Instead of learning how to draw houses, she was learning to drop them on people.
Focus, stupid. Focus.
“You have the raw gift of an artist. However, you were missing the magic, you were missing the paint, the brushes, the canvas. You now have access to mine. But those two together will give you a product that is inefficient, unrefined, liable to…” He trailed off.
“Liable to drop trains on people.”
“Precisely.” He smirked slightly. “To create unintentional results. Through my tutelage, perhaps lessunexpectedthings may result when you ask your grimoire for assistance. However, you will remain limited in your access to my magic.”
“Because you’re locked away?” It was a guess.
“Indeed.” His smile lasted a little longer that time.
Yay, points with teacher.
“There are three seals that keep me trapped here within this place. Three locks that chain this room shut. Each one requires a particular task to be completed.” His expression tipped past stoic and into dour. “No one has attempted them all.”
“Because they didn’t want to, or because they didn’t survive?”
“No one has survived to desire it.” He was the mask of nothingness once more. He pushed open a door to a side room. It was smaller than the main chamber but filled with just as muchstuff.
It matched the rest of everything else—the Baroque furniture, the soaring bookcases, the vines and leaves. Though unlike the rest of Serrik’s space, this room had more of the faded oil paintings that were more like murals with their sizes and how they dominated the walls, some twenty feet tall and thirty or forty feet wide.
The center of the room had been cleared away in a circle with candles lit around it. Another cliché, but hey—sometimes things were cliché for a reason. Sometimes they worked.
“So…you’re saying I need to find the locked door, and…break the seals, one at a time, until you’re free?”
“Yes.” Serrik stepped over the row of candles.
Ava waited for more. He didn’t give it. “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer I suppose. Okay, can you give me any more details on how I’m supposed todothat? Like, where to go, what I’m supposed to do when I get there, how to avoid getting eaten by a?—”
“Ava.”
She shut up.
Serrik was smiling again, just the mildest twinge of his lips. He motioned for her to come join him. “One thing at a time. We are teaching you how to use your magic.”
“Fine.” She stepped over the candles and walked into the center. “I just think it’s more useful if I?—”
He put his pointer finger against her lips, once more silencing her. “Humans. Always so eager to chase your tail, with no thought spent about what to do with it once you catch it.” He turned her about-face. “You will not be able to break the first seal if you do not learn to tap into the magic properly. So, what good is it to guide you there? Do things inorder,little butterfly. Now. Go sit at the edge of the circle.”
Stupid fae, making sense. She sighed and did as he said. Walking to the edge of the circle, she turned back to face him and sat. “Won’t I need the book, though?”
“No. We will get to that in a moment. But the short of it is; your will is what you make of it.” He rotated his wrist. And in a flash, a red apple was perched between his fingers.
“Whoa.” She laughed.
The smile on his face made it quite clear that she wasn’t meant to be impressed by that. He placed the apple down on the floor in front of her, about four feet away.
“Yeah, I get it. I’m a toddler.” Sheepishly, she tucked her hair behind her ear. “But all this is new to me.”
“Do not mistake me. I find it quite charming. It is easy for us to forget what we are in the grand scheme of things. Easy to lose sense of our nature.” He moved to stand behind and a little to the side of her.
“Forest for the trees and all that.”
“Precisely.”
“So…” She shifted a little bit, trying very hard not to get distracted by his nearness. Shit, he was so damn attractive.Don’t get the hots for the serial-killing, spider-monster fae, Ava.“What am I supposed to do now?”
