The Apprenticeship of Julian St. Albans (4 page)

Alex
grinned. “We are, I still have four left,” he said.

Con’s
expression showed he’d already been perfectly aware of what was left to be
claimed. “You’re a good ‘un, holding ‘em for me.”

“You
always bring good information,” Alex replied. “I don’t know what I’ll
do when I run out.”

“We’ll
think of something,” said Con slyly, which suggested he already had a
thing or three in mind.

Julian
giggled. “I bet you will,” he teased.

“Given
how often you give information on cases, we might be able to do something with
destroyed evidence from the Agency,” said Lapointe thoughtfully.

Con
froze, then looked over at her with avid interest. “Might we?”

Alex
chuckled. “We’d have to make sure it was completely decommissioned, but
yeah, magical evidence is usually destroyed instead of being stored, so there’d
be parts.”

Con
grinned hugely. “I ain’t never been so glad t’get caught as when ye did
it.”

Alex
and the faerie shared a laugh, and they talked with Murielle about magical
parts while Julian faded into the background a little. Everything was so
different from his old life, it was at moments like this that it hit him again,
just a momentary wash of sadness for his lost Cecil and the future they’d
planned with each other. He had brownies making his food and cleaning his house
instead of a human staff, and magic all around, but sometimes he missed his
home and the familiar orchards and hiding places.

Julian
smiled softly when Alex’s arm curled around him, pulling him close. Alex
pretended to be cold and unfeeling, but he was always ready to warm Julian with
his kindness. Julian snuggled into Alex’s warmth and let himself be sad, just
as Alex always encouraged him to, which meant he felt ready to let the feeling
go instead of having to choke it down when Alys called them in to dinner.

Alex’s
kitchen table had been replaced when they redecorated as well, and now there
was a lovely drop-leaf table that could seat six even when three of them
weren’t fae. The brownies were the tallest, the size of toddlers, with Nat
coming up to about Julian’s waist and Alys just a bit shorter. Con was even
smaller, not quite a foot tall, but he managed to get around by using magic as
readily Julian breathed air. Con preferred to sit on the table, but Nat and
Alys had tall chairs that Nat himself had carved from apple wood provided by
the St. Albans estate.

The
food was served family style tonight. At the centre of the table there was a
beautiful roast chicken stuffed with lemon and fresh thyme, the skin golden and
crackling. There was a dish of cheesy potatoes, one with bright green spears of
asparagus, and a salad of beans and herbs and new peas straight out of the
shell. She’d set out a basket of fresh, warm bread, a dish of soft butter, and
two different pots of honey, one from each of their estates. Alys didn’t make
gourmet meals like his old chef had, but everything she made was as good as
Julian could ask for.

She
waved one hand negligently and the bird began to slice and distribute itself,
with a leg to Alex who enjoyed them, and mostly white meat for Julian. The
other food did the same, a strange little dance of dishes where the spoons were
merely imaginary, and soon enough everyone had what they needed, including the
butterfly fairy, who got some cheese sauce as well as honey and cream in the
divided child plate that Alex had acquired for her. Con contentedly munched on
a chicken wing big enough to look more like a turkey leg in his small hands,
and Alys settled back when the dishes did.

“May
our house always be so blessed,” said Alex formally, something Father
Stephen was starting to instil in him. The Guardians never insisted, though
they did look pleased whenever Alex remembered.

“So
mote it be,” said Julian, and they all toasted with their drinks, mostly
tea, though Con likely had a bit of whisky in his. Julian remembered guests of
his parents who would do a whole elaborate blessing sometimes, but he rather
liked this version. It helped to remind him how grateful he was for the life he
had now, even if it wasn’t what he’d planned on having.

Murielle
looked amused as she always did, but didn’t tease. She’d been trapped in one of
Alex’s long philosophical debates with Father Stephen and had spent the whole
time shooting Julian puppy eyes to try to get rescued from the conversation,
and then pointedly never brought the subject up again. “So, this
case,” she said.

Julian
huffed. “Enjoy your food, Agent.”

“It’s
very good food,” said Alex teasingly. “We’ll talk about the case
afterward. I have to do some research later anyway, there’s a lot of details that
might point to a suspect or at least a more specific motive.”

Murielle
chuckled. “Fine, then, how’s your work going, Julian? Oh, wait, that’s
about the case, too,” she said.

“Brat,”
Julian replied, sticking out his tongue. “It’s going really well, Mary
Margaret says I’m good at it beyond my natural talent, and Alex has been
helping me get attuned to my magical senses.”

“How
does that work, I mean, how can you sense magic and not know it?” she
asked curiously.

“Well,
for me it’s not really magic, I mean, not like Alex or Geoff, it’s just plants.
And it’s like I feel what they’re feeling, and a little bit about them, so I
know if it’s a tree or an herb or a flower, and if it needs water or sunlight.
So, before I was around Alex, I felt the trees at home and the flowers and
things, and sometimes I’d tell someone if a flowerbed needed water or a tree
was looking diseased, but I never really knew that I was feeling stuff from the
plants. I thought it was just intuition and noticing little details.” Julian
let the wistful, nostalgic smile stay, not bothering to hide his feelings from
his friends. “I still miss that, sometimes, just being ordinary.”

“You
were always exceptional,” protested Alex, kissing Julian sweetly.
“We’ll visit more often, I’m sorry, I always get caught up, don’t I? You
should put it in our calendar more.”

Julian
chuckled. “I let you, though, so it’s not your fault, really,” he
said. “I’ll make sure Emmy drags us out more often like she’s been
threatening.”

Murielle
made a face. “You two really are still syrupy sweet, when will the
honeymoon phase end? Doesn’t he leave his dirty socks on the floor or
something?”

Alex
looked smug. “Of course I do, Alys gets mad if I don’t.”

“It’s
not right, doing a brownie’s work,” said Alys with a nod.

Murielle
laughed. “You are a spoiled man, Alex Benedict.”

“And
I spoil my beloved Julian in turn,” said Alex, unrepentant.

“He
really does,” said Julian. They all kept up the easy banter while they
ate, and Julian felt the tension of the day draining away in the warmth of
their home and their friends, odd though both might be to the sheltered rich
boy he’d once been.

Alys
shooed them all out of the kitchen once they were done, promising a sweet for
afters. Julian curled up in the big chair to read while Alex and Murielle went
into Alex’s work room. It didn’t feel like a day for one of the murder
mysteries they both liked, so Julian found one of his guilty pleasures and
pulled down a rather battered paperback romance novel. It was one of the first
books that he’d ever read with men falling in love with other men, and he’d
always been drawn to the courtly manners and the way the older man had wooed
the younger one.

Julian
lost himself in his book enough that he was surprised when Alex kissed him and
nudged him to make room so they could share dessert. “I think Alys has
been trading recipes with Jacques,” said Alex teasingly. They each had a
dish of homemade vanilla ice cream topped with spiced plums and garnished with
sweet ginger biscuits, and of course a fresh pot of tea. Alex made up Julian’s
tea first and then his own, and Julian snuggled up happily.

“So,
did you figure it all out?” asked Julian, after giving his attention first
to a few bites of their treat.

“I
wish,” said Murielle. “I get the feeling this is going to be a
complicated one, which means expensive.”

“I’d
say I’m not that expensive, but we both know that’s not true,” said Alex,
amused. “At least I don’t charge you for Con’s favours, too.”

“That’s
because not all my favours are for work,” said Con, who’d spent the time
that Alex had been occupied talking to the brownies while they worked.

Alex
chuckled. “That, too,” he said, unrepentant. “We figured out
enough for her to be going on with, anyway, so I’m now free to appropriately
pamper my lover, who’s had a very trying day.”

Julian
giggled and kissed him. “You pamper me anyway,” he said fondly.

“I
know,” Alex smirked. He rubbed their noses together, which always made
Julian feel a bit silly and a lot loved.

Alex
was always willing to allow a bit of silly into their lives if it made Julian
happy.

Their
butterfly fairy came over and settled on Julian’s arm, then gave them each a
kiss on the cheek. Alex laughed and offered up a spoonful of melty ice cream
and spiced plum sauce, which she sipped at gracefully.

“You
spoil everyone around you,” said Murielle with a laugh. “Well, I
shouldn’t complain, it means I get to enjoy it, too.”

Soon
enough the sweets and guests alike were gone, and Alex disappeared into his
work room after making sure Julian didn’t require more pampering. Julian took
his herbal to the bath and read up on wormwood, lucky clover, and everything
that was in the purification greenhouse. There were a few species not covered,
most notably the fire orchid, but that wasn’t an herb anyway. Alex had some
books on magical plants in his work room, so Julian made a mental note to do
some more reading in there while Alex worked tomorrow.

CHAPTER 3

“All
right,” said Alex, once they’d finished lunch, “I promised Mary
Margaret we’d continue lessons, and since I’m out of my work room for now this
seems as good a time as any.”

“I’m
tired of reading about plant species, anyway,” said Julian with a grin.
“What are we going to do?”

“I
thought we’d talk about where magic comes from,” said Alex, leading him to
their reading chair and snuggling right up. “It’s more theory than
practice, but you can try to use your new senses on something other than
plants.”

“Like
you?” asked Julian, nuzzling him and then stealing a kiss. “I like
feeling you.”

Alex
laughed, and kissed him again, which Julian didn’t mind at all. Alex’s lessons
might be harder for Julian to wrap his head around, but the perks were better
than learning from Mary Margaret. “Be that as it may,” said Alex,
“we get to start with theory first.”

“Yes,
teacher,” said Julian. “Where does magic come from?”

Alex
kissed the tip of Julian’s nose, eyes sparkling, but he did segue into the
lesson. “Living things produce magic as part of being alive,” said
Alex. “That’s where most of the magic in the world comes from, just from
countless lives, large and small. Dying releases a lot of energy, and giving
birth or bursting from a seed uses a lot of energy. Seeds have a lot of magical
potential in them.”

“That’s
why you use a lot of seeds, and only some fresh plants. But flowers are full of
potential, too, they’re the thing that becomes the seed,” said Julian,
following the logic.

“Right,”
said Alex. “And leaves gather the sunlight and turn it into the energy the
plant uses to live, including magical energy, and stems and branches support
the structure, so each part of a plant has a different sort of energy, aside
from the inherent properties of the plant as a whole.”

“Neat,”
said Julian. “I should be taking notes?”

Alex
kissed his forehead. “Did you want to? This is just background today, but
if it helps you to write it down…”

Julian’s
big notebook floated over, pencil still inside from where he’d been trying to
draw different kinds of leaves during his last session with his herbal. “It
helps fix it in my mind,” said Julian, politely ignoring the brownie’s
magic, since they chose not to speak up. He started a new page and drew a plant
with branches, leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds, then made notes about each
one. “Do plants get magic from the soil, too?”

“They
do,” said Alex, pleased. “And the energy in sunlight is part magical
energy, and the planet has its own deep energies, plus soil is full of small
deaths and lives both.”

Julian
made more notes on the page, then looked up at Alex’s expectant face and had to
kiss him. “And people make magic, too. So what are magical sources,
then?”

Alex
chuckled at Julian’s little stick figure of a person making magic, so Julian
stuck his tongue out at him. “Yes, all right, you’re a master artist,”
said Alex, kissing his hair. “Anyway, magical sources are places where
there’s a sort of thin spot between our world and the other realms, and their
magic leaks through. Sometimes a doorway gets put in, like the fairy forts or
the Queen’s paths, and sometimes we have to close it, but usually magical
sources are used to do more potent magic.”

“All
right, so what’s the lesson?” asked Julian, setting his notebook aside. He
didn’t want to think about the source on St. Albans land right now, even though
it would soon be used for good things, once the cottage was finished and he and
Alex could go stay there and make magic together.

Alex
rubbed their noses together and rested his forehead on Julian’s, then took both
of Julian’s hands in his. “See if you can feel inside yourself, if you can
feel where your magic comes from, or where mine does.”

“Can
you hear it?” asked Julian curiously, trying to stretch that strange sense
of his, poking around inside himself. He could feel what was him better, now
that he was thinking about it, and feel the border between him and the world.
He tried to feel the places he was touching Alex, and he got a warm wash of
affection when he thought about it.

Alex
nodded, moving Julian’s head with his just a little, which made them both
smile. “There’s always a place where your magic is loudest, though I can
only hear it when I’m touching someone, and even then some people are too
hidden.”

Julian
pushed away from those points of contact and tried to follow deeper, and he
thought he could feel something behind his breastbone, something that was more
him than anywhere else, but he couldn’t be sure. He made a frustrated little
noise. “It’s like trying to find a cloud in a fog bank,” he said with
a huff.

Alex
chuckled and kissed him. “You’re a very cute fluffy cloud, anyway,”
he teased, giving Julian a tickle. “It’s something to look for in your
plants next time you’re doing your rounds.”

“Does
this mean the lesson’s done?” asked Julian, mind turning to other things
he and Alex could do with a free afternoon.

“For
now,” said Alex, rubbing noses again. “We’ll come back to it, once
you’ve practiced on your plants.”

“Yes,
teacher,” said Julian teasingly.

Alex
chuckled and they shared slow, leisurely kisses, taking the time to just enjoy
the moment while they had the chance. Alex would have to go back to work soon
enough, and Julian had more studying to do, but for now they had each other.