by Zoe Chant
He noticed her awe and showed her a switch on the wall that he’d used and turned the lights off and back on to demonstrate, then let her try it. That didn’t really diminish the wonder of it.
They sat together on a wide couch facing a black painting and Ansel took what looked like a plate of print-setting type into his lap. Vesta and Fabio both leapt up beside them, Vesta trembling on Ansel’s far side and Fabio taking as much space as he could and putting his head trustingly in Tadra’s lap.
With a few of Ansel’s touches on that board of letters—Tadra tried to memorize the ritual as he did it—the dark painting on the wall came to life and proved to be a portal or perhaps a scrying surface.
Ansel spoke as he worked. “We have something called the Internet, a vast network of information, like a library, but interactive and virtual.”
Virtual? It was...almost a library? Not quite?
“What’s a word you’d like to be able to say?” Ansel asked.
Tadra pondered. What words were important to her? She circled the word shieldmate on her list.
“That’s not a thing we have here,” Ansel said apologetically. “Pretty sure there’s not a sign for that. We might have to make one up.”
Tadra felt slow and stupid. She was caught in a world where she knew so little that she couldn’t think of what to ask.
“What kind of things would you need to tell us?” Ansel suggested kindly. “Like, hungry, or I have to use the bathroom?”
Tadra nodded agreeably and Ansel pressed letters that appeared on the scrying surface. She gazed in wonder as he did something with his hands she couldn’t even follow and it turned into a portal of a woman making motions with her hands. But it wasn’t magic?
“Hungry!” Ansel said, and they followed the teacher’s example of making a C with their right hands and moving it from neck to stomach. “Okay, I can see how they came up with this. It makes some sense.”
Bathroom—apparently what they called the necessity in this world—proved to be a thumb through the next two fingers, held palm forward and twisted side-to-side. The teacher—a different one, standing in a different scrying surface—explained a way to remember it as the letter T for toilet, and this led them to practice the alphabet together for a while, though spelling words out by sign proved time-consuming and even more frustrating than writing things down.
They chased words through conversation, Tadra half-writing, half-pointing: dog, chair, couch, computer—though she wasn’t sure when she’d use that in casual talk. Yes, no, thank you, good, bad. Sorry, you’re welcome. Tell me, show you. The more abstract words were harder to remember, and they quizzed back and forth as Tadra tried desperately to hold them all in her head.
Danger, fight, help, fly, friend, right, wrong… her paper grew crowded with words and she wrote smaller and smaller, not wanting to waste another precious page.
Key, she wrote at last.
Her earlier guess for the word has been surprisingly close; many of the signs made a certain amount of logical sense, which made them easier to remember. They signed it to each other, and Tadra caught herself looking at Ansel’s face in wonder.
He was her...key. He had freed her from her prison, and he would be her conduit to what magic this world had.
Tell me key, she signed at him, coaxing with her hands for more.
Ansel looked flustered, though no flush showed on his brown cheeks and he didn’t drop his gaze; he blinked more quickly, and his mouth tightened. He didn’t even bother trying to limit his explanation to the few signs they knew, but spoke in words. “It’s magic, which I couldn’t start to explain, but Robin says that each of your keys here is...a person here who is your other half, your perfect match, someone you have a deep connection with at once. A...soulmate.”
He did turn his eyes aside then, looking conflicted. Did he not wish to be her key? Was there some burden to the task, such that he didn’t want to bear it?
He went on quietly, not looking at her. “The closer you get with your key, the more you...love each other...the more powerful you will be.”
Love, she wrote, and to her surprise, Ansel didn’t have to use his scrying computer for this one. He put up his smallest and pointer fingers, thumb extended outwards. “It’s...shorthand for I love you,” he said, pointing out how the I and L and Y combined. “Some signs are commonly used among the hearing, too.”
She could love this man, Tadra decided, forming the sign with her hand. She already trusted him and could tell that he had a true heart and a clever mind. He was kind to his ill-trained hounds, and patient with her whenever she grew frustrated with her puzzling inability to speak. He had fixed her broken glass prison, a testament to his patience and skill. And he was courteous, assuming no liberties with her person from his bond with her.
Tadra almost wished he’d take those liberties.
He was so handsome and strong, with his shocking bright hair and his sepia skin. There was the barest stubble at his finely shaped chin. She found herself tracing the lines of his neck with her gaze, and the breadth of his shoulders, wondering what it would be like to feel it with her fingers. It stirred something inside of her, making her keenly aware of her own skin against the silky fabric of the robe that was all she was wearing.
He was within arm’s reach; all she had to do was extend her hand and touch him, and she craved that touch in a way she had never craved it of her shieldmates, more than merely for comfort and comradery.
“Are you okay?” Ansel asked in concern, and Tadra abruptly realized she wasn’t. All the energy in her body felt as if it had suddenly been sucked out of her.
Tired, she wrote briefly, and Ansel didn’t think for a moment that she meant it as the next word they should learn.
“You’ve been through a lot,” he said, banishing the scrying screen with a few swift movements. “I can show you to your room and you can rest.”
The hounds recognized the cues at once. The tiny dog bolted off the couch and began to make laps of the room and Fabio groaned in her lap, not wanting to move.
Tadra was alarmed to find that she had trouble pushing him off. She was never the strongest of her shieldmates, with her smaller frame and slighter build, but she had always outlasted the other knights, tough and dogged at any task. Now, it seemed that even breathing was a labor. Her arms ached, and she was finding it difficult to concentrate. Exhaustion made her want to simply lie down in Ansel’s lap where she would be safe and could sleep again at last; the weight of a hound’s head seemed insurmountable.
Chapter 5
Ansel hadn’t been oblivious to Tadra’s swiftly draining energy. Her graceful hand motions grew abruptly clumsier and she was slower to react. Had something happened? Was she sick? It was sudden and alarming.
“Fabio, off!” he commanded, getting to his own feet.
Fabio heaved a great sigh and rolled reluctantly off the couch. Tadra looked at her legs in consternation, as if she was expecting them to do something they couldn’t.
“Here…” Ansel offered her an arm, and she clasped him by the forearm and flowed back up to her feet.
Sorry, she signed with her free hand.
“No,” Ansel said swiftly. “No, don’t be sorry. Everything is really strange, and it’s a lot to take in, and it’s no wonder if you need some time to recover. You’ve been stuck in your ornament much longer than your shieldmates, and it was broken. You probably need time to heal.” He cast about for something comforting. “Maybe tomorrow, you’ll be able to speak again. There’s so much we don’t know.” Maybe Robin would have some fix for her when they came back with the rest of the team.
Back...with Tadra’s key.
She smiled wanly at him and tucked her arm into his. She leaned much more heavily on him returning up the stairs than she had coming down them; Ansel was not sure if she would have remained standing without his support, and their progress was slow.
“This is the bathroom,” he said, stopping there first. “I’m afraid y
ou’ll have to share it with Gwen and Henrik. They have the next room after yours.”
He demonstrated the faucets and Tadra looked amply impressed, trailing her fingers through the warm water. He signed toilet at her and lifted the lid. “You sit here, do what you need to. Close the lid when you’re done because the dogs are disgusting and will drink out of it if you don’t and Vesta might drown in it because she’s not that bright. This handle flushes it, like so…”
Tadra startled back at the noisy flush and watched the water swirl away in wonder, clinging to the counter.
“I can give you privacy, if you need to…”
Tadra shook her head wearily and mimed putting her head on a pillow.
“This way.” Ansel skipped the shower and bathroom appliances and helped her to the room they had prepared, opening the door to the closet to show her the clothing that had been set out for her and pointing out the electrical sockets. “Don’t put anything in those little holes,” he cautioned. “This is the light switch, here.”
Tadra absorbed it all, not offering to touch anything, her hands clasped before her and Ansel turned back from closing the curtains and caught her swaying in place.
“Here,” he said quickly, throwing back her blankets. “Lie down, before you fall down. You can sleep as long as you need.”
Tadra staggered to the bed and lay down, and when she seemed incapable of arranging her limbs, Ansel cautiously straightened her legs and tucked her arms in, trying not to linger over the feel of her limbs under his fingers under the thin robe. He pulled the fabric smooth and with every scrap of self-control that he had, flipped the blanket back over her. One of her hands caught his and she gave him a quick, grateful squeeze.
“Sleep,” he murmured, but when he tried to take his hand back, Tadra held on, so he sank down on the mattress to sit beside her.
She gave a sigh of contentment—the air made some sound, even if it was a poor echo of the noisy, throaty sighs that Fabio was capable of vocalizing—and closed her eyes.
Ansel stared at her, like she was a subject he wanted to memorize to draw later.
There were not enough freckles on her pale skin to call her freckled, but too many to entirely discount. She was so pale that he could see the blue veins of her blood at her temples, and there was a slight diagonal scar at the bridge of her nose. Her hair was a bold shade of red—dark, but too true of hue to be auburn; it looked as dyed as Ansel’s, but he suspected that it was natural on her. As natural as a magical firebird shifter from a faery kingdom could be.
Her hand in his felt like a home he’d never known to yearn for, and he held it long after her breathing went steady and even with sleep.
Finally, he slipped his hand slowly from hers and tucked the blanket up around her chin. For a guilty moment, he wanted to lean over and kiss her, even just a chaste brush on the forehead, but he’d already caused enough trouble with ill-planned kisses.
Instead, he stood and turned off the light. He left the door open, wanting to be able to hear if she—oh, but she wouldn’t be able to call for him. Maybe he should get a bell for her to ring if she needed anything. There was a Christmas bell in the decorations that Daniella had put out, he could put it on her bedside table for her.
Walking quietly through the house with the dogs anxiously following so close that they stepped on his heels more than once, Ansel found the bell and returned to Tadra’s room with it. Would she figure out what it was for? Should he leave a note explaining it? He realized that he was gazing down at her again and shook himself impatiently.
He tripped over Fabio trying to leave her room, cursed quietly, and went back to his own room to get his phone. There were no missed calls.
He shut the door and called Daniella’s cellphone. It went straight to voicemail, and he left a brief, urgent message. “I know you guys just left, but Tadra is here, in person, and I think you should get back here right away. I hope you’ve had good luck finding Robin and...” Tadra’s key, Ansel told himself firmly, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. “Hope to see you really soon.”
He left the same message on Heather’s line. Gwen had left her own phone behind, as he found out when he called her and it started ringing in her room.
He hung up and put the phone facedown on his desk, carefully picking the glass firebird up from its nest of bubble wrap.
“C’mon guys,” he said to the back of his phone. “Get back here before I do something dumb like fall in love with this woman.”
He wondered if it wasn’t already too late.
Chapter 6
Tadra woke up feeling a lot more like herself and blinked up at a curious white plaster ceiling in a perfectly rectangular grid. There was light coming in around the curtains, but she had no idea what time of day it might be.
She tried to move and had a moment of dismay, thinking that her legs were still heavy with exhaustion. There was a sleepy little mrrrt of protest and she realized that there was a cat sleeping on top of them. When she sat upright, the cat made an irritated noise, stretched, and began to groom itself. It was a pale, cream-colored feline with dark points and accusing pale blue eyes.
Tadra opened her mouth to greet it and didn’t remember that she couldn’t speak until she had tried. She touched her lips with a hand and frowned. She had hoped that her voice would return with rest, but as hard as she tried, she could not make any sounds that were not air in her mouth.
She threw the blankets aside, startling the cat. It puffed into an arch of outrage and stalked away, just slowly enough to make its point as the superior creature. Cats were apparently exactly the same in this world as in Tadra’s and she found that comforting.
Tadra swung her legs off and wiggled her toes in the strange, soft floor covering. She was wearing the robe that Ansel had given her the night before, and it still smelled faintly of him, which was pleasant and reassuring. She remembered the wardrobe-room that he had shown her, but when she looked at the choices, the selection was almost overwhelming.
After some consideration, she took a pair of soft breeches and a tunic of blue, with a sparkling butterfly on the front. There were socks and underthings laid out, the purpose of each of them clear. The fabric was impressively tightly woven, but surprisingly stretchy.
She was, by now, in considerable need of the necessity that Ansel had shown her the night before.
The flush was as alarming as it had been when Ansel demonstrated it, but Tadra found herself admiring the efficiency. She used the water pump that didn’t require pumping and let the warm water pour over her hands for a decadent moment. She smelled the potions beside the sink, but didn’t dare to use any of them, uncertain of their purpose.
What a world of riches and wonders.
The cat had vanished, but when Tadra came quietly down the long stairs, the dogs suddenly realized she was there and swarmed at her feet, their tails wagging. There was no sign of Ansel, but there was a bowl filled with tiny dry food on the counter of the kitchen-workshop with a note by it.
This is cereal. It’s best with milk on it. Milk is in the fridge. I’ll be back very soon. He had signed it Ansel, with a big round cursive A, and he had underlined the word very.
There was a spoon by the bowl.
Tadra looked around the kitchen. Fridge. What was a fridge? It had to be big enough to hold a milk pail, and she remembered the device of cold that Ansel had shown her.
A tug on the door revealed a lit chamber. There were two items within it labeled milk in fancy, decorated boxes. She chose one at random and returned to the counter. Was the spoon for dispensing the milk? Perhaps milk was very precious here; the boxes were not large. She unscrewed the tiny lid, measured out a spoonful and sprinkled it over the contents of the bowl.
The dogs watched her raptly as she did this, swirling around at her feet hopefully and she gave each of them one of the little irregular clumps. Fabio seemed to inhale his and nearly took Tadra’s finger with it. Vesta chewed hers once and left it on
the floor for Fabio to pounce on.
They both looked hopefully back up at her as if they had received nothing.
Tadra took the bowl back to the spinning stool where she’d eaten the night before. It was brighter outside and the room looked more welcoming. It helped that she felt considerably stronger. Her trembling enfeeblement of the night before had frightened her as much as the unaccustomed world.
She ate the dampened pieces of food with interest using her fingers—it seemed to be some kind of sweetened grain in clusters, and it was filling and pleasantly spiced.
The dogs didn’t take their eyes off of her once while she ate, not even Vesta, who had rejected her previous offering.
When she had emptied the bowl, Tadra felt considerably better. Perhaps her fleeting frailty had only been caused by long hunger and a need for sleep.
She hopped down from the stool and tripped over Fabio, who stood up at exactly the wrong moment. Caught by surprise, Tadra shifted and flew rather than falling, and the dogs went mad at the sight of her firebird, barking and pinwheeling in place beneath her. She could not resist teasing them, staying just up out of their reach as she explored the house and gazed outside at the quaint little community of cottages, just visible through snow-covered brush.
She found the glass creatures that must have housed her shieldmates hanging over a window in the kitchen, shooting light through the room in green, blue, and gold; she had not noticed them against the dark window at night. Her own was not hung with them; Ansel must still have it in his private rooms.
There was a smaller bathroom on this floor, and a bedroom much like Ansel’s, as well as a pantry, a modest dining hall, a gathering room with couches, and the room where they had learned signs from the portal-teachers. Tadra didn’t move things, not sure what protections they might have, but she poked into corners and tried to make sense of the curious furniture and dark scrying portals, looking for clues that her shieldmates lived here and were truly happy.