“This was a mistake,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. She smiled a little, looking down at the water that lapped against the dirt and the reaching roots that were no longer anchored in earth. “I’m making a lot of mistakes these days.”
He rubbed his face, which brought back all of the pain he’d noted earlier and even found new sorts. The implications dawned on him. “Oh, gods help me, this was a mistake.”
“We might have to wait a few more months to see how grave a mistake we made here,” she said.
He froze. His blood ran cold.
“I-” he struggled to recall. He’d been an animal, and she’d been an animal in return. What exactly had he done?”
“You pulled free before you finished,” she said. “I was toying with you, Aimon.”
He exhaled a shuddering breath. “Oh, this was such a mistake.”
“You sound like a skipping record,” she said. “Where’s the acerbic wit from before? Insulting my family? My blood?”
“Are you trying to pick a fight?”
“Finally, he breaks pattern! A cause for celebration!” she said. “Should I have Arsepint fetch a bottle to mark the occasion?”
He looked, twisting around, feeling sore in several places, before he saw the blasted goblin.
It watched?
In that same thought, he realized how close they were to the footpath that ran along the edge of the lake, overlooking the small rocky beaches and the water. “Keep your voice down.”
“Arsepint? Go distract any passerbys until I order you to do otherwise. Scare or lead them away without showing yourself. Have fun.”
The goblin glared, then disappeared.
“Stop talking so loud,” he said, “Whisper instead. If we get caught-”
“Do not order me,” she said, and she managed to sound like she was twice her age, practically royalty. Then, in the next breath, she averted her eyes, stumbling over her words a bit, “That’s, I don’t think it’s how our relationship works.”
“Relationship?”
“Not romantic, I don’t think, but there’s a connection here,” Rose noted, touching the snaking trail of golden dust that stretched between them. “Two people with a connection between them, enemy, ally, it’s a relationship.”
“I’m not in the mood for this insanity. My head hurts.”
“I can imagine. You were clearly in the mood for something else,” she said. “My something-else hurts.”
“Don’t be disgusting.”
She stared out over the water, silent.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m ordering you around, when you asked me not to.”
“A Behaim, apologizing to the diabolist in training?” she asked, archly.
“I’ve… I feel like I’ve had people telling me what to do for years now,” he said. “The one time I break form, I…”
“Do this?” she asked. “Or are you less concerned about this and more concerned that it involved me?”
“If I’m being honest, yes, it has more to do with you. Though I’m not proud of this, either. Other lads might be, but…”
“But you’re a gentleman, is that it? A gentleman that just so happens to kiss the most hated girl in Jacob’s Bell, unprovoked, and then goes on to ravish her,” she said, putting a breathy kind of emphasis on ‘ravish’.
“You’re needling me again.”
“Yes,” she said. “You don’t know how good you have it, to have people telling you what to do. But you have direction, you have the backing of your family-”
“I have the pressures of my family, the disappointment when I fail to live up to those pressures.”
“You’re whining again,” she said. “You want to know why I needle you? Because I like the Aimon that’s angry more than I like the Aimon who acts like a weakling.”
He seized her wrist, quick enough to startle her, hard enough to be painful.
She didn’t even flinch. She stared him in the eye, the faintest smile on her face.
“Witch,” he said, letting her wrist go.
She rubbed it, then clasped her diary with both hands, holding the closed, leather-bound book against her knees. She still had the pen in hand, and poked at her knee, thinking.
“If my company is so unpleasant,” she said, “you could leave.”
“How do I explain this?” he asked, indicating his face.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I can work it out, but I need time to think,” he said.
“What’s the trouble?” she asked. “Are you trying to find a way to explain that you assaulted a young lady? Or to admit that you were assaulted by a young lady?”
He shot her an ugly look.
“You can gloss over the, how shall I put it, the aftermath? You’re free to tell them it was me. Nobody will fault you for coming after me.”
“I’m more concerned that they’ll fault you,” he said. “Say what you will about me, I don’t want my family organizing a lynch mob or going to war against you and your family.”
“That’s almost gentlemanly, Aimon Behaim. And I’m flattered that you’d think I’d put up any kind of fight.”
“I saw your goblin.”
“One goblin, yes. Are the Behaims so weak that one or two goblins would give them any difficulty?”
“Except it’s not just you, is it? There’s your father?”
“Who doesn’t practice,” she cut in.
“And weren’t you just taunting me over the fact that your mother was home?”
Rose Thorburn reacted as if she’d forgotten that detail.
“My family will think you contrived this. Your mother…”
“Is a hard person to understand,” Rose finished the thought. “A scary person, scarier because you can’t anticipate what she might do.”
He nodded.
“This wasn’t a scheme, was it?” he asked. “A trick, to influence my emotions, to capitalize on my failings as a man?”
“You didn’t fail, Aimon Behaim” she said. “Your malehood isn’t in question here. Not that I particularly enjoyed it, I’m almost relieved that it wasn’t so grand as-”
“Don’t,” he said, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Please, don’t be lewd.”
“-But the release? I needed that. So did you, I think.”
“Don’t talk about it. It’s not ladylike.”
She made a small amused noise in response.
“I’m trying to decide if it’s better or easier to loathe you or respect you, and you’re making that decision difficult every time you open your mouth.”
She sighed audibly. “There was no trick. No imp of the sixth choir to hound you and tempt you to me, nor any imp to give me the courage.”
“I’m oddly disappointed. To think I did that of my own volition… I’d hoped the Imp-”
“Don’t. The imp would be worse.”
“I don’t want to know,” he said. “This… this mess of a thing, it gets worse the longer I think on it and try to come up with an explanation that doesn’t complicate matters.”