Salvage ~ V1: Nuts and Bolts (Steampunk/ Gaslamp Romantasy ~ FxM, MxM)

Chapter 15: Were You Close?

Queen Inaissa had delayed the Valeskan Embassy by a number of weeks, hoping to be better informed of their intentions before she received them, but any information had been locked up tightly against her spies.

The day that they finally came to court found Kazia hiding in her laboratory, pretending to work. She really did intend to work, but her eyes glazed over and she stared into space for long moments. Even she couldn't say what she'd been thinking about once she snapped out of it.

She wanted to go to Amelys' garden, but wouldn't risk being seen on the walk. She considered asking Tamyn to take her there by portal.

He had been in the Artifact storeroom all morning, examining items whose documentation was missing. When a loud crash from that direction roused Kazia from one of her reveries, she went to investigate.

She found him picking up a fallen easel. An Artifact sat on a table in the aisle nearby, and pencil drawings of Artifacts were scattered everywhere.

"Is everything alright?" she asked.

She began to pick up the nearest drawings while he righted the easel. All that Kazia read from him was a profound sense of frustration and embarrassment.

Recently, he had seemed better able to control his internal state. On several occasions that Kazia looked for him, his apprentices told her that he had gone to the top of the tower, where the Queen's Alchemists kept a Temple of Contemplation.

"It's fine," he said in a tone that implied that it was not actually fine. Then he laughed softly. "I'm just a bit clumsy today."

Kazia looked at the drawings as she picked them up.

"Did you do all the sketches on the documentation packets?" she asked.

He nodded in reply.

"You're very good," she said with a smile.

"It's a hobby, mostly," Tamyn replied modestly, "but it does have a few useful applications. I'm sketching all these orphan Artifacts so that we at least have a visual record of them."

Kazia handed him the stack of drawings she had retrieved from the floor.

"The light isn't good in here," she said. "You could bring them into the lab if you'd like. I can open the window."

Tamyn nodded in agreement and Kazia returned to the lab. The large window overlooked the inner bailey, though, and upon drawing back the curtains she saw that the Valeskan entourage had arrived.

Her eyes were drawn immediately to the figure of her brother, Lord Abrizhen Devratha, standing outside his carriage waiting for everyone else to disembark.

Kazia held her breath.

She hadn't seen him since leaving Valesk five years prior. In her childhood, he had been one of the few kind people in her life, although he'd been away from home most of the time. Later, he had clearly sided with their father, drawing an unmovable line between them.

She stared for what seemed an eternity as memories she would rather push aside threatened to come forward.

She really wanted to go to the garden.

Soft footsteps came behind her, and suddenly her daze was interrupted by an onslaught of external agony.

Tamyn had come to stand beside her at the window. As he stared out into the bailey, his lips pressed together in a hard line and his breath sounded with a forced evenness. His emotions flared and scattered as they had that night at the University.

Kazia began to regret inviting him into the lab. She returned to her work table and stared at the project laying unattended there.

Tamyn turned away from the window.