“I’m so sorry, sergeant,” Annia said meekly. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to get Private Gilliam in trouble. He was just trying to help.”
“I’m sure he was,” Sergeant Brun said dryly. “But I can’t have Private Gilliam on duty wearing only his undershirt. Go fetch another shirt from your quarters and change, and then hurry back here and give the private his shirt back.”
“Yes sir.” Annia saluted.
“And don’t let this happen again. I don’t need you distracting my soldiers with your charms.” His eyes narrowed.
“It won’t, sir,” Annia assured him.
“Women,” Brun muttered under his breath. It sounded like a curse. “Get going.”
He stalked out of the mess hall, and Annia winked at me before following him outside. Guess we knew our next destination now – the mineshaft. But how were we supposed to get there when we had watchers following us around at all times?
12
“Man, that was exhausting,” Annia groaned as she collapsed onto her cot. “I’ve never had to cook for so many people in my life.”
“No kidding,” I agreed, sitting down heavily on the edge of my own cot so I could pull off my boots. Annia hadn’t even bothered taking her own shoes off – she lay sprawled out on her bed, eyes closed as the light from the lantern flickered across her face. “At least the job gives us full access to the pantry.”
“Which you happily raided.” Annia snorted. “I swear I don’t understand how you eat so much, Naya. I’d look like a balloon if I packed in the amount of food you did this afternoon.”
“Yeah, it’s a real blessing having a food bill three times the size of yours.” I rolled my eyes as I stretched out onto my cot. “The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, you know.”
“I do know.” Annia opened her eyes as she rolled onto her side to face me. “I was just trying to lighten things up a bit. You’ve been pretty down in the dumps recently. Is it because of the dead end with the Chief Mage’s necklace?” she asked, keeping her voice low in case someone outside was listening.
“That’s a big part of it, yeah.” Folding my arms beneath my head, I stared up at the ceiling, tracing the old wooden beams through the darkness. “I thought for sure we were gonna find him at the other end of this necklace, so it’s pretty discouraging that the plan didn’t work out.”
“True, but at least we know the Chief Mage is in this area, right? We never would have been able to narrow it down that far without your charm.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Reaching beneath my shirt, I pulled out the two serapha charms and gazed at them. They blazed to life instantly beneath my scrutiny, like two tiny stars clutched in the palm of my hand, and a rush of longing hit me, so intense it was painful. “It’s just…I want him to be here. With me.”
There was a long, pregnant pause, and color rushed into my cheeks as I realized I’d said too much.
“Naya…do you have feelings for him?”
“We’re master and apprentice,” I insisted, stuffing the charms back down the front of my shirt. “It’s not like I could help growing closer to him after all the time we’ve spent together.”
Annia snorted again. “Yeah, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of relationship you had with Roanas.”
“No one can replace Roanas.” A pang hit my chest at the mention of my dead mentor, the lion shifter and Shiftertown Inspector who’d taken me in after my aunt Mafiela had kicked me out of the jaguar clan. “He was the closest thing I ever had to a father.”
“My point exactly.”
I let out another huff. “What do you want me to say, Annia? That I wish I was a full mage, or that Iannis was a shifter, so that I could actually do something about my attraction to him?” My fists curled at my sides, and I itched to use them.
“You don’t have to have either of those things to get what you want, if you want it bad enough.”
I narrowed my gaze at Annia. “There’s no way Iannis and I could ever be a couple. I’m the embodiment of why mages and shifters don’t breed, and besides, masters and apprentices aren’t supposed to have romantic relationships. Iannis would never break the rules just to be with me, especially as the Chief Mage.”
“I dunno, Naya. He’s already flaunted convention more than once on your behalf. When he made you his apprentice he was practically snubbing all the other mages to their faces, which they couldn’t have been happy about. If he wants you badly enough, he’ll figure out a way to make it happen.”
“Yeah, well I’m not gonna bank on that. I don’t really know how he feels about me.” But warmth stole through me at the idea that maybe, just maybe, Iannis and I could be more. There were sparks between us, no question about that. On one or two occasions, those sparks had been hot enough that I’d been sure something was going to happen between us. But it never had, and I wasn’t sure how much of that was because of my reservations or because of his. Just because Iannis found me attractive didn’t mean he was going to act on it. Truthfully, if we were both smart, neither of us ever would.
“Sunaya?” Fenris’s voice echoed in my head, drawing me away from my melancholy thoughts. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah.” I sat up, instantly on alert. “What’s up?”