea-bubbles of magic, this seemed wilder, a beast running beneath the surface.

Sexual, strong, feral and primitive.

Fire with fire, then. I summoned up the arousal he’d cultivated, that desire for him, for the poisonously dark candy he offered. I matched my stride to the beast magic, luring it with my scent, feeling it turn to me as if it was already tuned to me, follow me, follow my lead up into the blaze of light where it suddenly shied. But I had it then, I wrapped it in glass from the bell jar. This one a crystal bubble of magic, unbreakable and pristine. The magic roiled around inside it unhappily, deprived of its quarry.

Bedraggled on my workbench, the lily lay faded and limp, its sweet scent slipping into rot. It was only a flower, long past its bloom, robbed of its sustaining power. I felt as if I’d carelessly plucked it only to let it die out of water. Its beauty gone over to death.

It grieved me to see it dying there and I didn’t understand why.

Next to it was a sphere of glass, like a living marble. It was warm to the touch, the smooth surface flawless. Inside, ebony swirled with midnight highlights, freckles of dusty twilight breaking off only to fall back into the black. Fangs and ravens’ wings.

Probably best not to stare into it too long. When I stood, my body creaked in protest and I realized the sun was now past midday. Hours had passed while the lily and I mesmerized one another.

But I felt more myself than I had since I’d come here. All the feelings of desire and anger were gone now. I felt drained, in a good way, as if I’d bled out a poison.

Digging through my trunks, I found the wooden box Blackbird had given me with my dress and shoes. I wrapped the marble in a piece of silk and tucked it into a corner of the box. A little bargaining chip, should Rogue decide he needed that piece of himself back. Careless of him. Tut tut tut.

Dragonfly slid her tousled head through the flaps of the tent entrance. I wouldn’t have known it if I hadn’t been looking in her direction.

“May I return, my lady sorceress?”

“Sure, come on in.”

She held the flap out and turned diagonally to come through without snagging her wings. Hallelujah, she’d been practicing.

“I stood guard the whole time you were spell casting, my lady sorceress. Both Lord Puck and Lord Falcon came to pay a call, but I told them you were deep in work and had forbidden me to allow anyone to disturb you.”

“You did? Good initiative—thank you.” Okay, I’d been a bitch to her and she hadn’t deserved it. “I’m sorry that I was grumpy to you before.”

She looked a bit puzzled but pleased.

“So,” I asked casually, “did Falcon ask exactly what I was working on?”

“No, my lady sorceress, he seemed satisfied and said he looked forward to having his new non-burning lights this evening. Is that what you’re making? How wonderful that will be! No one else has a master as eccentric and powerful as you are. The others were so jealous that I had to sit still outside the tent and not move until you were done.” She looked around puzzled. “But where are the lights? Oh! They’re invisible until dark? How especially wonderful!”

Okay, we needed to work on communication with the initiative thing. One step at a time.

Right now I needed to eat something. I let Dragonfly brush out my hair while I ate fruit, cheese, nuts and some kind of cold meat from the breakfast tray, not arguing while she fussed that she could have put my hair up for me so that I didn’t knot it like that.

“Something out of my face, but not tight,” I told her. “I have to finish tweaking the new lights.”

She came up with a modified soft ponytail that suited us both, and got me dressed to her satisfaction. Then I sent her off to wash the blankets and clothes, along with chamber-pot emptying, which at least made her happy, even if I still fretted about it. I also suggested that she needed to relax after her guard duty this morning.

I felt good, free, the last dregs of sex and fear clearing from my mind.

But what to do with the dying flower? If I had a book, I’d press it. I decided to dry the flower, hanging it upside down over my workbench with a thread pulled from one of the ubiquitous pillows. I didn’t know why I felt the need to preserve it. Something to do with my soft chewy center. After all, it was still a flower from a gorgeous man—and the last gift I could accept from him.

Now to my commissioned project. How to make non-burning lights?

I paced around the tent, ruminating about all the fairy tales I’d read. “Fairy lights” were a common theme, blamed on phosphorescent gases by scientists. Various wizards and so forth had little balls of light they carried on their palms or sent winging around in the air. But that seemed impractical as a long-term solution. It would be better to find some physical object and alter it to emit light.

On my umpteenth circuit around the tent, kicking away yet another pillow that tumbled off a pile and into my path, I considered taking a walk outside. The possibility, however, of running into any number of several someones I didn’t want to talk to seemed high. It wasn’t that I was hiding out, so much.

What kind of object could I use to make light around the camp?

I didn’t want to mess with the existing candles and torches because I already associated them so strongly with fire. And besides, Falcon might believe I’d ducked the assignment, and I couldn’t afford that. I needed something innocuous, something readily available. I kicked another pillow aside, which hit one of Dragonfly’s towers so a rainbow of pillows tumbled down in whispers of silk, catching the light.

I laughed.

Glowing pillows. Every tent had too many. The fae loved them. They’d be bright and colorful. You could increase light by adding more, play with the effect by using different colors. Perfect!

But how exactly?

I grabbed a knife from Dragonfly’s little buffet table and slit a rectangular lime-green pillow down one seam. There had to be thousands of hand-sewn pillows in this camp alone—who was making them? I pictured a pixie sweatshop, downtrodden gnomes and Dragonfly-girls hunched over pillows, working to earn bizarre body modifications.

The stuffing in the pillow seemed to be some sort of silk floss. Possibly a plant material?

What I wanted was for the pillow fill to glow, like a phosphorescent organism. Ideally it would be light-sensitive in the same way—glow brightening in dusk, perhaps recharging in the light. Except what about when you were ready to go to sleep and you had all the damn pillows radiating away around you?

Though I wasn’t exactly sure how phosphorescent organisms emitted light, I remembered a talk at the Neuroscience Convention that discussed how nerve impulses changed the polarity of the membrane around the light-bearing cells. So, I could maybe transform these fibers to do that, so that some kind of action changed their polarity. But then they’d need to be living tissue, which would require nutrition. And excretion.

Feeding and changing the pillows—
I don’t think so.

I needed something like the clapper—clap on, clap off—but how to make something sound-sensitive?

Okay, I was overthinking.
Just experiment with one pillow. Give up trying to control it all and just let the magic find a way.
I thought about what I wanted, the fill to glow as a fiber-optic might, pulling warm light from the sun, lining up to glow when the pillow was clapped, depolarizing to dark with a second clap.

Finally I drew on the sexual charge Rogue had so thoughtfully provided. The little orgasm had barely taken the edge off. How convenient that my poor love life all those years gave me so much practice at sublimating. At least doing magic gave me something productive to do with all that energy. I fed it into the idea I’d constructed. Connected them.

The pillow looked just the same, lime silk sagging around the wound I’d made in it, gray-white silky guts spilling out. I pulled the fabric taut and smacked the pillow. Soft green light shone in the bright sunlight, a purer white from the spilling material.