by Ana Mardoll
A low, keening moan erupts from his lips—like a scream, but without the air to carry it. With a final burst of magical electricity, dark hair sprouts along his body: a thick thatch of tight curls on his head, a dusting of shadow along his jaw, a trace of soft downy hair that trails down his stomach. His eyes close with relief, the magic and mist evaporating quickly from the air.
Celia straightens, taking a step back. Her face is still a picture of calm but she looks weary and drained. "That was a rough one," she says mildly. "You okay?"
He nods, panting softly for breath. I swallow hard, pushing down my own panic with effort, my thumb stroking gentle patterns over his hand in an attempt to reassure us both. My eyes flit over him, examining his new disguise. When I unfocus my eyes at him, I see what normal humans will see: warm brown skin and short dark hair. But when my eyes are relaxed, I can still see his lovely silver, the bright metal that will always cause him to stand out to altered eyes.
Lavender peers closely at him, brushing her fingers lightly over his toes. "If you don't cross your eyes, he looks the same as before," she observes, her eyes alight with curious interest.
"I already said that," Joel rasps, standing to offer Celia his place in the easy chair, forgetting that Lavender wasn't in the room for his earlier explanation. "He has merely shrouded himself in an illusion of mundanity." He tilts his head then, giving me a private smile. "Well," he corrects, "he doesn't look mundane, obviously. But he looks unaltered to the humans and that will have to suffice, even if he still turns heads."
"It's a good veil," Celia murmurs, out of breath as she settles into the chair. "We need to get you some clothes, kid. I keep a stash of secondhand stuff, and we should be able to find something that fits. And then we're gonna take you down to talk to Athena."
I'm lost in thought, sitting closer to him than I should and still holding his hand. This talk of clothes reminds me that Clarent is in a state of undress, but it is her next words which send a jolt through my spine. "Wait, what? You're taking him to see Athena today? Now?"
Celia digs in her pocket and tosses me the gate key. "Yep. Go on and head out, Rose. If you get there first, you can get her in a good mood for us."
Chapter 9
There are a dozen reasons not to leave Lavender or Clarent alone right now and at least one good reason not to leave them alone together, none of which I want to admit to myself, let alone to Celia. I tell myself I'm being irrational and needy, and it's not like I can avoid my job forever. But the truth doesn't make me feel any better as I pull out of Celia's neighborhood alone, and I take a small measure of petty revenge in leaving her gate propped open for someone else to close later.
I've got just enough time to stop at the bakery for donut holes and sausage rolls, piling the bags carefully into my passenger seat so as not to crush them. Once I have a warm meal ready to offer Athena, I feel somewhat better. She's always so much easier to deal with when she arrives at the bookstore to find food waiting, and now I won't be forced to skip breakfast. My heart sinks, however, when I pull into the parking lot only to find her car already there, despite the fact that I'm still early for my morning shift.
I'd hoped to arrive first so that I could go through the tedious opening chores by myself, saving her the trouble. Athena doesn't actually want to sell books and would happily consign all opening tasks to a metaphorical bin, but occasionally she soldiers through the motions so that she can complain afterwards. If she's spent the morning counting register tills, she'll be in the deepest of funks. I hop out of the car praying that she's forgotten, or at least decided to leave the work for me again. If she hasn't, not even my breakfast offering of salt and sugar will be enough to put her in a cheery disposition.
I push open the glass door gently, wincing at the jangling shop bell that announces my presence. "Athena?" The store is dark; she hasn't opened the shutters or turned on the overhead lights yet, which is a good sign. Maybe she only got here a few minutes before me and hasn't had a chance yet to work up a mood. "Athena? I brought donuts and sausages. Where are you?"
There's no response, but I'm used to her extended silences. I lay the bakery bags on the counter, and set about tidying up the front while I wait. I leave the "closed" sign in place on the front door, but I don't lock the door behind me; Celia should be here soon with Clarent and Lavender, and I don't want them to have to knock and wait.
I pull open the front shutters, letting bright morning light stream in. Athena hates the sun, hates the way it burns the colors from the book spines, but Celia has told us that the bookstore must at least try to turn a profit. Customers won't enter a store that looks and feels like a cave on the inside, so that means natural light. Athena likes to go around behind me and close the blinds anyway. Celia—who actually owns the store—hired me to run interference on that kind of behavior. Yet even after the windows are open and the hated sunlight streams in, Athena fails to materialize to scold me. I frown; sullen silence at my arrival is one thing, but not to storm up and demand her share of the food is another.
I head towards the back of the store, wincing when I see the unholy mess that has been made and the books that litter the aisles. Whole shelves have had their contents stacked in precarious piles on the floor, several of them teetering dangerously as I walk past. I didn't work last night, but it couldn't have been this bad when the store closed. Jing works the evening shift after her classes, and she wouldn't have left things in this state. And if burglars or vandals had broken in, they wouldn't have bothered stacking the books. The chaos must have been caused by Athena, after Jing closed up and left for the night.
The extent of the mess indicates that Athena has probably been here all night. That's not good for her. In the otherworld, she was installed as a librarian in an imitation Grecian temple by a faery with a penchant for book collection, trophy displays, and living decoration; the stone columns of the massive building were crafted from transformed human women. "Living caryatids," Athena had called them. She herself had not been carved into stone, but soon envied the women who were; as librarian of the temple, she was forged into a sleepless living reference source for her faery and its guests.
While she was over there, Athena's mind was altered so that she perfectly remembered everything she read, and her body was warped to endure years of grueling wakefulness. When she passed through her portal to earthside, most of her talent was stripped from her. Her perfect memory is gone, and now she works her way from one side of the store to the other, over and over again, recommitting to memory the passages she's lost. She's supposed to remember to get regular sleep, but there are nights when she forgets and spirals into a captivity flashback. Staying up all night surrounded by books won't have been good for her mental state.
I locate Athena in the mythology section, which is the category she loves above all others and by far the largest of our selection. She's slumped into a corner and snoring softly in the dusty silence, her head tilted back against two bookcases where they meet at an angle. In her pastel purple blouse and knitted gray cardigan, she could be a doting silver-haired grandmother.
"Athena?" I call her name softly from a distance, not wanting to get close enough for her to touch in case she's having a nightmare. "Athena, did you sleep here? I brought breakfast."
One bright gray eye flies open when I say breakfast. "Rose, what are you doing here? Are you still Rose? You keep saying you're going to change your name and you never do. I was just resting my eyes. I want to reorganize the sections today; you have to help me." This last is said with urgent enthusiasm, the kind of tone that demands reciprocation.
"I can see that," I say, keeping my voice as mild and non-judgmental as I can. "I really wish you'd organize the sections one at a time, though. We could chart it out on paper first and it'd be less messy." I shrug, trying not to look combative. "I brought donuts for me and sausages for you. They're at the front; do you want to come eat first?"
Then I hesitate, torn between sharing the news and keepin
g it secret so that Athena won't be able to protest. Celia will be here soon enough, so I decide I might as well prepare her now. "Celia is bringing in a new altered," I add, keeping my voice calm and even, "so you'll want to eat before they get here."
"What? No!" Both eyes snap open at this unwelcome news, and she struggles to rise. I step forward without thinking, my arms outreached to help her, but she swats me away with the flat of her hands. Despite looking so old and frail on the hard floor, her gray hair scraggly from sleep and the deep wrinkles around her eyes creasing as she squints against the light, she's anything but helpless. "No! Rose, you're just going to have to tell Celia I'm too busy. They can come back tomorrow."
"Athena, you know it'll take more time to get rid of Celia than it would to deal with him in the first place," I coax, trying to sound reasonable. "And I brought donuts today. I'm off tomorrow, and then you'd have to face Celia on an empty stomach." This isn't strictly true, as we don't have anything as structured as actual schedules at the Athenaeum, but if I say there won't be any donuts tomorrow then there won't be—and we both know it.
Now that she's awake and standing, Athena eyes me with suspicious interest. Her burning curiosity rivals Celia's intimidating hyper-focus, and I don't like being subjected to either. I shift anxiously on my feet, wondering what I've done to earn her scrutiny, and whether it would be easier to just fess up to something now or endure her prodding at me until she finds whatever she's looking for.
"You said 'he'," she says, accusation in her tone.
I consider this. "Actually, I said 'him'."
"Celia isn't a 'he' or a 'him'."
"She is not." I try to keep my agreement as neutral as possible.
"The newly-escaped altered is a 'him'."
"You have deduced correctly. Can I treat you to a donut?" I dangle the word in front of her like a tattered and over-used cat toy.
"You don't usually fight so hard for Celia's strays."
"Athena," I say, in a reasonable voice, disliking the direction this is taking, "we haven't recovered any fresh escapees since Lavender and I came over, remember? This is my first rescue. The other altereds I've helped you with came out before me. So I'm still feeling my way with this rescue and rehabilitation stuff."
Her eyes sparkle as she pounces for the kill. "Did you feel your way through anything else?"
"I will eat all the donuts, I am completely serious," I warn sternly.
"Oh, okay, okay," she grumbles, looking petulantly at me for hauling out the serious threats. She's capitulated, but I don't know whether she's done so because I've won or if she's curious and wants to poke at me some more. Knowing Athena, it could easily be both.
We make our way to the front of the store, picking a careful path through the detritus of books scattered during last night's frenzy. I'd like the luxury of tuning her out, but she's got her claws in a mystery now and she isn't going to let go. "You're always afraid of the boys, Rose," she muses. "Either this one is special enough to overwhelm your better judgment, or you think he's immune for some reason. Don't tell me Celia is bringing me another undead one; I'm sick to the teeth of them! It's not a corpse, is it?" She works a foot-stamping motion into her stride. "I won't see him if it's a corpse. I will go home right this instant."
"It's not a corpse, Athena." I'm distracted as I step over a particularly large pile of paperbacks, placing my feet just so and trusting to my dance training not to misjudge and sprain an ankle. "I mean, he's not a corpse," I amend.
"But he is undead," she announces triumphantly, pouncing on my lack of a broader denial.
I sigh, torn with indecision. If I withhold clues from Athena, she'll be more interested in the mystery Clarent presents when he arrives. On the other hand, the more she knows about him in advance the faster she can process him. Speed is essential; it gives her less time to nurture a good sulk to drop mid-visit as a prelude to storming off. I decide to aim down the middle. "He's not undead."
"Is he immune?" she demands.
I consider asking, "Immune to what?" but she'll be annoyed if I pretend ignorance. "Maybe," I confess. "The healer, Joel, isn't sure. He kissed me and didn't die. Hasn't shown any ill effects yet." I hesitate and then decide to offer a lure, hoping she'll bite. "He's metal."
Athena considers this. We've reached the front of the store and her deft fingers hover over the sausage rolls, seeking the one she deems plumpest. When she settles on her choice—identical to the others, as far as I can tell—her fingers dive in like a hawk to grab it, and she bites half the sausage off in one go before chewing with delicate daintiness. "He's not bronze, is he?" she asks archly. "I won't see him if he is; I have an allergy to bronze."
I give her a sharp look, fairly certain this is untrue. I'm saved from argument by the welcome sight of Celia and Clarent pulling up in her car. Less welcome, I notice with a sudden frown, is the realization that they seem to be alone; I'd expected Lavender to come with them. Maybe she decided to find her lost car first and then follow them out here, in which case she might be quite some time. My heart sinks.
"He's not bronze, and they're here," I say, my tone a little sharper than I'd intended. "Please be nice; Celia will blame me if you're not."
This doesn't evoke her pity. "Don't you want me to run the boys off, like Jing does?" She squints into the dawn light, peering at Clarent through grimy windows. "Ooh, he's a pretty one, Rose. I don't like the look of all that silver, though. Bleh! Ridiculously ostentatious of him. You can't have him!"
She pauses for a moment, considering as she watches them approach. "Not unless you get another for working-days," she decides, amending her previous edict. "He's too costly to wear every day! But I suppose that girlfriend of yours was the one born in a merry hour. You're too depressed to be Beatrice, Rose. You're just pretty enough to be Hero, but her part is so very dull." I make an irritated face at her nonsense, but she chews on her sausage roll in a cheery fashion and ignores my glare.
I look back at Celia and Clarent as she leads him up the walk. It's slow going; his wide eyes take in every detail of the parking lot and shop front. The strip mall we're located in is bland and boring, with most of the properties either empty or rented out as offices. But I remember that feeling of vulnerable wonder marked by the nervous half-smile around the corner of his mouth. I want to wrap my arms around him, promise I'll show him around town, and reassure him that he'll manage just fine.
We all look like that, those of us who have been altered and had our memories stripped away, yet somehow the expression seems more poignant on him. I realize with a sudden start that I wish Lavender were here to see his first day out, to witness those vulnerable eyes with me. I had thought I didn't want her with him; a pang of loneliness accompanies my mental image of the two of them together, yet disappears when I imagine myself with them both.
I shake away the tangle of my thoughts and glance back to Athena. Her bright gray eyes study his approach with an intense curiosity which her affected grumpiness can't entirely hide. "You really don't like the silver?" I ask skeptically.
She frowns at the question, glaring at Clarent as Celia opens the shop door and leads him in. "No, no, it's not silver," she announces. "That's very slippery of you, Rose. It's some kind of melting alloy. I wouldn't know what to call it at a glance; it's entirely unfair of you to expect me to. Did you give a sample to Worth? Nee would know better than I. Better than Joel! Does he give samples? Where are you from, boy?" This last querulous question is directed to him.
Clarent gives me a helpless look, his gray eyes soft. "I-I don't remember," he stammers quietly, abashed by Athena's gruff personality. "Ma'am," he adds in an attempt at placation.
"No!" she rejoins sternly, "over there! In the otherworld. What did your faery call it?" She frowns, but her ire isn't directed wholly at him: her hands are digging through the sausage rolls again.
Quietly, I step forward and take the bag of donut holes from the counter. I pop one in my mouth as a silent demonstration, relis
hing the crystallized sugar glaze as it dissolves in my mouth, and then offer the bag to Clarent. "You said 'Avalon' earlier?" I prompt gently, nodding reassuringly as he takes a number of the pastries in his large hands.
He nods at this, his expression changing to wistful half-remembrance when the sugar hits his tongue. "Yes, Avalon is where I was."
"Avalon!" Athena's exclamation is dismissive, almost angry. "No. No, I've no time for Avalon, Celia, that's utter nonsense. Some faery's idea of a joke." She turns sharp eyes on Celia, patiently leaning against the door, watching us with quiet detachment. "Bring me someone from Atlantis or Shangri-La for once; that would at least be interesting," Athena demands. "Where are the escapees from pleasure-domes and ice-caves, hmm? Even Rose's little Thistle garden was amusing, but not Avalon! What did they use you for, boy? Why on earth are you metal?"
Clarent blinks in surprise, realizing that questions are being peppered at him even though Athena is still glaring at Celia. "I... I was a sword-smith sometimes," he says carefully. "I was supposed to use my blood to repair the swords and forge new ones." He looks down at his smooth arms, rubbing a hand over skin that bears not a single scar.
I feel a pang of sympathy for him, as well as a rush of fresh guilt; I can't imagine being bled regularly as a source of raw materials, and now Joel and I have bled him while he slept, without his consent. I have to apologize to him later, I vow silently.
"And mostly I was a sword," he adds in a soft whisper, not meeting our eyes.
Celia's head jerks to stare at him, drawing her gaze away from Athena. Her stern eyes soften, and she steps forward to place a steadying hand on his shoulder. The gesture surprises me; she's not usually very touchy.