Bring Forth a Fire (Book 1)

Seven - Second Soul

Suffolk, April 1888

I could not believe we were already entering springtime and the end of my first year at Allerton already. Grandmother had returned to the summer home, writing to me rather regularly and boring me with her reports on the garden, the weather, and her opinions on the "despicable Naturals." They were most certainly that, and perhaps more. It was possible my grandmother wasn't even aware of the half of it.

My meetings with Sebastian began again, considering the snow was already well on the way to melting and we didn't have to worry about tracks, and yet Celia was always catching me with mud caking my boots. On one occasion, in the middle of the month when we'd heard and seen nothing out of the ordinary ever since that meeting in London, I came to the clearing finding Sebastian had laid out a picnic next to the pond.

"Goodness, Sebastian," I said when I arrived, my eyes roaming over the spread, complete with candles. Completely unnecessary, in my opinion. "All the stops came out for this, did they?"

"Oh yes, Miss Haywood." He grinned at me. "I thought it was only natural, considering we are on familiar terms now."

"Well." I smoothed out my skirts as I took a spot on the blanket. "How can I refuse that?"

He smiled. "I thought we could have our first meal together, as clandestine as this is."

"I see," I said, which of course meant nothing. It was anyone's guess as to what I was feeling about him now.

"So." He took out a bottle of sparkling liquid, champagne by the look of it. "This is to our first real meal together."

"Champagne?" I said, as he began to pour. "Honestly, Sebastian, I don't..."

"Cheers," he said, clinking his glass with mine. "You mustn't worry, Emma. I assure you, your virtue is very much intact."

I blushed at the implication in his words. It wasn't my virtue I was worried about, not at the moment, at least. It was the strangeness of all of this, doing and feeling things I'd never before experienced.

"Interesting, isn't it?" Sebastian said, smiling at me with so much softness and affection it made me look away.

"Yes...indeed it is." I had no doubt there was a high colour on my cheeks by now. The heat climbing up my neck certainly told me so.

We finished our meal in a relatively short time, and Sebastian eventually began amusing himself with making shapes in the water, animals and stars.

"How are you doing that?" I asked, moving over to sit next to him.

"I just shape it with my hands like this," he said, moving them in a formation and the water followed. "That's it. Natural as breathing."

"Natural as breathing," I repeated, watching the water bend to his will as if he were moulding clay. "I had been hoping to do that with fire by now."

"It will come, don't worry. You heard what Harry Wellington said. And it takes a long time for an Elemental to begin to take control of their powers. I've only just been able to stop flooding the bathrooms at school."

I smiled. The image was amusing, but it wasn't all that reassuring to me. I wished for someone, anyone really, to tell me what to do. Figuring everything out myself was proving to be disastrous on every occasion. I concentrated, flicking my wrist like I'd seen my father do. It took a few tries, but I managed a small flame, hovering above my palm.

"See?" Sebastian grinned at me, his eyes reflecting the dancing gold. "You've already got that much accomplished."

I smiled back at him. "I guess I do."