His nose was stuffed up, so he couldn’t smell anything and tasted the broth with no expectations. It was somehow both nearly flavorless and salty. But Robin had another sip anyway, then waited, no less anxious than Lucas to see how his stomach took it.
“So far, so good,” he declared, three sips in, and Lucas nodded before rolling up his sleeves and going back to the stove to clean up.
“You don’t have to do that,” Robin insisted quickly, sighing as this was ignored. Lucas washed up efficiently, including some flour-dusted measuring cups that had been in the sink already. Robin couldn’t smell freshly baked bread but suspected there was some, somewhere. It did not take much effort to pictureLucas as he was, in his socks with his sleeves up, kneading bread at the counter.
Lucas was going to ruin his nail polish, Robin reflected absently.
Robin didn’t look for any shapes in any doorways, and the sounds, if any, from upstairs were hidden by the distant fall of rain. He sipped his broth and slowly chewed the small amount of rice Connor had thoughtfully added to it to give it some substance, while he studied the, well, as Persephone had called Lucas,mystic,Rixon had saidwild man,with tiny dish soap bubbles dotting the threads of silver in his hair.
The silver hair was fascinating in itself. No other Greysmith, blood or not, had gone gray so early. Some liked to blame the other incident, the final one that had convinced anyone else still on the fence about Lucas’ destiny.
Lightning on a clear day wasn’t unheard of. It was more the location and the target that made it so remarkable. Lucas had been in the square in the center of Old Town, on what business, no one knew. The town had been built around that square, which had been created for possibly more than just a way to mark the rise of the sun at the solstices.
The bolt had struck Lucas directly or it hadn’t; no one who had been there could seem to recall exactly. But that had been the third sign that had convinced any remaining naysayers. Signs of three were not to be ignored.
That had been the autumn after Lucas’ summer working there. Robin hadn’t thought he would have been welcome if he’d tried to visit during Lucas’ recovery, though some of his family had. It was probably for the best that Robin had kept himself away. Lucas had been a tragic but romantic picture to Robin then, and Robin, who had been raised on stories of ill-fated witch loveaffairs, would have acted accordingly, like a true scion of his line, and embarrassed himselfandLucas.
Although Lucas had been significantly less tragic in jeans and a wet t-shirt, dirty from work, yet had scrambled Robin’s seventeen-year-old mind just as thoroughly.
When you use your gift, Blessing…
Lucas had been kneeling down to fix a fence, making him shorter than Robin for once. He’d turned his head to look up, his hair just long enough to get into his eyes. Robin had been thinking about pushing back it for him, or offering to.
Lucas had almost been smiling. Then he’d said, warm and unexpected, “When you use your gift, Blessing, do you see us old and married?”
Robin’s blood was loud in his ears. He held tightly to the cup in his hands and dropped his head, only for the remaining broth to reveal wavering images.
He quickly looked away, to the closed door to the yard, which was near the sink. Which meant his gaze inevitably went back to Lucas.
To think about that memory was to admit that Lucas did not joke about gifts. The rest… he might tease about that, but not about the gift he knew Robin had.
Robin was too tired, and currently feeling too gross, for that discussion.
He studied Lucas, outlined in grayish blue once again by the rain Robin could see through the window. “Has it rained the whole time?” he asked after a while, hiding behind small talk but okay with that.
“Quite a big storm,” Lucas answered without turning, “with another on the way.”
“What?” Robin put the suddenly heavy cup down on the desk. “That makes four in three weeks.”
“There will be less rain for this one.” Lucas was confident. “Winds and cold, but lighter rainfall.” He paused, a bowl half in the dishrack, dripping onto the counter. “The kings are trying to keep the town going but nature will do as she pleases, and right now she wants to rage at the world. They’re strong, but it’s only the two of them. No help has been offered from anywhere else.”
“Right,” Robin said weakly. “Rage is… understandable.” To him. He wondered if Lucas had ever raged. Robin had never seen or heard a hint of any, even though Lucas hadn’t done anything wrong and even the witches who should have known better thought it best to avoid him. Maybe Lucas had friends who were not witches. Some did. His family’s construction and restoration business meant they worked more with outsiders and traveled a lot, so it was possible.
Lucas didn’t add anything else. If Robin could have stood up and gone over to comfort him, he would have. Or considered it before backing off, anyway. “Will you be okay?” he asked instead, thinking of storms, of lightning.
Lucas turned toward him, waiting for Robin to elaborate, although, since he had his left side turned toward Robin and couldn’t see him, it was probably just a polite gesture.
Robin put his hands on his knees since he didn’t want to hold the cup again. He was trembling, possibly from the chill. “With the storm, I mean,” he explained anyway, growing very quiet. “Will it upset you? I worry over that whenever there’s thunder.”
“Do you?” Lucas wondered softly before finally putting the bowl in the rack. He faced forward, looking out the window. “There was not a cloud in the sky that day.” He said it in a distant, too-calm voice, then washed and rinsed a large stirringspoon and put that in the rack too. “It would likely help with the weather and the crops if Oak and Holly knew what to expect. If anyone can know.”
He wasn’t chiding or scolding. He simply made a statement—made a point, in a quiet Lucas way he knew Robin would understand.
If anyone could See such things, it would be Robin, and unlike many in the coven who had forgotten this, Lucas had not.
Our little Blessing, Robin could hear it as though his family were around to call him that again. The child so gifted the visions came without effort.
The effort mostly went into avoiding them.
