All I knew was that Francesca Aberdeen was not the female I’d wanted in my bed.
When I woke the next morning, I had an idea.
“So what? You just snap your fingers, and glassblowing workshops magically appear?” Ellie asked as we stepped into the abandoned barn on the West End of Othian Castle.
“Something like that.” When she shot me a knowing glare, I couldn’t help but grin. “Okay, maybe I don’t snap my fingers. Maybe I ask very nicely and promise a handful of servants a generous Lunar Eclipse bonus, and then the workshop appears. Within three to five business days.”
Ellie shrugged, hugging herself as she examined the workshop I’d gotten the idea for a few days ago. Unfortunately, my father was still denying Ellie a key to her room, but at least she could come here and work as long as she had an escort. I’d had the servants install multiple furnaces. Apparently the materials needed to be heated to different temperatures throughout the glassmaking process. The furnaces were already blazing, lighting up the abandoned barn and making me thankful I’d asked the servants to wipe the place of cobwebs. There were all sorts of other metal tools organized neatly, some on stands, others resting in iron bins.
“What do you think? Is this a conducive environment for Elynore Payne to work?” I asked.
Ellie bit her lip, and her shoulders dropped slightly. For a moment, I thought I must have placed the wrong artisan in charge of designing the workshop, that something was amiss and would cause it to be unusable, but then Ellie surprised me.
“It’s…It’s very nice. Well thought out, even down to where the furnaces are placed. It’ll make moving from station to station easy.” She paced toward what looked to be a long metal poker and picked it up, turning it over in her palms. “And the tools are good quality.” She turned to face me, and in the flicker of the furnace light, I caught the way the edges of her lips twitched.
Like she was battling back a smile.
Elynore Payne might have been a formidable opponent to most, but she was going to lose that fight.
I’d make sure of it.
“Admit it,” I said. “I did a good job.”
“I thought you said your servants did all the work.”
“Hm.”
All right, so perhaps coaxing a smile out of her today was going to be more difficult than I’d anticipated. Challenge accepted.
“So where do we start?” I asked, striding up next to her and prying the metal prod from her hands. I took care to make sure my fingers lingered on hers as I did, and derived no small amount of satisfaction when her pulse skipped.
Ellie swallowed, tucking her dark ringlets behind her ear. Fates, she was pretty. The canary yellow day dress she wore was simple, yet it suited her. Her eyes were wide, a warm brown with tiny golden flecks around the edges.
Yes, Ellie Payne was very, very pretty.
“We?” she asked. “I wasn’t aware you dabbled in glassblowing.”
“Oh, I don’t. Dabble, I mean. That’s why you’re going to teach me.”
“Remind me why you want to learn glassblowing again,” Ellie said, not bothering to mask the suspicion in her tone as she peered over me, watching me spin a red-hot bulb of molten glass stuck to the end of a metal rod (which was called a blow pipe, according to Ellie) against a shaping mold. She was so close, I could feel the warmth of her breath.
Which would have been pleasant, had that breath not been directed down the back of my shirt collar as she reminded me what I was doing wrong.
This might have been my third attempt at forming a glass bulb. Ellie was of the opinion that I talked too much and let the glass cool too quickly before applying another layer of molten glass and returning to the furnace.
“I want to learn glassblowing because it’s about the only skill I’ve yet to master,” I said, unable to help but notice her pleasant scent—fresh rainwater and lavender—even as it mingled with the cinders from the furnace.
She snorted, which I found adorable. Females of fae nobility never allowed themselves to snort. “I highly doubt this is the only one left.”
“Try me.”
“Sailing?”
“A solo trip across the Adreean on my sixteenth birthday.”
“Taxidermy?”
“Unfortunately. One is not reared under the strict hand of my father without being forced to shoot and stuff one’s own wall decorations.”
I took my gaze off my glowing bulb for a moment to find Ellie grimacing.
She chewed her lip, staring me straight in the face as she pondered. “Playing the harp?”
“Unless you’ve invented a musical instrument I’m unaware of, you’ll be hard pressed to find one I can’t maneuver.”
“What about magic? I thought the royal family had power over plants, but I haven’t seen you use it,” she asked.
“My sister Olwen’s the magic-wielding prodigy in the family. I’ve never been much good at it.”
“So you don’t use it?”
“Do you enjoy tasks you’re not skilled at, Ellie Payne?”
She cut her pretty brown eyes to the side, eyeing my misshapen orb. “You let it cool off again.”
I tilted to the side, leaning into her. “What can I say? I find you distracting.”
Ellie swallowed and directed me to start over.
