[William]
It didn’t matter what William said. He still found himself accepting Miss Sera’s requests.
The next time she came to him, it was to guard her while she shopped at the town’s marketplace. A reasonable request considering her identity.
But that request was followed by ones like accompanying her to the town’s latest attraction, fishing by the stream, and on one memorable occasion, attending a festival. Miss Sera, little by little, became a frequent part of his days.
“Won’t your family worry about your outings?” he asked in one of them, only to immediately regret it upon witnessing her cheer dulling.
“Uncle Ricardo won’t care so long as I don’t get in trouble.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t,” he said.
She smiled, and the light sparked anew in her eyes. “You’re getting better.”
Miss Sera compensated him generously for his time, and it concerned him.
The coins she gave scalded his conscious, had guilt marring the ease he felt at the sight of her approaching him for yet another request.
“Don’t take advantage of the lady’s sentiments,” Mrs. Bowen said when he shared his concerns.
Her smile told him she knew something he didn’t.
“What’s the matter?” Miss Sera asked, and William felt her gaze falling from him to the untouched silver coins she put on his side of the table. “They’re not enough?”
“They’re unearned, Miss Sera.” He took the coins and returned it to her side, one by one. “All I did was accompany you.”
“But I took away from your time. Surely that is to be compensated?”
“You did, though,” William said, and immediately realized he shouldn’t have said it.
“With what?” Miss Sera pressed.
He didn’t answer, only declared, “I won’t take your coin.”
The curve of her lips flattened, and this time it was because of him. Hurt underlined her voice as she asked, “Does that mean you won’t take my requests?”
“I will.”
“But not my coin?” It relieved him a little, how she sounded more confused than hurt now.
“Yes.”
A consequence of refusing payment was Miss Sera’s absence.
“I can’t take much of your time if I’m not paying for it,” she explained when she finally visited him after weeks.
“I’m fine with it.”
“I’m not. It would be shameless of me to take advantage of your kindness.”
No kindness lay in the way he wanted her to be shameless. “What’s your request today?”
“My friend’s jewelry shop. I’d like you to accompany me there.”
William recalled the mention of one friend with these specifics. “The ring’s owner?”
Miss Sera nodded. “I told her about you the other day, and she expressed wanting to meet you.”
It took William his all not to show his surprise at the thought of her speaking of him to another.
Upon entering, William found the shop to be small but well-decorated. Jewelry of all shapes and materials were arranged in a feast for the sights. They were exquisitely made, far more striking than those he saw the nobility dress themselves in at the Games.
Miss Sera lowered her cloak’s hood and walked in front of him, her familiarity with her surroundings making her immune from distraction. She stopped before a table where a woman was assembling a gold chain.
Their presence pulled the woman away from her work, looking at William curiously before settling on Miss Sera, her smile warm. “I see you’ve brought your friend.”
She made for a mystery in estimating her age; the light in her ice-blue eyes wizened beyond their years, her hair a bright silver. Her face, however, appeared untouched by time, only a few wrinkles at the corner of her eyes and mouth hinted at it.
Miss Sera stepped up to mediate their introductions. “Nyla, this is William. William, this is Nyla, the best jewelry maker in the world.”
“So you claim,” Nyla said with mirth. “Your order is ready at the back. See if it needs further adjustments.”
Miss Sera perked up at that, rushing to disappear behind a thick curtain, leaving him and Nyla alone.
“The illustrious William, we finally meet.” She surveyed him for a long moment before teasing, “I expected someone a little older. How old are you, by chance?”
“Just William is fine.” What thing about him could be described as illustrious? “And I’m twenty-three.”
“Ah, so only a year older than Sera. Explains why you two became close.”
“We’re only…” William tried, only to falter on forming the rest.
“Then you and Sera aren’t on the same page regarding your relations,” Nyla said, as if reading his bubbling thoughts.
He had to concede with her assessment. He didn’t know what Miss Sera thought, but he knew what he himself started to think and wonder about, and it was nothing that should be given the chance to bloom.
“Miss Sera mentioned you wanted to meet me.” It was an obvious diversion, but Nyla was kind enough to let it pass.
“Yes, I wanted to thank you in person for retrieving my ring.”
William shrugged. “It was no hard task.”
“That’s what Sera said, too. According to her, it took only a minute for you to retrieve it!”
“Miss Sera is exaggerating.” A pause, then, “It took something close to five.”
Nyla appeared terribly amused at that. “Is this you acting humble, lad?”
“I’m only speaking the truth.” It wasn’t like he asked the bandits to give him a swift victory.
“Well, whatever time you took, I’m still grateful.” Nyla played with the silver ring on her finger, and William could’ve sworn he saw it gleaming red under the daylight. “It’s a special ring, you know?"
William suspected it as such, but he went along and prompted, "Is it?"
"Yes. At first it was merely a keepsake from my family, a piece of metal that neither soothed my grief nor solitude. Only sentiments prevented me from exchanging it with a thick quilt and a warm meal. But then I was ten, wandering the streets in the dead of night, trying to find a corner I could delude myself to consider warmer than the rest. That was when I met him.”
“Him?”
“The man who turned the ring from a keepsake to a treasure. He gave me a pouch full of coins and asked for the ring I had hanging from my neck. It was so cold that I was desperate, and I gave it to him without a second thought. I thought that was the end of it, but then he did something, and the entire alley glowed red.” On cue, the ring gleamed. So he didn’t imagine it. “He returned the ring afterwards, told me that it would keep me warm. Holding it, I felt the sort of warmth one would feel near a fireplace.”
“He turned your ring into an Elemental artifact?” Nothing else would explain that sort of effect—would explain Miss Sera’s secrecy, her insistence on accompanying him to retrieve it.
“Told you it was special.”
That was putting it lightly. Drakon wasn’t like the neighboring Ashmore. Elemental artifacts and weapons were only for the Royalty, their use by others forbidden and subject to imprisonment. Only message tunnels were allowed, and those were only for the nobility’s use.
If the existence of Nyla’s ring was discovered… “Why are you telling me this?”
“Sera trusts you, and as a friend of her late mother, I’d like to put you to the test.”
“Isn’t your method too risky?” Was Nyla the reason for Miss Sera’s wild schemes?
“If one day the Royal Guards visit my humble shop, Sera will know not to hand you her hea—“
“I didn’t find my order, Nyla!” Miss Sera’s voice rang from the back. She pushed away the curtain with so much force it almost tore it from its hooks. Her face was curiously pink as she walked to stand between him and Nyla, glaring at her in warning.
Nyla seemed to care none for it. “You’re too old to eavesdrop, Sera.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I find that very hard to believe.”
“Are you alright?” William decided to ask, interrupting the one-sided battle. “Was it too hot at the back?”
Nyla’s eyes brightened in mischief. “How about you take Sera to the juice stand next to the shop?”
At that, Miss Sera seemed to have had enough, taking William by the hand to drag him out of the shop.
Once they were out, though, William went to the stand Nyla mentioned, getting Miss Sera a glass, ignoring her embarrassed protests and offerings to pay.
“Then I’ll have to buy you a glass in return another day,” she said, taking a sip and then murmuring around the rim of her half-emptied glass, “It’s only proper.”
One glass turned into two and then three, and soon enough, a pattern was established between him and Miss Sera, meeting at the marketplace on the days he ran errands for Mrs. Bowen.
Today was such a day, and William woke up to it with a trial. Mrs. Bowen gave him an odd look over breakfast, and he realized whatever thing she said didn’t register in the haze overwhelming his mind. He went out of the door with the beat of her concerned scolding fading behind him.
He was probably sick, but not too sick to run errands—to forgo meeting Miss Sera.
Miss Sera seemed to disagree. The moment she realized his addled state, she reached up a hand to press against his forehead, and it felt unbelievably cool on his skin. Her jaw dropped. “You’re burning with fever!”
William found himself back in Mrs. Bowen’s cottage, errands undone and meetings unattended. The look Mrs. Bowen gave him upon returning with a worse condition assured William of one thing: this incident was to be held over his head for a lifetime, brought upon whenever he decided to ignore her concerns.
The more time passed, the more it dawned on William that he was indeed too sick. His thoughts slipped in and out of coherence. He felt hot and cold. His head pulsed with pain and his guts rolled with nausea.
Mrs. Bowen and Miss Sera alternated on tending to him, heeding none of his protests. For two women who just met, they got along well—Mrs. Bowen giving the instructions, and Miss Sera following them, if albeit clumsily.
With their forces combined, William had no choice but surrender to their care.
The afternoon darkened into evening, and it was time for Miss Sera to go home.
Before she did, though, she stopped to change the cloth on his forehead. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she told him, almost like a promise.
“Got a good heart, that girl,” Mrs. Bowen shared after Miss Sera left, pulling William’s sights from her trail.
“Too good,” he managed to utter, a stray thought that slipped out of its kind’s confines.
Mrs. Bowen’s eyes softened. Her bony hand felt warm on his own. “No one’s too good to reach out for, my boy.”
Miss Sera did visit the next day. She visited the following days, too.
“You don’t have to trouble yourself,” William told her for the umpteenth time. Recovery from his sickness gave him clarity of thought, and clarity of thought plunged him into unbearable embarrassment at the thought of what she had seen of him.
Miss Sera ignored him, squinting at the soup she was making by the fireplace. Mrs. Bowen left for the town a while ago for a small errand, pushed by Miss Sera’s insistent claims that she would handle it all in her stead. And yes, that included the cooking.
But the workings of that task seemed to evade her.
William offered to help only to be rejected—left with no choice but to watch in increasing distress as Miss Sera added a questionable mixture of ingredients into the boiling pot.
When she set a bowl containing the result of her work, William stared down at it in severe apprehension.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked, sounding unsure. Tense.
“I am.” And with that, he took on finishing the bowl.
It didn’t taste as bad as he thought it would be. It was just… bland. It tasted like hot, salted water. A miraculous feat considering the concerning amount of ingredients he witnessed Miss Sera use.
It didn’t take long for him to finish the bowl, and the moment he did, Miss Sera asked him with obvious delight, “Seconds?”
Silently, William raised the bowl to her.
Even released from the confines Mrs. Bowen and Miss Sera imposed on him, Miss Sera’s visits persisted. Many times, William returned home after completing a request to find her and Mrs. Bowen conversing, the rhythm of it led by the former’s enthusiasm and the latter’s serenity.
Today and over afternoon tea, Miss Sera shocked him with this: “Did you know Mrs. Bowen used to do requests at the Blue Gale?”
“What?” Mrs. Bowen said after a long sip, unimpressed with his stares. “I did it in my youth. It’s how I met my late husband.”
That last bit seemed to be a new revelation for Miss Sera. “Did he also fulfill requests?”
“No, he was a requester.” Mrs. Bowen smiled, her fondness of the memory clear. “He only visited once. I happened to be there and fulfilled it.”
“What was his request?”
Mrs. Bowen’s smile widened to a grin. “Ruining a wedding.”
William choked on his tea.
“It tastes good,” William answered the question Miss Sera’s eyes asked, and for once, it wasn’t a lie.
Along Miss Sera’s visits came her attempts at cooking. She assigned William and Mrs. Bowen as judges, and between his half-hearted praise and Mrs. Bowen’s scathing criticism, she improved.
“Mrs. Bowen’s been teaching Damregin’s cuisine.” At his puzzled look, she elaborated, “Those where the meats are typically grilled and accompanied by sauces.”
“Ah, those. They’re my favorites.” He emptied his plates quicker whenever Mrs. Bowen happened to make them.
“I know…” Miss Sera said, a lovely blush on her face. The tilt of her smile soft, the look in her eyes fond.
Obtuse as William could be at times, he couldn’t mistake what that look conveyed.
