The door creaked softly open, the floorboards gently groaned under three soft steps, and then there was silence for a long moment. I did not speak or move, focusing intently on my long, steady exhalation. Then I closed my mouth softly and began the slow process of inhaling through my nose. The bed shifted, and I felt the slightest tug on the blanket. A draft of cool air wafted against my exposed back.

Someone was in the room with me. Helena, I hoped—but if I turned to look, and it was Helena, she would know I was only feigning sleep, having fled from her rejection. If it was not Helena—perhaps I was about to be stabbed. Perhaps, I thought to myself in a fit of darkness, I would be stabbed even if it was Helena. The astrologer had just told me once again something that many other older men had impressed upon me: Women were changeable creatures. Perhaps the proud noblewoman had come to regret her earlier decision not to murder me when I had lain helpless at her feet in the gardener’s hut and now wished to retroactively reverse her regret with a ruinous remedy. I tensed silently, too afraid of Helena’s rejection to move yet also too afraid of a keen blade in the darkness to relax.

The cool draft faded, the blanket shifting again and the bed rocking a little bit. The scent of Helena’s preferred perfume reached my nose, and I parted my lips to start a long, slow exhalation, trying to force my fear out alongside the air in my lungs. Warm, moist air wafted against the back of my neck, then a smooth, cool hand touched the skin under my armpit lightly, a ticklish sensation that raised goosebumps. Still, I did not move.

Next, warm, soft skin tickled my back. Cool but quickly warming hands grasped at me a little more solidly as Helena slowly moved into place; then I felt the press of her feminine body against mine as she wriggled closer. I heard—and felt—Helena sniff my back, and only the most determined exercise of will kept me from moving as she squirmed into a comfortable position, face nestling between my shoulder blades. I did not move even as her breaths tickled the spot between my shoulders, irregularly at first and then more and more evenly.

I did not want to wake her, so I stayed perfectly still, both pleased and tormented by the warm woman who had snuck into bed with me, who clung to me with soft warm hands, who nuzzled my back as if it were a pillow. One moment, I was cursing my inability to sleep, and then the next I suddenly awoke, blinking my eyes against the morning sunlight, my body heavy from the slumber that had taken me unawares. I groaned, shifting my weight to sit but finding myself encumbered by the sleepy, clinging arms of Helena. I gently disentangled myself, then watched as she rolled sleepily towards the edge of the bed, snuggling more deeply under the blanket in pursuit of my missing bodily warmth.

Quietly, I departed the bedroom, attended to morning necessities, and made coffee on the stove with a long-handled brass pot in the eastern style, with three lumps of sugar and a tiny pinch of ground cardamom. Once the foam had risen thrice, I poured the drink neatly into two little cups nestled in brass baskets, which I carried back into the bedroom.

“Good morning, Helena,” I said, and an eye slitted open. “I have made coffee—sweet, as you like it.”

She groaned or perhaps moaned, an indistinct sleepy sound, and then rose, stretching gloriously, the blanket falling around her hips as I stood with one little cup held in each hand, observing the beautiful vision in front of my watchful eyes. My silent and patient appreciation of her beauty was rewarded when she stood to take one of the cups from me, her warm fingers brushing against mine as she bestowed upon me a loving smile that warmed my aching heart. We drank together, taking our first sip in tandem.

“You did not have to make coffee for me,” she said, beaming up at me as the sweet liquid opened her eyes. “By Turkish custom, it is my womanly duty to rise up and make coffee for you, dear Dragon’s son.”

“You were sweetly asleep, and I did not wish to disturb your rest,” I said, hoping that she would answer the mystery of her changing affection for me. “Do you once again like me?” I immediately regretted the question; it was too candid, too vulnerable, too impulsive, a timid twitch of a youthful tongue.

“Have I ever liked you?” Helena’s eyes twinkled with mischievous humor as my heart sank in my chest, straight past my liver and churning my stomach with its heavy beats. “I did not suddenly stop liking you; I just needed time by myself to meditate and pray. I had not expected—the time has moved quickly with the two of us together. But enough—you told me you could fill a book with everything your father taught you about his magic.”

“I think so, yes,” I said. “He was eager to ensure I mastered the knowledge early because—can you keep a secret? I have not told anyone this before.”

Helena nodded and sipped, her eagle’s eyes staring up at me over a tiny coffee cup.

“When my father was a young man, an old wandering wisewoman told him that he should not wait to teach his sons,” I said. “And that his third son would be special. My mother was there with him—and so, when she married him, she thought that the third son meant Radu, since she did not know about my older half-brother, and of course Radu was also her favorite—but my father thought it important to take me aside and teach me in particular. Radu was not inclined to sit still for boring lessons about breath, focus, and incantation in any case, especially not at that age, so I do not know if he learned much at all. I expect someday I shall have to teach him.”

“Could you teach me?” Helena asked, her pleading expression seeming sincere. “What was your first lesson like?”

“I do not have a slate and chalk to show you what that was like,” I said. “His second lesson was about the drawing of breath, so I could teach you that lesson—but as you do not have my father’s magic, I doubt practicing it would do it any good.”

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“A lesson about the drawing of breath?” Helena frowned, the cute little moue of her mouth catching my hungry gaze. “I do not care if I cannot use the lesson myself—I wish to know. In a way, it would take more of you into me—and I have already chosen to take you into me in other ways.”

I flushed, catching her meaning and surprised by her directness. Then I set the empty cups on the nightstand, seating myself on the bed next to Helena, bringing my father’s second lesson into mind. “First, imagine a string here, pulling upwards,” I said, putting a guiding finger on the very crown of her skull. Then I brought my hand around to her midriff. “Breathe from here, through your nose. Push my hand outward.”

Helena flushed fetchingly at the touch of my hand against her stomach, and so I began showing her what I knew about breath; then I told her how one pulled up the fire from deep within to bring it into one’s hand, as my father had told me, word for word, at considerable length.

After I had finished the lecture, I sighed, leaning back. “I cannot demonstrate that, of course—” I said, recalling the little puff of flame that my father had wordlessly summoned into his palm without incantation at the end of the exercise. The will and way of sorcery was focused by the word, but a well-practiced sorcerer could call up some of the most primitive and direct forms of magic from within, sans incantations.

“But surely you can,” Helena said. “Show me how it appears from the outside, at least—you can pretend for me, can you not?”

I stood and closed my eyes, my awareness dwelling on my inner fire, breathing with intent focus, picturing carefully a small sphere nestled within my outstretched left palm. Breath. Connection. I felt a flare of warmth in my palm for a brief moment and then a painful, sudden jolt from the cuffs around my wrists, my eyes flying open as the bed suddenly swung up to smash into my face, the room turning about me. My left arm, afflicted with weakness first, was trapped beneath me; my right arm was flung out above my head; my legs sprawled awkwardly, my left foot resting on the ground but my right leg sticking out straight, with that thigh having landed more fully on the bed due to the asymmetric pattern of my fall.

Helena’s laughter sounded musically in my ears. “Well, that certainly did something,” she said, then giggled. By the muffled nature of the sound, I guessed she had pressed her hand against her lips but simply could not control herself. Then a knock came from the door to our quarters, distant and muffled. “Oh no—I had better see who that is,” she said, sounding suddenly sobered by the intrusion of the outside world into our little sanctum.

Footsteps moved away as I tried and failed to enunciate anything more articulate than a low muffled groan into the mattress. I could still mostly hear Helena’s voice, though the replies from our caller were low and muffled.

“The prince is indisposed—stricken with illness.” A longer pause. “I am sure it is nothing contagious—perhaps something he ate last night; he was away late. Too many sweets, I expect; it is really quite remarkable how many he will try to eat if he is not curbed. I gathered that he was with Pasha Halil and that the vizier indulged his sweet tooth.” A short pause. “Gambling. A dice game of some kind.” A very long pause. “Oh. Is, perhaps, the prince owed a return of his losses?” A second short pause. “I see.” A long pause followed. “Fruit, if it can be had? And—this is a different matter, but I wondered if I might have some things fetched, some slates and chalk. I know there are at least three good slates in Theodora’s quarters—or were, in any event; there ought to be some around somewhere still in the palace.”

I closed my eyes—not that having them open did much, as I was face-down into the mattress—and tried my best to ask who it was at the door, confirming in the process of such activity that my control over my vocal cords exceeded that of my control of my jaw, lips, or tongue. My inarticulate groan at least consisted of multiple syllables, but it lacked intelligible phonemes.

“Yes, it sounds quite awful,” Helena’s voice said after I had given up the attempt at speech. “But I do not think a physician will be necessary—I have tended to him before after he ate too many sweets. He is sometimes like a very large, bass-voiced child.”

Taking offense to that, I attempted to shout that Helena was childish herself but only succeeded in groaning more loudly into the mattress. I heard Helena close the door, then her footsteps drew nearer. She closed a second, closer door—that had to be the bedroom door—as her footsteps drew nearer.

“I am sorry—but it is clear your father’s teachings work with your magic, powerfully enough for your cuffs to lay you out completely. I would count it as proof positive that you have inherited his magic and not some other sort of magical talent.” Helena’s hands felt at my legs, lifting them onto the bed one at a time as she shoved me into a position that felt just as uncomfortable. Then, with a grunt, she rolled me onto my back, and I could see a smile pointed down in my direction. I could also see that she had hastily donned a robe before answering the door, which hung open now that her hands were otherwise occupied.

“You tricked me,” I said, the words still mostly muddled by the weakened muscles of my face and emerging in an incomprehensible form.

“Aw, you can’t even talk this time,” Helena said, cupping my face with a soft, warm hand. “It’s worse than last time. You’re a lot less frightening like this, you know. You must think me an awful trickster, getting you to use your magic and trigger your cuffs, but I swear by Saint Andrew I didn’t mean to send you keeling over like that.” One hand unconsciously moved to her stomach as she continued. “I really do want to know everything your father taught you, I promise. Even if I haven’t the talent to use that knowledge myself. Because, um… well, I do want to know more about you. We hardly talk.”

I glared silently up at her, not trusting my tongue to be capable of articulating intelligible Greek just yet.

She giggled, hands resting on my chest like soft, warm, little lead weights. “You. Just you.” She shook her head, then bent over, crushing the air out of my weakened lungs with her weight as she planted a kiss on my weakened lips. “You asked me if I still liked you—my turn to ask you. Groan once if you still like me. Twice if you want me to just leave you alone here on the bed until you can find the strength to get up and discipline me for being a despicable deceptress.”

I answered that with a single short grunt.

“Your answer pleases me,” Helena said magnanimously. She lay down next to me, hands sliding over my body as she nibbled playfully on my ear. My chest, liberated of her weight, slowly rose to fill with air. “Now, as we have established we are on good terms, whatever shall I do with you?”

That, too, I answered with a single short hum of my voice.