by Zoe Chant
Tadra hopped from her spinning chair and beckoned Ansel to follow her, leading him to the door out to the large conveyance room that had been clearly set up for fighting. It always helped her remember things if she followed studies with physical activity.
“You want to spar?” Ansel guessed.
Tadra nodded, mimed putting all her thoughts back into her head, then signed question and pointed at him.
Ansel looked conflicted. “Do I fight?”
Tadra had meant to ask what weapon he used. He certainly looked warrior fit, and he moved gracefully on his feet. She had simply assumed he was a fighter of some skill.
“I probably won’t be much of a challenge to you,” he said with humility. “Your shieldmates and Gwen have done their best to pound me into some kind of useful shape, but I am not their calibre.” He moved to take a wooden practice sword down off the wall and tossed her a second one.
Tadra saluted him with the toy and dropped into a ready stance. Despite his dismissal, he took a practiced attitude and when she pressed a test attack at him, he was able to parry her away with ease and drop back with swift reflexes.
She was less easy on her next advance and they exchanged a flurry of blows on the silly wooden blades. Ansel was just enough slower than she was that she could penetrate his guard and lay a tap on his hip.
“Ah,” he said, good natured as always when they backed away from each other. “I warned you. I’ve been training for just a year, not an entire lifetime like you lot.”
You’re good, Tadra signed honestly, and he used the distraction to attack while her hand was busy, coming forward under her guard to tap her knee.
You’re smart, she added, from a safer distance this time. Fraud.
“That was the first thing they taught me,” Ansel said with a laugh. “To use your enemy’s weakness for your own advantage. Oh, what’s that?”
He was convincing enough that Tadra’s attention was momentarily drawn away, and he attacked with a curious combination of strikes that was distinctly different from the fighting style Tadra had been taught.
She laughed without sound and deflected his blows without effort; he was fast, but she was faster. He had the advantage of reach, but not by much, and his method was more cautious than hers.
They danced back and forth, testing each other and scoring sound hits, until they had both worked up a fine sweat and earned a few minor bruises. It felt good to burn her muscles, and there was a comforting routine to sparring. Tadra was relieved to find that she had no dizzy spells or weird weakness as they did drills and sparred. She stopped him several times to demand that he teach her an unexpected form.
It was gladdeningly familiar to sparring with her shieldmates...and unexpectedly nothing like it.
Ansel was pleasant to watch and more than a little distracting. He was frank about his skill compared to hers, but Tadra thought he underestimated his own abilities; she was not inclined to take it easy on him. Theirs was a match of near equals, his strength and reach balanced to her skill and her handicap of having to taunt him with her hands instead of her voice.
When they came close in battle, or they had to touch each other to correct a handhold or stance, she found her heart quickening. The first time she feared one of her spells of weakness, but the second, she realized that she was reacting to his closeness. She had never found her shieldmates the slightest bit diverting, but she caught herself watching the play of muscles in Ansel’s arms, and the movement of his legs, to her own detriment at times.
It wasn’t only effort that flushed her cheeks when the dogs on the far side of the door howled for attention.
“That was a good workout,” Ansel said approvingly.
He tossed her a towel that tangled her hands too much to speak with them, so Tadra only nodded, mopping off her sweaty face as she handed back the practice sword. Her time in glass had not softened her calluses, but the grip was a little different from the sword she usually used, and there were a few places that her fingers and palm stung.
Thanks, she signed, when her hands were free again. Feels good. Better. She mimed putting things back in her head.
Ansel was always watching her, alert to her soundless speech, and he smiled now and nodded agreement. “You probably want another shower,” he laughed. “I know I do.”
Tadra made a gesture meant to indicate a shower and clownishly cleaning herself, nodding emphatically. Did she imagine the swallow he made, or the pursing of his lips? Was he as bothered by her proximity as she was by his? Did his light-hearted laughter mask the same kind of yearning?
It was hard to imagine feeling more than this for her key, Tadra thought longingly, as they greeted the dogs and Ansel scolded them for howling and reassured them that they hadn’t been abandoned or neglected. “It’s just a door, you guys.”
Tadra ran the water in the shower rather colder the second time and thought fixedly of fighting technique and battle strategy so that she didn’t wonder about Ansel’s shower while she soaped the sweat from herself.
Chapter 14
Ansel left another message the following morning, this time on Heather’s phone.
“I hope you guys are okay,” he said briefly. “Call when you can.”
He stumbled over Fabio as he went back into the dining room, where Tadra was eating scrambled eggs with her fingers as she diagrammed things on the whiteboard propped up in the chair next to her. “Can you lie anywhere else?” Ansel rebuked Fabio, then patted his head and scratched his ears in remorse when Fabio looked like he’d just been hurt and betrayed.
Tadra had drilled Ansel quite thoroughly on every detail of their previous encounters with dark forces in this world, and she had mapped each of them out, with obscure shorthand and color coordination that represented blocks of time.
Timing important. Strength of bleak varies, she had written in explanation. Anticipate. Be where they will be when they are in weak part of cycle.
Although Ansel had not been directly involved in any of the former conflicts—and Tadra didn’t seem to think worse of him for that—the knights enjoyed retelling their adventures frequently and in great detail, and Ansel was able to recall pretty exactly how the battles had happened.
There were two numerical notes in the upper right-hand corner of the whiteboard. “What’s that?” Ansel asked.
Tadra looked where he was pointing and did a comic impression of fainting and tapped her wrist. Those were the dates and times of her weak spells.
“Do you think those are related?”
She shrugged.
Talking with her would have been much more challenging with someone less expressive. Their vocabulary continued to expand with formal sign, but they made up as many words as they learned, and Tadra was unabashed about acting out her thoughts.
“I thought you might like to get a Christmas tree with me today,” he suggested.
Tadra raised her eyebrows in interest and did a shrug-nod thing that suggested she was not sure what it was, but was intrigued.
“I was hoping that we could all go together when everyone got back,” Ansel continued. “It’s a tradition that you usually pick a tree with your family, but we’re running out of time before Christmas, and they might not have good trees left at the lot if we wait too long. And it doesn’t really feel like the holidays yet without one.” He was struck by how much he wanted to share all the warm winter traditions he remembered from his childhood with her. Was it inappropriate to take a Knight of the Fallen Crown out sledding?
Tadra was looking at him in curious befuddlement.
“Wear something warm,” he cautioned. “Just in case we do have to go tromping through the snow.”
Tadra finished her eggs and wiped her fingers on her napkin, nodding agreeable. Where? she signed, then finger-spelled m-a-l-l?
“No. They have fake trees at the mall, but we’re getting a real one. There’s a tree farm about 45 minutes northeast of here. They’ve got a lot of pre-cut trees to choose from.”
Tadra dressed in her coat and wrapped a scarf loosely around her neck, pulling her hat down over her ears.
Ansel had to stop himself from buttoning her coat and tucking the end of her scarf into it. He had hoped that the longer they were together, the less he would want her, that practice and pretend would eventually make himself believe he was only as fond of her as a friend. Instead, he wanted more than ever to turn her casual touches into something more, to linger when she touched him, to keep her close when she impulsively hugged him.
Her true key was coming, Ansel reminded himself.
And it couldn’t be soon enough.
The tree lot was crowded with last-minute tree shoppers. Apparently, the week before Christmas was prime tree shopping time. Parents chased hyper children through the prickly aisles, pausing to compare fragrance and branch thickness, standing them up from where they leaned on the dividers to eyeball their height.
Tadra made an expression of ecstasy, closing her eyes and waving the scent into her face with appreciation. She rubbed her stomach and grinned. Which? she asked.
They were sorted by type, and they quickly gravitated towards a balsam fir, Tadra following her nose. They examined and rejected a dozen, finding bare spots in the branches, or discolored needles.
It started to snow, as they picked out trees and held them upright for each other, carefully inspecting every one. Tadra found one she liked and hugged it, to her regret, laughing her silent, happy laugh as its needles poked her ungratefully. Ansel would have bought any one that she wanted. He would have bought her five of them, if he thought they’d fit in the living room.
He carried the tree, cursing as it scratched him, to the checkout, where they put it in a net, cinched it down, and wrapped it in paper. Tadra watched with huge eyes as it went from a broad tree to a narrow package.
“Make sure you water it frequently,” the gray-haired tree-seller said by rote, watching children streak past with a gimlet eye. “Don’t leave it outside overnight. You want me to clean up the end?”
Strapping it to the top of the car was a snowy, laughing endeavor that devolved into a short, brutal snowball fight. Tadra was utterly unstoppable, even after Ansel got a well-aimed snowball down the gap at her neck into her coat. She tripped him into a snowbank and showered him in armloads of snow as he pretended to object and managed to get as much snow back at her as she dealt him.
The other tree shoppers laughed at them as the fight turned into a grapple and skirted wide around their antics.
There was snow in Tadra’s eyelashes and it frosted her fiery hair. Her whole face was alight with merriment, cheeks red, and Ansel didn’t realize that he had stopped struggling until she signed a question at him. “Sorry,” he said, realizing that he had taken a hold of her wrist at some point. They rolled away from each other and got to their feet. “Good fight,” he said, trying to wrestle back his wholly inappropriate desire to pull her close and kiss her.
Friends, he reminded himself. They were only friends. He wasn’t her key. He didn’t get to kiss her.
Tadra made a sign he didn’t catch enough of to remember and Ansel didn’t want to ask her to repeat it so he could figure it out. He checked the tie-downs on the tree and they both got into the car again. Tadra had mastered her seatbelt and clicked it into place and put her hands primly in her lap. Ansel turned the heater on high. Then, as he was about to back out of his parking space, she tapped his knee and signed I won! when he looked at her.
“You certainly did not,” he protested. “I was the clear victor here.”
Tadra’s expression was sly disbelief and a dancing grin, to Ansel’s relief. You were down, she insisted.
“You’re the one with half a dozen snowballs inside your coat,” Ansel scoffed in return. “We judge the victor in this game by how soaked you are, and you are clearly wet clear through to your skin. I, on the other hand, am barely damp. See?” He unbuttoned his coat to show her that his shirt was still dry. “Some of us were sensible enough to close up our coats.”
That was when Tadra revealed that she had smuggled in one last snowball. Ansel yelped as she dumped it directly down the front of his jacket.
“Vixen!” he exclaimed. Fraud! he signed at her frantically. “So cold!”
I won, Tadra signed again in satisfaction.
Laughing, Ansel put the car in gear. “You won,” he conceded.
But watching her delight and joy as they forgot, at least for a little while, the grim fight that was pending, Ansel thought that he was the one who had won.
Chapter 15
The tree that Tadra had picked was set upright in a curious little bucket with spread legs and screws that anchored the trunk into place. It took a great deal of work to get it appropriately straight, especially with the dogs underfoot, wanting to smell everything. Vesta growled at it, and when Ansel cut off the netting that kept it cinched up, yelped in fear and ran to hide in the dining room.
It seemed much larger in the living room than it had at the place of trees where they had bought it, its branches stretching in all directions. They had to rearrange the furniture to give it more space.
Tadra still wasn’t sure why they had it inside, as opposed to outside, where plenty of trees already grew, but it certainly made the house smell marvelous, and she could tell that it made Ansel very happy. His serious face softened when it was finally upright, and his shoulders relaxed.
“We’ll decorate it once it’s had a chance to relax a little,” he said. “But it definitely needs presents underneath it.”
The way he said presents was delicious, like he was thinking of something joyful.
Ansel fetched armfuls of the things they had brought from the mall, spreading them out over the dining room table in several trips. Vesta jumped up onto the table and tried to burrow into the crinkly bags. “Don’t eat the presents, Vesta,” Ansel scolded her, picking her up and returning her to the floor. They repeated this several times until Ansel gave in and let her lay on a bag that was full of scarves and mittens.
Fabio followed Ansel in and out of the dining room, right at his heels, in case he suddenly decided to leave and forgot to invite Fabio with him.
Then Ansel came in a final time with a half dozen brightly colored staffs that proved to be rolls of flimsy paper in bold patterns, plus a pair of scissors, a small device that Tadra didn’t recognize, and a bag full of silvery ribbons and bows.
He cleared a space and unrolled the paper.
What are you doing? Tadra wanted to know.
“We want the presents to be a surprise,” Ansel explained. “That’s part of the fun of them, seeing your presents lying around but not knowing what they are.”
He laid the box that held Gwen’s gaming console into the center of the unrolled paper and made skillful cuts, like a tailor making a perfect square of cloth. He folded up the edges of paper, creasing the corners until the box was completely covered. The design on the paper was a bright red and white stripe, interspersed with clusters of spiky green leaves.
“Can you tear me off a piece of tape?” Ansel asked.
Tadra eliminated everything else on the table as tape and picked up the curious little thing she hadn’t been able to identify.
“Yup,” Ansel confirmed, holding the paper neatly in place. “That’s tape. You see the roll in the middle? It’s sticky on one side. You pull it past that cutting edge—careful, it’s sharp!”
Tadra tested the serrated blade with her thumb. She could see that it might cut, with effort, but it felt too flimsy to be a proper tool. The tiny roll in the middle had some kind of flexible, clear material, and indeed, it was sticky on the bottom, but when she took her finger off of it, there was no residue on her skin.
“Just pull a little off the roll and then bring it down over the blade to cut it,” Ansel explained.
It took Tadra a few tries, and one tangled sticky mess, to figure out the process of tearing off strips of tape to secure his packaging. A few applicat
ions, and the paper was neatly wrapped around the box, crisp and uniform. Ansel took a glittering bow from the bag, peeled a slip of paper from it, and stuck it firmly onto the box, completing the presentation. “We’d better get gift tags on these,” he cautioned. “Otherwise, we’ll forget who gets what.”
Gift tags turned out to be tiny cards with a place to name the recipient and gifter, and these, too, were applied by tape.
Good, Tadra said. It was so quaint and lovely, a warm, generous custom that spoke highly of this world.
Partway through the next box, Ansel got up and turned on a music machine that didn’t require winding, complete with singing voices. “You can’t wrap presents without Christmas music,” he said. The music seemed to vary greatly, from cheerful and nonsensical, to grim and full of grief. Ansel explained the lyrics, where he could. Tadra was particularly interested in the ones about Santa Claus, a generous, jolly man with the ability to stretch time and do impossible things.
He sounded like a useful ally.
They worked through the bags of gifts together. The easiest ones to wrap were in boxes, the hardest were the irregular and soft shapes. Robin’s dollhouse required nearly a roll of the paper, and a seam in the middle that they covered with shining ribbon.
Ansel made a show out of making Tadra hide her eyes while he wrapped something for her. She wasn’t sure when or how he’d managed to get her a gift, but the idea of it delighted her.
“No squeezing the presents,” Ansel warned. “That’s cheating.”
It taunted her, a small, squishy-looking package at the top of the stack.
What about you? Tadra asked when all the gifts were wrapped. She tapped one of the boxes covered in candy canes.
Ansel shrugged. “Honestly, I get more happiness out of giving the gifts than getting them.”