"You'll ruin your eyesight," Cora says, stepping onto the near-dark floor of the mill. Eva smiles in weary recognition, slowing her foot on the treadle until the gentle squeak of the wheel stops altogether. "And you have such pretty eyes."
"Mrs Pomfrey's order is due in the morning," Eva sighs. "And your father told us all to stay."
"Then why are you the only one still here?" Cora asks, dark auburn hair swishing across her shoulders as she crosses the otherwise empty space.
"Because your father is... he's gone to visit the innkeeper. And Rose has the children to care for, not to mention Lily's mother is so very near death... I said I would stay to finish it."
"You're too kind, Eva," Cora says, lighting three candles with a playful wave of her fingers. "Did you see? I practiced all day."
"Very nice," Eva replies, her pale blue eyes illuminated by the flickering flames. "Will you forget me, when you're a powerful sorceress, advising Kings and Queens in foreign lands?"
"Why would I want to do that?" Cora says, looking back towards the door she came through, a reflex action to ensure no spies are lurking. Satisfied, she steps behind Eva, wrapping her arms around the slender woman's torso in a crushing embrace. "I missed you today," Cora confesses, her voice little more than a breath against Eva's neck.
"I must finish this thread for the milliner," Eva protests, but Cora can hear the smile in the words.
"I learned something else today," Cora whispers, before lifting her hands and murmuring a newly-memorized spell, the scent of it still burning at the back of her throat.
Slowly the treadle begins to rise and fall on its own, the wheel shifting back to life and the cotton pulled taut by invisible hands.
"Cora!" Eva squeals in delight. "Oh, how wonderful!"
"Now you have no excuse not to come to the house with me," Cora points out.
"But this is already all we need," Eva points out. "It's faster even than Rose on her best day!"
"With the extra, I can do this," Cora says, lifting the finished bobbin and clicking her fingers with a flourish. In an instant the grayish-white thread turns to shimmering gold.
"How clever you are," Eva says, forgetting herself at last and rushing to kiss Cora soundly on the lips. "Can you really turn thread into gold, my brilliant witch?"
"I'll do all this and more," Cora promises, neglecting to mention that the spell will wear off by morning. "Now grab a candle; we don't want the mill to burn down overnight."
Eva's tiredness disappears somewhere between the kitchen and the modest bedroom that Cora calls her own. They snack on the bread that's not yet stale and some cheese Cora has hidden away from the laborers who rent the other part of their house, to help pay the bills. She's confident her father won't return much before dawn now, if Eva's half-truth is accurate, he'll be at the bottom of his first bottle of wine by now.
"You smell like gunpowder and smoke," Eva teases, her hair falling loose from the bun she wears to work each day. "Have you been firing cannons, dear Cora?"
"This is what magic smells like," Cora explains, patient as ever, because Eva thinks of magic as silly tricks done by fairies to turn ponies pink or make rainbows appear in the sky. Despite her hard life, the girl remains something of an innocent, even now in her nineteeth year. The Blue Fairy who's been teaching Cora to control her magic is impatient and cruel in her methods, so the cuts and bruises that come from spells gone wrong are never discussed; on those days, Cora sends Eva back to the room she rents in the village, above the bakery.
"Then bring your magic to bed, dear," Eva teases, biting her lip as she stands on the stairs. Cora follows without argument, the first one to fall on the mattress, pulling Eva down on top of her.
"Let me see you," Cora gasps between fervent kisses. "Undress for me."
Eva, too shy to speak to most people, is a woman possessed within the safe confines of Cora's room. Beside the lopsided dresser with its cracked mirror, Eva unhooks her simple green dress and lets it pool around her ankles. Her slip follows, and her underwear after that.
"Well?" She asks, long legs toned by years of spinning drawing Cora's attention first. "You're still wearing all your clothes."
"Will you take them from me?" Cora asks in return, her voice quieter than she intended. She wants to be cared for, to feel some tenderness before the passion overrules her again, makes her desperate and just a little too rough with Eva's sensitive skin and giving body. They always mean to be so kind to each other, but lives filled with pain have made the pinches and bruises impossible to resist.
Eva leans in to unhook Cora's blue dress, bare breasts just an inch from Cora's impatient mouth. Showering them with kisses distracts Eva for a moment, until she shoves the faded silk down around Cora's waist. Eva kneels then, her calloused fingers shoving at the skirt until that too forms the band of fabric around Cora's waist.
"My beautiful Cora," Eva murmurs, pressing a kiss to the inside of each of Cora's thighs in turn. Another follows, and another, until she's pulling the flimsy underwear aside and pressing the flat of her tongue between Cora's legs, tongue flat and as wide as possible, just the way that makes Cora give in to it every time.
"Yes," Cora hisses, fingers tangling in Eva's raven hair, pulling it free from the remaining knot and stroking the strands in time with the movement of Eva's tongue.
She simply picks up the pace, alternating the heavy strokes with teasing flicks that make Cora's hips arch up off the bed. They've come a long way from the fumbling girls who barely dared to touch one another, hands cupping breasts in the twilight behind the storage barns.
"I love you," Eva murmurs, right before Cora's thighs start to tremble and the blinding sensation overtakes her.
"I love you, too," Cora confesses many moments later, breath regained and able to pull Eva up onto the bed beside her. She's so intent on kissing Eva, on pulling the blanket over them to protect against the growing chill, that it never occurs to Cora to get up again and check the bolt on her door was slipped into place as normal.
"Get up!" Cora hears the words a fraction too late, because the grip on her hair is already too strong to fight off, and she's falling naked from her bed to the hard stone floor, skin scraping on the rough gray slate.
"Father!" She yelps, her misery compounded by the sight of Eva sitting up in confusion, blanket barely covering her own naked form.
"Right," her father demands, hand twisting painfully until the roots on Cora's scalp are singing out in a chorus of sharp agony. "Which little bitch has been spinning gold in my mill?"
Cora hangs her head, or as far as she can with the tension in her hair.
"Answer me!" Her father roars, his kick finding Cora on the fleshy side of her knee, the pain shooting north and south in a blinding split-second.
"It was me!" Eva pleads, the blanket wrapped around her. "Let her go, please, Mr-"
"Enough," Cora's father spits, dropping his only daughter to the ground like an unwanted toy. "Get dressed, and come to the mill immediately. Don't let my staff know you've been cavorting like the village whores, mind."
"Father," Cora starts again, prepared to beg. She'll have to tell the limitations of her spell now, or this will get so very much worse.
"You come and make me some gold, my girl," he warns. "Or I'll take you out back. You're not too grown for a whipping, no matter what powers your witch of a mother left you."
"Yes, father," Cora says dully. He storms out in his usual drunken clumsiness, almost bouncing from wall to wall as he descends the stairs.
Cora picks up her dress and puts it on in a hurry. Eva slides out of bed and does the same, their eyes never meeting and not a word exchanged. Only on the stairs does Eva act, grabbing at Cora's hand and whispering an apology in her ear.
"I didn't want him to hurt you. I'm so sorry if I made it worse," Eva confesses.
"Don't worry," Cora whispers in return. "You didn't know that telling would do any harm. I know you thought you were helping me."
"Good," Eva says, her resolve quickly returning. "Let's go and do what we must."