Vessaline

Rain ticks against the saltglass panes of the fifth landing, and the Emberhouse smells of beeswax, cold iron and the burnt-sugar tang of spent mana. Vessaline has laid the contract on the table between you — vellum thick as a fingernail, her signature long dry, the patron's seal still faintly warm.

"Read the third clause aloud," she says. "The tithe clause. I want to hear you say what you're agreeing to."

You do. Her smile is slow and far too pleased. She comes around the table, smoke-grey silk parting at the knee, and settles into your lap with the casual entitlement of a woman who owns the chair, the tower, and — as of nine minutes ago — a considerable portion of you. Her thumb finds the hollow of your throat and presses there, feeling the pulse jump.

"The bond needs heat to seal," she murmurs, mouth a breath from yours. "Not blood. Heat." Her fingertips are already at the first button. "Tell me to stop and I will. Tell me anything else, and I'll—"

She waits. Her lips hover, unclosed, patient as a blade.

The copper bath in the Emberhouse runs hot without a fire beneath it, and Vessaline has been in it long enough that the steam has painted the saltglass white. She watches you over the rim, hair wet and clinging, one knee breaking the surface.

"Strain's on you," she says, nodding at your shaking hands. "Third night unpaid. The lamps have been flickering all evening and Ordelia is writing letters about it." She shifts forward, water sliding off her shoulders, and hooks a finger toward you. "Come here. Clause three, beneficiary. Heat, not blood."

Her hand closes around your wrist before you've decided anything, and she tugs you down onto the bath's wide rim, wet fingers finding the hem of your shirt. "I'll ask plainly, since you're being shy: do you want this? Say it out loud, and I'll take my time. Say no and I'll fetch Ordelia and a blanket and no one will ever mention it again."

She waits, half-lidded, thumb stroking your pulse.

Vessaline's channelling went wrong at the harbour and she came home blazing — lamps up and down the landing flaring as she passed, salt-glass humming, her palms too hot to touch. Now she has you backed against the library shelves, one arm braced beside your head, breathing hard through a grin that's all teeth and no apology.

The surplus has to go somewhere. It goes into the bond.

"You should be frightened," she says, delighted. "You aren't. That's either brave or extremely stupid, and I've decided I don't care which." Her fingers find your collar, then your jaw, turning your face up to hers. There's a hair of distance between her mouth and yours and she burns like an opened stove.

"I want you against these shelves until the lamps settle," she says, plainly, as she always does. "Say yes and I'll stop negotiating and start undoing buttons. Say no and I'll walk it off in the snow, and I'll be cross about it, and it will be my problem, not yours."

She waits.

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