The next morning, Aoife woke to the smell of breakfast, and it took her a moment to remember where she was. The ceiling wasn't the wood panels of the manner, but a thick canopy over the bed. Her body felt heavy, like she'd managed to sink into the bed overnight and it would be an effort to extricate herself.

Looking around, she quickly located the source of the delicious smell. A tray of steaming food had been left on her bedside table— beans, eggs, and some kind of bread. Her stomach protested at the thought of food so early in the morning, but she thought it was kind of the incorporeal staff to bring it up, so she did her best to try to eat.

To her surprise, there was a selection of pants and shirts in her wardrobe, with no sign of the dresses from last night. She wasn't completely sure how the wardrobe contents worked, but she threw out a quick word of thanks to any of the house spirits that might have done it. She wound up in a pair of leggings and a sleeveless shirt with a high collar that draped to mid-thigh, possibly a man's shirt rather than something tailored for a woman. With her old leather gloves on, she was ready to face the day. Well... so she hoped.

After backtracking from only one wrong turn, she found the Enchanter in the garden. Without the long, red robes he seemed somehow smaller and larger at the same time. He wore a simple brown tunic, belted closed at the waist, plain pants, and practical boots, looking more like a woodsman than an Enchanter. His long hair fell haphazardly around his shoulders, stray strands floating in the breeze as he turned towards her, alerted by the sound of her footsteps.

"Ah, Aoife, you're here—" He stopped abruptly, eyes tracing down the pattern of scars on her arm. She fought the urge not to shy away from the gaze. Her left arm was a piece of work, and she knew it. Not only did the silver Mark run from the tip top of her shoulder down to her wrist, most of the outside of the arm was covered in pale, slashing scars, a leftover memento from her brief time on the run.

"If you want to ask about my scars, it would be less rude than staring," she pointed out. It would certainly be less annoying than staring.

She typically wore long sleeves for a reason, even if she wasn't out in the woods. Yes, keeping her skin hidden was a matter of safety, but it was also... uncomfortable to bear the strange stares as she walked by people. Her arm was a spiderweb of scar tissue intertwined with her Mark, and it drew attention. The Enchanter was the first person in a very long time to see them.

"How did you get them?" he asked bluntly, though he still stared at her arm. The same as last night, she remembered.

"I'll tell you how I got them when you tell me why you're so interested," Aoife countered. His expression soured.

"Wouldn't anyone be interested in a scar pattern like that?"

Fair.

Fair, but not good enough.

"I keep it hidden to discourage interest," she said simply.

He didn't press for more information on the scars. Instead, he sighed, rolled his eyes, and went off on an entirely new subject without preamble.

"I need details on your powers. Don't tell me you kill things; I know that already. You didn't kill that boy at the Festival. Why?" He paced in a circle around the courtyard, looking almost fidgety, like the answers to his questions were an itch he couldn't scratch.

"I don't think he was in contact with me for long enough," she said after a pause. A haunted look came over her face as she continued, gaze focused somewhere far away. "I don't really have conscious control over it. Most people get sick first. They can't tell what it is or how to cure it, but they get sick...and then they die. If they touch my bare skin and I'm scared enough, then they fall over like Erik. That's not the first time."

"Plants and animals?" he pressed, raising an eyebrow.

"Near-instant death for animals in most cases. Absolutely instant for plants. No exceptions."

Her voice became softer with every word. She felt like walking away, like closing up. It was like baring her soul to a complete stranger, admitting this thing that she knew, but had never spoken the particulars of out loud. Aoife's arms unconsciously wrapped around her torso, as if she might be trying to shrink away into nothing.

"Today we're starting with your physical training."

"What?" she blinked.

"Physical training," he said again, more slowly this time.

"What does that have to do with learning magic?" Aoife couldn't quite make the connection between being strong in body and being a competent magic-user. She'd never seen a particularly strong Enchanter, and never heard of one who specialized in physical use of weapons when they could simply use their magic to defend themselves.

"What do you know about magic?" the Enchanter asked, still walking.

"I know..." Aoife paused, trying to find some kind of . "I know it's the bane of my existence, and it doesn't like iron, but not much else," she admitted.

The Enchanter closed the distance between them in half a second, his knife pressed against her throat and her back against the stone wall. She didn't even have time to blink, her head reeling from the sudden shift in movement, gaze locked on his fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife.

"Breathe, Aoife," he said softly. "Look at me and breathe. Eyes off the knife."

Aoife dragged her eyes upwards to meet his stormy gaze, taking a purposefully slow breath.

"That's it. Good." He didn't move a single inch, didn't avert his eyes. "Do you feel calm?"

"I suppose," Aoife said slowly. She wasn't afraid, certainly. He already said he wouldn't kill her.

Her head was still spinning a little, but it was more from the surprise of his sudden movement than the weapon at her throat. A thought flashed in her mind that she might be better off if the knife pressed deeper, but she gathered her willpower and shoved the notion away.

"Do you feel calm, or do you feel nothing?" the Enchanter asked, pressing the knife just close enough that she could feel steel on her skin. Panic flared instinctually... and then it was gone.

Aoife mentally cursed, half angry at herself and half angry that he'd been able to pinpoint the crux of her emotional spectrum before she could find it on her own.

"I... I feel nothing," she admitted, the words ringing out like a hollow echo from a doll's mouth.

What a lovely end to her situation, the power of death so potent that she no longer cared if she lived or died.

"That's a separate problem in itself, then, but we'll have to deal with it later," he said definitively, never looking away from her. "Take a deep breath, tell me when you feel calm, and don't close your eyes."

Aoife breathed in and out, counting to five and then down again. She could feel her heart pounding in his chest, and he concentrated on the feeling, on the blood in her veins and the tangle of thoughts in her head. She felt the cool wall at her back, the ghost of the blade against her throat, heard the rhythm of the Enchanter's slow breathing despite the tension in his body. The sun warmed her face and the leaves of the trees near the fountain rustled in the wind, trading stories and secrets in a language only nature might understand. She felt the stones beneath her feet and the wind whispering across her skin, and she took the thoughts from her mind and poured them into the breeze to be carried far away...

And the calm washed over her like a crashing wave, and Aoife breathed. It was like all her muscles relaxed at once and she was drowning in his eyes, and the knife at her throat didn't matter anymore because he was the hand that held it.

"Feel it?" he asked quietly, like he didn't want to disturb the newfound peace.

"Yes."

"That's magic." He took one step backwards, turned, and threw the knife with a flick of her wrist. Aoife heard a dull thunk as it hit the trunk of one of the small trees in the courtyard, and the Enchanter stepped away to retrieve it. The blade had speared a single leaf, running right through the center and pinning it to the trunk. "It's knowing that this leaf could be your heart if I wanted it to be, but that I won't do that. Magic is trust. It's energy. It's not a formula that can be found in a book— it's wild."

"Is it sentient?" Aoife asked, stepping away from the wall. He opened his mouth to speak, and then paused, cocking his head to the side in that strange way of his.

"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "It's a good question, though it's not why I brought you out here."

"To give me the lecture about feeling magic, right?"

"Wrong!" he said suddenly, turning to the trunk at the side of the courtyard. "You need to learn basic combat. Probably more than the basics, now that I think about it."

"Wait, what?!" Aoife scrambled over to the trunk, looking over his shoulder to see a pile of wooden training swords, and a few wooden staffs. "Why do I need to learn that? I thought I was going to control my magic and that would be the end of it— ah!" She barely managed to catch a wooden staff as he tossed it at her.

"There are plenty of situations that would call for it. As a Court Enchanter, you're highly subject to suspicion and the occasional assassination attempt, especially with magic like yours on the line. For example—" the Enchanter turned, raising the knife once more, and then immediately swiveled back to point it directly at her heart. "If someone were to pin you like this in battle, would you use your powers to save yourself?"

"I'm not in battle, you won't do that, and it's highly unlikely that a strike like that would make it through the rib cage and kill me," she said flatly, placing her free hand on her hip. He pressed the point of the blade just a little closer, so that she could feel it beginning to press against her through her shirt.

"Could you do it?" The Enchanter practically growled. Aoife went cold and stiff, his pale eyes boring into her. Something in his tone or in his face made her freeze, and she suddenly knew with absolute certainty what she would do even if he was out for her life.

"I would rather die."

He removed the knife and tucked it back in its sheath, nodding. "That's exactly why you need to learn to fight. You are in possession of arguably the most powerful and definitely the deadliest magic in existence, and yet you're too much of a blasted bleeding heart to use it on an opponent in a fight."

"What's so wrong with being a bleeding heart?" she asked, bristling. The Enchanter picked up another staff and twirled it. He struck out suddenly, and Aoife instinctively ducked.

"Don't dodge— block me with your staff." Striking out again, the Enchanter aimed for her side. She barely managed to turn the staff to defend herself in time. He sniffed in disdain.

"Too slow. Again."

Strike. Block. Strike. Block. Once she managed to parry and attempted to hit the Enchanter with her own staff, but he easily dodged and landed a tap to her shoulder while she was off-balance.

"Shouldn't we be talking about technique?" Aoife asked, giving a yelp as she barely managed to block another blow.

"You let me worry about technique once you start showing a single modicum of a survival instinct, and perhaps some reflexes, too," he snapped, punctuating his sentence with another blow, which she ducked, only to be caught across the back by a spinning staff. The jolt knocked her off-balanced, pitching Aoife forward onto the cobblestones.

"Ow!" she grumbled, barely able to get to her feet before the Enchanter began striking again.

"Fight. Back. Girl," he said between blows.

Aoife bristled at being called a "girl," grip on her staff tightening. The next impact was easier to block, though she felt like the force rattled her very bones.

"Better. Again."

She lost track of how much time they went back and forth, blocking and striking, without Aoife landing a single hit. Every time she tried to find an opening, it vanished in a heartbeat, and when the attacks from the Enchanter finally slowed and stopped, Aoife was sweaty, frustrated, and confused about the point of the exercise.

"Passable, for now. You'll need to get better quickly if you want to live." The Enchanter struck out again, lower this time. "The ugly truth of being Touched is that your magic is now a part of you. If you don't use your magic, it will consume you, like it or not, for better or for worse." His hands moved to his waist, untying the belt and shrugging off his outer tunic. The shirt underneath was sleeveless, and Aoife's eyes raked down his exposed arms, every inch of them covered in the same eerie lightning strike Mark that crackled across his face. Aoife barely had time to get a good look before he was on her again, staff lashing out. She had to turn to block him as he circled her like a vulture.

"Move your feet or you're a sitting target." Strike. Block. Aoife moved her feet, and he continued circling. "Our Marks grow more prevalent as we grow more powerful. Yours has already covered your entire left arm. Remind me how old you are?"

"Twenty-two." Aoife took a stumbling step to the side as she blocked another blow.

"Keep moving. Anticipate where I'm going to strike. That's more skin than mine covered at your age, and I'm nearly full Fae. Do you understand what that means?" He waited for a moment, but Aoife opened her mouth and no sound came out, her grip on the staff tightening. The Enchanter suddenly dropped the staff and came closer, taking her chin in his hand so she was forced to look at him. "Yes or no?"

"I... I don't know."

"Your magic is so powerful that it will eat you alive before you turn forty if you don't start flexing your powers," he said, dropping his hold. "You go out into the world and the world bites back. You need to know how to handle it when it does."

"But I don't want to use it, I just want to control it—"

"Impossible," he said quickly. Aoife's heart sank, but her temper rose. She bit her lip as the Enchanter continued. "Whenever you use magic, you walk a fine line between controlling the power and letting the power control you. It's a dance, and you must learn the steps quickly should you wish to survive. It's impossible to control magic without learning to use magic, and vice versa. You don't want to use your power because you think it will only bring hate and destruction, and that will be your undoing in the end."

"Show me how death can bring life and maybe I'll change my mind."

The Enchanter shook his head and sighed. He put down the staff, walking over to take a seat on the edge of the fountain at the center of the area. He patted the space beside him, beckoning her over. Aoife reluctantly obliged, leaving a healthy space between them.

"I didn't think you would be quite this stubborn when I first saw you, you know... Look at the tree over there," he said, pointing. "What happens when it dies? Where does it go?"

"It just... it dies. It's a tree and it stays dead. Like a husk." Her voice sounded hollow even to herself.

"No," he said, thumping her lightly on the shoulder, where her blouse covered her skin. Aoife jumped and moved even farther away. "Think. What happens in the ground?"

"It decays," she said slowly. "It decays and becomes part of the soil again."

"And then other plants use its nutrients to live, and humans eat those plants to survive," he continued.

"That's a bit of a stretch," she muttered.

"You're part of a cycle, Aoife. Birth, life, death. The whole world goes through these things, and you are part of the balance."

"Can I be a different part?"

She sounded so small, even to herself. The trickle of the water in the fountain behind them nearly drowned her out entirely, but he heard. There was that look in his eyes again— caught between curiosity and pity. It made her want to scream. Both of those things were all well and good, but she didn't want either if they didn't lead to action.

"Sometimes I wish the same thing," he admitted, "but we can't change what we are. What matters is what we do with what we're given."

For a long moment there was nothing but the sound of the wind. Aoife wanted to believe him. Some part of her wanted to believe that it didn't matter what her Touch was, that she could still live a good life.

A much, much bigger part of her doubted it, though.

"Laps around the courtyard," the Enchanter said suddenly. "Start running."

She didn't move. Instead, she decided that now was a perfectly good time to ask a question that had been tumbling around in her mind since the day she crashed into those rose bushes.

"Tell me something," Aoife asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I suppose I can manage that much, depending on what it is."

"Why... Why bother with me?"

He seemed to think for a long moment, staring at her silently with those blue eyes that seemed like they could peer right through her.

"Think of it as clearing an old debt," he said carefully.

Aoife stared. What on earth did that mean?

"Go," he said, making a shooing motion with his hands.

Aoife could only shrug and start moving.