Chapter 6

The days continued to melt away like an ice cream cone in the park during a blistering summer afternoon and before he knew it, Eliza’s birthday had arrived. Time had seemed to slip away even faster these days as every morning was filled with training while the afternoons were dedicated to research time in The Archives. It was tedious work and being among the dusty tomes wasn’t always exactly fun, but he was with Eliza and hey . . . that was enough.

While Blakeney had Oliver polishing up his swordsmanship every day, for the most part the older man had him continuing to practice with his gift over fire. In the grand scheme of things that little number would probably be a lot more important than the ability to fight with a sword. Besides, Oliver was already decent and had only taken a few days to get used to the medieval-type sword that James had found for him when he had shown Eliza The Archives for the first time.

So, as Eliza’s day of birth continued its approach—and conseq