She stared down at him. The blush had faded with knowledge that Konrad felt nothing when he touched her. When he'd carried her downstairs, the feel of his body against hers had thrilled her. To him it was just another task. Another sick person to be tended.
"They don't hurt," she said.
He nodded and stood, taking the cloth to clean it and set it to dry. He never glanced back.
"Do you want the tea, Elaine?" Mala asked.
Elaine shook her head.
Mala took the offending mug away. She didn't even flirt with the mage.
"Tell me of your visions," Gersalius said. His voice was gentle, as if he knew what she had just realized. Since he was reading her thoughts, he probably did know.
Her first reaction was anger. How dare he spy on her feelings? She opened her mouth to tell him to get out, to leave her alone, but the look in his blue eyes was too kind, his face too understanding.
"I would not hear your thoughts quite so clearly if I could help it. You give off your thoughts like the sparks from a fire. You shine, Elaine. You shine with so much talent. When I learned how old you were and that you had never been trained, I thought your abilities would be small. How else could the magic have stayed so controlled for so long?"
His face was suddenly serious. He leaned toward her, and Elaine found herself moving closer to the mage. "The strength of your will is fierce, Elaine. You did not want to be a mage, so you squashed the magic down inside of you. You locked it away with pure, shining determination. If you could turn that strength toward learning magic, you would be formidable. And you would learn quickly."
From inches away, she stared into his eyes. He was whispering to her before the fire, a conspirator. His power glided over her skin like wind. The hairs on the back of her neck and along her arms rose. Her skin crept with it. She felt something inside herself flare upward, something neither fire nor cold nor anything she had a name for. Whatever it was, Elaine felt it pouring up through her body, responding to the mage's magic. Like calling to like.
Elaine took a soft, shallow breath. She'd been holding her breath without realizing it. Her fingertips tingled as if magic would pour from her hands. She had the urge to touch the mage, to see if the pull of magic was stronger with a touch. She suspected it would be. She wanted to touch his hand. Her skin ached with the need to see what would happen. With the need came the fear.
She crossed her arms over her stomach, hiding her hands against her body. They balled into fists, digging into her sides, as if they would burrow out of sight. It took all the determination Gersalius had spoken of not to reach out to the mage.
She sat back in her chair as far from him as she could get without standing up.
Gersalius leaned back from her, giving her room. "It can be stronger when mage touches mage. It depends on what sort of magic a person possesses. Yours, even more than mine, is a laying on of the hands, I think."
"How can you tell that?"
He shrugged, smiled. "It is one of my gifts to judge talent in others. Most mages can spot power and judge potential strength, but few can decipher the actual method the magic will choose to come out."
"The magic chooses the way it will come out?" She made it a question, so he answered it.
"Often. If you had been trained earlier, perhaps you could have chosen the path of your own power, perhaps not. But now the magic has made some of the choices on its own. Your visions, for one."
Elaine shook her head. "You make magic sound like a second being inside of me, with a will of its own."
"I do not mean to. It is not separate from you. It has no thoughts or feelings of its own." The wizard frowned, thinking. He smiled as if something pleasant or clever had just occurred to him. "Say you had a talent for sewing-not a learned talent, but something you were born with. You were born to be a seamstress, or a tailor. But you were never allowed to study sewing. Then one day you made a beautiful ball gown. A week later you made another even more lovely than the first.
"Now, if you'd been allowed to study sewing from a young age, you might have decided to sew ceremonial robes, or winter woolies, but because you left your talent unused, the talent chose to make ball gowns. You might be happier knitting shawls or designing simpler dresses for more modest occasions, but it is too late. Your sewing has decided to make party dresses for the rich."
He studied her face for a moment, as if trying to gauge whether his analogy was working.
"Why don't you know what I'm thinking now?" she asked.
His voice broke into a lovely grin. "Very good, Elaine, very good. When you drew away from me that last time, you closed off more than just your body. You closed your thoughts as well. It was neatly done. But I think the fact you so quickly figured out I could no longer read your thoughts is even more promising."
"But I don't know how I did it."
"Think to how your body felt when you drew back. Think of the sensations. What did it feel like?"
Elaine thought about that for a moment. Had it felt like anything? She couldn't remember. She had moved away from him physically, but had she done anything else? Elaine closed her eyes, trying to recall what it had felt like. The sensation along her skin had retreated when she moved backward. The magic itself had moved back with her, inside her. She had broken contact with Gersalius. She had closed off her mind and her magic to him. That was a comforting thought.
She opened her eyes.
"Tell me," the mage said.
Elaine told him what she had felt.
"You have a wondrous grasp for the basics. What a pupil you would be." His face was eager, as if he had just this minute invented her.
"What would it mean to be your pupil?" She was amazed at her own question. Was she really contemplating studying magic? Yes, she was.
"The more time you could spend with me, the faster you would learn. The faster you would be able to control your powers."
"Would I need to move to your home?"
"You would be most welcome, or I could move here. I would be willing to do that. Under normal circumstances with someone as quick to learn, I would teach from her home. I would not willingly separate a young mage from her family and friends."
The thought sat unspoken between them: these were not normal circumstances.
"Jonathan will never allow a mage to live under his roof."
"Even if it is you?"
Elaine shook her head violently, and her hair whipped across her face. She didn't want to think about it. "I don't know."
"If we could not convince him to let a strange mage live under his roof, perhaps it would be easier to accept after you are trained."
It was logical, but Jonathan's hatred of wizards was not logical.
Blaine called from the table, "It might work."
"And I thought we were having a private conversation," Gersalius said, but there was no anger to his voice.
Blaine came to stand beside them, grinning. "If you move in here, there are no private conversations."
"There is that small hut on the grounds," Konrad said. "We would help you make any repairs and move your things in."
"Do you really think Jonathan would allow a mage to live inside the fort walls?" Elaine stared up at the tall warrior. She tried to find some hint that he wouldn't have made this effort for just anyone, that it was special just for her. His face was unreadable. Could she read his thoughts, as Gersalius had read hers?
The mage lightly touched her hand. No magic, just enough contact to gain her attention. "I would not try it, were I you. We often find out things we do want to know. Besides, how do you think Jonathan would feel knowing you were already trying to use magic on members of the household?"
"You can read my thoughts again."