“It’s nice of you to make Lillet a cup of tea, but why come down to the kitchens for it, Amoretta?” Gaff asked. “There’s a tea stove in your room, isn’t there?”
“There is, but I didn’t want to bother her while I puttered around with the tea things,” Amoretta Virgine replied. The elf servant looked at her dubiously.
“Lillet’s not the type to get bugged by a little background noise, especially if you’re doing something for her.”
“I know, but she’s been working very hard these past three days on the experimental results for Master Friexenet on fire resistance Runes. The Crown wants to sponsor an expedition to the lower depths of the Oryx Mines, but the lava flows make the area too hot to enter, even if the explorers don’t actually fall in. The Royal Magicians are trying to weigh various approaches, both to try to protect human explorers and to summon familiars that could endure the heat and accomplish the necessary tasks.”
Gaff whistled.
“That sounds tough. But, I guess that’s what people will do if there’s money on the line. I suppose that part of the mine has gold or jewels or rare ores?”
“I didn’t ask,” Amoretta said. “It didn’t seem important.”
The elf grinned.
“It wouldn’t, to you.”
Amoretta’s interests and values, after all, were a little “off” from the average human’s, since although she
looked like a beautiful girl of eighteen or so she was in fact a homunculus, an artificial construction of Alchemy, and moreover had been crafted around the spirit of an angel. Her priorities were often quite different than those of humans (or even elves, whom though of Faerie were also still natural creatures with their own society).
“Does it matter? I could find out.”
“That’s all right,” Gaff said. “I was just curious. I think that the tea’s done, though.”
“Oh, you’re right.”
She lifted the tea strainer out of the pot so that the leaves wouldn’t continue to steep and make the second and later cups bitter. She poured a cup, then set the pot on the tray, covered it with a padded cosy to keep in warm, and finally doctored the cup with sugar and lemon to suit Lillet’s taste for this particular blend.
“Good luck! I hope she likes it.”
“I do too. I wish she’d take a larger break, but at least the tea should help Lillet keep her mind clear. And I do miss spending time with her when she’s working this hard,” she admitted that she had a selfish interest. Even that was made different because of her homunculus nature, though; Lillet’s love for her was literally necessary for her to sustain her existence as an artificial creature, and being forced apart for too long caused her pain that was no less tangible than a sword wound despite its purely spiritual nature.
Amoretta picked up the tea tray and left the kitchen, walking slowly so as not to spill. She got to the room—almost a suite—that she shared with Lillet, balanced the tray against her hop, and opened the door.
“Lillet,” she called softly. “I brought you some tea.”
She didn’t receive an answer, and a quick glance over at the desk revealed why. Lillet was laying slumped over on the desk, her head turned to one side with her face squashed up against the thick pages of an open grimoire. Her quill had fallen from her right hand, leaving a blotch of ink on the latest page of writing paper that she’d been filling with increasingly slapdash handwriting.
Amoretta set the tea-tray down on a corner of the desk, then reached for Lillet’s shoulder to wake her. She stopped, though, at the last moment before her hand made contact.
If I don’t wake her, the tea will get cold, she thought at first.
But she’s tired and needs her rest. I shouldn’t disturb her just because I want her to appreciate my gift, she countered.
If she’s that tired, then she should be in bed.
That thought almost convinced her, and she reached out again, but once more she stopped at the last second.
The thought about proper sleep in bed being ideal was all well and good, but it was also wrong. This was Lillet, after all. If she woke Lillet to bring her to bed, Lillet wouldn’t go along with it. She’d just thank Amoretta, slurp down a cup of tea or two, and go right back to her work. Amoretta would remonstrate with her, of course, but Lillet’s sense of responsibility would most likely win out.
Amoretta curled a drooping lock of Lillet’s honey-gold hair around her finger, then let it fall again. The plain truth was, Lillet was more likely to get some of that badly-needed sleep if she was just left to nap. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but a stiff neck and sore shoulders could be helped by magic, whereas a lack of rest was a much trickier proposition.
Put in those terms, it really wasn’t much of a choice at all.
“Hello?” Gaff called as he pushed open the door, but he kept his voice down—a difference from what he’d have done two years ago, when he’d first started working for Lillet. He’d had a chance, after all, to learn a bit more about being good at his job. “I came to get the tea things, if—”
Then he stopped, because he realized that no one was listening to him. Lillet was lying hunched over her desk, the sound of her clear, rhythmic breathing not
quite a snore. Amoretta, for her part, was seated on the floor beside her, curled up against Lillet’s left leg with her head pillowed on her lover’s thigh. Her eyes were closed, and the measured rise and fall of her breast told that she, too, had fallen asleep.
Gaff grinned at the two of them, wishing he had a way to instantly capture the picture. Lillet, especially, would have loved to see it.
Instead, he went over to the bed and picked up the folded quilt, a gift from Lillet’s mother, from its foot. He wrapped it around the girls as gently as he could, draping it over Lillet’s shoulders, then down around Amoretta, tucking it under her chin. The homunculus stirred a bit at the touch, but her eyes did not open and she settled back down as soon as the quilt was in place.
That done, Gaff smiled in satisfaction, picked up the tea tray, and left his employers to their dreams.