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It happened because Angelique was, at her core, vindictive. No matter how much she claimed otherwise.
After nearly two decades’ experience and his own judgement included, Evariste thought he’d been in possession of one simple, unalienable truth: Angelique didn’t flirt. Couldn’t, he was fairly certain. Which was perfectly fine, given her snarky, fiery responses to his teasing were more than entertaining enough.
Though perhaps if he had been less certain, he wouldn’t be in this situation.
“Er.” From sitting at the desk, Evariste observed with a mild amount of confusion as Angelique stalked into the room, looking for all the world like a woman on a mission. “Is everything alright, Angel?”
“Peachy. Can I try something?”
He felt her magic unspool, layering the air with its cool, glittering sharpness as she passed by him. His own surged with its usual excitement before he did the mental equivalent of flicking it on the head. Not now.
“Regarding magic? Certainly.” Though he would have thought she’d wait for Clovicus to return from downstairs before they continued any further explorations of the strange connection between their magic. If anything exploded, the older Enchanter would never let them live it down for the rest of their lives, as Evariste was well aware of. “What are you planning on doing?”
“Just a small experiment. Could you get up for a second?”
He raised an eyebrow, but did as she asked. He drifted to her side, frowning momentarily with confusion as he felt her magic retreat. “Why did-“
Without warning, she slammed her hands on either side of him against the wall, making him jump slightly.
“This is an interesting experiment,” he laughed. “Angel, what are you-“
His laughter died when Angelique scooted closer, leisurely invading his personal space. She slowly blinked up at him, head tilted innocently as a small, wicked grin hovered at her mouth.
She still smells like flowers. Some dim part in the back of his mind registered the intoxicating scent of her floral perfume, even as the larger part of his brain went fuzzy with static. “Um. I.”
“Is something the matter?” She leaned even closer, the wicked smirk growing larger and tugging up the corners of her mouth. “Tell me, Lord Enchanter, do you wish to end our sweet embrace?”
All remaining intelligent thought promptly fled his mind. Heat crawled up his neck, past his ears and across his cheekbones as he gained some valuable insight into what a lobster baking in the sun must have felt like.
“Uh.” He managed to string together. Scant centimeters away, Angelique’s luminous silver eyes pinned his as effectively as a crossbow bolt though the heart. What was happening?
She suddenly burst into guffaws of bright laughter, shoulders shaking with unrepressed mirth as her head fell with a gentle thump onto his chest, where she could undoubtedly hear his still-pounding heartbeat. “Ha! Haha! Oh stars, the look on your face! This was so much fun, why have I never done this before?”
“You.“ He half-growled, wrapping his arms around her partially to regain some form of equilibrium, partially because he was helpless to do anything else.
“Yeeeeeeees?” She drawled as her head popped back up, eyes bright and glinting merrily with devilish mischief. The same sort of mischief that he had seen result in a pack of illusionary wolves being sent after a lying brat of a child, or half a town’s worth of villagers being punished for their arrogance in demanding a love potion.
In hindsight, this shouldn’t have been surprising.
“You are a menace,” he finally grumbled, tightening his hold on her when he felt her body starting to quiver with laughter once more.
“A menace that you loooove.”
“Angel!”
(Meanwhile Clovicus, who had at last returned from negotiating with the innkeeper for their rooms for the evening, reluctantly noted that the two lovesick brats at least seemed to have heeded his advice as to finding better timing for their little moments, and proceeded to speed-walk back downstairs for a drink. Or several. Preferably something strong. After all, he deserved a good reward for putting up with this, even if he had put the harebrained scheme into Angelique’s head to begin with.)