“Good. And if you accidentally conjure something, you’ll tell me? You won’t be foolish and try to handle it yourself?”
She smiled at his concern. “I’ve handled plenty of demons myself, Des.”
“I know. But that was before I knew you existed. I’d never have allowed you to put yourself in harm’s way if I’d known.”
She cocked her head. “Allowed me?”
He ran one hand through his hair, clearly frustrated but doing his best to be diplomatic. “Just promise me, Aurelie.”
“All right, Des. I promise.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Good girl.”
She flushed at his murmured approval as though he were a professor giving her an excellent mark. She despised herself a little for how much she enjoyed it. “Go, before I change my mind.”
He straightened to his full height and saluted her. “Yes, ma’am.”
To her surprise, Aurelie found she quite liked that, too.
Chapter 31
Des
When Des reached Aurelie’s laboratory, he found Jasper and Daisy staring at hard lumps of acacia resin, scratching their heads.
“Do you know how to make this into glue?” Jasper asked. “Because we have no idea.”
Des held up a piece of parchment on a makeshift desk. “Instructions, right here. Aciano’s beard, no wonder she thinks we’re all daft.”
“She didn’t call us daft,” Daisy said. “Did she?”
“Not in so many words, no.” Des glanced around the room, trying to see it through Aurelie’s eyes. It was dark and dingy, mostly empty aside from some wooden crates and the simple frame standing in the middle of the room. It was large, taller than Des and equally wide. He still didn’t understand how a magical portal would somehow open up in this very room. Half of him didn’t believe it would. And yet seeing Everard and his thrall, he knew that if anyone was capable of it, it was that gods-forsaken man.
Why had he chosen Aurelie? The question had plagued him last night as he lay in bed, his hands folded chastely on his chest to avoid temptation every time he closed his eyes and saw her, half-naked, kneeling on a desk in front of him. No boyhood fantasy could have ever conjured such a sight, especially not when the women he was surrounded by slept in the same tunics the men wore. Aureliepresented so many newly discovered desires, things Des could have never dreamed of for himself.
And the worst part was, he knew now what he had been missing. What he would continue to miss for the rest of his life. As much as he wanted to believe that this portal would do what she said it would—he believedshebelieved it, or else he never would have agreed to help her; at least if she conjured any demons, he’d be there to kill them—he had seen firsthand what happened when people messed with things they shouldn’t. She was desperate to save her uncle. She’d do anything for him, Des now understood. Which was why he’d put his own plan in motion behind Aurelie’s back.
Gareth had insisted on helping with the portal, and Des knew the kid would continue to pester him if he didn’t have some other job. Even Daisy and Jasper didn’t know about his “secret mission.” Gareth was going to do some reconnaissance on Everard, learn if there was any way to get to Leopold Blake that didn’t require Aurelie fulfilling this deal with the devil. If he was confident they could accomplish it, he would alert Commander Yew. Whatever Everard was capable of, Des could never accept he would be able to outsmart the entire Iron Guard.
Still, it pained him to betray Aurelie like this. He licked his lips absently, desperate for another taste of her. Demons take him, she was sweeter and softer than anything had a right to be. But it was her mind he’d fallen for, and the very idea was so ridiculous he almost laughed out loud to himself. He’d never met anyone more obstinate, more curious, more brilliant. He could have listened to her talk about adhesives until he grew old and feeble and died a happy man.
But Aurelie had an undeniable connection with demons, beyond her inventions. Everard had been able to exploit that somehow, spying on Aurelie with his own thrall, maybe even Mephisto. There had to be other inventors in Wisteria City. She claimed she’d killed everyveritashe created, but he’d facedveritamany times, which meant there were other sources. WhyAurelie?
And why, in some twisted way, was he grateful? Because otherwise, they never would have met.
The entire time he and Jasper moved those blasted stones—which, they realized after their first three attempts, were not all perfectly even and therefore could only be slotted into the frame through a process of trial and error—he daydreamed of her delicate hands against his face, his chest, his abdominal muscles, as though she’d never felt anything more intriguing. He wanted to let her study him like one of her books, page by page, as slowly and thoroughly as she wanted to.
Blood and bones, he was jealous of her fucking books.
When she appeared in the room, he wondered for a moment if he’d conjured her, if his aching thoughts had somehow reached her across campus. At some point while they were working, Des had removed his breastplate, followed by his tunic, because despite the freezing temperatures outside, it had grown warm from the fire Daisy started in the massive fireplace to melt the acacia resin. And now Aurelie was here, staring at him with her front teeth absently pressed to her lower lip, her pale cheeks flushed pink, her hands idly fisted in her skirt.
If they’d been alone, he would have devoured her whole.
“Everything okay?” he asked, a smirk curling his lips.
“Yes, fine,” she said, blinking. “I was going to run to the post office and wondered if I could pick up something on the way home to make for dinner.”
The thought of her cooking for him was absurd, and yet he wanted nothing more than to have dinner with her in her uncle’s cottage. All right, there were definitelysomethings he wanted more, but he wanted that, too. He wanted all of it. All ofher.