It took a long time for the necromancer to finally produce an answer to the waste of time that Jillian had just presented to him. Not even the haze of excitement that burning magical energy brought to her could cloud her perception enough as to make her unable to see his hesitation. When he did speak, he didn’t compliment her exotic knowledge, or her mastery of the spell, or the power and intensity thereof. None of the things she had been hoping for, but that was not what bothered her so. It was that he needed this long – long enough for her tired smile to completely vanish in the interim – to state the simplest, most detached thing that must have come to his mind at the time. And not even that was what made her bitter. It was the realization that, after what must have been frantic thinking, [i]this [/i]was the least offensive thing he could think of saying.

[i]I didn’t really expect it to work! [/i]She wanted to yell.[i] What’s wrong with using the power given to us? Can’t you have fun once in a while? Or do you just hate me so and don’t have guts to tell me to my face? Or is it because you are angry at yourself? Maybe you want me but because I’m not your stiff wife you feel guilty? It’s not my fault! I just wanted to have a bit of fun in between all the horrible things we went through, will go through, and had to tell each other about ourselves! Reina’s mercy, why do you have to be like this, you damn jerk?![/i]

Jillian looked away from him, her gaze seeking refuge in the glow of the campfire. She too fought with herself to retain her composure, but her flushed cheeks, tightly pressed lips and controlled, deep breathing betrayed her. “Maybe some other time,” she hissed. “I’m not supposed to share it anyway.”

That part was not a lie, either. She [i]had[/i] promised Reynold that she’d keep his father’s secret magic to herself. It would have been rather inconvenient for someone who taught at the academy in Zerul to have been exposed as harboring a hidden archive of less-than-legal treatises on magic. He still didn’t know that his son had betrayed his trust to a pair of pretty eyes. But then again, she had also promised Reynold that she’d stay with him for the rest of her life. That promise had lasted for a single month. It was the list time she made it, too. Never once had she nourished Vincent’s aspirations for a lifetime together. Even when she professed her love to him she had been saying it as a convenience first and an uncertain truth second. She had always been more interested in his knowledge, and his ability to comfort her when she was angry, than his persona in general. It felt like she had been using him all along, now. Simply a gateway to dark magic and the rest merely a price of admittance. And maybe Gerald was right for wanting to keep away from her. Maybe he sensed it and did not want to be the next to be used by her. Her thoughts were starting to make her feel sick.

“It’s getting late,” she brooded, eyes still focused on the dying flame. “We should probably get some sleep, right?”