Chapter 33. Admiration

  Jeremiah and Delilah sprang apart. Jeremiah scrambled to his feet, as though if he could just act natural it would be as though nothing had happened.

  “So should we leave, or…?” said Allison.

  Jeremiah's head swam. His lip hurt too where Delilah had bit him, but that wasn’t so bad.

  “Monty tracked me here,” said Jeremiah. “It’s uh, it’s a gang thing. I’m in a gang now. Monty is the gang leader. And there’s a bunch of subbies right outside.”

  Bruno’s expression turned serious. “Tell me every detail.”

  Jeremiah described the events of the night right up until Delilah was pulled into it. Then they told their respective sides without looking at each other. It was a sparse retelling, only the events of the last night.

  “I fucked up,” thought Jeremiah, “I fucked up so bad. That kiss was definitely not okay.”

  But it felt pretty okay.

  “Good cover, both of you. I’m proud,” said Bruno.

  “Is this safehouse dark?” Allison asked.

  Bruno narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that term?” When Allison pretended not to hear him, he answered, “I think we’re still safe. Our cover story as renters stands up to scrutiny. I’ll do some damage control to make sure, though. Jay you’re staying here tonight, for obvious reasons.”

  Jeremiah chanced a glance at Delilah and caught her chancing a glance at him. Their attention both snapped to the ground.

  “Allison can I talk to you about that really important thing I need to talk to you about?” said Delilah.

  “Yes.” Allison had already replied before Delilah finished. They scurried into their room.

  “So…” said Jeremiah. He had no idea what to say. Or do. Or think.

  “I’m leaving on damage control,” said Bruno tersely. “Room is yours for tonight. Welcome home, honeypot.” He grabbed his cloak and slipped out a window, leaving Jeremiah alone.

  ?

  Once again, Jeremiah stood in front of Delilah’s door. Once again, he was more nervous than he had ever been in doing so. It had been a difficult night of tossing, thinking, and worrying.

  He raised his hand again to knock, and again he lowered it.

  Had he overdone it? Yes, clearly. Would she ever forgive him? Obviously not.

  But he had to get this over with.

  He knocked.

  No answer.

  He had heard Allison leave early in the morning because he had been listening for it, so either Delilah was deliberately ignoring the knock, or she was inside the Giant’s Bag.

  He eased the door open and sure enough, there was only the Giant's Bag on the bed. As before, the window was wide open to vent whatever gasses might be escaping the bag. Next to the bag was the pair of goggles and fume mask she would lend him when they worked in the lab together.

  Were they an invitation to him? he wondered. Or simply a courtesy to anyone that needed to talk to her by sticking their head in a chimney of chemical fumes? All important questions worth standing still and pondering.

  Finally he worked up the courage to don the mask and goggles. He opened the bag further, recoiling at the blast of heat, then stuck his head in. He absently worried that some chemical gas might corrode the bag to the point of failure and cut his head off.

  “Delilah? You in there?” From his vantage point, Jeremiah could see that she was indeed in there, laying a large sheet of paper over one of his metal enchanting squares. She dipped a brush in a small vial of acid and began wiping it over the paper.

  “Yes?”

  “It's Jay,” said Jeremiah.

  “Yes, I…” she sighed. “Yes, come in.”

  Jeremiah clambered into the bag, imagining his shoe catching the bag's edge somehow and tearing it. No such luck.

  He floated down to perch on the work bench behind her. He carefully cleared a spot and sat with his legs hanging. Technically there was room to stand next to her, but he'd be practically on top of her, like last night when—

  “ Don't think about it ,” he thought.

  She didn't stray from her work, which was normal. But it didn't feel normal.

  “So…” said Jeremiah.

  “Sew buttons,” said Delilah.

  Good start. Not great, but good enough.

  “I wanted to check in with you,” said Jeremiah.

  “Still here,” she said.

  “Good, good,” said Jeremiah. “ She's doing this on purpose ,” he thought, “ Wait, is she doing this on purpose? She's trying to gauge where Im at, she’s trying to make sure I'm okay. Well, I got here first .”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Let's talk about last night,” he said, trying to sound more sure of himself.

  “There we go,” she said. “I'm listening.”

  “Why is it up to me to bring it up and you to listen? You were there too! No, calm, calm. She might be feeling…feelings. Or something. I can handle talking.”

  “I wanted to check how you were feeling about…what happened. Obviously we were under duress, and I didnt ask for permission. I apologize if I overstepped. I'm sure there were alternatives I could have taken, but I couldn't think of them at the time.” Jeremiah congratulated himself on sounding perfectly reasonable and not at all rehearsed.

  Delilah set down the beaker she’d been wiping with a tink . She didn’t respond immediately, facing away from Jeremiah and inspecting the vials in front of her. But eventually she turned to give him an easy smile.

  “I’m okay if you are. Crazy stuff happens on a mission, I’m not going to hold it against you. You did what you thought was right, and I support that.”

  Relief flooded through Jeremiah. So many muscles unclenched at once that he nearly slumped over. “And Bruno said he was proud of us, wasn’t that gratifying?”

  Delilah grinned. “That was gratifying! It was even unironic—he never does that.” She turned back to her work.

  He could just leave. He could say ‘Good talk’ and float back out of the bag. Maybe give her a hearty slap on the back for good measure. All he needed to do was nothing.

  “So…” he said.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Is there anything else? We need to talk about?” he asked.

  “Such as?” she answered, peering into the depths of a wide bottomed flask.

  It wasn’t too late. He could still do nothing.

  “Well, I couldn’t help but notice your response to my bit of improvisation was a little…” there was still time to run “enthusiastic. And I wanted to check…on that…”

  TINK.

  “And now we wait,” thought Jeremiah.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Look Jay,” said Delilah, without turning around, “you know I admire you.”

  “Fucking what?” thought Jeremiah.

  “And…it may so happen…that…” she started off speaking to her vials, then slowly turned around to face him, “maybe, over time…that I took the teeniest, tiniest baby step past admiration….and developed a sort of…crush…on you…aaaand the look on your face tells me that was a huge mistake! Thank you, Jay, that's quite the relief. You can see yourself out.”

  “No no no! Wait!”

  “Goodbye.” She turned back to her work.

  “No, I’m sorry, it just caught me by surprise. I mean, you admire me?”

  She faced him again, looking confused. “What? Of course I admire you. You’re a kind man. You put your family, us, first. You’re brave and considerate, and you’re a great friend.”

  Jeremiah’s instinct was to scoff. Surely she was operating under some false pretenses he should hurry to correct. He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off.

  “Most of all, you were a necromancer! You held power and influence in the palm of your hand, and you gave it away. You weren’t exactly a player of the great game, but you were a very valuable piece. And you chose to abandon that power because you didn’t feel responsible enough to wield it. You did it to keep people safe, people you didn’t even know, and never would know. For no reward, and under no pressure to do so—hell, under pressure to do the opposite. And you’re a human .”

  “...a human?”

  “Don’t take it the wrong way, but humans don’t tend to curb their ambition. ‘Fastest way to get a human to make a fist is to put a speck of power in his palm’ is the old dwarven saying. All of what you did would be a shocking decision for anyone, but for a human as well? That’s just…”

  Her eyes grew wider as she spoke to him, and she became more animated, like she had been dying to say this. “Well, that’s just so interesting !”

  Jeremiah was stunned. He had never been complimented like that before, especially not by someone like Delilah.

  In the silence, Delilah asked, “Do you…have something… similar? To say?”

  “I-I mean, no! I’ve never really thought about you like that— ”

  “Oh sweet gods no, what have I done,” he thought the moment the words left his mouth.

  Delilah whipped back around to her vials. “That’s fine.”

  “ Do something, do anything, a bad thing is happening. ”

  “Not ‘cause you’re aren’t amazing or anything!” Jeremiah said. “You’re Delilah Fortune, that’s what amazing is. But it’s like, the trees don’t want the sun, it’s too far beyond them. They’re just thrilled to be in its presence.”

  She turned around again, this time looking annoyed. “What was that?”

  Did he bad again?

  “What was what?”

  “That! The tree thing! And last night, with the flirting, where was all that coming from?”

  “I…don’t know?” If he squished Gus hard enough, maybe he could poison himself and die.

  “Gods, would you just get out of here!” Delilah grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him upward, the low gravity propelling him all the way up to the top.

  Jeremiah nearly let momentum carry him back into the bedroom, but he stopped himself. There was something here, a sort of opportunity right now. He couldn’t squander it to timidity. He braced himself.

  “Hey, Delilah. When this is all done—the mission that is—would you want to go do something? Together?”

  TINK!

  Delilah pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes and let out a low growl that escalated quickly into a shout. “ArghhaaAAAAH! Yes, Jay, I would like that very much! Now, get OUT!”