Magic's Memories

Chapter Eleven

Two spoonfuls of sugar, no milk. Feyla nodded her head in satisfaction as she finished stirring the sugar into Sedgewick's coffee. She tucked a stack of papers under her arm and marched out of the small kitchen in the Magic Ministry. Now I just need to bring this and Sedgewick's presentation notes to him and make sure he's not wearing that robe with the hole in the elbow.

Lord's season. Feyla shook off the tiredness that was already trying to descend and crinkled her nose in distaste. That meant long hours helping Sedgewick prep presentations while listening to him complain about having to socialize with the lords and ladies. It meant evenings spent alone and worrying while Sedgewick juggled his duties at the palace and immediately rushed off to stomp down the spike in crime that always rose with the temperatures. It meant having to shrug off the titters and smug looks of the ladies as they continued to remind Feyla of her place long after the disastrous end to her relationship with Lord Beryn. It meant—

Feyla pushed away that negative spiral, leaving it in the Magic Ministry as she stepped into the summer heat. Her eyes fell to the necklace laying against her breast. At least there were some good things that came with lord's season.

My Sedgewick. Feyla gripped the necklace in one hand and held her head a little higher. It had taken a long time for her to be able to say that and now that she finally could, she was going to take full advantage of it. After all, the reverse had been true for ages.

She'd never forget their first meeting. It was kind of hard to forget someone insulting you the way Sedgewick had.

They'd been chosen for a mission to help protect the now-queen Eleyna, and Sedgewick had made it very clear how little he thought of everyone else's contribution. Feyla, then a shining example of healer philosophies, hadn't liked the idea of working with a mage much better. Oh, he'd made her so mad... Mad enough to throw words she now regretted right back at him. Yet despite their rocky start, the two managed to forge an alliance.

Feyla laughed under her breath. That had been a surprise. Even more of a surprise had been the realization that when he said something besides clipped answers and dead-end responses, the Minister of Magic was almost cute. Sedgewick had vindicated her once they were together by admitting he'd been thinking similar. The mission they were on had been going well.

But then everything went wrong.

As their plans fell to pieces, Feyla found herself pinned to the floor while the man above her slowly choked her life away. Her battle healer training failed her. She'd panicked. And then she'd done the one thing she had vowed never to do.

Even now, with the sun shining on her neck as Feyla crossed the courtyard that separated the Magic Ministry from the palace, a cold, heavy guilt settled on her at the memory. After that, everything she'd once been certain of crumbled while a single new resolve had risen in its place; she was leaving the healers and never coming back.

Feeling as broken as her vows, Feyla collapsed onto the cold floor, shaking so hard she hadn't even heard him sitting down beside her. And, in a show of tenderness that she'd only seen a glimpse of when he was around Eleyna, Sedgewick had comforted her. Feyla could have brushed it off as a one-time show of decency but it hadn't stopped there. After they'd snatched back a victory and the adrenaline had worn off, Sedgewick offered to take her back to the capital with him as his assistant for as long as she needed. Which considering Sedgewick used to go through assistants like a wealthy woman went through dresses, was quite the promise.

She'd only intended to stay for a year at most. But then a year stretched into ten. And then ten years turned into ten decades until before she knew it, Feyla was so far gone that leaving Sedgewick was the farthest thing from her mind.