Each tiny sparkle needed to be counted. Too many, catastrophe; too few, disaster. He rakes the gold fairy dust with a small razorblade the way addicts have raked fine powders for indulgence.
"Where did you get this?"
Potion making is a precise, meticulous art, but not everyone seems to understand that. He looks up from the table to where she is holding up a small etching.
"Call it a gift."
She does not press for more information. Rather, she blows the thin layer of dust on top of the frame away and places it back in the cupboard. She has picked up every item with care to dust beneath each one. He resumes his counting.
"I didn't mean to interrupt you. I didn't see you were counting."
He can feel his temper rising, but she resumes her work, picking up a bust and working the rag into every groove, removing every speck. Now he can return to his ingredient that must be just so...
Her shriek makes him drop the razorblade. Four hundred and forty-seven or four hundred and forty-eight? Damn her. His chair tips as he stands, marching over to the cupboard expecting to find a small roach or something now legally deaf. Instead, she's bending down and picking up a rag doll with yellow yarn for hair and two enormous black buttons for eyes. Her elbow is locked and she has one eye closed—keeping it as far from her as possible to place it back in the cupboard.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you again, but I just got a glimpse of those eyes in the back of the cupboard there, and..." She closes and locks the cupboard and folds her rag and smooths the skirt of her dress. "Unnerving little thing."
"It's a doll."
"Yes, I know, silly to scream, but it just, it just looked so, like it was meant to be a human, but..."
"You're neglecting the glass." He taps the glass on the doors.
"But they look spotless."
"'Look' versus 'is,' dearie," he sings, walking backwards so he can see the frustration on her face. She shudders while staring down the doll.
"Think of it this way," he says, feeling like being cruel. "What else would you be doing? If you were home, you would be ordering your servants to do something like this while you and your dashing knight would be upstairs making beautiful little children." With a laugh, he starts over again with the fairy dust. One, two...
"Beautiful idiot little children," he hears her mutter under her breath. He doesn't know if she means her fiance or herself.