The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [37]
But if Ailis said it didn’t have the scent of Morgain on it, he was willing to leave it alone for now. Gerard thought it might like the way Newt smelled. Or—and Gerard grinned involuntarily—maybe it heard someone speaking to Newt, and thought they were calling it.
The salamander slid off his knee and moved closer to the small bonfire, looking back at Gerard, then back at the fire, almost as though asking permission.
“What?”
The salamander merely looked at him and then back at the fire.
“You’ll burn yourself if you get much closer,” Gerard warned it. The salamander did inch closer, until it was only a hand-span away from the now heated stones, and looked back again at the squire, with what might have been yearning in its small black eyes. Gerard just shrugged, feeling too sorry for himself to really care what it did.
“Sure, go ahead, burn yourself up for all I care. Just don’t stink too badly while you do it, okay?”
By the time he had finished the sentence, the salamander had moved with surprising speed into the fire, sliding over the hot rocks like a fish returning to water.
“Hey,” Gerard said, tempted to reach out to grab it back. “Um. Hey!” Because far from burning itself to a foul-smelling cinder, the salamander was lying in the middle of the fire, its tail curled contentedly around its body as it basked in the flames.
“That’s new and different,” Gerard said in disbelief. Then again, after a dragon, a troll, a bridge made of moonlight, and a griffin, to name just a few of the things he had seen recently, perhaps it wasn’t so different after all.
“Does Newt know you can do this?”
The salamander merely closed its eyes and hummed in contentment.
“The sad thing is, you’re not even the strangest thing I’ve seen today, much less in my entire life.”
The salamander ignored him, so Gerard went back to contemplating the sorry state of his own existence. He had gotten as far as wondering why he had not taken more credit for being the one to defeat Morgain at swordpoint, noting how instrumental he was discovering the key to reversing the sleep-spell and awakening Arthur and his court, when a muffled squeak broke him out of his depressing thoughts.
“Oh. Hello.” He really didn’t want to see Ailis right now. Especially since she didn’t seem at all interested in even looking at him, instead staring past his shoulder at the fire.
Stupid salamander.
“It’s not burning,” Ailis said in wonder.
“No, I know.” Gerard noticed Newt standing behind Ailis, and shrugged. If they were going to go around joined at the hip, they were going to be joined at the hip. “Didn’t know your pet could do that, huh?”
“No. It’s never done anything like that before. Constans, come out of there!”
“Constans?” Ailis echoed.
They both looked at him askance. Newt shrugged, an odd look on his face. “It seemed to fit.”
Ailis shook her head. “So, it just came over and walked calm-as-calm into the fire?”
“No, actually,” Gerard said, thinking it over. “It came over and looked at the fire. Then it waited.”
“For what?”
Gerard thought for another moment. “For permission,” he said finally. After sitting here with the creature, it seemed perfectly natural to him, but the expression on his friends’ faces made him stop and shrug. At least Callum wasn’t around to hear how foolish he sounded.
“From you?” Newt was incredulous.
“I was the only one here,” Gerard pointed out.
“You built the fire?” Ailis asked.
“Yes.”
“And it never did that before?” That question was directed at Newt.
Newt was still staring at Constans. “I’ve only had it a few days. But no.”
“It asked permission of the owner of the fire. That’s interesting.” Ailis was leaning so far over to watch Constans, she was in danger of singeing her hair. Gerard reached out and tugged her arm, pulling her away.
“Wait,” she protested. “I want to try something.”
She reached out over the fire and tapped one of the flames, muttering something Gerard didn’t quite understand under her breath. “Ow!”
“Fire. It burns,