But he’d been oddly bereft when she’d taken them down.
Seeing the little touches of her everywhere in the blacksmith’s shop gave him a jittery sort of joy, which was oddly distracting. Thus Trystan had missed her flinches until it was almost too late. And he found that he hated himself for that quite a bit.
That was a problem.
He could tell his assistant was fighting the urge to rush to his side and look more closely at his wound…which was not necessary. “May I speak with you a moment, Tatianna?” he said and moved to a more discreet area of the office. Far from his assistant’s reach—and ears.
Glowing dark-brown hands appeared before his face, but he waved them away. “Thank you, Tatianna, but it will heal quickly enough.”
He coughed, his gaze darting to his assistant, who was holding a very lengthy conversation with Kingsley, if the rapid flashing of one-word signs was anything to go by. He turned back to Tatianna and said in a low voice, “There’s a dagger for you in my office.”
The healer lifted a brow. “Who am I stabbing?”
“What?” But he quickly recognized the same sardonic twinkle in her dark eyes from when they were children. “It’s a magical one. It, um— Ask Sage about it.”
“Is this about the magic-ingrained scar in her shoulder?” Tatianna whispered, her eyes narrowing with concern.
“She told you?” Trystan asked, one eyebrow raised.
“I felt it every time I healed her. But I never asked, and she never told me.” Tatianna looked to Sage, who was currently holding up her thumb in answer to a sign from the frog that Trystan couldn’t make out from here. He shuddered as he imagined what Kingsley could be convincing her to do now.
“It pains her more when she’s near it, the dagger,” Trystan said, feeling oddly small, unable to fix this for his assistant on his own. “Can you do anything?”
A calm fierceness lit Tatianna’s expression. “I will do whatever I can…to help her.”
It gave him comfort, however insignificant or ridiculous, that Tatianna looked as if she would take on the whole world before allowing it to touch Evie Sage.
“Thank you.” Two words he didn’t say often, but if anyone deserved them, it was Tatianna.
She nodded, patting his shoulder in a friendly, familial way before she strode off toward his office, the pink train attached to her dress gliding behind her.
Trystan wandered back over toward Sage, who was looking satisfied as she angled her thumb back and forth at the painting, Kingsley ribbiting beside her. A rusty chuckle nearly escaped the back of his throat before he caught himself. Instead, he leaned down and put his head alongside hers above the crook of her shoulder. He pretended that he didn’t hear her breath hitch, pretended his wasn’t an echo.
“It’s crooked, left side,” he whispered, quickly stepping back from the vanilla smell of her that was making it difficult to form full sentences.
“Ugh, Kingsley, you were right,” she said and reached out to adjust the frame.
Trystan felt his palms itch with the need to touch her, which was absolutely unacceptable.
He spun toward his office, and the scuff of his boots moving farther away caused his assistant to sprint forward until she was walking beside him. “I’m sorry. You’ve been out of commission basically all week, and then you just casually say that you were playing with a guvre!”
Pushing the door to his office open, he was glad to see Tatianna had already retrieved the blade and left. He grabbed the chair closest to his desk and angled it slightly toward the window. Only because it looked nicer that way; it had nothing to do with the sun hitting it at just the right angle, causing sparks of light to glint in Sage’s long black hair.
He just liked the chair there.
“I wasn’t playing with it, Sage.” He winced as he sank into the comfort of the other chair, not bothering to go around his desk to his own. He resisted a deep sigh as his assistant sat down and the sun fell over her cheeks.
It was just a good spot for the chair.
“Oh, were you two discussing tax reform with the creature, then?” she muttered dryly, fingers brushing lightly over the notebook she never seemed to be without.
“I need the guvre because King Benedict wants him,” he admitted. It was just simpler that way.
“What need does he have for that thing?” Evie asked curiously.
“I don’t know. I just know that if there is something the king wants, it’s imperative he doesn’t get it.”