lucky—couldn’t have afforded something this finely crafted and sure as hell couldn’t work the magic that well myself. But one of the mages who was fighting with us that day was a doctor. He saw what happened to me and arranged it. I don’t like accepting charity, but it was awfully hard to say no.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. Maybe I didn’t know him that well yet, but I knew he was trying to do something to make the world better, and he shouldn’t have had to do it one-handed over a mistake when he’d barely been a couple years out of the academy. “Does it need maintenance spells, or…?”
“I have to tune things up every now and then. Thankfully, physicality is my strongest area, so it’s not too much of a strain. And it’s a hell of a lot more durable than the original.” He spread his fingers again and reached a little farther to trace one smooth, cool tip over my cheek. “The only thing missing is that other than a basic sense of pressure, I can’t feel what I touch. No temperature, no texture.”
He might not have been able to feel much from that touch, but I did, with a bolt of heat that shivered through my chest to my gut. I caught myself just before I leaned closer. This wasn’t supposed to be a date—Emeric didn’t think it was a date, did he? He hadn’t acted like he was romancing me, but then, who knew what he saw as romancing. It had been an awfully expensive restaurant.
The sudden uncertainty made me draw back. “Maybe they’ll figure out a spell for that at some point,” I said, aiming for optimistic but not inviting. My love life was enough of a mess without leading on some other guy—even if Emeric had his appeal. At the moment, my life in general had enough complications.
Emeric dropped his hand, not pushing but studying me again with an intentness that brought more heat to my skin. “I guess we’ll see. You look like you’re ready to head back.”
“Yeah. I—I’m pretty wiped.” So it didn’t sound like a total rejection, I added, “Walk me back to the hotel?”
“Of course.” He slid his glove back on. As we got up, he tucked his real hand, the one that could feel normally, loosely around mine.
I wouldn’t have expected that kind of move from him when there was no one around to observe it. I almost startled in surprise but caught my reaction just in time. A flutter passed through my chest despite myself. I peeked at him sideways from the corner of my eye, but he was looking straight ahead with his usual air of rumination.
It was just a simple gesture of companionship, one I could have easily slipped out of, but I found I didn’t want to. He wasn’t making a big deal out of it, so why should I?
I was allowed a little bit of affection, wasn’t I? Especially when it could serve our larger plan. That was my excuse, and I was sticking to it.
Chapter Nine
It was funny how much you could tell about where a fearmancer stood in our world from one glimpse of their primary residence. For example, the Mismerens' Portland—and possibly only—home stood nearly as tall but only half as wide as the Achelings' city mansion, and its walls were brick rather than limestone. Still just as upscale as the other houses in this neighborhood but not anywhere near as impressive as they’d clearly have liked to be.
As I climbed the broad front steps and rapped on the door with the bronze knocker, I couldn’t help wondering what Emeric’s home looked like and whether I’d ever get to see it. To tell the truth, my thoughts had been straying his way kind of a lot in the past couple of days… Sometimes to what he’d experienced fighting with the reapers and how he’d decided to separate himself from them, but mostly, I’d admit, to that moment in the quiet of the park when he’d brushed his metal fingertip over my cheek.
At the sound of footsteps inside the house, I shook my musing over the fearmancer-turned-rebel out of my mind. For this part of the mission, I needed to be totally focused on my hosts and my surroundings. The Mismerens might not be the most respected of the fearmancer families in town, but that meant they were hungry for more recognition. They might see confiding in me as a