I waited patiently with my back turned as Lea changed out of her rumpled night clothes. Once I’d promised that I wasn’t going to leave without her, her previous reluctance vanished and she shyly warned me not to peek before hurrying away.

That had been almost twenty-five minutes ago and she was still holed up in the small bathroom attached to her room. I held back a soft sigh, knowing that she would likely both hear it and understand its cause. No matter how much I disliked just sitting here and waiting, I didn’t want Lea to think that I was annoyed with her. She had enough on her plate as it was.

I’d completely forgotten how long it took some people to get dressed, particularly without the aid of much magic. I’d sensed Lea casting a spell, some sort of basic cleaning and drying effect if I wasn’t mistaken, but that was nothing compared to the entire array of spells I’d seen Miranda use when she was getting ready for the day. She had an entire nine-spell sequence just for styling her hair!

I heard Lea duck out of the bathroom, grab something out of the dresser, and then disappear again. “I’m almost ready,” she called out, her voice muffled, “Just a few more minutes!”

I let my head slump back against the top of the couch. A few more minutes, yep. Definitely. Just like it was the last two times she’d said that. Miranda’s morning routine might be complicated, but at least it was faster than this. Sure Lea probably couldn’t even manage most of the spells Miranda used every day, but I didn’t really understand what was taking so long.

I’d heard that some women took an awfully long time for such things, but this was ridiculous. If she was anyone other than my precious Lea, I probably would have stormed in there and took care of everything myself. How long did it take to put on a clean dress? Sure she probably actually wore underwear unlike a certain other stunning blonde I knew, but that shouldn’t add that much time, right?

“You can look now,” Lea called out quietly, a note of reluctance in her voice. I stood up and turned to face her as she walked around the bed into the middle of the room. Extending her arms to either side, she whirled around, a bright smile on her flushed cheeks. “What do you think?”

I honestly didn’t know much about fashion, but Lea deserved an honest assessment so I tried to channel Miranda’s lessons as I studied her outfit. She wore a baby-blue dress in the classic Xethian sheath-style, the bright cloth hugging her curves and the shade perfectly matched her beautiful eyes.

The neckline was somewhat more plunging than was traditional, but under it she wore a white, long-sleeved lace shirt of some sort that both served to preserve her modesty and would probably help keep her warm. Similarly, her uncovered thighs were protected from the cold by sheer tights that almost perfectly matched her natural skin tone and she wore shiny black heeled boots that went up to just below her knees.

She’d also clearly spent a lot of time styling her hair. Her long platinum-blonde hair was pulled back in an intricate braid and two additional braids hung down to frame her face. I’d certainly seen more complex hairstyles, they were rather popular among certain cultural groups and magic allowed for some truly absurd feats of hair-based engineering, but this had clearly been done entirely by hand and looked rather good on her. The bright red lipstick pulled it all together and made everything really pop.

“Radiant,” I told her honestly. Just as beautiful as she had always been. My darling Lea could be nothing less. “It really suits you.”

Her blush darkened slightly, the bright red visible even under her makeup, but I could see the delight on her face. She looked down at the floor, “Thanks Orion.”

I waited for a moment, then extended a hand towards her. “Shall we then?”

She almost leapt forward, her warm, delicate fingers pressing against mine. “We shall.” She giggled brightly, an honest warm laugh that reminded me of sunny days and burbling brooks. It was by far the most positive expression of emotion I’d seen from her since the attack.

I impulsively stepped closer and wrapped my other arm around her shoulder. “I’m so glad I found you,” I told her quietly.

She simply nodded, swallowing heavily as I pulled away. “Me too.”

And then we were off. The fake maid looked rather surprised to see Lea leaving her room. She said something about how Adonia would be pleased to see she was feeling better, but Lea ignored her and so I did as well.

Before we crossed outside the wards of the manor, I surrounded the two of us with an illusionary veil that would hopefully prevent people from recognizing us. It wasn’t a perfect defense, it simply slightly altered both of our features and made us less memorable, but it would hopefully be enough for this.

I simply didn’t have the mana to disguise both of us properly for long, casting spells on other people was always far more mana-intensive than casting them on yourself, so this would have to suffice. It wasn’t that I expected anything to happen, though I never really let my guard down entirely, but Brenda had already found our connection once and I was loath to make it easy for anyone else.

Then we were off. After barely a minute, I concluded that despite making some efforts in that direction, my Lea was clearly not dressed for the weather. She was hiding it, but I could see the suppressed chattering of her teeth and how she clutched the warm cloak I’d grabbed from her closet tightly with her free hand.

“Here,” I told her quietly. She watched with wide eyes as the spell matrix formed in the air in front of us. It was a simple warming spell, even if its unusual design did bump it up to second-circle. In exchange for the added complexity it would cost considerably less mana in the long run.

Instead of warming Lea directly, it formed a bubble that gently heated the air around her. The workaround ensured I didn’t have to pay the hefty added cost of attempting to overcome her soul’s natural mana resistance.

It was also conveniently based off of the same standard design as many of the protective spells I used for my own purposes, meaning it had taken no time at all to learn when I’d come across it in a book. I’d never actually learned the proper way to keep another person warm, it had simply never come up in the past. I could probably cobble something together, but this was more than sufficient.

Lea sighed contentedly as the next gust of freezing wind was replaced by the warm tickle of a summer breeze. “That was amazing. Do you use that spell a lot? You cast it very quickly,” she commented quietly.

I shrugged. “It's a simple enough bit of magic.” Clicking my tongue thoughtfully, I focused on Lea’s mana. Her core was a loose, sluggish mass, slightly better than it had been when I first met her but still a far cry from what I would expect from a competent second-year. Despite having been learning magic for a fraction of the time, my adorable Rea’s mana pool was probably going to outstrip Lea’s by the middle of next term.

“You could probably cast it with a bit of practice,” I told her after a moment. “It’s second-circle, but not too complicated. Shouldn’t be much worse than that cleaning spell you were using.” I paused, then added, “Or I could find you a better version. This is nice, but it wouldn’t work half as well if it was ten degrees colder than it is now.”

Lea looked excited at first, then her eyes widened and she half pulled away from me. “How do you know about that?” she asked angrily. “Were you spying on me! You said––”

“I wasn’t spying on you, Lea. I wouldn’t lie to you like that. I could sense the spell matrix forming and it wasn’t like there was anyone else around to cast it.” I was honestly a little hurt by the accusation. I absolutely would lie to her about… a number of things, but that wasn’t one of them.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…”

“It’s alright.”

We walked in silence for several minutes. It was a nice silence, Lea looked like she was deep in thought and I focused on increasing my mana regeneration by assimilated ambient mana. It wasn’t a particularly effective way of doing things, particularly somewhere with so little free mana in the air, but it was still good practice.

Eventually Lea stepped closer to me, pressing her cloak-covered arm up against my own. “I didn’t know you could do that. Is it a spell or something? One of your circulation thingies?”

I shook my head. “Nothing like that. It’s technically considered its own thing entirely, but really it's just a derivative of pure mana manipulation. Mana tends to move in rather predictable ways if nothing is acting on it. If you focus, you can feel how other mana interacts with your own and from that intuit what’s going on around you. It's a bit tricky, but I’ve picked up a few things over the years. Definitely a good skill to have.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“Not really. Just a matter of practice.”

“Okay.” She sounded rather skeptical, but I wasn’t sure what else to say. It had taken some time to figure out the basics, but these days it was almost reflexive.

She was silent again, then whispered something so quietly I couldn’t make out anything over the rustle of dying leaves.

“What was that?”

She bit her lip and I smiled at how cute it made her look. For a moment I could see a much younger, smaller Lea standing in her place, pouting at being denied a second helping of dessert. “Were you serious?” she asked finally, “About teaching me, I mean. Aren’t mages supposed to be like… really secretive about their techniques? You keep offering but…” She trailed off. “I don’t know, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t willing,” I told her simply. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“But… why? I know the teachers at Lightcastle are being paid to do it, but even then getting anything other than the class material out of them is like pulling teeth. It's always one or two spells per term, if that.” I cringed internally at that idea. “Why… just why, Orion?”

I stopped in the middle of the street, thankful for the cold that had driven the usual crowds away. Then I turned to Lea and gently grabbed her other hand, holding both of her comparably small hands in my own.

She tilted her head to the side and looked up at me, a single tear pooling at the corner of one eye. “Orion?” she asked again.

“It’s a couple things. First of all, you’re right about mages and their secrets, but I think we’re working on different scales here. Maybe at Lightcastle second-circle spells are something special, but that's just Lightcastle. I can’t say I understand what it's like for you, I’ve never studied anywhere else but Avalon, but to me second circle just isn’t a big deal. It's something to learn and then grow past, a stepping stone to something greater. In a few years, I doubt I’ll ever cast most of the second-circle spells I know again.”

She looked like she was about to interrupt me, but I gently squeezed her hands and continued. “Going off that, it's not like anything I’ve mentioned is a special technique or some secretive spell. These are mostly the bare basics and foundational skills that every good mage should know. I don’t know what sort of pathetic misers they have teaching you, but the educational standards at Lightcastle are clearly not nearly up to snuff. Maybe they’re just intentionally ruining the non-nobles’s foundations, but it's not like Adonia is off to a much better start than you are.

“Finally, even if they were secret techniques, I’d teach it all to you in a heartbeat. You’re all I have left, Lea. I can’t lose you too. Anything I can give you that will make you safer, it's yours.”

I took a deep breath, preparing to continue my impromptu speech, but Lea chose that moment to break down into tears for the second time in less than an hour. Once again, she threw herself at me, only this time there was no soft carpet behind me to fall onto. Instead, I stumbled backwards even as she clutched desperately at my cloak. I panicked for a moment, then logic reasserted itself and a telekinetic tendril wrapped around my back and arrested my fall.

Lea used my momentary distraction to worm her way under my cloak and I was left awkwardly holding her against my chest even as her entire body was hidden from view by our combined cloaks. Why did this keep happening to me? I had no idea how to comfort a sobbing woman and Lea just kept doing it! She’d never been this emotional as a child.

I looked around furtively, then quickly cast another illusion over us. The street was mostly empty, but there was the occasional passerby and we were standing rather conspicuously in the center of the path.

“You’re alright Lea, everything’s alright,” I tried, my free hand rubbing gentle circles on her back. “Do you still want to go get something to eat? I can take you back to––”

“No! No, I don’t… I don’t want to go back. Don’t… don’t make me go back to… to… It's cold Orion, it's so cold.” Despite being muffled by both my chest and our cloaks, I could hear desperation in her voice.

“Did something happen?” I asked sharply. I glanced around again and found no one paying us any attention, then leaned in and in a whisper asked, “Are they doing something to you? Mistreating you?”

“They… they won’t let me out,” she whispered, her voice pained. “I… I’m trapped. It’s a comfortable prison, better than what… what… Lord Seatamer had for us, but a prison nonetheless.”

“What?”

“And… and it's like… like they’re mocking me. Sometimes they’ll invite me down to dinner, but the door’s still locked. I want to go, go anywhere at all, but it's always locked. And when the servants come by, sometimes they’ll leave the food right outside. I can smell it, almost taste it, but it might as well not exist. It’s… At least with him, I knew what he wanted from me.” She pulled back slightly and wrapped her arms around her own chest. “With Adonia… I thought we had something. Something real. But…”

I didn’t know what to say. For the second time in less than a month, all I could see was a haze of blinding rage, tempered only by Lea’s warmth just inches away from me. “I… I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know. I thought… I thought you’d be safe with them. That it would be for the best.”

“Clearly we were both wrong. It happens.” Her calm, surprisingly even voice brought me back to myself and I took a deep breath.

“You’re not going back there. I’ll never make you go back there.” I promised her. It would probably paint me as an enemy of the Earthshadows, but that was fine. I had what I really needed from this place, and in a few years nothing the family could throw at me would be enough. By the time I came back to deal with him, they would be an irrelevant obstacle.

“What are we going to do then?” she asked in a small voice. “I… They’ll make me come back. They’ll find me and they’ll take me and… and I… I can’t go back. I can’t.”

“Leave it to me. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Okay. I trust you.”

I took another deep breath, mind racing as I tried to figure out what my next steps were going to be. “Well then, first things first. Is there anything you need from the estate or anywhere else in the city? We only have a few hours before they’re going to expect you back and I want you out of the city before that happens.”

“Not really,” she whispered after a moment. “Uncle told me there was nothing left. I guess I’d like to say goodbye?”

“We can do that.”

Lea smiled brightly, the melancholy on her face washed away in an instant. “What are you waiting for then?” She grabbed my hand and we were off.