Embers (Scales 'N' Spells 4)

Eight people were already in the room, working. Cassie was curled in one of the chairs, holding a large mug of coffee in both hands like it was the key to life itself. Lisette was flitting about the room in a flowing mint green dress that swirled about her ankles as she moved between the two tables. She smiled and greeted them as they arrived.

Another female mage was seated on a stool, carefully weaving together a number of elements into a long, slender thread of leather. Cameron introduced her as Carla. The woman with the pale blonde hair greeted them briefly before turning back to her work.

Cameron then directed them over to the other table where a young mage sat. It looked as if he was preparing some of the elements to be used to make the amulets. The blond looked up with bright, sky-blue eyes, and Nikki couldn’t stop the gasp.

“Oh my! You’re gorgeous,” they said, the words tumbling from their lips. But they meant it. His eyes were extravagantly kohled, reminding them of a cat’s eye or even the pictures they’d seen of ancient Egyptians. His lips were a deep burgundy red, while his cheekbones were highlighted to make them look even sharper.

The young man leaned back and tossed over his shoulder at Cassie, “I told you it was a good day to go with dramatic eyes.”

Cassie snorted. “For you, every day is a good day to go with dramatic eyes.”

The young man did not appear deterred by this. He just smiled at Nikki. “Hi! We haven’t met yet. I’m North, Warin’s mate. Do you want to help me prep elements for the amulets?”

Nikki glanced over at Cameron and Lisette, not sure they should accept the offer or if they were expected to do something else.

Lisette smiled and gave a little wave of her hand. “That would be great. North can show you exactly what’s to be done. We’re going to switch up later. Everyone will be making at least one amulet today.”

“Really?” North asked in what sounded like a mocking tone. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to work with banshee screams.”

Lisette groaned. “What I said was you weren’t allowed to work with banshee screams unsupervised again.”

Nikki eyed him sideways as they slid into the stool next to North’s. Banshee screams, really?

North snickered and leaned close, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Cassie and I were making a different kind of amulet, and it was my idea to use the banshee scream. Blew out windows in six of the rooms on this floor. Warin was so upset.”

“Sora also had to repair your hearing,” Lisette muttered.

North rolled his eyes. “I’m still learning this magic thing.”

That sounded totally like something Nikki would have tried. “Me too.”

“Awesome. You can learn with me. Cameron, Cassie, and Tori are all relatively new to the castle, but they’re all way farther along than me.”

The last of Nikki’s anxious butterflies seemed to flutter away with North’s excited words. There was something about the eager, sarcastic young man that felt like a kindred spirit. North had the same sort of vibe as Cassie—chaotic good. And those were Nikki’s kind of people.

North certainly helped make the hours fly by, since making the amulets was proving to be tedious work with no room for error. Prepping the ingredients for just one took the better part of an hour, and worse was stringing out the lotus blossom silk that was being used to bind and shape the amulet. The sticky crap broke if they weren’t careful, and they had a limited supply of long lotus blossom stems. If they had to send a dragon out to fetch more, they’d have to postpone the search for the Jaeggi by another day.

As they worked, Nikki tried to sneak in a few questions. “Um, is there any room in the castle that isn’t so…pretty? Something I can use as an art room?”

North blinked up at them. “Oh, there’s quite a few rooms that are more for storage than anything else. Especially in the top parts of the towers. You do art?”

“Yeah. Well, sorta. It was something I always wanted to do, but with the Jaeggi, the most I was given was pencil and paper. I’m just now really exploring other mediums. And I discovered quickly that paint gets…well, everywhere.”

North nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I can see that. After we’re done here, we’ll figure out a place for you to work in—a room that isn’t going to suffer from flying paint.”

“Ooh, a budding artist.” Carla gave them a wink. “That’ll be nice. Most of us—and by that, I mean me—do not have an artistic bone in our body. It’ll be nice to have an artist in the house who can do logos and stuff.”

Nikki hadn’t thought of it like that. That their art could be useful in some way. They’d just been overjoyed to finally have the freedom to do it.