And just like that, she grew nervous again. That polite veneer—now that she knew it for a true mask, she was certain he was back to hiding things. If she turned him down regardless of his agreeable terms, would she find out what those things were? Despite the danger, the darker part of her curiosity wanted to know: just how far was the earl willing to go to secure her help? She knew her talents were rare, but never had a stranger placed so much importance on them. The thinkers and reasoners of the world turned to science, the politicians and kings to societal power; magic was a thing for sorcerers and troublemakers in an age where men were rising above the superstitions of the past.

Well, at least in Airedale, it seemed. There were darker places of the world that remained largely unheard from, surrounded by myth. Those societies able to rise above the mist, however, did not entertain themselves with such unknowns. Even Gesen, with its humble little island villages, was happy casting off its supernatural beginnings. It made a fairy like herself quite nervous about how things would even out in the end.

“I will have to think it over,” Cicely spoke at length. She took another sip from her water, trying to ignore how her stomach protested putting so much as another drop into it. “After all, one does not step into the lair of a snake with no regard to her own safety.”

Ah, that was probably a bit too pointed, but statuses be damned—he was a self-insinuated reptilian and she believed it. If he was willing to use his power to manipulate her, he was not someone she could trust to look after her better interests. She wouldn’t delude herself into thinking that she could use him just like he was trying to use her, either—he had the resources and the power; she did not.  If there was anything he lacked that she had, it was simply the fact that he was male and she was female. Even then, did he not have all the attentions and affections of the opposite sex that a man could desire?

[i]I can still turn him down and study elsewhere. He’s not an entire kingdom, after all.[/i] With that in mind, Cicely glanced back up at him. Her gaze alone was something of a challenge, as if letting him know that she [i]did[/i] have the option to refuse him.