Welcome to Layman-upon-Waters. Elliot is the city’s new overseer for the Office of Municipal Integration, and his days are spent encouraging the region’s secretly inhuman denizens out of hiding and into cooperative citizenship.
Each chapter is a stand-alone event with only a subtle through-line, so there should be no issue with reading them out of order.
“Come now, don’t be so shy!” the lovely voice called across the chattering din of the crowd. “If you don’t see the cure to your ailments among my wares, I can certainly brew it for you over my magic circle! Come, take a look! Ah, sir, how can I help you?”
Elliot tapped a broad fellow on one shoulder to request passage around him, and the fellow acquiesced without acknowledging him with his eyes. Elliot squeezed from the back of the crowd and into its bustle. The whole road was clogged, so there was no other way to reach the focus of all this attention.
“A perfume for your lady love, perhaps? I have many a fragrance suited to drawing the gaze of a comely lass, and I would know! I have a touch of rare tuberose that a sweet girl would adore, allow me to fetch it!”
“Excuse me,” said Elliot as he popped free of the audience and arrived on the outskirts of Layman’s Equestrian Green, a wide stretch of tree-spotted park within the walls and off Castle Road, bordering the silk district. On any other day, the peaceful garden was an ideal spot for reflection, nestled behind insulating rows of buildings and awash instead with natural birdsong. In the darker moments of his youth, Elliot had spent time here putting the pieces of his shattered pride back together.
But not today. The city-dwelling locals crowded and chattered before the mercantile spectacle set up on the corner of the green. They grinned with amusement as the young woman in red danced between curious customers and beckoned more forward with her lilting voice.
“Now, I shan’t point to anyone I see before me today,” she called, “but I do have a poultice for reversing the effects of male baldness that may be of help to some of you. One scrub and your barren field shall be thick with autumn’s harvest once more, I promise you!”
The entrepreneur had set up a little tent of burgundy fabric on the grass. Thick ropes held the flaps apart to reveal wooden brackets full of alchemical goods at the edges of the cosy interior, and more wares had been laid out on orange and yellow blankets around the makeshift stall.
The girl was dressed in crimson, and what an outfit it was. A wide-brimmed, sharply pointed hat with an embossed, leather band. A long-sleeved coat that only came down to the bottom of her chest, clasped with an obsidian tag by her collar. A skirt fastened tight with a slanted belt around her waist that flared at her thighs before coming to an abrupt halt above her knees. Soft, red shoes, perfect for the dance of salesmanship she was undertaking. And beneath, a full covering of form-fitting black that protected her skin from the autumn chill while still preserving the shape of her figure. She had both a high-necked, long-sleeved undershirt and tights made of this unusual material, meaning most of her skin was covered. Without them, her flirtatious flare would have descended into outright indecency.
The girl herself filled her garish outfit splendidly. Sepia-brown skin that complemented the black of her tights and highlighted the brilliance of her crimson coat and skirt. A magnificent head of black curls that rested comfortably on her shoulders where it wasn’t braided with white cord to one side of her round face. Onyx eyes shining with charm, complete with a frame of black shadow that drew onlookers deeper into her attention. And cherry-red lips, full and ripe, that seemed incapable of anything less than a sweet smile.
For a moment after breaching the crowd and arriving on the edge of the green, Elliot was struck still by the young merchant’s dizzying, gleeful charisma, just as he had been on meeting this girl for the first time two days ago. She had been this confident and charming then too, when she had applied for a certificate of aegis with him. But he reminded himself sternly of the reason he had been summoned from Low Town and into the city proper. Then he was dressing himself in his best glower and stepping onto the green.
The red-garbed girl was counting silver coins in her palm with a feline smile of victory. She glanced at the couple picking through her goods on the grass, then turned to Elliot. First, a flash of teeth as she readied herself for a new customer. Then, a widening of the eyes. A curious, mischievous smile.
“Well, well,” she said. “Sir Elliot of the Office of Municipal Integration.”
“Miss Cassia,” Elliot returned. He pushed down the flattery of her remembering his name with effort.
Cassia threw out her arms and welcomed the crowd into their conversation. “Thank you so kindly for supporting me with my certificate the other day! And now you are here to support my humble, local business too! What a hero you are!”
This got the laughter she was clearly seeking, but Elliot shook his head. “I’m not here to buy-…”
“Ah, I remember! Aren’t you the son of the First Ambassador to the Elves? And the Elf King’s legendary Ball is fast approaching! You will want a charm to wear when you present yourself to our beautiful and mysterious cousins beyond the woods. Something to defend you from the ambient trickery of their realm, yes?”
“I’m really not-…”
“A mimosa would suit you for the charm’s base, I think. Perhaps a-…”
“You can’t put your tent here,” he managed at last. “This is the castellan’s land, and it’s a public space. You can’t use it for business.”
Cassia was brought to a sharp halt. After a moment’s composition, she laughed, tucking one finger into her collar and tugging on it with mock guilt. The crowd, ever dutiful, laughed.
“You’re here at the bequest of yonder tyrants,” she said, nodding over Elliot’s shoulder. At the edge of the crowds, a pair of Layman city watch regarded them with amusement. “How disappointing. And here I thought you were one of us, Elliot.”
He scowled. “We follow the laws around here, just the same as anyone else. This isn’t a suitable space to pitch a tent.” Then something caught his eye in the little abode’s shaded interior, and he stared. “Did you dig a hole in there?”
“My magic circle needs a surface of unworked stone as a foundation, or it won’t channel properly.”
“You’ll have to fix that. That’s a public lawn, and there’s a fine for despoiling it. And you have to move the whole tent while you’re at it.”
“And if I didn’t think that was fair?”
“You’re welcome to take the ruling up with the castellan, the same as any other citizen of Layman.”
Her smile was stubborn, and the crowd were muttering. Elliot realised he would have to push harder if he was going to make headway with the charming alchemist.
“Let me ask you something. When you sat down with me two days ago for your interview, and I asked you if you had a site in mind for running your alchemical goods business, was this what you were thinking of?”
Cassia pursed her lips and adjusted the brim of her big hat. “I was not thinking of this patch of greenery especially. But I knew I would find a spot somewhere. After all, isn’t this the free and liberated city of Layman-upon-Waters? A bastion of civility and mutually beneficial commerce in the Accord of Regents? Opportunities would flock into my outstretched arms, or so I was told. I had no idea this was a city that quashed the dreams of the common woman.”
She raised a brow at him, resting her weight on one hip, and to Elliot’s despair, a number of Layman citizens in the crowd raised their voices in agreement.
“This is harassment!” came a voice. “Boo! Poor form from the Castle!”
Elliot took a step forward. Cassia didn’t move. She was content to smirk up at him.
“I don’t want to get the watch involved,” he whispered. “That’s not a good look for any of us.”
Cassia shrugged, then folded her arms. “Then isn’t it better to just let me have my way?”
“Madam Lantern won’t see it like that.”
For the first time, Cassia’s lips dropped their smile. Her stance slipped, causing her to uncross her arms to keep herself steady.
“If you get into trouble up here, even if you don’t think you deserve the charges, we’ll need to fetch her to provide testimony. She’s your guarantor, she promised that you knew what you were doing here. Do you really want to make trouble for her?”
In all honesty, Elliot blamed himself as much as the ever-gregarious Madam Lantern. He knew the buxom woman’s penchant for guaranteeing every Low Town waif or stray to cross her doorstep. And he’d had his doubts when Cassia had sat herself across from him in the office, resting one shapely leg on the other and confidently telling him she had everything she needed to begin her business in the city. But he’d wanted to trust Lantern, and he’d wanted to trust Cassia. Maybe this was a learning experience for him.
But to not trust made him uneasy. So did Cassia’s anxiously darting eyes.
“What am I supposed to do?” she hissed under her breath.
“You’ll have to find another venue, one that’s legally set up to receive customers,” he replied just as quietly. “There are empty properties around the city for sale or rent.”
“A building? That isn’t really my…” Cassia chewed her cherry lip as she ran her eyes over her belongings. “I need… something special.”
Elliot held his tongue. His heart begged him to relent, that it might see that lovely, beaming smile once more. He ignored it with great difficulty.
And suddenly, she was smiling again. Only, like her tent with its loamy hole, it lacked a solid foundation. Cassia’s expression was a nervous mask as she returned her attention to the impatient murmuring of the crowd.
“The show, I’m afraid, is over,” she said. “Sir Elliot is correct to move me on. Look for the name Cassia the Red in… in a shop near you… later. Please.”
She bent into a theatrical bow at the waist. There was a breathless, uncertain pause, a wordless whistle as a chill wind raced across the lawn. And then, the spell broken, the crowd dispersed. The play had stopped being interesting, so there was no reason to stay.
Elliot’s nameless guards met his eye, then nodded their thanks. Then they also made tracks to Castle Road and more important work.
Leaving Elliot and Cassia alone. Cassia was weighing up her belongings with her eyes and a cynical scowl, and Elliot had to wonder how she’d brought it all here in the first place. Someone must have lent her a wagon, but that someone was nowhere in sight.
And he came to a decision. If he had to be firm, if he had to be careful and not naïve, he could at least balance out the sternness with kindness of equal measure.
“I’ll help.”
Cassia shot him a burning glare. “What?”
“This is the city of my childhood. I know it well enough, or I know who to ask about what we need. I’ll help you find another spot for your business within the city walls, and I’ll help carry everything over.” He held out his arms in a placating half-shrug. “Is that alright?”
The mage’s eyes ran up and down his body. Elliot flushed. He was no strongman or warrior, capable of feats of physical prowess. He was a soft, scholarly government official. But he’d do what he could.
“Yes, you will help me.” Cassia planted her hands on her hips and tossed back her hair. Her braid of white cord bounced against her nose. “As a champion of integration, that’s your responsibility. Mark my words, Elliot, I fully intend to take the whole day from you in recompense for this embarrassment.”
She was smiling again, and it was lovely. Elliot had no hope but to smile along with her.
“Great,” he said.
* * *
Once Elliot had handed a small fee to a warehouse renter off the Equestrian Green, securing a place to store Cassia’s livelihood for the duration of their search, he returned to find her tent packed away and her wooden racks stacked neatly. He narrowed his eyes at the circle of loam that had been unearthed to make way for Cassia’s sigil of chalk, and he found it lush and verdant, indistinguishable from the grass around it.
“A simple restoration spell,” Cassia explained with a shrug and a purse of her lips. She was examining her nails. “An easy trick for a mage of my calibre. You’d better carry the wooden racks first, but do be careful. Those vials are fragile and expensive.”
With her belongings safely stored, Elliot led the way back to Castle Road. Not knowing his new partner’s budget, if she even had one, he planned to show her the priciest of real estate along the city’s trade thoroughfare first, then slowly reduce their expectations until they found a site safely in her price range. It was late morning on a busy weekday, so the streets were filled with traders, hawkers and entertainers. Cassia’s eyes, filled with shining wonder, roved the stone and oak buildings with their painted beams, the colourful overhangs above burgeoning stalls. Her ears pricked with each vendor’s call for custom.
“Are you sure it’s well that you’re here in the city with me?” she asked him when they paused their climb to watch a fire-eater. “I saw the amount of paperwork you people go through in your Low Town office. You must be missing a great deal of business.”
“Today won’t surprise us,” he replied. “The guarantors know to warn us if someone odd is coming to apply. We’ve not heard anything, so there should only be straightforward cases that the others can handle today.”
Cassia giggled. Her rich skin shone in the incandescence of the fire-eater’s flame. “I was a straightforward case, and now you’re spending a whole day with me.”
Elliot laughed. She wasn’t wrong.
“Do you employ many in your Office of Municipal Integration? I saw an elderly woman at the desk across from yours, but you said ‘others’.”
“There’s just the two, aside from myself. Mathilda is a Layman local with a long background in legislature. She worked for decades in the Castle’s scrivener’s hall, so she knows what she’s about. Then there’s Jacque, though I think he was on errands while you were with us.”
“Another educated law expert from the Castle?”
“Actually, he’s a Low-Town-born lad. Jacque was apprenticed under a… a florist before coming to us. But he works hard, and he knows the locals well.”
“You stuttered for a moment there,” said Cassia, eyeing him sidelong.
“Just the smoke from the fire.” Technically, opium came from flowers, so he wasn’t wrong to call Jacque’s former master a florist.
Fortunately, Cassia was happy to let the question lie. “One of them, and one of us,” she said instead. “I see how you think, Sir Elliot. Come, let’s away.”
As expected, Layman’s south-western main road was full to the brim with commerce. Elliot made a few enquiries in stores he knew to be respectable, but few knew of space that would suitably house a young alchemist. Following a lead, he and Cassia visited a rowdy tavern near the city gates called the Bent Sceptre, where the leering keeper said he would let Cassia run her shop in the corner of his establishment for a cut of the profits. Fortunately, the décor didn’t match Cassia’s targeted clientele, so they quickly moved on.
“You grew up here, you said?” Cassia asked as they made their way north through the silk district. “You certainly seem at ease.”
Elliot laughed. “Do I? Honestly, these days it feels more like the Low Town is my home, and here in Layman is unfamiliar land.”
“Well, you walk the walk and talk the talk here, and you can trust me when I say that counts for a lot.” She reached out and tugged cheekily on the hem of his green, embroidered coat. “Or maybe this fancy thing is what keeps people listening to you. Or maybe…”
When she didn’t continue, Elliot turned and found her staring curiously into his teal eyes. He waited, trying not to blush.
“No, it’s nothing,” she said in the end.
“You’re from Sant Seratorio originally, am I remembering that right?” he asked to try and divert some of her keen attention.
“I am, but I hardly remember it. I left home to join my master in her travels when I was twelve years old, and after that, my home became the open road and the shaded glade. It’s why I envy your familiarity with a place, either Layman or Low Town. I don’t have that.”
She put her hands in the pockets of her skirt, and her eyes traced the shape of the cobblestones beneath her kicking feet.
“You looked very much at home this morning,” said Elliot.
Her proud smile was radiant. “Is that so? Well, I hope you’re right. I’d like to make a go of a life here, if I can. Maybe have a city I can call my home. I’d like to see what that’s like.”
Unfortunately, the silk district didn’t offer them any solutions. Elliot made a valiant attempt at negotiating for a corner between a tailor’s shop and a florist’s, a real one this time, with the owners. But Cassia scuffed the stone paving with her toes and shook her head.
“I need a base of unworked stone,” she said. “There’s not much I can do with slabs like this unless we tear them up.”
They moved on, now into the afternoon. Elliot took Cassia past a baker of small pies that he knew parked his wagon in the art district, and they ate while they walked. Slowly now, feeling the weight of the ever-advancing day. Elliot didn’t think they would find anywhere suitable for Cassia to set up her tent this close to the Castle, among the rich, marble manors of the noble quarter, but he was running short of ideas.
Cassia disagreed. “This would be perfect!” she said, bowing over one arm when a well-dressed child holding his mother’s hand stopped to stare at her garish clothing. “These look like the sort of customers I could build a business from.”
“They look in need of spells and charms, you mean?”
She gifted him a sly look over her shoulder. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”
“So then, I should ask. What are your biggest sellers? Where do you get most of your money? Maybe that will help narrow down a good location.”
“Out on the roads? Weatherworking materials and food preservation enchantments are the big sellers. My master and I got a lot of trade from couriers and caravaners, you see. Here in a city? I imagine pest repellent, perfume and simple glamours.”
“And they work?”
“Elliot!” Cassia turned on her heel and slipped into his path. Elliot staggered to prevent bumping into her, but his flailing hand still found purchase on her shoulder. “Of course they work!” the mage growled. “I am not a charlatan. I am a businesswoman!”
“S-Sorry.” He pulled his hand from her and took a step back. “I-I’m just not that used to magic. It’s not something I’ve seen in action before.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You?”
Elliot narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
Cassia pursed her lips, her narrow gaze searching. Then she spun away. Her lovely, rose-red skirt fluttered. “No, it’s nothing,” she said again.
Coy dismissal was better than anger, so Elliot didn’t push further.
“My feet hurt.” Cassia paused her climb and leaned against a potted tree on a narrow strip of grass bisecting the Castle Road. Up ahead, the steep walls of the Castle itself, and around them, the tall, narrow manors of the rich and powerful. Elliot and Cassia were shaded from the sinking sun by the luxurious giants.
“We can rest a little,” said Elliot. “It’ll give me a chance to think of another place to search.”
“You mean, this won’t do?” asked Cassia with her hands outstretched. “There’s a lot of empty space up here in the heights. Are the noble families really using it all?”
“It’s complicated. This is mostly private land, rather than down the hill where it’s all owned by the Castle and rented out. The families have their own rules that don’t always intersect with the castellan’s.”
“That’s a good thing, surely. We can simply ask a family to sponsor me.”
“I’m not sure.” Elliot folded his arms and looked up and down the street. The colourful robes, the tall gaits, the trailing servants. Nobility had ever felt to him like a line separating humanity from something else. Something that didn’t touch the ground when it walked.
“The noble families… I wouldn’t quite say that they’re dangerous, but… theirs isn’t a life I’m that familiar with. You say I walk the walk and whatever, but this high up, the rules change. They’d see that I’m an imposter.” Then, he laughed. “Why am I telling you all this? It would be legally complicated, is what I’m trying to say. And I think for a first-time merchant in the city, we should be-… Cassia?”
He looked up, and she was gone. But not far, and her red clothing made her easy to spot. Elliot’s stomach dropped when he saw the mage. She had approached an older lady leaving her stately home and crossing the green path of her front garden, and she was giving her a deep bow and a showman’s grin.
“Excuse me, my lady!”
“Shit!” Elliot rushed forward and tried to slip between the pair. A sweeping arm from Cassia clocked him in the chest and pushed him back.
“I couldn’t help but admire your lawn!” Cassia was singing. “Right in the eye of the locals, isn’t it? I wonder if you might be interested in putting that little green space to work!”
“Can we talk about this?” Elliot hissed from behind her.
“Just trust me,” Cassia hissed right back. “I know what I’m doing.”
Elliot wished it was that simple. Cassia might have avoided her earlier charge of public nuisance, but if a stately woman took umbrage with her behaviour, she might end up exiled from the city. Castellan Thaddeus’ protection would only shield her so much if the ire of the rich and powerful was raised.
Willing his heart to still, Elliot regarded Cassia’s unfortunate target. She was a short woman, showing only the first signs of a hunch. Her dress and shawl were both deep shades of blue, hemmed in silver to match her hair. When she turned her eyes on Elliot, he saw they were blue too.
“Is that young Elliot?”
He stiffened, and Cassia mirrored him. Elliot desperately searched the old woman’s smiling countenance for recognition. He found it at last in a memory of the Castle ballroom, of being pinched on his cheek and asked how his studies were going.
“Lady… Pembroke?”
“Oh, it’s Emma, surely!” laughed the lady. The wrinkles in her cheeks suggested she laughed a lot. “So good to have run into you! We so rarely see you now that you’ve grown up and moved to the Low Town. Is this your friend?”
“My… client,” he said carefully. Beside him, Cassia was frozen stiff, warily watching the scene play out. “We were just-…”
“Of course! I’ve been meaning to speak to your father about this, but now you’re here! Elliot, I wanted to thank you for all the help you provided for young Miss Hawthorne! She has been such a help getting me and a few friends ready for Yule!”
The new memory returned like a snap in his skull. Hawthorne, Lantern’s tailor. A sharp tongue and a stubborn ambition. She’d moved into Layman proper two months ago after receiving her certificate of aegis from his office. But Elliot had thought she had a shop set up somewhere south of here, not a grand sponsorship from a noble lady.
“She’s… here?” he asked, nodding to Lady Emma’s manor.
“We were all so thrilled to see her work, so daring! And I couldn’t let her talent squander away in that little shop by the walls. She’s been making waves among the peers in my neighbourhood.”
“Oh. Well. Glad to hear it.”
He’d had no idea. Elliot had known Hawthorne would make a solid attempt at business, and her dressmaking skills were undeniable. But a noble sponsorship? So close to the Castle?
Perhaps he’d not trusted her enough. Perhaps he had underestimated her.
“This young lady reminds me of Miss Hawthorne, actually,” laughed Lady Emma, boldly taking Cassia’s stiff hand and shaking it. “Another of our friends from beyond the wall?”
“That’s right,” said Elliot with just a hint of a wince. Emma was probably referring to the two girls’ matching skin tone, but there was no need to share that. “Cassia is… Well…”
Then, thinking better, he held out his arm and took a step away. “She can speak for herself.”
And Cassia, ever unflappable, filled the space at once. “Cassia the Red, mage and alchemist, at your service, my lady!” she said with another grandiose bow.
Emma hooted with laughter. “Marvellous! What sort of goods do you sell?”
“Charms and perfumes, mostly. I-…”
“You do smell lovely, dear.”
“Th-Thank you. Sandalwood and rosehip,” she said with a blushing smile on her cherry lips.
“And you wanted to sell your wares on my lawn, did you?”
“I believe we can come to a mutually enriching partnership, if I might have some of your time?”
“Oh, certainly! You should come in! A stall like yours will make me the talk of the town, I’m sure! You fetch your things and set yourself up. Let’s try it out for a few days.”
Cassia, ever unflappable, blinked. “Just like that?”
“Well, Elliot’s approval is good enough for me,” Emma chuckled. “I do so love to be on the cultural cutting edge, you know. And you seem like you know what you’re doing.”
The mage beamed, first at her provisional sponsor, then at Elliot. Elliot smiled right back.
“I’ll put some tea on for us, shall I?” asked Emma.
“Tea would be splendid,” said Cassia. “Perhaps my good, good friend Elliot would like to go and fetch my wares while I’m inside.”
She bounced playfully against his shoulder, giggling with mercurial mirth. Elliot rolled his eyes.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go do that.”
Cassia squeezed his arm in thanks, then followed Lady Emma inside.
“I hope I’m not interrupting your own plans for the even,” he heard the mage say as he began his trek. “Were you going anywhere just now?”
“Oh, just my reading circle. Boring women, don’t you worry about my missing them.”
“As you wish, my lady!”
* * *
The sun was low when Elliot made his final trip up the steep Castle Road to House Pembroke, two racks of clattering alchemical supplies under his arms. He’d worked up a sweat, and his muscles ached. But the sight of Cassia’s burgundy tent set up on the lawn of the manor put a satisfied smile on his face. He’d helped make that happen!
The wind was chill, and the soft light coming from the window of Lady Emma’s ground floor reception room was warm and welcoming. A smaller illumination spilled from between the flaps of Cassia’s tent. And as he recognised this, Cassia herself poked her head into the crisp air.
“Finally!” she said, beaming a smile up at him. “Bring those in here.”
Then she retreated, popping back into her den like a burrowing rodent. Elliot did as he was told with an amused smirk.
Cassia’s tent was small, barely big enough to accommodate one sleeper. Elliot was forced to kneel in the grass and slide the alchemical racks into the entrance flap, then crawl forwards on his hands. He ducked his head and pushed through.
Inside, warmth. Elliot slid the two racks aside and sat back on his rear, staring about himself. A second layer of sweat threatened his skin in the heated centre of Cassia’s portable home, but the heat was preferable to the cold outside. A tiny lantern on a hook on one side of the tent was filled with an eerily still flame, but this didn’t appear to be the source of the warmth.
“I write an insulation charm into the lining of the tent in the autumn,” explained Cassia. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say,” said Elliot, gazing upon her.
Cassia had stripped off her big hat, her soft shoes and her crimson jacket, folding them in a pile on the messy orange and yellow bedding at the far end of the little tent. She was seated with her legs folded to one side, and her curls of hair were tied into a tight tail with the obsidian tag from her jacket. Her tights conformed to her shape, and Elliot’s fatigued mind greedily followed her soft curves along her toes, up her calves, her knees and along the lines of her skirt. Then over her matching tight, black undershirt, around her tummy and over the unobscured shape of her breasts. A cheeky line of chestnut midriff peeked between the band of her red skirt and her form-fitting top.
The mage was humming a tune as she worked. She had dug a shallow circle out of the grass and soil through a matching hole in the centre of her tent’s fabric flooring to reveal a layer of stone beneath, and Elliot spotted the muddy trowel she had used lying off to one side. Now, Cassia was drawing a wide, intricate, circular design in chalk on the exposed stone. The shape looped and wound, making Elliot dizzy when he tried to follow it. The runic letters between the lines were none he recognised, but reading them produced ethereal whispers in the back of his skull.
“I’m just finishing this now,” Cassia said. “Not a bad circle at all, if I say so myself. I wasn’t expecting Layman’s foundational rock to be so smooth this close to the summit.”
“Uh-huh,” said Elliot, licking his lips and trying not to stare at the shape of her body.
Cassia’s giggle was the arcane heat of a naked flame. “Tired?”
“Yes.”
“So sorry. But I hope you agree that the effort was worth the prize.”
“Is Lady Emma your sponsor now?” asked Elliot.
“We shook hands on it, provided I can make a trifling profit over the next three days. Because I am an expert saleswoman, it’s essentially a done deal. And… there!”
With a flick of her wrist, Cassia removed the chalk from the stone. “A perfect magic circle. This will provide the energy I need to seal charms into my goods and brew up some tinctures for selling. Once I’ve grounded it, that is.”
“Sounds great,” said Elliot. “I’ll have to come back some time and see how you’re getting on.”
“I’ll give you a little discount,” said Cassia, and she winked. Then she laughed, overcome with bashfulness from her own words. Elliot smiled and gazed, and he said nothing.
“Elliot…” Cassia said once she had brought herself back to sensibility. “Really, I have to thank you. You have just about made up for all the trouble you’ve caused me. Most men I’ve met don’t believe in fair trade like that.”
“Well, I’m a government official,” Elliot replied. His cheeks were warm. “I have a professional responsibility to balance the numbers.”
“Still, thank you. I appreciate your help.”
She reached across the circle and laid a hand on his leg. Her dark eyes stared into his, and her red lips curved into a smile that was just for him. Elliot smiled back. He should really have been heading out of the city and back to the office, rather than moonishly gazing at a young woman. Without a chaperone, just the two of them. But she was… simply gorgeous.
“I’ve changed my mind,” whispered Cassia, still touching his leg. “I don’t think you have made matters right between us.”
“R-Really?”
Cassia shook her head. Her braided cord bounced against her nose. “I think you owe me just a little more of your time. But don’t worry, you’ll enjoy this. Remember how I said I have to ground this circle in the bosom of Gaia? You can do that for me.”
Her eyes were shining, and the curved edges of her smile were sharp. Elliot swallowed. His traitorous mind whispered, Bosom…
“I’m no mage,” he said.
“You don’t have to be. I just need a spark of natural energy, what we call anima, to begin the arcane reaction in the circle. Anyone can do that. I was going to do it myself, but…” She chewed her lip, running her eyes up and down his body. “But I think you should do it instead.”
“What do I have to do?” whispered Elliot.
“Come here. Over the circle. Sit down on the stone.”
“Alright…”
“And take your trousers off.”
He was most of the way towards her when she spoke, clambering on his elbows like an insect. But at her words, he froze. Cassia laughed at whatever expression he was making, the awkward angle of his body suspended over the circle. Then she leant forward and pressed her hands down on his hips to force him into a seat on the chalk circle. The stone’s cold seeped through his trousers.
“Trust me,” Cassia said, looming over him and tucking her fingertips into his clothing. “You’ll enjoy this.”
Elliot did as he was told. He wriggled out of his trousers, and Cassia tugged them off his feet along with his shoes. Next came his underwear. He was erect; of course he was. And Cassia, stroking his bare thighs with her warm hands, gave him an appreciative, lusty purr. But a moment later, she was laughing.
“Oh, you smell!”
Elliot flushed red in the insulated tent. “You’ve been making me walk around all day!”
“I know, I know. It’s only natural. Here, let me help.”
Cassia procured a small bucket and a towel from the far edge of the tent. She lay the towel under his rear, separating the chalk circle from his flesh, then placed the bucket between her thighs. She whispered something that made Elliot’s head spin, running her fingers around the rim. And the bucket filled with steaming water.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” she said.
Cassia washed his cock with a cloth from her hip pouch and a firm pair of hands. Elliot was caught between embarrassment for this motherly treatment, and arousal for the way she squeezed and rubbed him. Fortunately, she didn’t take long, and Elliot’s heart lurched towards lust when she leaned in and kissed the tip of his erection with her red lips.
“Clean as a whistle,” she giggled. “Now I’m going to undo that work with a touch of ink.”
Elliot blinked as the mage pulled open one of the racks he’d just brought up the hill and retrieved a small vial of black liquid. She hunted for and found a little paintbrush tucked between the pages of a tattered book by her pillow. Then she wriggled once more towards him and leaned over his bare legs. Her smile was lupine, framed by rosy cheeks.
“Wh-Wh-Wh…” said Elliot. “What’s this?”
Cassia rolled her eyes. “I have to tie your flesh to the circle so the energy you produce goes to ground instead of into the ether,” she said, dipping the brush in the ink. “Hold still while I apply the right sigils.”
“And I won’t-…!” Elliot’s words cut off once she touched him. Cassia’s hand was soft where she cupped the shaft of his cock, holding him still as she leaned in with her brush. “I-I-I mean… This isn’t going to change me, is it?”
“Of course not. Well,” she amended, frowning up his body at him, “are you a virgin?”
He shook his head with a splutter of mad laughter.
“Then no. And this stuff is just vegetable oil with a dash of colourant. It washes out after a few days, and it’s organic. No harm done. Here we go…”
The brush was cold against his skin. Elliot hissed out a breath as Cassia got to work. A gentle stroke, ticklish and teasing. Then another, intersecting the first.
“Try to stay stiff,” said Cassia with a click of her teeth.
“It’s hard,” Elliot replied. “I-I mean, the brush is cold!”
“Hmm, how’s this then?”
Cassia squeezed him. She rubbed his cock with her supporting hand and drew a shuddering breath from his lips. Blood seeped into his cock and made it as stiff as the stone beneath his rump.
“Much better,” Cassia giggled.
“Do you… d-do this often?”
“I usually provide the grounding spark myself. And since I’m sure you’re imagining it, yes, it takes a lot of flexibility and precision. A hand mirror helps me get the sigils right.”
“But you’ve used another person before too, right?”
“Oh, of course. Not a boy, though.” Cassia looked up from her writing and offered him another squeeze. “You’re my first boy. Thank you, Elliot, for this valuable opportunity to incorporate the male form into the traditionally female realm of magic.”
A few more brush strokes, and Cassia moved, waddling around on her knees so she was against his arm. She drew a few more shapes on the left side of his cock. Then again, crouching by his head and leaning over his chest to apply the lettering on his dorsal ridge. The warmth of her thighs reached Elliot’s cheek, and the urge to press himself against her softness, exacerbated by the teasing strokes of her brush, was maddening. Then she moved again, and Elliot was rendered breathless as the mage lifted her knee and manoeuvred herself over his face. Up her skirt, the black of her tights, hiding her underwear and her sex only barely. Then she was gone, around to his other side.
“I think we’re done,” she said at last, sitting back on her feet with a proud smile. “Now the moment of truth.”
Cassia placed down her inkwell and brush, then brought her hands together as if in prayer. She closed her eyes. Elliot stared. And Cassia began to whisper. Like the writing on the circle, Elliot couldn’t understand her, but his primitive brain nodded along regardless.
The mage chanted under her breath for long moments. Then she pulled her hands apart and clapped, which made him jump. She beamed.
“Excellent. A solid connection.”
“H-How can you tell?” Elliot asked.
“See for yourself.”
Cassia held her hands apart above her lap and stared down at Elliot’s valiant erection. She wriggled her fingers. And Elliot gasped.
“Oh, wow!”
“Good, isn’t it?” Cassia laughed.
Cassia’s fingers danced like a puppeteer’s instructions to their doll. And Elliot’s cock throbbed with sweet heat in matching rhythm. An invisible force like a flow of water enveloped his skin, and that hot flow squeezed and kneaded him from base to tip. When Cassia rose her hands to her chest, the tug of her arcane touch grew tighter, more intense, like the bursting of a geyser from beneath the earth.
Elliot grunted. He bucked his hips to encourage the magic flowing around his cock. Beads of sweat ran down his temple and across his cheek.
“I… I…!” he tried, then swallowed. “At this rate… I’ll…!”
“Come?” Cassia giggled. “Good. Your climax is the spark I need to charge the circle. So go ahead and come for me quickly, sweet Elliot. Don’t hold back.”
He gripped the base of the tent with both hands. “A-Ahh… Y-Yes…!”
“Don’t hold back…” she said again, biting her lip. “Come for me…”
“C-Cassia…!”
Her hands were a blur. Cassia’s magic drew the pleasure out of him with an impossible momentum. Elliot was dragged through the currents of her eldritch weaving. He drowned in it. He could have let himself drift there forever.
But Cassia’s sigh brought him back to lucidity. “Are you holding back?”
“N-No! No, I’m… close!”
“Because this is a little tiring,” the mage said. When Elliot gazed up at her, he saw beads of sweat mirroring his own on her brow and in her hair, a sweet, apologetic smile on her lips. “I appreciate stamina in a partner, but only when we’re sharing the work. Is there anything I can be doing to bring you to climax sooner?”
“Uh…” He licked his lips. Then, spurred on by the momentum of ecstasy, he nodded down at Cassia’s chest.
She laughed. “You’d like a look at these, would you?”
“Yes, please.”
“Well, just because you’ve been so good today. Here…”
Cassia pulled one hand free of her spell, and the magic faded. It was cold in the wake, but Elliot bore the chill, as her free hand was in the hem of her tight undershirt. Cassia wriggled her torso and tugged her shirt up over her breasts, then let the fabric rest at her collar. She grinned down at him and shook her shoulders back and forth to make her chest bounce.
“Oh… wow!” Elliot rolled his hips as the ecstatic magic returned. And she was gorgeous. Her breasts were round and pert, her nipples firm points in the centre of her dark areolas. “Wow…”
He couldn’t help himself. Elliot rested his weight on the small of his back, then reached out around Cassia’s arms and brushed one breast with the backs of his fingers. Cassia sighed with pleasure and wriggled closer to grant him better access. Then she gasped when he squeezed her and thumbed her nipple.
“Mmm, good!” she laughed. “That’s good!”
“Cassia…!” Elliot reached out his other hand, hoping to get a second handful of her, maybe sample the tight skin of her stomach. When he couldn’t reach, and his roll caused the towel under his naked rear to slip, Cassia ceased her spell and grabbed his wrists.
“Here,” she hissed. Then she straddled him. She knelt above the peak of his erection and squeezed his sides with her knees. Her red skirt obscured his cock with a crimson veil. Breathing heavily, Cassia lowered her hands to her lap so she could continue the spell.
Elliot took her exposed breasts in hand and revelled in their softness. He toyed and teased, squeezed and played. And Cassia rolled her body up and down in time with the rhythm of his hands. She stared down at him with her lips apart, her dark eyes wide and her breaths honeyed by quiet moans. Her hands kneaded the cosmos around his cock and made him sing.
“Ahh,” she sighed. “Ah, Elliot!”
“Cassia!” Elliot replied as his cock throbbed with arcane pleasure. “Oh… G-God!”
He would come at any moment. Elliot bucked his hips along the knife’s edge. Climax would be sweet indeed. But to end things here would be to deny himself more of Cassia. More of her breasts, more of her teasing compassion.
Elliot slipped one hand down to the exposed skin of her side. He took a firm hold, then tugged her downwards. And Cassia, riding the magic just as he was, acquiesced. Elliot’s ink-stained, power-suffused cock pressed up between her legs.
“E-Elliot!” Cassia’s eyes rolled. “You’re… making me wet!”
He grinned. “Good. But I guess… we can’t… you know. Because of the ink?”
The mage’s eyes burned. She glowered down at him as she rubbed her pussy with the head of his erection.
“Right?” he asked again.
“No, fuck it. I’ll make do. Hold on.”
Pausing her spell, Cassia sat up tall on her knees and gripped her tights under her skirt. She pulled them down, then sat back on her rear on the tent floor. She kicked off her leggings with a bestial grunt. She rolled herself back up and onto him. Then she pressed her hands down on Elliot’s shoulders.
“A spark is a spark,” she growled down at him as Elliot wriggled his hands under her skirt and lined himself up. “In theory, this should do just as well. The circle doesn’t need your come, Elliot. Just your orgasm. D-Doesn’t matter… where it-…”
Elliot decided he didn’t care about the science, so he fed himself inside her while she was still speaking. Cassia’s pussy was hot, almost scalding, and her soft insides surrounded him with a vice of wet pressure.
“Gods above!” she moaned. “Yes!”
Cassia began to bounce. She consumed his cock with graceful rolls of her hips and took him deep. She massaged him with, not the unknowable wonder of her magic, but the much more familiar touch of her womanhood. It was sticky, messy and a little tight. Organic. But Elliot revelled in the riding of the beautiful girl. His penetrating cock connected him with the depths of her soul. Her… what did she call it? Her anima.
“Yes! Y-Yes! Yes!” Cassia sat up straight on Elliot’s cock. She ran her fingers through the curls of her hair with one hand, held herself up with her other on Elliot’s knee. “Yes! Gods, yes!”
“Cassia!” gasped Elliot. “Oh, Cassia!”
His rear ached with the repeated slaps of her body, crushing him against the stone. She rode him with passionate, possessive control. Confident and powerful and ethereal.
“I’m gonna… make you come!” she said through gritted teeth.
“Oh, do it!” he cried. “Do it! Make me come!”
Eyes creased with joy and head tipped to one side, Cassia laughed down at him. Then she held out her hands in front of her chest. “Ready to come, Elliot?”
He nodded his head with fierce vigour.
And Cassia cast her spell. Elliot’s cock was clutched by both the physical force of her wet pussy, and also the arcane pulsing of her magic. In that instant, Elliot’s soul intersected hers. His anima mixed and melded with hers, like in an alchemist’s crucible. And she was so lovely. So funny. So clever, picking him apart as if she’d known him for years. She was bold, and Elliot held tight to her boldness and made it his own.
And in return, he filled her up with come.
Elliot’s gasp was a strangled, garbled choke of joy. His whole body bucked with the release of his semen, and he shot it into Cassia’s waiting pussy. He spilled himself along her insides. He saw stars.
“Oh, hooray!” Cassia clapped her hands, giggling at his flailing. She slowed her bounce into calmer rhythm, squeezing out the last of him and devouring it. “Well done!”
“O-Ohh,” gulped Elliot. “Oh… I just… Was that alright? I… I might have…”
“Please.” Cassia tossed back her hair with a proud smile. “You think you’ve made me pregnant? Me? Keeping myself free of babies was the first spell I learned.”
“Oh, okay,” he said, sitting down on the towel beneath his rump and drawing air back into his lungs. “Okay, then. That’s-…”
And then, pain. Elliot humped upwards as scorching heat assailed his naked rear. Cassia, laughing gaily, let herself tumble onto her back to one side, and Elliot rolled himself off the stone circle and on top of her. Together, they stared down at the stone.
Cassia’s towel was smouldering. The chalk lines of her circle had turned to brilliant heat and were eating away at the soft fabric. Underneath, clean, black lines in the rock.
“Oh, it did work!” Cassia hugged Elliot about his shoulders. “How convenient! There you go, Elliot. You have grounded my magic circle.” Then she looked up at him with big, shimmering eyes. “Are you alright?”
Elliot touched gingerly at his aching bum. “I think that’s left a mark.”
“Aw. Well, you’ve truly gone above and beyond in your help for me today, haven’t you? I’m grateful.”
The pain subsided in the cooling shine of Cassia’s midnight eyes. Her bare legs gripped his hips, and his elbows held him up around her naked chest. She wriggled, and her wet slit swiped against the softening head of his cock.
“Can I kiss you?” Elliot asked.
Cassia nodded. “Go on, then.”
Elliot pressed his lips to hers, and he tasted her. Cassia’s taste was the sharp, fruity tang of cinnamon. She was delicious, and he wasted no time sliding his tongue into her mouth. Cassia accommodated him with a sigh of satisfaction. Her hands kneaded his shoulders and stroked his hair.
“You say I’ve gone above and beyond,” Elliot whispered between licks of his tongue against hers. “But you never climaxed. That doesn’t sound very fair to me.”
“Mmm,” she replied. “I was assuming you would be a gentleman and finish me off. Is that fair?”
In lieu of a response, Elliot fed his hand down her tummy and over her skirt, then wriggled inside. He sampled the moisture of her opening with his fingertips and sought her clit with practiced navigation.
“A-Ahh!” groaned Cassia. “Elliot!” Then she kissed him anew.
Elliot rubbed Cassia with the vigour her body demanded. The mage grunted into his mouth as he filled her up with his fingers and thumbed her clitoris. Then her voice raised, becoming high and shrill, as she approached climax.
Elliot pulled himself off her lips and kissed her breasts instead. He lapped her nipples and fingered her pussy, and Cassia’s spine arched as she received his pampering. Her song was a sharp staccato of breaths that filled the tent with wet air. She shuddered under his touch and gripped him with the full length of her body. Elliot began to ache. He rode her bucking, juddering body with the embrace of his arms and the anchoring penetration of his fingers.
But eventually, she was done. Cassia tipped back her head in a long, silent scream of release. Her pussy throbbed around his digits and soaked him with fluid. And Elliot continued to slide in and out of her, slowly now, until her breathing became regular once more.
“Oh, wow,” she gasped. “Oh, Elliot. Good work.”
Elliot kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”
“You’re probably… tired after all that.”
“I am.”
“So, you should spend the night here,” giggled the mage. She flopped back on the tent floor and brushed some curls of hair out of her eyes. “I’m not so cruel as to send you home in the cold.”
“That’s kind of you,” Elliot said, smiling against her cheek.
“Mmm… Just be warned that I’m an early riser, and I have a busy day tomorrow. I’ll be up at the crack of dawn to set up shop.”
“I’ll help you.”
“You’ll spoil me,” she said. “But that will speed things up. Who knows? If I’m ready for business early, maybe you could fuck me again before the customers show up.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Laughing like children, the pair kissed. They wriggled out of their remaining clothing and snuggled together in the sheets of Cassia’s narrow bedding. Cassia extinguished her lantern with a snap of her fingers, then nestled herself against him in the dark. Her rich skin was warm, and he clung to her to keep the chill at bay. Sleep would come quickly in the luxuriant softness of her arms. Elliot readied himself to rest.
“Elliot?” whispered Cassia. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes, of course,” he replied in the same whisper.
“Do you help non-humans enter the city with your certificates of aegis because your mother was one?”
Her words didn’t reach his brain right away, right on the edge of sleep as he was. For a moment, it was as if she was still chanting a spell in her unknowable tongue. Then, suddenly, he was awake.
“Wh-What?” he managed. “My mother wasn’t… a kin of humanity.”
“No? Who was she?”
“Well, I… I don’t know. I never met her, and my father… Eli never told anyone who she was.” His mind spun in the dark, making him dizzy. “What makes you think she wasn’t human?”
“I did a little asking around about you after we met in your Office of Municipal Integration. Eli of Layman, First Ambassador to the Elves, was your father, right? He spent an awful lot of time with them.”
“And?”
“He spent a lot of time with the legendary daughter of the Elf King, is what I heard. A lot of time.” Cassia wriggled in his arms and kissed his nose. “So, she’s your mother. It’s obvious.”
“N-No. No, that’s not possible. Elves and humans can’t have children.”
“Elves are secretive creatures, Elliot. Maybe they just don’t want us humans knowing half-bloods like you are possible.”
“You’re wrong.”
Cassia leaned back. Her dark eyes sparkled in the midnight gloom. “I’ve upset you. I’m sorry.”
“You just…” Elliot swallowed. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Evidently not. I thought you’d be proud to be… Never mind. Get some sleep. We don’t have to talk about it.”
The air cooled in the insulated tent. Elliot stared into the black and felt the slowing heartbeat of Cassia against his chest.
“It’s just… your eyes,” she whispered on the verge of sleep. “I’ve never seen eyes like yours before.”
Elliot didn’t sleep well that night. Miriham, princess of the elves… his mother? He knew she and Eli had been close. He’d heard the sordid rumours about their secret, taboo relationship. Unfounded, of course. So there was no way. There was no way he was…
Stars spun around Elliot in his half-dreaming slumber. The woods and the Castle and the scent of cinnamon. Kin of humanity. One of us and one of them…
There’s no way…
laymenstory
Ewan Stone 
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