Fool's Gold by Celia Lake

Author:Celia Lake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Celia Lake

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ROBIN’S FLAT

Robin was not at all sure how he’d got into this mess. It was rather like the problems at Thebes, where he had done one thing that seemed sensible at the time, and another followed. And then, he’d found himself with all sorts of unexpected magical effects, Vivian furious at him, and then the assembled masses of Aunts - and worse, Grandmothers - taking him to task.

This felt different. Certainly, the current challenge was one person, not a few dozen. And she did not seem at all upset with him. But she wasn’t like Danae, or Rita, or Aline, or what was her name, Edith. She was asking questions, pointed ones, the sort that wanted answers. In that way, she was very like the Aunts.

He shrugged slightly, then tugged two of the small dishes closer. One had azurite in it, and one had red ochre. “You can use a variant on the iron gall ink to get a red. That comes from the iron. This is the blue, that’s azurite. You grind it up, and then mix it with something to bind. Egg, often. And this is red ochre - I may blend it with some madder.”

“I thought vermillion was a thing? Or am I getting that wrong?” She leaned closer to peer at it.

“It is, but it is highly poisonous, and I’d rather not unless it’s essential.” He gestured at the small bowl of blue. “If we were very posh and had money to throw about, that would be lapis lazuli, and the red would be vermillion, or perhaps what we call cochineal now. There’s a modern cadmium red that’s much safer, but that’s less than a decade on the market.”

“I had not exactly thought about what the pigments said, about how much money was spent.” She tilted her head. “Not like that. I mean, I knew that there’s a reason so many religious paintings have Mary wearing a lot of blue.”

Robin gestured. “Gold is expensive, even though a little goes a very long way, as gold leaf. Lapis lazuli. Vermillion. Dragon’s blood - not from actual dragons, that’s from a tree. But the story is that it comes from a dragon and an elephant fighting each other.”

Beatrice snorted, startling him. “Whoever thought that hasn’t met a dragon. At least not a custos dragon.”

“You - oh. I suppose you have.”

It was a very different reaction than she expected, he realised, because she blinked at him several times. “Regularly. He’s more likely to bounce over to an elephant and want to play than anything else. Not that I’ve tested that with an actual elephant.”

“Elephants are not terribly convenient to carry around, no. Even with portals.”

Something in that - perhaps in his delivery, how he’d said it smoothly, like you’d say that luncheon was at noon - made her blink once and then burst out laughing, the kind of laugh that went on and on. It was contagious, and he found himself laughing along with her. They’d almost stop. Then she would look at him, or he would look at her, and it would set them both off again.

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