Magic's Moments

In Which Sedgewick Struggles with Pet Names

Or alternatively, In Which Not Even Feyla is Understanding All of the Time

Sedgewick leaned back slowly in his bed and stared at Feyla as if she was the one who had put him there. Was the woman serious?

"Come again?" he asked. Surely he'd misheard her.

Feyla smiled at him as she leaned against his bed, looking as if her whole world was lying in it. Sedgewick would have shifted awkwardly except it would have made his chest hurt and that would have distracted him from the pleasant—if unfamiliar—tingling he felt when she did that.

"What do you think of Sedgy-kins for a pet name?"

Gates, the woman was actually serious.

"I did not know it was possible to hate a name quite that much," Sedgewick said bluntly.

Feyla's ears drooped instantly. Hurt glistened in her eyes as if she were a puppy that he'd kicked. Mentally kicking himself in return, Sedgewick squirmed in his bed, wishing he could backtrack to the look she'd had before this disastrous chat.

"Oh," Feyla said before he could find an escape from the corner he'd back himself into. "Okay." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze flicking away from him.

"But I'm sure you'll think of something better?" Sedgewick blurted out quickly.

Feyla was quiet for a moment while she poured him a drink from the pot she'd set on his nightstand. "No. No, I'm just being silly. You're not the sappy nickname type. I shouldn't have brought it up."

"Feyla..." Sedgewick took her free hand. "I don't understand why this is so important to you."

"You're special to me. I just want to call you something special," Feyla said softly. She bit her lip and looked away. "Would you be okay with just Sedge or Sedgy?"

Sedgewick froze. At the sound of that final name, he was thrown back to when he was a young man again. Memories of hours spent gazing into playful violet eyes and running his fingers through inky black hair smudged together with the remnants of the hormone-addled haze his heart has been trapped in before a certain sorceress had crushed it.

"No," he spoke roughly, crumpling his blanket with the fist she couldn't see. "I never want to hear you call me that."

Feyla set the pot down with a decisive "clink". "Why?"

"It...brings back unpleasant memories."

You've done it now, Sedgewick thought privately. Gates, why couldn't he just act like a normal suitor? If he was more like Beryn, he could have smothered her in flattery while smoothly avoiding references to his daemon of a former flame.

"Was it the one who died or the one you thought was someone she wasn't?" Feyla asked, perceptive as always. Her voice was calm—curious even, but her hands were tightened around the cup she held out to him.

"...Pardon?" he asked, taking the cup. Maybe he could still save them from approaching disaster.

"Don't be vague with me, Sedgewick."

Sedgewick gazed into the cup as if it was the tonic to all of life's problems. Tea. She'd given him tea. Yes, it was probably because she wanted him to sleep, but that didn't change the fact that the cruel woman was denying him his coffee. "It was the latter," he said, swirling the liquid around the cup.

Feyla bit her lip hard, like she was biting back a question. Sedgewick gingerly took a sip of his tea. Not bad. It wasn't coffee, but not bad. "Go on. I know it's killing you."