September 1069

After sleeping on the subject, and doing some in-bed musing, I came to the realization that Lara almost certainly wasn't alive right now. Her father had been in the habit of painting portraits of the various women that bore him children, and the oldest painting I'd seen had been from five to six centuries ahead of now. Add that in with there seeming to be a twenty to thirty year gap between every painting, and chances were pretty good that unless Lara's father had gone centuries without impregnating anyone or had decided to start the habit centuries into his life, Lara wasn't around. Neither was her father.

I felt both vaguely relieved and disappointed about that. On the one hand, that meant I didn't have to deal with them. On the other hand, I had a lot of unresolved feelings towards them, and her father in particular. Mostly violent ones.

Oh well.

Life settled into a temporary routine of nothing very interesting happening over the next few days, with the exception of the departure of Robert, Eadric, Cuthbert, Tim, and a good chunk of the court, along with the army camped outside the walls and moat. Then the day after that, the steward informed me that he'd found a house that fit my specifications, and Robert's – which had been 'as close to the castle as possible' – and that I could start moving in. Which I did right away.

The house was a two-story affair, and wooden, which made me slightly nervous. It had two windows on every floor and every side, a small stable addition on the right side from the head-on perspective, and was situated at the edge of a street intersection. The included furniture was fairly sparse: a few chairs, a kitchen-slash-dining table next to a hearth, a fully loaded bed, maybe six rooms in total across two floors. I'd fortunately previously owned a number of cloths and cushions which I'd brought with me, but there were a lot of things I straight up hadn't been able to bring: the shelves, the table, the chairs. I'd had to sell those off, and probably got paid less than they were worth. Still, the house had a hearth, and a double-doored entrance, so it wasn't all bad. Would just take a while to get everything up to snuff.

Which, as it so happens, was what I spent the next few days doing: searching out, haggling for, and altering various bits of furniture, cutlery, food, wall bits, and home supplies that I needed. By the end of the week I was basically completely broke and haphazardly furnished, which, unfortunately, is basically my normal state of being.

Go me.

The result, after a few days of intensive industrial wizardry, is as follows: from the main double doors, you enter a small antechamber with a cupboard for cloaks and coats. From there, you entered what was basically a loft. The room took up about forty, fifty percent of the first floor, and was a combination kitchen, dining area, living room, and office. The floor was matted, which wasn't my preference, but rugs weren't exactly a thing in England; I'd checked. If I had more money I probably could have bought a bunch of furs and magically interwoven them to make a rough approximation of a rug, but I didn't, so I didn't.

The main room, which was a better name than the hodgepodge mix now that I thought about it, was for me to eat and do regular, normal business in. Like meeting prospective clients. The rest of the floor was taken up by a larder, which I kept magically refrigerated through a series of channels that funneled heat from the larder primarily into the hearth and secondarily throughout the rest of the house, a general storage room, and my laboratory. I'd debated setting it up on the second floor instead, but ultimately decided the first floor was better because I could eventually expand it underground once I figured out proper magical excavation. All the shelves I'd purchased had gone into the laboratory; later, once I had some acceptable, non-magical books to display, I'd put up a shelf in the main room and keep them there. Lastly, there was a set of stairs that led to the second floor.

The second floor consisted of three rooms: the bathroom, my bedroom, and a guest bedroom. The last was there mostly because I had the space left over and didn't feel like having a giant bedroom. The bathroom was pretty plain and small, just a small tub to be used when I figured out how to fill it with water on demand rather than having to carry bucket upon bucket of water through the streets up to the second floor. My bedroom took up a good chunk of the second floor, including the bed, a closet for clothes, and some shelves, containers, and stands for all of my gear. There was also an open space set aside for later, where I'd hang a punching bag or some self-made workout equipment or something. Right now, it was just empty.

All in all, pretty nice place. For a medieval house lacking all me-modern amenities, anyway. God, I missed showers.

There hadn't been a good opportunity for lessons during that first week. In the castle there were too many people and prying eyes, and during my move and renovation I simply hadn't had the time. But now, or then, or whatever, I had time.

Elfleda came by with Eva a little after noon, right as I was in the process of cooking lunch. It was actually a little inconvenient, as I had to rush to the door, hurriedly and absentmindedly welcome them in past the set of initial, less-than-pleasant wards I'd erected over the past few days, and brought them into the main room. Both were dressed in plainer gowns and rather heavy, hooded cloaks, and Elfleda looked a little different, like she'd applied makeup in an uncharacteristic-for-her way. As disguises went, they were alright. I left them to look around the admittedly sparse room, and then went into my larder to dig out more food, then my storage room for the cutlery and plates.

"Interesting sign you have, hanging outside your door," Elfleda said once I'd come back and gotten back to cooking.

I'd finished the sign yesterday, having finalized the design the day before that. There were two sides, one in French, one in English, but beyond that they were identical. It went HARRY DRESDEN at the top, followed by a lit torch, then a mortar and pestle and some herbs, then, in smaller letters, HERBALIST, INVESTIGATOR, FINDER OF LOST ITEMS, and below that, a crossed out philter with a heart symbol and the words NO LOVE POTIONS.

"Finally finished it," I said, turning over some roasting beef. "What do you think?"

"It's certainly… different," she said, looking around.

I snorted and gestured at the chairs. "Nice compliment. Please, take a seat. Pork's going to take a while, but there's bread, cheese, and water."

"Hmm," Elfleda hummed. There was the sound of someone sipping water, and then, "Cold."

I shrugged. "It happens around me."

There was some idle back-and-forth small talk while I finished cooking, and then I took the pork out of the hearth, cut it up into three servings, and then distributed the plates and cutlery before finally sitting down. I picked up knife and fork and started cutting up the meat further, Eva did the same, and Elfleda tried to do the same, and then winced as she picked up knife and fork.

I stopped. "Are you alright?" I asked.

"No," she said, her voice strained. She released knife and fork and they clattered to the table, and then she turned her hands palm up, wincing again. I could see discolorations and rashes start to form in lines across her fingers and palms, right where she'd grabbed the utensils.

"Are these made of iron?" she asked, voice still taut with pain.

"They are," I said. Basically all of my cutlery was iron, for a very particular reason. "Are you allergic?"

She gave a pained smile. "You could say that."

I narrowed my eyes slightly. That was a very… particular way of responding to the question, almost fae-like. Except she obviously couldn't be a faerie, because if she was, her hands would have been on fire, not irritated. And I didn't know of any other type of being that didn't react well to simple physical contact with iron.

"This is embarrassing. Do you have a wet cloth, or…?"

"I can get something for you," I said. "Could you say a simple lie first though?"

She gave me a resigned smile. "The night sky is made of bright pink trees."

I nodded, relieved but still confused, and said, "Be right back." I grabbed a napkin-sized cloth off the table and went into my refrigerated larder, and specifically my icebox. There, I took out a cube, warmed it enough to melt, and then let the water soak into the cloth before pulling a little of the heat out and throwing it into the channels that fed the rest of the house. Then I came back out into the main room, and handed the cloth off to Elfleda, who took it with a thank you and promptly smushed it between her hands, letting out a sigh of relief as she did so.

I eyed her a bit, still trying to piece things together, and said, "I'll find something else for you to use."

"That would be appreciated, thank you."

Trouble was I didn't really have any other cutlery. Which meant I'd either have to go out and buy some quickly, a not really viable option, or quickly hammer out a rush job. And the problem with that was I didn't have spare metal. I did have wood though, so that would have to do. I went to my storage room, quickly dug around for a small, thin block of wood, and after some thought, decided to do the magic carving in the main room as a demonstration. I came back, sat down in my seat, and looked across the table at Elfleda.

After a few seconds filled with awkward silence, I decided to probe and prod by asking, "Sooo?"

She sighed. "Well, as the iron already gave it away, I'm a changeling. Not something I like to dwell on."

I sat back in thought, and lifted a finger as a sign to wait when Eva looked like she wanted to pipe up. I thought back over my prior interactions with changelings, and if they'd ever come in contact with iron, but I couldn't really come up with anything. I'd had a few run-ins, yes, and been friends with the Summer Knight, but there weren't many instances for me to reference and none of them had involved touching iron, to my knowledge. Metal, sure, but metal in general wasn't a problem to faeries, just iron.

I deliberated for a bit, then sighed. I hadn't really wanted to use the Sight on Elfleda at any point, but, well, needs must. I turned and angled myself so Eva wasn't in my line of sight, and then opened my Third Eye.

The Sight defies real explanation, categorization. No one knows where it comes from, why it works the way it does, why it manifests differently for every person – though there are guesses and theories. In my case, the Sight is rather literal, in that it changes the way I see things, though it also affects my other senses a little; I've known other wizards who had it manifest in a different way.

Under the Sight, Elfleda changed. Only, not really. She was still her, still dressed in a simple gown, still blonde and green-eyed, still normal. But there was another Elfleda superimposed over her. The other Elfleda had the same appearance, the same physicality; the differences were in everything else. Her dress, and it was a full and proper dress, was white and blue and patterned with snowflakes. Her expression was haughtier, colder, and her green eyes gleamed like emeralds and were slitted like a serpent's. Cold radiated from her, spreading out through the room and mingling with my aura. But the superimposition wasn't perfect. Rather than two people being in one place, it was like… one-and-a-half. Stretches of Elfleda were more human than fae, others more fae than human. And along the edges, the seams, there was a slight shimmer, a slight wavering, as the lines kept changing, stretching, shrinking.

I pushed my Sight away and sighed. Some of her caginess, word choice, and in particular her coldness towards her mother made more sense now.

"Your mother was a Winter Sidhe?" I guessed.

"Yes," she said tersely, her voice less strained now. "I'd rather not discuss the bitch, if you don't mind."

I nodded. "You realize this changes things?"

"Somewhat," she said wistfully. "I would have mentioned it eventually, in a few months, half a year. Once there was more trust. But, well," she chuckled and looked down at the iron utensils. "It looks like you're very careful."

"When it comes to faeries, yeah," I said. "Is your mother going to be a problem? As far as I'm aware, changelings are subject to the authority of their faerie parent, and their respective Court."

"No. She's dead," she said, speaking with such confidence and finality that I was fairly certain she'd done it herself.

"Alright." I looked at the block of wood, then Eva. "I guess today's lesson is going to cover changelings, scions, and other part-humans. But after lunch." I turned my attention back to the block of wood, and brought it up so Eva could see better. "Now, with your gift, you'll be able to accomplish something similar, and with less effort, given some time. But for now, just watch." Then, I started working.

I've never been good with precision work. Still aren't, really. But like I wrote earlier, soulfire covers many sins and shortcomings. It's not called the power of creation for nothing.

Before, when I'd first acquired it, and for some years after, I'd applied soulfire rather bluntly. I used it to strengthen and empower my evocations, my rituals, using it as an extra power source, like adding nitro to a car to make it go faster. But after Lash's memories had started stirring, well, I figured getting some sort-of secondhand knowledge of how to properly wield soulfire was a good idea. The migraines had been horrible, lasting months, but were entirely worth it.

There were two ways soulfire could be applied when it came to creation and crafting. You could infuse it directly, making the item just plain better in every way, improving its purpose – knives cut better, armor was stronger, foci more effective. The downside to that was that you were literally putting a part of your soul into something external, and as thaumaturgical implements went, nothing beat having a direct line to another being's soul. Also, I didn't want to follow the example of the Dark Lord Sauron and make a magic ring that held the bulk of my power or something megalomaniacally crazy like that.

The second way, the more difficult and indirect way, was to improve and guide the spells involved in the creation of items. In my case, it let me compensate for lack of precision and skill in shaping by imagining what I wanted and letting soulfire shape and control the process. I'd gotten better at it over the course of the last year and a bit, learning to use less and less soulfire to greater and greater ends, and by this point, carving out a wooden knife and fork took about a minute's effort and used only a tiny bit of soulfire.

When I was done, I set the remaining bit of wood aside – maybe half of it was left, after all was said and done – and turned to look at the others. Eva just looked intensely fascinated. Elfleda, on the other hand, was staring at me with eyes as wide as they could go. I guess seeing me use my emotions as a only slightly metaphorical carving knife had taken her completely off guard.

"Here," I said, sliding the wooden cutlery over to her.

She stared at me for another solid ten seconds, then finally blinked, shook her head, and looked down at the new cutlery, eyes still wide. Gingerly, using the cloth as an insulator, she picked up and moved the iron knife and fork, and then replaced them with wooden ones. Then, she tentatively picked them up and, once nothing happened, started eating with them.

Author's Note: I anticipate the incoming sinking of ships in three, two, one…