should come with any new ideas he had too.
As if he wouldn't? Didn't she know him at all by now? He smiled at her and waved as the gold and white carriage moved away slowly.
The drive to Rolph's house took a lot longer, almost two hours. They had to wind back and forth along several streets before they got to the back of a walled compound. Inside the tall brilliantly white wall, which stretched up about thirty feet, he could see a large house and then, off in the distance, a much bigger building. Huge in fact. Bigger than all the school buildings put together. He was feeling over awed when Rolph shrugged and pointed at the smaller one.
“Our stop. Don't let that big thing fool you, that's for the important people, you and I should have this to ourselves, I think, unless there are other guests. We'll have dinners here, most of the time, my mother wants to come the first night to welcome you, tonight. If that's alright? We could beg off, if you're too tired, but I haven't seen her in a while. Dad may or may not come. He gets busy, you know?”
Rolph led them into the smaller house, a dwelling nicer even than what the Count had, if not as big. The inside had wood walls, hand carved out of something dark and polished to gleaming. The floors a highly polished marble with throw rugs all over the place. The furniture was even more impressive. It looked nice and new, but felt old when he touched it with his mind, like it had been around longer than the rest of the building. A lot longer. Someone had spent money on this place. Too much for what was essentially a simple dwelling.
That wouldn't stop him from sleeping in it, just from being comfortable while he did. He'd thought the school had nice rooms, but compared to this, what Rolph was used to, they might as well been putting them off in the barn to sleep with the horses. The bed in the room he was shown to was bigger than both the beds at the school if they were pushed together. The room was about four times bigger and done all in white. He was almost afraid that if he touched something it would leave a stain. He'd have to get a bath as soon as possible, he decided. The idea of actually coming in contact with anything here, as dirty as he undoubtedly was, terrified him. Not real terror maybe, but close enough. Looking around carefully Tor wondered if he should try flying over the floor instead of walking. He let that go when a vision of trashing the place came into his head and didn't leave. Him smashing first into one wall and then another on an uncontrolled rebound, leaving huge holes. Instead he just didn't let himself make contact with anything if he could help it.
In a chamber off the bedroom itself Tor found a tub, a giant tan ceramic thing, with a spigot that released water that while not exactly warm was at least no colder than the air. Since even inside it was pretty warm, that was more than good enough. Hoping that no one would mind overly he started filling the tub. It made a sloshing sound as the water entered, probably from a cistern on the roof, which would explain why it was as warm as it was. Just in case someone had to fill that tank by hand he stopped the water about a tenth of the way up the tub and climbed in. The shallow water didn't cover his legs, but the tub was long, built for people that obviously made him look like a tiny child. Given how big Rolph was, that was probably the literal case.
A covered dish next to the bath had a small tub of soft perfumed soap. It smelled of lavender and some kind of citrus fruit. Nice. Not very manly but he figured that no one would be going around sniffing him anyway, and if they did, flowers would be more pleasant than sour sweat. He scrubbed up efficiently, hitting under his arms a dozen times with small handfuls of the soft soap. It didn't seem to have a lye base, so he'd have to use a lot more effort to get clean than he would have at home, Tor realized. Here, it seemed, washing was more a matter of elbow grease than chemical action.
Half an hour later he felt clean enough to get out without being overly ashamed of his state. Tor carefully ran the small comb he'd brought through his short damp hair. Kolb had ordered him to keep it cut in his first year at the school and he had ever since. No one sane wanted to argue with Kolb after all. Tor was glad of it now, as the heat, dry as it was, left him sticky again the second he stepped out of the tan ceramic vessel. He dried carefully with one of the soft and huge towels hanging on the rack on the wall, not wanting to track water around, and walked into his room. He'd forgotten his clothes, of course, so he padded back into the big bedroom naked. His trunk had been brought in, meaning all he had to do was grab a clean pair of student browns from the bottom, and he'd be set.
His hand brushed a metal plate, the bottom of the trunk being filled with them of course and he nearly had to hit himself in the head. Duh. He had at least twenty of the “temperature control plates”, what Sara had started calling the heat and cold exchangers, sitting right there.
It was too warm?
He could fix that.
Shirt still off he walked one of the small copper plates to the nice table set up across the room, as big as the dining tables at the school, meant for ten to eat at a time, but about a thousand times nicer, with a soft green cloth on the top. The cloth was there to either protect the wood or stop him from seeing scratches underneath. Either way it looked good, very fine. The copper piece was nice enough on it too, so no one would probably mind. Green and copper went together, right? He hit the cooling sigil and waited with his eyes closed.
Relief poured into the room. Blessed cool. He sighed and felt content for a moment. When he opened his eyes he found a woman standing at the door to the room, her hands folded across her front delicately fingers laced and palms up. She wasn't great looking, one of those girls that would at best manage cute their whole lives rather than fantastically pretty. Not that looks mattered that much. Nice always counted a lot more after all, and smart almost as much. Good looking was fourth or fifth on Tor's personal list of things important for a woman. Maybe lower if he really bothered to ever count it all up.
Her red hair was long, and she had slightly dusky skin compared to Rolph, who redhead or not was at least three shades darker than Tor ever was. Her skin being deeply tan was probably just from the more intense sun here than back at the school. Her face was covered in freckles, which added to the innocent cuteness at least. When she saw him looking her face lit up.
“Why, you're not Alphie at all, are you? Sorry to catch you dressing like this…” She gestured at his bare chest.
Taking a deep breath he moved slowly, trying not to panic. Half naked in front of a girl that wasn't even a family member, or his betrothed? If anyone saw them he'd probably be run through the city being beaten. He swallowed and pulled his shirt on carefully, trying to make certain it was the right way around. It would just be too mortifying to have to try and fix it in front of the woman. Girl, really, he noticed, after the brown fabric which was course but not as stiff as it had been two years before when it had been new, finally fell into place.
She was a couple years younger than him at least, he saw now that he had a chance to look at her. The dress she wore was pretty, a light pink color that somehow didn't make her seem too red, even with her bright hair, and showed wealth somewhere in her upbringing. None of his sisters ever had anything so nice. Not even his older sister Terlee for her wedding day, not that she'd be getting married yet, since his mother hadn't found anyone for her that really fit. Terlee was kind of shy and would need a husband that was gentle and understanding if possible.
Blushing he decided to introduce himself. “Um, hello? I'm Torrence. People call me Tor…”
The girl dimpled and curtsied. “Alphie's friend from school. Oh, right… you all call him Rolph there. That's a stupid name, don't you think? He likes it though. I'm Karina. Obviously Alphie's little sister. One of two by the way.” She stepped further into the room and smiled.
“Someone got a cooling thing for in here? The main house has a couple, but not my rooms. You must be important to rate that. They're very hard to get I hear.” She smiled hugely and walked a little closer seeming to be enjoying the cool air a lot.
He held up a single finger and grinned.
“Wait.” He said, sounding pleased he hoped. The girl froze as if he planned something improper, her face looking more than a bit shocked. Did she think he was going to try and take advantage of her? He hoped not. Rolph would kill him if he even thought that was the case no doubt, which was only appropriate, because it was his job to protect his sister's virtue and all. He rummaged in his trunk quickly and turned to find the girl looking displeased. He held out four of the heat exchange plates.
“Um, here? Two for you and two for your sister?”
Karina looked baffled for a second, but her face changed instantly when she realized what he held. Taking them her face grew excited as she examined the sigils more closely.
“Oh! My, this is… can I accept it though? I'm not anyone important or anything, just…” The girl looked around furtively, as if afraid she'd have to give the gifts back. Her cheeks turned a pretty color of red and her gaze
