Page 35 of Stitches
“No.” Ashmedai stopped him. “I only wondered if it might be homemade for a specific owner rather than from a shop.”
“Mass-produced,” Daedlys said with a shake of his head, handing the box back to Ashmedai. “There’s a shop’s stamp on the bottom, but the detailed craftsmanship tells me there weren’t many made. Perhaps it was the last of its stock.”
Ashmedai nodded thoughtfully and then gave the box to Levi.
Levi felt his cheeks flush as Daedlys’s eyes fell on him, and the banshee smiled like he knew something unspoken.
“Why, Stitches, my dear, I’ve been meaning to ask—why haven’t I seen you wearing that new tunic yet?”
Levi gave a start big enough that he almost dropped the box. He gripped it tighter in response, eyes wide as he searched for an answer.
“I hope to see you in it soon.” Daedlys beat him to it. “You’ll look positively radiant.” He winked and floated back to his cart to begin wheeling it away.
“Tunic?” Ashmedai asked.
It was rare that Levi wanted something just for him. He felt guilty and selfish for taking the tunic at all, just like he had when wishing to be closer to Ashmedai than Braxton was.
Because he wanted Ash for himself too.
“It’s too much.” Levi dropped his eyes. “Too special.”
“Then someone special should wear it.” Ashmedai’s fingers grazed Levi’s hand, and Levi looked up, caught in the eyes he adored. Heshifted his grip on the box so Ashmedai could take the hand he had touched, and Ashmedai kissed the knuckles like before.
Levi didn’t think his cheeks could feel any hotter.
Almost everyone else was gone now, only Dreya and Yentriss remaining, but they were on the other side of the carriages. They wouldn’t notice. No one would notice.
Levi leaned toward Ashmedai.
“Lauffy!” Dreya yelled after one of the departing citizens, and Levi and Ashmedai snapped away from each other.
Had Ashmedai been leaning in too?
“Well….” Ashmedai softly lowered Levi’s hand and let it go. “Perhaps you’ll wear your new tunic to the festival?”
For the king, Levi would do anything. “Perhaps.”
Ashmedai took Levi’s elbow again and led him from the caravan to the market steps.
Ashmedai
When they arrived at Luccite’s, Ashmedai could tell Levi had never been inside this shop. He looked around in utter awe, pausing to breathe in the unique scent of mixed oils, poultices, and spices. Levi didn’t have his bag today, so he still held the music box, which only added to the mystery—because how could Levi recognize a horse or a tune from something out of a shop in the Emerald Kingdom?
“There you are,” Luccite greeted them from a stool before one of her shelves, which, since she was on the third step, made her almostAshmedai’s height. Her eyes went to the music box. “What is that?”
“Oh, um… a music box from the Emerald carriages,” Levi explained. “Ash got it for me.”
Luccite tsked. “The one time I miss delivery day, and foryou, and you swipe something I might have actually thought worthy of collecting. My loss, I suppose.”
“You collect things from Emerald?” Levi asked.
“I collect things from all over,” Luccite said with a gesture at a few of her fuller shelves. “Emerald is simply the only source these days.”
Ashmedai walked with Levi as he studied the shelves more closely. Mixed in with the usual healer and alchemical paraphernalia was the occasional trinket of foreign craftsmanship, like an elven-made clock from the Diamond Kingdom, or a dwarven mortar and pestle made of stone from Ruby.
“Dreya sends her regards,” Ashmedai remembered to say.
“Silly girl.” Luccite’s ears twitched. “We see each other every day.”
