My mind churned as I sat on the grass and watched Alys work. It was thoroughly impressive, the way she was sculpting a bathtub out of magic and molten earth.

  Even more impressive was how well the tub was turning out. She kept reheating the material, which made it possible for her to brush away any imperfections, quite literally. I already knew this tub would be not only functional, but aesthetically pleasing.

  I also noted it was large enough to sit four people, allowing them to submerge themselves up to their necks. For a single person, it was almost a pool. And, while it made my cheeks flush, I couldn’t help but observe that it would be perfectly comfortable for two to share.

  My mind only dipped in that direction briefly, however. I was far more preoccupied by the fanciful ideas assaulting me from every direction.

  Alys had been so lovingly supportive of my experimentation that I found it difficult to just sit still and watch her work. I wasn’t sure what I wanted more as the sun slowly made its way down the sky: to kiss her and refuse to stop doing so for a long while, or to run off and play with some of my ingredients like a hyperactive child.

  There were so many combinations I had never tried before! Combinations I had longed to explore, but had been steered away from by well-established recipes and traditions. What could I make if I abandoned those habits?

  What couldn’t I make?

  One ingredient in particular practically sang to me with its potential: a bright orange stem, bearing flowers of yellow and brown.

  Alys and I had acquired it while wandering the woods that surrounded Swiftband. We’d been on our way back to her house when we had encountered a massive stag spirit of some kind, whose every step bent the world around it and left plants in its wake. After it departed, I’d been able to find only this single bloom, but I’d been content enough with that.

  I hadn’t let myself so much as think about it too often since then, beyond seeing to its health. But if I were going to let myself experiment…

  I would need to be exceedingly careful. The plant was so potent and full of magic that my diagnostic spells had failed outright. Perhaps I could try to harvest bits of the flowers in a way that would allow them to regrow? The idea was worth considering further, especially if my suspicions were correct and it was a one-of-a-kind plant. And I could —

  “It’s done.”

  Alys’ voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked up to find her standing by the bathtub with obvious pride on her face.

  I could see why. The final product looked flawless, as if it had been conjured from a single piece of the odd material. The rim of the bath now extended far outwards and contained a series of careful indentations, each large enough to hold a cup or a plate.

  I paused, looking again at those indentations. Then I narrowed my eyes and glared at Alys.

  “We are not eating in the bath.”

  I tried to keep my voice steely to convey the intensity of my disapproval. She merely grinned, like she was a predator and I the prey.

  “‘We’, is it? Already planning for us to bathe together?”

  “I… didn’t mean…” I gritted my teeth. “You are bullying me again. Stop that, bad dragoness!”

  She giggled in that rumbly way of hers, leaned close enough to kiss me, and breathed a single word before pulling away. “No.”

  “I see how it is.” I crossed my arms in my most theatrical manner. “First, you try to fluster me with that question, which was really just an effort to gauge my willingness to get in the bathtub with you. And now here you are, turning the whole thing on me.”

  The startled look on my dragoness’s face was well worth a little extra embarrassment.

  “What?” she hissed.

  “The cruel dragoness has me in her clutches!” I wailed. “Playing with my heart, and now she’s coming for my body, too! Whatever am I to do?”

  “Coming for your body, am I?” she asked, low and dangerous, her eyes hooded.

  Was I taunting a dragoness who was within fire-breathing distance of me? Yes. Did I intend to stop? No.

  I never said I was the smartest fae alive.

  “See? I’m sensing danger right now!” I teased.

  “You should be. But since you’re tempting fate…”

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  She lunged at me. I merely grinned as I dodged right around her arms, which closed on my prior position.

  “Should I scream for help? Kiri might come rescue me.”

  “Try it, fae. You’re in my lair now,” Alys taunted right back.

  I pulled on every bit of my mana and training, grinning constantly at the dragoness as I got away from her again and again. She was fast and strong, I’d give her that. She knew how to move and how to make the most of her body’s abilities. But I could tell that she’d never received serious combat training of any sort.

  I laughed openly at her frustrated expression as I danced around her, making her lose track of me altogether before popping up from her blind spot. A few times, when she’d really overextended, I managed to plant a quick kiss on her snout before darting away.

  I could barely see through the tears of my laughter when she finally barreled into me and pinned me to the ground, her expression caught in a delightful mix of amusement and frustration at how long it had taken her to do this.

  “No more running from me now!” she declared imperiously, while I continued to snicker.

  “N-not unless I feel like it,” I stammered between laughs. “Y-You are not very good at tag.”

  Raising my hand, I tapped her snout gently, making her reel back. Her look of outrage just made me burst into laughter again.

  “That’s it,” she growled.

  The next thing I knew, she was kissing me, which did an admittedly good job of getting me to shut up.

  The kiss was short and kind of salty. We were gasping for breath after all that running around, I was a little sweaty, and both of us were covered in grass and dirt.

  I wouldn’t have traded the moment for the world.

  “Want to take a bath first, or should I? If you want to go first, I can just use the ruby to wash up a tiny bit. That way, I could start on dinner,” I offered, running my hand down her snout and cupping her cheek lovingly.

  The way she leaned her head into my hand made something deep within me melt.

  “That works,” she rumbled in contentment. “Or you can wait for me to finish, and I’ll help.”

  I shook my head. “You made the bathtub, so it’s only fair that you’re the first to use it. Besides, I like cooking for you.”

  Her eyes had fluttered shut as I gently ran my thumb over the scales of her cheek, but now they fell open again. She gave me one of those intense looks of hers before she leaned in for a second kiss.

  “Okay. I’ll go grab some stuff for my bath. The jewels are on the dining table.”

  I nodded with a smile as she pulled away from me and quickly walked into the house. Then I took my time getting up and stretching.

  Finding the jewels right where she’d said they would be, I took both outside and rolled my sleeves up a little past my elbows. It didn’t take much effort to get clean enough to handle food safely. I left the jewels on the rim of the bath, inside one of the indentations clearly meant to hold a plate.

  I sighed as I noted that. Then again, if eating in the bath made Alys happy, I would make an effort to overlook it… even if I cringed at the thought of crumbs finding their way into the bath water.

  I was definitely not going to participate in such displays of nonsense, no matter how she tried to tempt me to join her!

  Heading inside, I turned my mind towards dinner plans. I didn’t feel like making a fancy meal that evening. I was about to throw together something simple when I suddenly remembered we still had leftovers from the caravan. Alys had left them in the cupboard she used to hold all her perishables. I retrieved them as quickly as possible, shuddering at the wave of cold that slammed into my face whenever I opened that cupboard.

  From there, it was the work of a moment to heat some of the meat-based dishes she’d bought for us and toast a few slices of bread with extra spices on top. The hardest part was extending the process long enough so the food would still be warm when Alys finally came back inside from her bath.

  “Hrrrm, that smells delicious. Thank you for the bread, too.” Kissing my cheek, she immediately scrunched up her face in dramatic disgust. “Yuck. You taste like grass and sweat. Go test out our new bathtub.”

  “Rude,” I huffed at her playfully. “Leave something for me?”

  “I’ll consider it.” She sent me off with a haughty wave, which only made me snicker as I snatched up my fresh change of clothes and ventured outside.

  The shiver that raced down my spine from the abrupt temperature shift was unpleasant. Alys’ home was always warm and cozy, both from the fire she always had going whenever she was inside and from the heat she naturally generated within her surroundings.

  I was all the more grateful to see the heat wafting from the bath water, twisting into the air in condensation thick enough to pass for fog. I saw at once that Alys had emptied the bath and then refilled it for me. The ground was positively soaked and misting up as the water cooled over it.

  I put my clothing on the rim of the tub, stripped out of the thoroughly grass-stained outfit, and slipped into the water with a pleased sigh of relief.

  It was delightfully warm. Perhaps even too warm, under different circumstances, but the nippy air kept me thankful for the heat.

  Looking around, I soon found the source of this heat. Alys had skillfully embedded the sapphire in the middle of the tub and filled it with a decent amount of mana, so it was radiating warmth. She had also managed to manipulate the magical jewel to make it release mana in the form of nearly blistering heat, rather than manifesting flames. That would both heat the water as it filled the bath and keep it at a steady temperature for a while, letting us lounge and soak for however long we pleased.

  Just as importantly, Alys had carved grooves into the odd black material, or perhaps she’d softened it before inlaying it with silver wire. This wire spread over most of the tub’s bottom in intriguing patterns, all of which led back to the jewel in the tub’s center. Since silver was an incredible conductor of mana, that meant we could either refill or drain the jewel of its mana by simply touching the silver with any part of our bodies.

  A very good thing, since I was fairly certain the sapphire would burn me rather badly were I to touch it in its current state. I would need to be careful not to step on or sit on it by accident, but that was a small price to pay for having a very luxurious bath.

  The ruby, meanwhile, was embedded in a loose setting near the rim of the tub. Plucking it out would be easy, which was another sign of excellent forethought on Alys’ part. We could use the jewel as a steady water supply for several activities, from washing hands or dishes to the simple generation of drinking water. It would be a shame if such a useful item was stuck in the bathtub.

  I leaned back with a sigh of pleasure, letting the bath wash away my exhaustion. Eventually, I would retrieve the ruby from its setting and properly scrub myself clean before spraying myself down one final time. Then I would go back inside for dinner.

  But not yet. After all, this was my first real bath in a long, long while.

  I intended to enjoy it.