Chapter 12

Hinsheoress is a rare language isolate and has seven tones (but eight in the north). Fortunately they invest in education, and all their people speak a standardized form of Standard Senic too. They also have an extremely sophisticated tea culture, and I hope someday I can partake in a ceremony.

There's an elaborate performance they do for strangers, but each local community has their own variations. I know that's also part of the attraction for me—the feeling, however temporary, of being part of a family.

When Liris went into the kitchen the next morning, she was startled to find Vhannor there making a pot of tea.

He also startled, freezing as he saw her, and they both stared for a long moment.

Vhannor was dressed... differently. Still in clothes that looked flexible enough he could fight a demon in them, but today his midnight coat was more elaborate, and his pants tighter, which she certainly noticed. Hardly in full formalwear, but... nicer.

Liris, meanwhile, wore the same thing she wore every day, because she had a limited stipend and was focusing all her time on work. Black leggings, black ankle boots, a loose tunic over the top. Today's was pale green, because she'd only acquired them in shades not common in Serenthuar.

It was silly to feel outclassed in her own—sort of—kitchen, especially since he was a lord of Isendhor.

In her defense, she had not been prepared to be struck with such a flattering view of him.

Liris wasn't sure what she should have been prepared for from him, given how they'd left things yesterday.

Finally she managed, "Visiting Shry?"

Her words started the world moving again. "Yes and no. I apologized to her earlier, and she said I could wait for you here while she's out practicing."

The kitchen wasn't that cramped—space enough for a small table and chairs in the center, counters and appliances along the walls—but as Liris shut the door behind her it felt small.

This was silly. They were partners. They'd been so before yesterday—before she'd created a firestorm, before he'd kissed her forehead—

Hmm.

"Well, that's less creepy than if you'd just used your key to let yourself in," Liris said.

Vhannor scowled. "I told Shry it would be weird."

"Mhmm."

He frowned until he saw she was holding back a smile, then rolled his eyes.

"Take a seat," Vhannor said, opening a cupboard and taking another cup. "I know you rise as early as I do, but I thought I'd have time to get tea going first."

"Thank you, I will sit in my own kitchen," Liris said, nevertheless doing so.

He winced. "Sorry. Habit."

Maybe someday they'd get to a place where he didn't feel obligated to apologize to her every other sentence or have cause to do so, but apparently at least a few more confessions or kisses were required first.

"I know. I'm still teasing." And feeling strangely giddy at the sight of him so comfortable in her space.

Which was sillier. It was Shry's house, and he'd probably spent a lot more time here than she ever had.

Still.

"I'm fairly certain I should be making tea for you," Liris pointed out.

"Indulge me," he said, draping his coat over one chair.

Leaving her with a better view of his backside while he brewed tea for her with appreciable ease?

Well. If he insisted.

"Do you not have tea at your house?" Liris asked, then paused. "Where is your house, anyway?"

"I don't have one here," he explained, carrying two mugs over. Liris took a deep breath of cinnamon and honey. "I'm not typically at the University for any length of time, so I take rooms on campus."

"And when you're in town for longer, you stay in my room. Ah. I mean—"

Vhannor flashed a grin as he sat down. "The last few weeks have been... something of a wake-up. Inealu has been pushing me to set up my own household here for ages, but I wanted to avoid my personal space inevitably becoming a political space. This way, anyone who needed to feel welcome, I gave into her care. Anyone I wanted to impress, I used official resources for."

Liris sipped the tea, warmth spooling through her. "And now?"

"Now," he said, his eyes sparking in a way that was becoming—amazingly—familiar, "I have to meet you in my little sister's kitchen. The least I can do is make tea."

Meeting her. Had he dressed up for her?

She didn't think the pounding of her heart was the tea's fault, but she also wasn't sure it wasn't panic.

Ultimately, the test she had to pass was whether she could work as his partner. Their emergency mission to Periannolu and then Dianor had been a stunning example of the opposite, but probably things would work better now.

What if they didn't, though? What if she'd damaged their ability to work as a team irrevocably?

"Now I have tea," Liris said. "Is that the end of your plan for meeting me, or is there more to it?"

Vhannor casually took a sip of tea. But Liris was a trained professional, and she now had enough experience at least of Vhannor to be certain that he was now feigning unflappability. At least it wasn't just her worrying about this. Or was that worse?

"I'm here to take you shopping for the ball," Vhannor said.

Liris blinked.

She had of course realized she would need formalwear for the event in Tellianghu, assuming she was still going, but—"You, personally?"

"Lady Inealuwor is on temporary holiday escorting her wife to an international award ceremony for one of Aprya's inventions, Princess Nysia is understandably occupied, and it's not as if I could ask Shry to help."

"No?"

"Your outfit would be admirably equipped with hidden knife sheaths but too many seasons out of date to make a savvy first impression."

Almost worth it. "So those are your only close friends, then." Interesting that she'd already met them all. He was fonder of the princess than she'd realized, if he'd even considered her for this.

Vhannor blinked. "More or less, I suppose, yes."

"Oh, I almost forgot, there's also the priest, of course."

He rolled his eyes, and Liris smirked. "I suppose I could have asked a favor of one of my relatives, but not without a lot of questions."

Relatives?Void it, she hadn't considered that during their... interactions. He was the head of Embhullor, but he did have cousins, retired parents—

"But," Vhannor adjusted his grip on his mug, not looking at her. "I thought you might enjoy shopping more with me. Since we're... partners."

Liris was self-aware enough to acknowledge it was not the tea that was making her warm.

"But if I'm wrong," Vhannor hastened to add, "and if you'd rather go with—a woman, or someone else—an advisor from Special Operations, perhaps—"

"I suppose I can make do with you as long as you introduce me to a food that you like. Not one you think I will."

And maybe this was just the way to test whether they could function together in public now.

He met her eyes again then, smiling a slow smile that caused heat to pool inside her. "I can do that."

"The best perk of being an internationally renowned university," Vhannor said gravely, passing Liris another pastry as they walked, "is that our university town attracts a wide range of food shops."

In Embhullor they could walk and eat at the same time, so they shared a sack between them of small baked pastries filled with beef and onion, corn and chicken, or pumpkin and cheese. That one used a different squash than its realm of origin, but Vhannor liked the local adaptation better.

The day already felt like a success, but as they hadn't started on their nominal objective, there was plenty of time left for it all to go wrong.

"So what impression do I need to make at the ball?" Liris asked. "I assume you've been formulating a strategy now that we've worked together." Such as they had.

"Your role is to ferret information out of people who don't know how much you know without raising suspicions," Vhannor said. "We need you to give an impression of competence without making your appearance so overwhelming they err on the side of caution."

"An air of mystery, then?" She liked that, but it was a tricky statement to make with an outfit. Their audience was precisely targeted to pick up on clues.

Liris slowed, and Vhannor did too, following what caught her gaze: a gorgeous, shimmering cloak.

"You like that?"

She sighed. "It is completely impractical given my general activities and far more expensive than I can currently afford. I don't even have formalwear yet, so I couldn't justify it as a Special Operations expense."

"Not what I asked."

Liris started walking again. "Apologies, I assumed my immediate adoration was so obvious your question was rhetorical." He snorted. "Whereas I bet you would love that." Liris nodded at a dramatic cape.

Vhannor's eyebrows raised, he looked back at her. "That cape is ridiculous."

"Let me rephrase. You wish you could wear that cape."

His lips quirked into a tiny smile, just for a second, and Liris smiled. She wasn't totally off-base then.

"I'll save up for something like the cloak someday," she said decisively. "But it would be nice to find something I can buy for myself today." With the money she'd earned on her own merits.

"Then get something that doesn't have anything to do with the ball," Vhannor advised. "That's for work."

"Says the man who's never met the balance of work and not-work in his life?"

"Which is why I'm the authority on this. In fact—you've never been in a spellcraft supply store, have you? Let's take a detour, you'll love this."

Hesitant as she was to deviate from their objective, he was right. Liris had so many questions about absolutely every object in the store: different types of paper ideal for different climates and inks, in every style of notepad she could imagine—Vhannor pointed out quick-dry ink that Lady Inealuwor's wife had invented. Liris finally walked out with a pen that was not the standard-issue for classes: it was glittery and held cartridges for three different colors of sparkly ink, an object for standing out rather than blending in, and it was completely silly and she loved it.

"I look forward to blinding future demons with my Sparklespells All-Terrain Model 500 Easy Flow Tip," Liris said cheerfully as Vhannor failed to hold back a laugh, the sound warming her down to her toes.

Maybe they could make this work after all.

He got her set up with a local dressmaker whose time he'd apparently booked weeks ago for a rush job. They finished strategizing the broad strokes—she would wear Embhullor's colors but with a subtle pattern characteristic of Serenthuar, suggesting an alliance that would intrigue other political players enough that they would seek to talk to her. Then Vhannor stepped out once she was ensconced sampling different styles and having her measurements taken.

He was gone long enough that Liris was beginning to wonder if a demon had opened a portal somewhere when he returned with a large bag. "All sorted?" he asked.

"Yes. Are we done?"

Vhannor raised his eyebrows. "Do you want to be done?"

"What answer gets you to tell me what's in the bag that couldn't wait?"

He smirked and kept waiting—still enough that he couldn't be indifferent to her answer.

Liris put her hands on her hips. "No, I don't want to be done, but I wouldn't mind taking a break, if we have time."

"Then we're not done. Enough of me showing you places. You pick one that looks interesting this time."

Helping her explore her new home, and freedom.

Oh, this man.

They ended up on a bench in a small park with large geometric metal sculptures of basic spell forms and a fantastic view of the mountains beyond the valley.

This time a box between them held a variety of bite-sized cakes, each with a different filling. Liris refused to look at the guide for which was which.

"It's no dough filled with stuff, but how about frosting filled with stuff?" she said.

"A worthy alternative. I did have an ulterior motive today."

Finally, she could stop waiting for the catch. "I'm shocked to hear that about you."

Vhannor rolled his eyes. "I suppose I deserve that."

Liris shrugged. "You've gone from refusing to have dinner with me to taking me around town. You're not unaware enough for that to be an accident."

"And you notice too much for me to get away with that." He flashed a quick, heart-stopping grin. "I told you before that a change in our relationship might affect our work, but worse would be not acknowledging that the change exists and being caught unprepared. I don't want you to wonder where you stand with me. Or vice versa."

Liris' eyes narrowed. "You're talking about how we present... whatever our partnership is becoming?"

Vhannor nodded. "What do you think will work best at the ball?"

Ah, at the ball specifically. Of course. Liris sorted through various diplomatic scenarios. "A fa?ade that we're business associates—comfortable with each other, but nothing more—is most likely to get us the results we want."

"Then we'll do that."

Unfair, how she could be both relieved he was letting her lead and nervous about the very same. Like she had any idea what she was doing, but of course she did. Sort of. "You don't mind pretending?"

Vhannor shook his head. "Not as long as we know we're both doing it on purpose and are in agreement about the reasons. But, in case my actual intentions aren't clear." He reached into the bag at last and pulled out a large square box with a ribbon around it. "For you."

Liris looked at him. "You didn't."

"I might have. It's not like I don't have funds of my own outside Special Operations or the university."

"Vhannor—"

"You should make sure you know what I've actually done before you accuse me."

It was, as Liris had suspected, the wonderful cloak she'd admired earlier. But looking past the shimmer, she found the cacophony of spells that must have actually taken his time: resisting wear and tear, impervious to rain, adjusting temperature depending on the climate—

"I can travel with this," Liris realized.

"You deserve to have beauty and frivolity and choice in your life, not just duty," Vhannor said. His eyes were full lavender, but at the moment Liris wondered how she'd ever thought them icy.

Controlled, yes, absolutely.

But just because he hid his fire didn't mean it wasn't always, always there.

Liris' throat tightened. "Even if duty is my choice?"

"Maybe especially then." He hesitated, hand twitching like he wanted to reach out, but ultimately he faced the sculptures.

Toocontrolled.

"It's not just that I burn partners out, you realize," he said haltingly, taking a breath.

Liris' eyes widened. Oh gods, he was actually going to try to be open with her.

They were really doing this.

"It's that I can't... trap anyone in the life that I've chosen," Vhannor said. "The work that I do is fulfilling, and it's all I've ever wanted, but it's also all that I do. I haven't taken a vacation since before I entered the university, because my family can no longer insist. It's why my relatives would have been so shocked by a request from me to take a woman shopping, because they hardly hear from me at all. When I asked Lady Inealuwor her opinion on the dressmaker I selected, she was so excited she nearly tripped over her own cane in her haste before I could reconsider."

Liris thought she was meant to laugh at that. "Does it make you afraid, to show me the world I've missed out on? That I'll just up and leave you for something easier?"

"In the moment? No," Vhannor said. "If anything, your endless interest in everything is a much-needed reminder for me that there is more worth paying attention to in this world, duty or not. Since I do selfishly hope you won't decide on another path no matter how many options I show you, it behooves me to make this one more desirable for you than I've made it for myself."

"And if you stop to think?" Liris asked softly.

"If I stop to think about it, sometimes," Vhannor admitted, and her heart squeezed. "If I think about it for longer than a second and remember what you're like, less. Once we've dealt with Jadrhun, I don't want you to stay at this because you feel like you have to. That will burn you out."

"It didn't for you," Liris pointed out.

"I think it did, and I was too deep to notice," Vhannor disagreed.

Liris remembered her ambient despair in Serenthuar that had flattened her to inertia and thought she understood that a little.

She loved the thrill of field spellcasting and of knowing her work was unique and made a difference. She couldn't imagine what could make her want to give that up, but it was true she hadn't seen much of the world yet. She wouldn't promise him she wasn't going anywhere until she was certain that was true, and maybe by then he'd believe she meant it.

So instead Liris reached out a hand and clasped his. He adjusted, lacing their fingers together, and for a long moment Liris just sat there, reveling in this feeling of not knowing what was in store. In the feeling of being with him; of being touched by another person, and touching what and who she chose in return.

That made her palms start sweating, and she took a deep breath and tried to ignore it. She would manage to literally touch another person without overthinking whether she was doing it wrong, void take it.

If this was part of a ploy to keep her from wanting to leave, it was effective. She suspected it was rather the opposite, though—Vhannor would worry her feelings for him would interfere with her reaching for her dreams.

As if he hadn't supported her from the very first, even when he wasn't willing to admit it. Even now, with this cloak she could wear anywhere on her travels, with or without him.

Somehow, she had to figure out how to support him as thoroughly.

The ball was in just a few days.

"Is that what you think happened to Jadrhun?" Liris asked. "He forgot that life went on outside his spells?"

Vhannor leaned back on the bench, gazing far away. "There never really was, for him," he said. "But our pressures and supports were different. Jadrhun's family is... mercenary and unethical, to put it bluntly. He was raised with the idea that if what he did wasn't going to make incredible amounts of money for himself and by extension his family—not normal amounts, you understand, but hitherto unfathomable amounts—or transform their reputation and power in the world, then there was no point in doing it.

"He blatantly rejected that idea—if he had to be a caster and work for a living, they thought he should at least be an overwhelmingly wealthy one; Jadrhun, of course, then went and focused on the least lucrative disciplines of spellcasting he could find. But in his quest to thwart their influence, I think he may have internalized a twisted version instead."

"If he wasn't going to change the world, why bother," Liris murmured.

Vhannor nodded. "Everyone thought we were rivals, but it wasn't like that at all. We were both brilliant, but we both worked hard, too—we didn't resent each other. It was nice, at least for me, to finally have someone to share being at that level with, the load of expectations, even if they were different ones."

"Until he left."

He blew out a breath. "Yeah. I might have known him better than anyone, but we were still both so cautious around each other I'm not sure I could have called us friends. Now he's gone to demons, and I can't help wondering—I knew, as much as anyone did, how desperate he was. If I'd made an effort to be more reliable to him, then maybe—"

"You didn't make him choose to bring demons into the world," Liris said.

"Oh, I'm aware," Vhannor said. "But it's a thought that gives me some perspective, nevertheless. Jadrhun may not have ever known I considered him important in his own right, rather than for what he could do. I'm not going to make that mistake again with you."

That was a touching sentiment, even though Liris wasn't entirely sure she agreed that her value was separate from her actions. She did value Vhannor's reflection and insight, and the candor that for once she hadn't had to extract from him.

But she also didn't want to be endlessly compared to Vhannor's past mistakes. First Shry, now Jadrhun.

"No, you won't," she agreed, lifting their linked hands to her lips and placing a kiss on his.

Vhannor's fingers clenched, and his burning gaze focused entirely on her, now.

Liris smiled. "With me you can take all new risks."

She'd make sure of it.

Her resolve to prove that was promptly tested by their next mission in the mountains of Hinsheoress.

With little arable land, Hinsheoress survived by exporting livestock and their products, able to handle the literal mass of the trade with multiple large Gates. The only buildings Liris and Vhannor passed on their skimmers were houses, processing plants, temples, or temple offices for handling the bureaucracy to support all the trade, and occasional prayer flags that didn't mark anything Liris could identify.

Where the endless grasslands had made her feel like there were no limitations, here the miles of rolling brown hills seemed... final. Peaceful, but strangely oppressive.

It might have been that this was her last chance to prove she could be a reliable field spellcasting partner. They'd agreed she could take the lead with dispelling this portal, and while Liris performed well under pressure, that didn't mean she wasn't aware when pressure existed.

It might have also been her literal ability to breathe. Vhannor had taught her another spell to help her lungs adjust to the thinner air, with the caution that if she was knocked out and couldn't renew it, her body would not take it well. Even so, he was careful to stop frequently for water as they hiked to the sacred lakes—skimmers forbidden here—and Liris knew enough stories of thrill-seeking travelers dying on their treks that she was uncharacteristically subdued.

That and the creeping sensation, so sickly familiar from Serenthuar, that no matter what she said or did, she'd fail to measure up. At least mountains in the middle of nowhere were a good place for her to practice, but she wasn't pleased she was so dangerous it had come to that.

So first, naturally, Liris couldn't even reach the demon portal. There was one wooden dock and a boat for ceremonial purposes, and of course the boat, drifting in a lake so brilliantly blue she'd assumed paintings had exaggerated, was where the demon portal had been written.

Rather than trying to invent a spell of her own on the spot, she asked Vhannor to use a spell to summon the boat back to them without their un-ritually cleansed selves polluting the lake. He took a turn to rest while Liris worked out the spell patterns.

Then her new pen stopped working.

"It's registering as out of ink," she said in outrage to Vhannor. "I bought it yesterday."

He valiantly fought back a smirk. "It'll still work. Try switching to a different color."

She scowled down at her disorganized mess of sparkling inks but managed to work out everything quickly—except for one written language that stumped her. Liris took several deep breaths until she was sure she wasn't about to cry out of sheer frustration and marched over to admit defeat to Vhannor.

He looked surprised by that, which was gratifying, and then his face twisted with distaste when he saw the language she was missing.

"Monkey language." He rolled his eyes, pulling out his own pad and beginning to translate.

"...What."

"Oh, you know what people are like."

She emphatically did not.

"At some point every spellcraft student inevitably asks, why can only humans perform magic? So they teach monkeys a human language and how to write, but that's not enough—monkeys need to be able to invent their own language conveying monkey concepts. And it's not very sophisticated, so it only really works as a layer of complexity no one can decode, unlike, say, math, like a person who is not inherently obnoxious. So about this time they run into trouble justifying their funding, and then ethics questions arise as to whether it's even acceptable to force monkeys to learn all this in order to perform magic to satisfy humans, since monkeys don't otherwise cast spells unless forced, but how would monkeys know if they wanted to—yes, yes, laugh it up."

Her snickering faded rapidly as Vhannor finished sketching out the final piece and she incorporated it into her own plan for dispelling.

Gods, he had so much more experience than her, to be able to recognize even a bit of ridiculousness like this.

She didn't expect to be the most knowledgeable at everything, but losing at her chosen field? That was new, and not in a happy way.

"Liris?"

"Is my dispelling plan fine?"

Vhannor searched her gaze. "Yes. What are you worrying about? Liris, don't jump in that boat without answering—Liris."

"It's not like I can get past you without answering on the way back," Liris said as she traced the circle. "I'm just going to dispel the demon portal first."

"Fine." Vhannor turned away from the dock, leaving her alone in the too-blue lake.

At least he could trust her to do this much on her own.

Liris closed her eyes and breathed. Could she ever use a spell-trance right now.

She entered the spell and cleared her mind to focus on the task at hand. This was how she'd gotten through all those years in Serenthuar: any brainpower that went to worrying could be better spent funneled into work, so she did, culling any distracting thoughts relentlessly.

She was good at this. She didn't need help. She could stand on her own in the world she'd chosen.

Liris dispersed the spell, closed her eyes, and breathed.

When she opened them, Vhannor was sitting on the edge of the dock, knitting—knitting!—a spell pattern without looking at it, because he was keeping his eyes on her.

Liris' equanimity evaporated. "You watched me?"

"Of course I watched. Why wouldn't I?"

"I didn't need your help," Liris grated.

"I'm aware," Vhannor said coolly. "Not only is it my job to oversee your spellcraft on missions, it's a pleasure to watch you work. Should I apologize for that?"

He wouldn't distract her that easily. "So you weren't planning to critique my performance? Jump in if I stepped wrong?"

"Of course I would, if you needed it, which you didn't. Would you really not want me to?"

Liris scowled at the perfect lake, her agitation increasing in comparison to its serenity.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, hoisting herself back onto the dock.

The boat slipped out from under her, and she scrambled to hang onto the dock without letting her feet touch the sacred water. In an instant, Vhannor had abandoned his knitting and hauled her the rest of the way, and as soon as her feet hit the dock she darted away from him like his touch had burned her.

His expression slammed shut, and Liris winced. He had let her take the lead to do things how she wanted, only intervening when she actually needed assistance. Just like always.

She stomped back over and sat next to his feet, her legs hanging over the edge of the dock without skimming the water. After a moment, he sat next to her.

"I'm sorry," Liris said. "I wanted to be able to prove I—we—had nothing to worry about after... last time. I keep trying to prepare for every contingency and follow every rule and it never works, but I don't know what else I'm supposed to do."

"You're worried about the ball."

"Yes, I am worried about the ball! I'm your partner who can't keep up with your spellcasting. I'm a Serenthuar candidate who ought to be able to get any information out of a foreign diplomat but has never been to a party. So far my attempts to use my skills have led to almost opening a demon portal by mistake, a realm backing out of the Coalition they and we wanted them to join—"

"You don't know that—"

"Nearly setting us on fire, and getting three of the most dangerous people in the world into a fight over nothing!"

"Nothing? Okay, that's enough. Liris, look at me." She glared up at him, and he glared right back. "First, let's take a moment to note how many of those disasters you just listed did not, in fact, come to pass. To be clear, that would be all of them.

"Second of all, you're taking a lot of blame on yourself and ignoring, for instance, my part in what happened in the temple. Thirdly, you're eliding all the patterns you've spotted that enabled us to solve our missions. Have you considered that maybe what you should be focusing on is not being a partner, but what you uniquely bring?"

Liris tossed her pen into his lap. "Everything I've brought today has gone wrong."

"Thank you, but I do not need an additional Easy-Flow tip."

Liris blinked and then doubled over laughing. When she finally got a handle on herself, Vhannor tucked her hair behind her ears, and she went still.

"You know why I've been allowed to not have a partner, and why I can take you on field missions without your spellcasting training being complete," Vhannor said. "It's because I don't need you to do all the things I can do. If being the best field caster in the world were enough to deal with whatever Jadrhun is up to, frankly, I wouldn't have needed to recruit you."

"Thyrasel." She frowned. "Why haven't you been asking me to teach that to you, then?"

"Because I'd be tempted to use it, and its complexity makes it so inherently powerful I could do a lot of damage by accident. Jadrhun has all the time he needs to set up a spell correctly; dispelling, this language in particular, has to happen fast. It isn't safe to deploy without a thorough understanding I don't have time to devote myself to right now."

"Why?"

Vhannor sighed. "If you're improvising spells in the field, you need to keep them very basic to make sure they work as intended, because you don't have time to think through all the iterations. Part of what caught my attention about you right away is that you can keep focused even in an emergency, which is what you need to create a very clear, specific spell."

"But Thyrasel is so inherently complicated that just a little goes a long way, without needing other layers or risking confusing the meaning."

"Exactly. I can disregard the temptation to add more power to a quick spell, because that takes time, but if I could change an already active one with a few strokes—"

"Change a spell? That's a thing?"

"Oh no, now I've gone and given you ideas," Vhannor deadpanned. "Yes. Before you ask, we don't convert demon spells because dispelling releases most of the spell's power back into the world. Changing patterns uses up the magic, and in an active demon portal zone, we want to get as much magic back as possible. We don't know how magic is generated, but we do know it's the only thing holding the Sundered Realms together: without the Gates, people in almost every realm would starve. Most students never learn to change a spell at all. Changing a spell is like that emotional overload you felt dispelling your first demon portal, but every time. And if you don't finish the changes, no one can save you."

"You've changed the previous spell without activating a new one, so in essence now neither work and you're trapped inside," Liris said.

"Right."

"If you were testing iterations of a spell though," Liris said, "wouldn't it make sense to only change one element at a time?"

He frowned. "Yes, of course. You want to control variables. Why?"

"Is it normal for every demon portal on your missions to use literally none of the same languages? We haven't even had a repeat in mathematical discipline since I've been with you."

Vhannor's head snapped back like she'd slapped him. He turned to gaze out across the lake, eyes distant, and Liris could practically see him recalling all the demon portals they'd seen in the last weeks.

"Void everything," Vhannor said. "Jadrhun's testing us."

There was a pattern.

He turned back to her, his gaze burning again.

"This is what you bring that's unique," he told her. "Your perspective. Your brain. I don't need a partner who's a perfect caster, I need someone who can think and see what I can't. Don't even try to tell me that isn't you, even on your worst day."

Liris smiled, just a little. "I can't deny that does sound like me."

He smiled back at her, his eyes dancing.

And cupped her face in his hands.

Liris closed her eyes, and breathed, and then he was kissing her.

That, it turned out, was another way to make her mind very, immediately focused.

Her brain didn't shut down but turned overactive instead, feeling, processing every movement of Vhannor's lips against hers.

The way he went still at the first touch of her tongue, fingers tightening on her face like he wanted to hold her there forever.

The way her toes curled and her chest went tight and warmth spread through her like honey, turning her liquid, molten for him.

When they separated to gasp for the thin air, Liris felt less silly for how warm she felt everywhere when she saw Vhannor's bright golden eyes, flushed face, and that his uneven breathing matched her own.

Oh. Hmm.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Liris said softly, "but I think we have to leave this perfectly deserted, picturesque area if we're going to be engaging in activities that interfere further with breathing."

Vhannor burst out laughing but started clambering to his feet.

Liris tried to contain her own ridiculous smile.

She just needed to be herself, and Vhannor just needed someone who could stand at his side.

Great. Good.

Definitely no way this could go wrong.