There was that familiar rush as source tingled and flowed through his limbs down to his fingers and toes, and he felt light, zippy. He reached for his comb, on the ledge above the sink basin, and it was in his hand in an instant. With the help of Harquette’s Speed Burst Weysh combed through his matted locks, grunting through the pain. His beard he trimmed as best he could. By the time he was done his bathroom was a hairy mess, but the man in the mirror was far more recognizable. He dropped the spell, and with source no longer flowing through the channels of his magical nervous system, the strain on his body eased.

Weysh wrangled his hair into its usual loose braid and changed into a pair of dark trousers, a good linen shirt, and a long brown leather coat, the kind with the stiff collar that never went out of style. He thudded down the stairs like an exuberant schoolboy, a maelstrom of emotion fueling his adrenaline. He was still anxious about the damage to his sense of smell, and could still recall, with terrible detail, the suffocating pain of the pimentel if he thought too closely about it. And if he only let his mind stray to the barest thoughts of Noriago a blazing rage flared up in his gut. But Yenni was here, in his home. She’d come to see him.

She cared for him.

He clung to that, letting the warmth of it suffuse his heart, chasing away all else.

Weysh landed with a thud at the bottom of the stairs and Yenni glanced up from some textbook, startled.

“What—”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” she said warily.

“I know just where to take you. Come on!” He grabbed the wooden banister with one hand and held out the other to Yenni. She shook her head, smiling, but stood up and took it, following him to the second floor.

“I bet you miss Island food, en?” he said, glancing back as he led her down the hallway.

“Ah, you cannot imagine how much!”

“Then you’ll love this place.” Weysh took her past his bedroom and the bathroom across from it, to the end of the hall, where two glass-paned doors opened to a wide balcony. He led her up the wrought-iron steps to his building’s rooftop garden.

“Pretty!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, I spend a lot of time here,” said Weysh. It was walled by a perimeter of potted trees, and at the moment lanterns illuminated the wicker benches and trellises creeping with ivy and flowers. But the best part was the large open space in the middle, where he could lie during the day and sun himself in dragon.

Weysh pulled Yenni close, sliding his arms around her lower back. “It’s romantic, wouldn’t you say?”

Yenni snaked her arms around his neck. “You’re looking and”—she sniffed him—“smelling much better.”