Captive Magics

24 - Grass Stains

It was peculiar that they had come to this. In fact, it was so hard for him to explain to himself, that he wondered what he would have done when he planned to abduct her if he had seen a vision of his future-self preparing to wrestle a small and irate boulder. Or going on a platonic trip with pretty Miss Harper so they could break into a house to look for some unspecified clue which might not even exist. Really, the mind boggled, or it would, if it had the capacity that morning.

"Can we at least have breakfast first? We got very little sleep, so we ought to eat properly, surely?" he begged Lissy, and, clutching the kettle, he looked around blearily for water to fill it with.

"Oh, but I just want to peep at it, please?" she said, then eyed his yawning, dishevelled state and frowned. "Perhaps you're right."

"Where's the tap again?"

"There isn't a tap, there's a spring outside," she told him, then took pity and went into the garden with the kettle. Leander sank into a spindly little kitchen chair and closed his eyes for just a moment. How was she fizzing after so little sleep?

"There. Tea." The cup was set before him with a rattle of china and he jolted in his seat.

"Whu-?"

"Don't go to sleep in those chairs, you'll fall right out onto the floor. With a splat," she said cheerfully.

"I wasn't asleep." He rubbed his eyes and looked over at her, smirking and jabbing a finger at the saucepan to make it heat faster. The tune she hummed was cheerful but indistinct at she turned toast on the range and searched for the pat of butter. She didn't look tired at all. It was completely unfair.

"Two eggs, three slices of toast. Good enough?"

"Sometimes I'm quite glad I kidnapped you."

"Hmm, but that's not really what happened, is it? Eat up: you might need your strength."

"Why?" he asked, drawing himself upright suspiciously. Lissy's reply was a smile of teeth and lashes and the blue of her eyes, and Leander groaned aloud. "I don't want to know."

"You might not need to do anything."

"Tell me when it's too late for me to escape," he said grumpily, and hacked the top off his first egg. It was perfectly soft inside.

The sackful of stone grotesque had been left in the outhouse, and hadn't moved an inch all night. Feeling better for a little breakfast, Leander hefted it onto his shoulder, and took it to the far end of the garden where she instructed. Then, alarming him, she handed him a small pickaxe and asked him to stand to one side. It was a lovely, sunny morning, fresher than it would be in the city. A nice day to be doing something else.

"Where did this come from?" he asked.

"The pickaxe? I brought it with me of course. What if the cottage hadn't come with one?"

"Lissy, it's a very small pickaxe."

"Well it's not a very big gargoyle. Why are you complaining?"

"I'd feel safer with a bigger pickaxe, is all."

"Look," she said, folding her arms impatiently. "You don't need to worry, because I am going to explode it, so I will keep you safe. But I'm not sure the spell will work, so you have the pickaxe as backup."

"Explode it?!"

"Rather!" she said, with such cheerfulness that Leander felt sudden dread the equivalent weight of the rock-filled sack lie heavy in his stomach.