CORRUPTED FILE [Lumina Chronicles Past Drafts]

Level Thirty-One: Dinner With Royalty

My second carriage ride to Lumina was much better than the first. Instead of Kindle and I ignoring each other for the full two hours, we spent the whole trip talking and laughing.

As soon as we had both climbed into the carriage, Kindle had grabbed my hand and tugged me right up against him. He'd wrapped his arm around me and I'd let my head fall against his shoulder, careful not to disrupt Serpina's work on my hair and makeup.

"I like this," Kindle mused, his finger tracing the lace of my sleeve.

"Faye did an amazing job, as usual." I nodded. The dress she'd made me for the dinner was simple, empire-waisted, and made of bubble-gum pink silk. It had short sleeves, patterned in a floral lace.

"No, not the dress, this." Kindle pulled me closer to him, "Us. But the dress is nice too."

Kindle and I hadn't kissed in front of Faye like Carlyle had wanted us too, but just the sight of us holding hands was enough to get a reaction from Faye.

She'd tried to play it cool, but about half an hour into discussing the design of my new dress with me she erupted into a fit of giggles, a broad smile on her face.

"Is something wrong?" Kindle asked her, his tone overly casual.

Faye simply covered her bright red face with her hands as she continued to giggle, and whispered through her fingers, "Can I please plan your wedding?"

As the carriage grew closer to Lumina, I slid myself away from Kindle to stare out the window at the brightly lit skyline. "How does that work?" I asked, "The Abandoned Order's castle is lit with mostly torches, but the entire central city of Lumina is lit with bright electrical lights."

"Steam power," Kindle replied. "They have a giant steam-engine deep under the city. It powers all of Lumina, and even supplies a small amount if power to the outlying territories. That's why we have a refrigerator and some electric lights in our castle."

I nodded, taking in this new information. I had a feeling that part of Seraphim's plan for revenge on King Jareth involved taking out that engine. "Is that why all of those skyscrapers have chimneys?"

"Right, but it's not smoke coming from them, it's excess steam," Kindle nodded. "It must take a thousand workers for them to power that engine. Something that big would require a constant, powerful heat source."

"And you would be the expert on heat," I glanced over my shoulder at him. "Because of your fire thingy," I moved my hand around, wiggling my fingers like fire in an attempt to illustrate what I was talking about.

"Yeah, because of my 'fire thingy'," Kindle smirked. He mimicked my hand motion, only when he did it a tiny flame danced across his fingertips.

"Are you ever going to tell me what you are?" I asked, turning away from the window completely.

"Maybe," Kindle shrugged, "Is it really that important though?"

I laughed, "Yes, it's important! I mean, I sort of want to know what kind of inhuman creature I'm kissing."

After a moment, Kindle nodded. "I'll tell you, eventually... probably."

I rolled my eyes, "What, are you afraid I'll avoid you once I know?" I joked.

Kindle surprised me by nodding. "Yeah, kind of."

What exactly was he?

A stretch of silence passed and I returned to looking out the window. We were in the city now, so I could see all the beautiful gowns and suits the citizens of Lumina were wearing. Some of them were dressed fancier than others, and I even picked out a few people wearing jeans and sweaters.