He did not expect that opening these doors would harm her, and he did not expect that anyone except Jewel herself could open them. But expectations aside, he was Chosen; it was his duty to protect her if his expectations were confounded.
Snow returned, shouldering Torvan to the side—as if Torvan were one of the den. Torvan failed to notice the white cat, which took effort, as he had to regain his footing.
She had come home, she thought, but home had, once again, inexplicably changed. Were it not for the West Wing and its occupants, she would not recognize it. She shook her head.
Home had always been people. Place had never been guaranteed. It was not the loss of the apartment that had almost destroyed her, but the loss of her father. Her mother. Her Oma. The silence they left behind persisted, even during the stretch of days she had spent beneath the bridge across the river, when the noise of the city had failed to drown out the constant echoes of loss.
Rath had found her.
Rath had offered her a home. He was not familial, not family—but there was no family. Her Oma’s words about strangers, while persistent, had become irrelevant. She would starve—or die—when winter came, unless she wished to dedicate herself to the Mother’s church and pray to gods that demonstrably hadn’t listened at any time before.
She touched the doors with the flat of her left palm. They did not open, but she hadn’t expected them to. Hadn’t asked them to.
Rath’s home had been utterly silent in his absence, and he was absent a lot, just as her father had been before him. Eventually she had filled that home—and he had allowed it—with people. Not blood-kin but chosen kin. Lefty. Arann. Carver. Finch. Jester. Duster. Fisher. Lander. Teller. Angel had come later.
The apartment had become a house full of noise, the lack of space obvious because of the constant press of bodies. It was the noise that she associated with family. Sometimes, she wanted to escape it—but only, in the end, so she could return to it.
Home was the people that occupied it.
Here, home was den. If her quarters changed, if her forest changed, if the politics of Terafin threatened to overwhelm and exhaust, her den was here. Her den was safe.
Carver.
Her den had been safe.
She bowed her head; touched wood with her forehead.
Home was where her people were. The roof might change. The walls. The shape and size of the room. The clothing might change. The food. But if they were here, this was home. And home was a thing she could not give up. To lose it—to lose it again—was more than she could bear. The first time, as a child, she hadn’t understood what the loss meant; the lack of warmth, the lack of noise, the lack of comfort, of love.
But the time that passed without family had enfolded her in a world that was full of people, none of whom even knew who she was. They did not care for her, or about her—and why should they? They had worries and fears of their own. Families to feed. Children who might starve or sicken. They did not need, could not bear, another burden.
She could see that now, could forgive that now. But not then. She had been a child. Then, she had understood that she had no value, no worth. She couldn’t work. She could not do what her father had done, until that work had killed him in the Port accident. She could not do what her mother had done. And her Oma? Her Oma had no longer worked, but people obeyed her Oma when she opened her mouth, her words staccato, intense, a rumble of sound, presaging a natural disaster.
Jewel had had none of that. She had had certainty, yes—but no way of conveying it. And her Oma had made clear that the one gift she had was not a gift; it was a curse. It was a curse and a stain that must be hidden.
As an adult, Jewel understood why. But she had not seen it clearly then. She had heard her Oma’s worry, her Oma’s fear—but her Oma funneled all emotions through an electric anger. She had heard that there was something wrong with her. She heard it now, at a great remove. And she still believed it.
She had turned her rooms—The Terafin’s rooms, meant, in the end, as a legacy for the women or men who would occupy the seat—into an open space of amethyst skies, a forest of library trees. Even the collection had been somehow altered, and without intent; books were not, to Jewel, what they had always been to Teller.
And now: a castle.
A castle that not even the Chosen could enter, if she did not first open the doors.
This isn’t what I wanted.
But, hand on the door, feet on the flat, wide steps that led to it, she could no longer be certain. Because this was what she had—without intent, without will, without knowledge—made. Yet even her yearning for the past, before death and demons and gods, her yearning for a life that had not, objectively, been easy—ah.
Who had lived in that apartment? Who had occupied it after demons had forced the den to flee, and had, in the end, killed Duster? It couldn’t have been empty. Where were the occupants that her dreams had driven out? Where were they now?
Shadow stepped on her foot.
“Find them,” Jewel whispered, her forehead pressing into the door, her hand becoming a fist. “Find them, Shadow.”
Shadow did not respond. She lifted her head, looked down; he was seated on the flat of the step; he had pushed Marave out of the way. His wings were high and dark; shadows seemed to trail, like smoke, from his flight feathers. He did not move. His eyes were gold and shining; his irises were black, large.
He might have been a statue, Artisan crafted, caught in a perfect moment. A mirror that she could not see herself in. And that she could.
She turned then, to the door. Inhaled. Exhaled. This castle was now. It was what she had made of the rooms that had a history of occupation by those who ruled, those who bore the weight of the fate of House Terafin on their shoulders, on their brows.
“I can’t,” the gray cat said, when she turned away, no longer caught by the gravity of his gaze, his posture. “You must find them.”
“I don’t even know who they were!” Louder words. Tremble in throat, in shoulders, the gravity of Terafin dragging them down.
“You must learn. You must remember.”
“I can’t remember—I never met them. I have no idea who they were!” Her voice broke. She gathered it, pieced it together. “Do you?”
Shadow, however, examined his left paw. “You must remember,” he said. “In the end—and the end is coming—you must learn how to remember them all. You hurt yourself,” he growled. “You hurt yourself.
“You do not understand because you are stupid.”
She felt the frame of her shoulders relax at the sound of his familiar disgust.
“There are only two ways. Only two.”
She nodded. “What ways, Shadow?”
“Stop caring. Those people? They were nothing to you, and that is why they are gone. People who did not know you did not care about you. But you? You are stupid. You think you can care. You think you should.”
If Rath had not cared, she would likely be dead.
“You are not a god. You do not create your people. They are not yours.”
Arann. Carver. Finch. Teller. Jester. Angel. She hadn’t created them, either.
“What’s the second way?”
He lowered his paw; she could feel it hit stone, and for just a moment, thought the weight of it would produce cracks and fissures.
“Become.”
She started to argue. Words would not leave her mouth, although they backed up there. I’m not a god. I can’t become a god. Give me something I can work with, work for.
And she looked up, to the peak of this doorframe, to the height of it, and beyond, to as much of the height of the building as could be seen, when one was standing this close to its wall. It was so cold here, she thought winter had arrived, in an instant, just as the castle itself had cohered.
Standing, frozen, she could only watch as the doors opened inward, although she hadn’t pushed them. To her left and right she could hear the sounds of metal against metal, swords l
eaving scabbards. She herself felt no visceral fear.
No fear at all, although that would come later. She did not throw herself left or right, did not turn to leap back, out of the way. But she did throw herself forward.
Standing in the frame, standing there in the clothing he had worn for all of his time in the West Wing, stood Ellerson.
She could hear Teller, hear Finch; could easily separate which steps belonged to each as they raced up stairs, shouting a name.
Shadow sneezed.
Epilogue
ELATION AT ELLERSON’S RETURN diminished greatly upon the realization that he had returned alone. Castle and its implications all but forgotten, Jewel lifted a hand, and the rush of slowing questions stopped immediately.
“Kitchen,” she said. Calliastra had no interest in a kitchen; she did not understand the significance of the command.
Every other person present marked it instantly, a fact not lost on Calliastra, who could not bring herself to ask. If the castle was now open, she would remain within; it was small and quite probably insignificant, but it was more suitable for a person of her stature than a mere kitchen. Even so, she made no derogatory comments about Ellerson, either his appearance or his import. She understood—and probably resented—what the rush up the stairs meant.
With the exception of Calliastra, they turned, Jewel in the lead, and headed back down the path that had dampened their clothing, seeking the comfort of familiarity: the kitchen in the West Wing, where all councils of war had been held among the den since they had first arrived at the Terafin manse.
• • •
For the first time that any of the den could remember, Ellerson chose to take a seat at the table itself.
Jewel had summoned Jester, Arann, Daine, and Adam. Adam walked slowly, as if his feet were heavy; the circles beneath his eyes were dark. He was exhausted; an evening of sleep had not done nearly enough good. Jewel almost sent him back to bed, but she couldn’t. While he lived in Averalaan—while he traveled at her behest by her side—he was den. But no, it was not just that.
He was the age the den had been when it had been whole, and the shadow of death had been starvation—and there was, about his presence, the suggestion of youth, of renewal; the certainty that, somehow, the den would survive, and its legacy, the heart of what it had been, continue to spread, to extend. And she needed that today.
Jewel spoke first, but quickly, quietly, as if her own excursion into the Oracle’s domain was insignificant, unimportant. Angel occasionally added details that he considered consequential. The events they had witnessed and survived were not unimportant to the den, but Jewel, Angel, and Adam had returned. They were alive, here, unharmed, the kitchen walls enclosing them.
They listened, but half their attention was upon Ellerson. Ellerson, who had not brought Carver with him from wherever the interior of a closet had taken them. Jewel herself was barely interested in her own tale in comparison.
To this council of war, to this kitchen, Haval had come, although he did not sit; the Chosen had come as well, but they were omnipresent if Jewel, Finch, or Teller were anywhere in the manse. They would never have fit in the old kitchen in the poorer of the hundred holdings; they wouldn’t have fit in the old apartment if anyone had wanted to be able to move.
• • •
Ellerson began; his voice was the only sound in the room. Even breathing was quiet enough that it could barely be heard.
Shadow, Snow, and Night—like Avandar—remained as far from the table as walls allowed. When Ellerson’s tale touched upon a creature he called Anakton, Shadow was not pleased, but his offer to hunt and kill said creature was an indication of either disgust or annoyance; Shadow did not fear him the way he feared the golden fox. He did, however, shriek in outrage when Jewel thought it: he was not afraid of the fox. He was worried that the stupidity of the den would allow the fox to use them.
Around the table, while Shadow ranted and his two brothers hissed laughter, she could see her den-kin relax. Were it not for Shadow’s outburst, the table would be shrouded in silence. No words broke it, or could, for this silence was the silence Carver had left in his wake.
Jester, often the first to break such a silence, lifted his hands. Carver. Carver. Carver.
Ellerson nodded.
Not dead.
The domicis nodded again.
Arann’s hands did not move; Adam’s did. Not dead.
But Finch and Teller eventually joined those silent movements, as if only den-sign, the language of their youth, was strong enough to form.
Only then did they turn to look at Jewel. Jewel, whose hands, trembling, were still, silent. She was thinking of Merry. Merry, not den, but as much a part of Carver’s life as the den had been. It was odd, to think of her that way, and Jewel had not fully done so until now—because the loss itself would mean as much to Merry as it did to the den.
But Merry could not—could never—sit at this table. Merry ATerafin was not den, and could not be den without giving up the life she had built for herself.
It was a better life than Jewel had built with her den in the early years, and Jewel understood the value of that life. Yes, she was now The Terafin and Merry was simply part of the Household Staff—but without that Household Staff, there would be no manse, not as it existed now. Everything Jewel did, and everything the den did, was built on that quiet, unassuming work.
Her hands trembled. She had taken something from Carver that he had asked her to return to Merry. She would. She would, but not yet, not now.
No, she thought, that was wrong. It was the only thing Carver had asked of her. It was the last thing he had asked.
She rose. “I have to speak to Merry.”
Finch rose. “I’ll come with you.”
Jewel shook her head. “I am The Terafin. I can speak to any member of my Household Staff and the Master of the Household Staff must accept the intrusion. She might question me. She will not question Merry.”
Jester snorted, the first normal sound he had made since they had come to this table, this kitchen.
“Merry will not bear the brunt of the Master of the Household Staff’s displeasure. I will.”
Teller winced because it was true.
“But if it’s my choice, Merry can’t disobey me. It’s my name she bears.”
• • •
The den was slow to disperse. Ellerson did not leave the table until the last of their number had drifted away, leaving silence in their wake. Haval, however, did not leave the room. He waited.
Only when the door closed on Arann’s back, the last of the den to go, did he speak. “You did not tell all of the tale.”
“It is not for the telling,” Ellerson replied. He understood that Haval was Councillor and understood what that meant.
Haval did not appear to take offense, and Ellerson considered the lack of offense genuine. “Will you tell her?”
Ellerson nodded.
“Then I will send her to the great room before she speaks with the Master of the Household Staff.”
Ellerson raised a brow.
“The Master of the Household Staff could, in a different world, command the Astari. She understands the hierarchical rules that govern the house, but she does not allow them to be used against her. Jewel will speak with Merry as she intends. The process would not be as cumbersome if she approached Merry directly. She will not, however. She will speak with you before she speaks with the Master of the Household Staff.”
As Haval approached the door, Ellerson said, “How much do you know? How much do you understand?”
“I understand very little, but much can be gleaned from the whining complaints of her three cats. And much from the whispers of the arborii. I will not tell you that she is not your concern; you are domicis and you understand where your duty lies. Comfort her if you can.
“Were we, in aggregate, facing any other danger, any other enemy, I would tell you that she will break unless she learns to develop the emotion
al calluses that many of the powerful are taught, from birth, to develop. But for better or ill, it is not what I would advise here.”
“Even were you to advise it,” Ellerson said, voice low, “she could not accommodate. She is what, and who, she is.”
“I agree,” Havel replied. “Jarven would not. The forest elders would not. But she will not be Lord of a simple forest, if we survive; she will be Lord of lands in which mortals can—and must—be safe.” He met Ellerson’s eyes in the dimmer kitchen light and held them. “My wife is one of those mortals. There is very, very little in the end that I would not do to preserve her.
“But conversely there is very little, in the end, that she would allow. Were I to devote the whole of my intent and my general lack of compunction toward her safety, I would lose her. I would, in the quaint, angry words of Hannerle, break her heart. I would destroy, in that instant, what love she might have nursed—with however much difficulty over the decades—for me. And so, my hands are tied by the very thing I value beyond measure.
“But, in like fashion, so are Jewel’s.” Haval bowed to him. “I will send her to you.”
• • •
Ellerson was waiting in the great room when Jewel arrived. She crossed the room and sat, heavily, in one of the chairs, but did not motion Ellerson to do the same; he had forced himself to accommodate the den’s emotional needs by joining them at the kitchen table, but he was never going to be comfortable doing so.
He withdrew the blue leaf from its resting place.
She stared at it, her shoulders folding. “I left it with him.”
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
Ellerson did not reply.
“Do you know that I effectively killed people without even being aware they were there?”
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