Alain nodded, that tiny smile appearing again. How she loved to see that smile. “Of course. What were my powers compared to you?”
“Alain, that’s…” Mari blinked rapidly, staring at the ground and rubbing at her eyes as she felt tears starting. “I never thought any guy would want to make that kind of sacrifice for me.”
“I have shown that I was willing to die with you. This is much less than that.”
Mari shook her head. “No, you silly Mage. It’s much more. Dying from danger can be easy. It happens so fast, you know? But deciding to live every day of the rest of your life knowing you’ve given up something very important for someone else…that’s hard. I wouldn’t have asked you to do that, Alain. Not if I’d known. You realize that, don’t you?”
“I believe that I always did,” Alain replied. “Perhaps I was not aware of it before now, but somehow I knew.” He studied her, his eyes betraying some concern. “It is well that I did not tell you earlier. You might have denied any feelings for me in an attempt to…save me from myself.”
Mari couldn’t help a short laugh. “All right. But I’m going to feel very guilty if someday you do lose your powers because of me.” Mari brushed her hair back with one hand, realizing again just how much responsibility came along with her love for Alain.
“You should not feel guilty,” he insisted. “It is my choice. Perhaps someday I will see the effects my Guild warned of, though I have no reason to believe that will happen later if it has not happened already. For now, is there anything I can do to assist you?”
Mari watched Alain for a moment, thinking of the person he was inside. Who could have guessed a Mage could be like that? “Do you know anything about the operation, repair or maintenance of steam heating plants?”
Alain took the question absolutely seriously, of course. “No, I do not think so.” He looked toward the building holding the steam plant. “You keep calling it a plant. I expected to see something like a tree, but it looks to me more like one of the Mechanic boiler creatures you have also called it.”
Mari couldn’t help laughing again. “It’s not that kind of plant. I’m sorry. Mechanics give different meanings to some words. But you’re right, it is centered around a boiler like those on a locomotive or the one we blew up in Dorcastle.”
Alain’s alarm was uncharacteristically easy to spot. “You must take care, then.”
“Relax! I made Mechanic rank as a steam specialist. I know this stuff.” She smiled ruefully. “Though given your experiences with boilers I can see why you’re worried. Believe me, I’m being careful. Now, what can you do? The best thing, I think, is to get plenty of rest and in your spare time keep looking around. Oh, and check the histories they have here. Maybe they still have things that aren’t available any more to the outside world, something about history before what you know, or even something referencing those Mechanics Guild texts. If we find something like that we’ll have grounds for asking the masters about the manuscripts in a non-confrontational way.”
“All right,” Alain agreed. “Though I will enjoy the task of searching these histories, and it seems wrong to enjoy myself while you labor so hard.”
“My Mage, I am having the time of my life. Trust me.” She leaned in and kissed him. That felt so good that she kissed him again, longer this time.
“Ma’am?”
Mari jerked away from Alain, seeing that some of the students had approached while she was…distracted with Alain. Her face once more flaring with the heat of embarrassment, she barely managed to keep from snapping at the students as Alain stood up. “Yes? What?”
“We have finished the job you gave us, ma’am,” the oldest announced eagerly.
Mari winced. The student was at least twice her age. “Lady Mechanic!”
“Yes, Lady Mechanic,” the students all chorused, looking abashed.
“I’ll see you later, Alain. Now, do you guys want to learn how to use tools?” Her stomach tightened as she said it. Actually teaching Mechanic arts to commons was something she would have thought inconceivable a year ago. It still felt wrong. But with everything else she had learned since then, this might prove important as well.
They gathered around her eagerly. In their isolation, none of the students knew how revolutionary a thing Mari was about to do. Mari found herself hesitating, realizing that this truly was a point of no return.
She bent to pick up the largest of the wrenches, one that could be adjusted to fit different widths. “This is called a mankey wrench.”
“Why?” a student asked.
“That’s its name. Big wrenches are mankey wrenches.”
“But,” another student asked, “what does mankey mean?”
“It means it’s a big wrench,” Mari replied. “I don’t know where the name came from. I’ve never heard of anyone or anything called a mankey except these tools, and no Mechanic I’ve talked to has any idea why big wrenches are mankey wrenches, but the name is an ancient one so remember it.” She raised the heavy tool in both hands. “Mankey wrench. Who wants to learn how to use one?”
By the time dinner call sounded her students had acquired an impressive array of skinned knuckles, bruises, and abrasions from slipping and misapplied tools. But they were using the tools effectively enough if not perfectly. The cleaned-up steam plant lay gleaming under the last rays of the setting sun, its fittings checked and tightened. “Tomorrow we need to go over the delivery pipelines running from here to the buildings to make sure they don’t have loose fittings or holes. Which after all this time they certainly will. Then we check all the steam heating pipes in the buildings for the same thing. Then we come back here and check this set-up again.” She had just described the sort of drudgery that made apprentices groan, but the students were staring at her with wild-eyed enthusiasm. Amazing.
She and Alain ate alone, Alain doing all of the talking as he described the histories he had read so far. “I have found nothing yet which tells more than the histories I have already seen. On the other matter, I have learned nothing else.”
They went back to his room together, Mari’s mind so full of steam plant mechanisms and operating requirements that she forgot to ask Alain if it was all right to stay with him again. But he didn’t raise the issue. It wasn’t until she was lying down beside him that the memory of her offer the night before suddenly popped back into her head. What if Alain…?
But as his arms came around her, Alain’s hands came to rest one between her shoulder and one in the small of her back. Both halted their movement, not roaming around or seeking a way inside her clothing. “Alain?” Mari murmured.
“Yes?”
“You are so special. Thanks.”
Exhausted from her day, Mari fell asleep quickly, barely having time to worry that the dreams of the night before might return.
She woke up in the middle of the night, something dark inside her fading dreams retreating as Mari fixed her eyes on Alain lying beside her, sleeping peacefully. Her heart was pounding and her breathing rapid, but they began to slow as Mari calmed herself. Somewhere outside, beyond the walls of the university, barbarians roamed the dead city of Marandur, but as Mari snuggled next to Alain she realized that she had never felt so safe.
If she dreamed again that night, she could not recall it the next day.
That next day proved less tedious than she had feared. The enthusiasm of the students was infectious. Before long, Mari was actually feeling like an eighteen-year-old herself again, pumping her fist at the sky as each section of piping checked out good or was repaired and patched where necessary. She noticed Alain watching her occasionally, his face impassive but his eyes smiling in a way she could recognize now. He looked younger again, too.