Her twining hands were expressive in the way her face could never be. Her features seemed hardly capable of arranging themselves into anything more eloquent than a scowl, a raised eyebrow, a deep furrow of distrust right between the eyes – or anything more obliging than the occasional jagged crack of a smile. But her hands spoke for her, whether tangling earnestly around a quill, snarling themselves into knots whenever the sun winked a little too brightly off Nessa's shoes, or flailing wildly to drive home an emphatic point, even now curling vinelike over her cards; they entranced him.
Surely those long, spidery fingers were the key to her soul, though she hotly denied the existence of any such thing. Runes carved in jade, locking in secrets yet divulging hidden meaning to those who studied them closely enough; he longed (with a daring impropriety that frightened him) to take them into his own, to see how easily diamonds could melt into emerald skin. Would they be like mossy pebbles, cooled by the canal, or would they lie warm in his palm like speckled eggs? Always poised to cast some mysterious spell, they were – no, he corrected himself, she – she was simply…
"Magic," said Fiyero aloud, foolishly. He realised his mistake, too late, as the entire company turned to stare at him, a swig of Crope's cider still poised halfway to Tibbett's mouth. "Nothing, it's nothing," he muttered and Miss Elphie, out of habit, shot him one of those patented glares that froze his innards, made his cheeks burn, made him swell and shrink like damp timber in thrilling, terrifying conjunction. Dizzied, he shut his eyes and leaned back into the junction of the two walls, head spinning against the coolness of brick, feigned study momentarily forgotten. The neat lines in his Life Sciences notebook seemed to mock his disorientation, margined as they were by countless green-tinged sketches.
But oh, those hands…