face gently, following the path with the pads of his fingers.
“Sívamet. Do not cry for me. You are worth every moment I spent alone.”
Julija shook her head and pressed her fingers to her lips. “I can’t believe that’s what you think of me. I’m not like that at all.”
“You are. I see you more clearly than anyone else ever could. I am in your mind. I know you better than you know yourself. I will never look at you another way. You’re perfect to me.”
“I have a really bad temper,” she confessed.
He smiled at her. “I like your temper. I am not a man who would go through life with a woman who always told me yes. I enjoy putting her over my knee, remember?”
She wiped at the tears running down her face and then laughed, just as he hoped she would. “I’m quite capable of turning you into a toad.”
“And you would take great pleasure in it.”
“I would,” she admitted without hesitation.
Isai deliberately floated from the pool to the chamber floor, dried himself off and clothed himself. He didn’t help her. He waited, both cats circling his legs.
“You did that on purpose. You’re such a show-off.”
He smirked and rubbed Belle’s head. “You can do the same.”
“You could just help me out and do it for me.” She looked all around the pool as if it would give her answers on how to float out.
“I could, but what would be the fun in that? Try.”
“I have to know what I’m doing before I can try,” Julija said. “Instructions would be helpful.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he conceded. “But not nearly as much fun for me.”
He folded his arms across his chest and waited in silence as she walked around the pool and then looked up at him. There was determination on her face, exactly what he had hoped for.
“You have been doing this kind of thing since you were a child.”
“They were illusions.”
“Julija.” He said her name gently in reprimand. “They were not. I call you odam wäke emni because you truly are mistress of illusion in the mage world. So much so that your own father, rather than encourage you and want you to be the best at it, downplayed your ability. Who are you going to believe? Your father? Or me? It all starts in your mind. You know that. You have power beyond your imagining. Use it.”
He kept his arms folded and his expression implacable and just looked at her. He thought she made some very foul gesture under the water, but he couldn’t be certain. The thought made him want to smile, but he refused to give in, even to humor.
Julija walked around the perimeter inside of the pool for a second time and then stood in the exact center. She raised her arms.
I call to the element of air, surround me.
I call to the element of light, transport me.
Lift me up like a feather high,
Transporting me to the floor within my sight.
She rose easily and ended up on the floor right in front of him. She flung her arms around him and hugged, rubbing her wet body all over his dry clothes like a cat, and then she sprang away laughing. He caught her arm before she could get away from him.
“Show me.”
The smile died instantly, and she gave a half shake of her head. “Isai.” It was cautionary.
“Show me.”
She turned back to him, almost defiantly, her arms sliding down the sides of her body as if she was disrobing. Instantly he could see the white slashes dissecting her flesh along the curves of her breasts and down her stomach. There were more on her thighs. She turned around and showed him her back, buttocks and upper thighs. There were no raised ridges, only those white and sometimes red lines, some wide, others narrow. All bit deep.
He ran his hand down the curve of her back. “Never hide these, Julija. I will not hide mine. You are infinitely beautiful. Not just to me, but to anyone who sees you. You know I do not lie to you.”
“I don’t know what to do with you when you say things like that.”
Isai gave her a faint smile. “Give me my way in all things.”
She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t cover the scars with illusion. “I suppose you want me to dry myself off and clothe myself.”
“I do not mind you walking naked with me, but I doubt we will get very far. I like looking too