Silverblind (Ironskin)

by Tina Connolly

  “It’s not that I don’t believe in your cause—goodness knows I do.” Moira’s hand dropped to her belly. “Have you ever been depressed?”

  “I … I don’t really know,” said Dorie.

  “The metaphor I like is a wet wool blanket,” said Moira. She turned to the window. “Every day you wake up under this wretched thing. You can’t see in front of you. You can’t see the sun. And every day—in my case, at least—you have to tell yourself that the blanket is imaginary. That someone else put it there. That it doesn’t belong to you; it’s not your job to carry it.” Her fingers touched the pane of glass. “And then one day you wake up, and it’s no longer weighing you down.” She turned. “I can still feel the aftereffects of twenty years with it,” she said. “But you just don’t know, unless you’ve been there.…” She sat down next to Dorie and gently squeezed her forearm, just above the bandage. “I will help you as I can,” Moira said. “But I have to keep the safety of the women here in mind. It’s my life’s work, you see. It was the only thing that kept me going, day after day under that blanket.”

  Dorie pressed Moira’s hand in response and said, “I do understand.” Then she pulled her hand away, uncertain how one was supposed to handle extended human contact. “Can I leave the eggs here for one day? I have one more day in the field, and I’m afraid my apartment has been compromised.”

  “You know this location has been compromised,” said Moira. “Another reason not to bring the ironskin here.” But she relented. “We have a safe room that hasn’t been found yet. One day.”

  “Thank you,” said Dorie, and she turned for the door.

  “You look somehow … more boyish than you did before,” Moira mused. “Different clothes?”

  Dorie swallowed. “That must be it.”

  * * *

  Dorie made it to work on time, which felt ironic, given that her attendance record was really the last thing she cared about right now. She had remembered on the walk over that she’d only managed to tell Dr. Pearce about the basilisk and not Tam, so she went straight to his office to try to tell him. But Dr. Pearce’s secretary stopped her and told her she was expected outside with Tam and Annika for field work, which meant Tam already knew, which meant he had yet another reason to consider her a rotten, secretive liar.

  She was running on three hours’ sleep and her head was pounding from the ale at The Supper Club the night before. The tattoo on her left hand stung, and her right index finger had moved on to itching. Wearily she piled into the staff auto with Tam, who looked tired and impassive, and Annika, who looked fresh and wholesome and ready to run a marathon. Dorie gave Tam directions to where she had seen the basilisk, and he nodded, and did not say anything else to her.

  Annika was giddier than Dorie had ever seen her. She chattered happily to Tam about a coffee date they had apparently had on Sunday night while Dorie was off fighting goons at Silver Birch Hall. Dorie tried to stick the cloth of Jack’s shirt in her ear, but it wasn’t very effective. Eventually she curled up in the backseat and passed out.

  She awoke to find them driving on the last of the switchbacks that led up the mountain. Tam’s knuckles were white with concentration as he maneuvered and tried to avoid wearing out the brakes. At last he stopped and said, “I can’t take it any higher, if we want to be sure of getting out again.”

  “I can find my way from here,” Dorie said as they got out of the automobile. Except she didn’t have her fey tracking to fall back on. Still, she had spent seven years practicing her forestry skills with no fey senses. She wasn’t flying completely blind.

  “Do you think Dr. Pearce really believes we’ll find a basilisk?” said Annika.

  “He’s hoping against hope,” Tam said grimly. “If even half of my collected stories are true…”

  “Of course, Dorian may have been misled,” said Annika. “Sometimes the threat of pain makes people say funny things.” She raised her eyebrows at Dorian. “Or perhaps you saw an overgrown wyvern?”

  Dorie ignored this needling. “She had three eggs, each as tall as my waist,” she said. “The first is due to hatch today. If we make it in time, Pearcey will have all the proof he wants.”

  The other two looked wonderingly at her. “Better step up the pace, then,” said Tam.

  They walked hard for a long time into the forest, Dorie leading the way and Woglet darting forward and back. With the heat wave gone it was finally cool again, doubly cool for being in the mountains on a morning. But they were walking up tempo, uphill, bushwhacking a trail, and before long they all had their jackets off.

  Though Dorie did know where they were going, there were a lot more fits and starts than usual. A lot more pauses and considerings. She was aware that her keen edge was gone, and Annika was getting scornful. Tam was looking at her when he thought she didn’t notice, and considering.

  “You’re sure this is the way?” Annika said pointedly after a dead-end that took them to a ridgey dropoff.

  Dorie did not answer. She patiently backtracked and pressed on, and then suddenly said, “Look.”

  A large blue bird with iridescent feathers flew overhead. As they watched, the bird shifted, chameleon-like, blue to green as it flew against the trees. Then it vanished.

  “I have never seen a bird like that,” said Annika. “How could a bird that big be uncategorized?”

  “How could you not find a basilisk, when they’re supposedly as big as a trolley car?” said Dorie. She looked down at Tam, who was scribbling rapidly in his notebook. For a moment their eyes met. “Things get weird the closer we get to this place. Come on.”

  It was another hour straight up and another hour around the curves. Dorie felt lost in a dream. Her fey senses were gone, but something else was drawing her on like a lodestar. It was as if she were being called home. She was not surprised when she started seeing wisps of blue out of the corners of her eyes. It was another half-hour before Annika spotted them, and who could tell about Tam? He was keeping his cards close.

  Annika came to a dead halt the first time she saw one, spreading her arms out to defend the other two. “They’re everywhere,” Annika said, realizing. “This is where the basilisk albumen would be helpful.”

  “I thought your precious eye things would defend against the fey,” Dorie said scornfully.

  “Defend. But not attack,” said Annika. “The wyvern albumen keeps you protected from the fey. But supposedly the basilisk albumen would allow you to control the fey. The stories all say—”

  “The fey won’t hurt us if we don’t hurt them,” said Dorie. She was tired of pretending to be human. “Buck up and come on.”

  The blue fey were inquisitive today. They drifted closer, watching the small party move closer to the center. It was comforting for Dorie to be around that part of her that had been cut off, but she could see Tam growing cautious and Annika growing angry. Annika kept her silver palm in front of her like a shield. Dorie stuffed hers in her pocket.

  At length they reached the burned-out hole. Dorie wondered if she could touch it now that she had the wyvern goo embedded in her palm, but she didn’t exactly feel like trying. “Careful,” she cautioned Annika as the other woman moved closer. Annika poked a stick through, and then gently touched the ring with a finger. Nothing happened.

  “Whatever did this, it’s gone,” Annika said.

  Dorie was dubious. With her right hand, the one that had been so painfully disintegrated, she touched her pinky finger gently where the barrier would be.

  The barrier was still there for her.

  But it did not hurt.

  She pushed gently, and felt the barrier mold around her. She could see through it. She stepped through, expecting at least the dizzying vertigo, but no, that was manageable now. The center of the ring was still, and the outside … She turned back and saw Tam split into a number of different Tams, all poking around the edges of the ring. There were multiple Annikas, too, though not as many. And there—the many Dories.

  She w
as a hundred Dories, she was a thousand. She was here with Tam and here with Jack and here with Jane; she was in the city, she was in the country, she was dead, she was alive, she was in jail and in asylums and on thrones. She saw those Dories she had seen since her visit here the first time: satisfied Dorie with the yellow curls, Dorie with straight brown hair and Tam at her side.

  She stepped out the other side, letting the visions fall away. Tam and Annika were looking at her funny. “Did that hurt?” said Annika.

  “No,” said Dorie truthfully.

  Annika followed Dorie’s example and stepped into the circle. Nothing seemed to happen. “You looked kind of … blurry when you were in here,” she said. “Wouldn’t you say so, Thomas?”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  “Do I look blurry?” said Annika. “I feel nothing abnormal.” Tam shook his head. Annika looked at Dorie. “What did you feel when you were here the other day?”

  Dorie sidestepped this. “How long did you say the basilisk cycle was?”

  “Ninety-seven years,” said Tam.

  “I don’t think they have a larval form, or anything like that. I think they came … through here.”

  “Through here?” said Annika. “From where, the ground?”

  Dorie shook her head, reluctant to say what she was thinking. It sounded too crazy. But how else to explain the multiple Dories she’d seen ever since she lost a bit of her substance to the circle?

  Tam looked at her with his mouth slightly open. “You think they came through from somewhere else,” he said.

  Dorie nodded curtly. Whatever this was, she didn’t want to explore it with Annika around. Besides, if that basilisk egg was going to hatch, she wanted to see it, potent goo or no. “Basilisk trail,” she said shortly. “This way.”

  The other two followed her through the circle and to the trail. Great bare patches in the forest, where a tail might have dragged back and forth. Reptilian spoor, mostly buried under a bush. You did not need to be half-fey to follow this track. Tam had his notebook out, and he was taking notes, kneeling to measure the footprints and take samples. He flipped back and forth between the page with his dates, calculating and wondering. “There’s always a reason to have a long cycle,” he said. “To evade predators, or to find food.… How long do you think the circle’s been here, Dorian?” He peered through his spectacles at her, past her.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I only found it Saturday.” He refocused on her then, remembering Saturday.

  “Ah. Right.”

  “The wyvern egg-laying cycle is about a month,” said Annika. “Do you think it could have been here that long?” Long enough for a cautious basilisk mother to come through, and lay her eggs, and wait.…

  The three moved quietly, cautiously, now that they were close. At last Dorie whispered, “Stop,” and flung out her arms and made them crouch down. Just in front of the cave was one of the giant eggs. A fresh track behind it showed it had been recently nudged those few feet out from the cave, into the clearing.

  And the egg was rocking.

  And of course that was not all. If there was an egg, there must be the …

  Their mouths fell open as the largest creature they had ever seen touched down in the clearing, wings kicking back dust. It was the same general shape as a wyvern, only much, much bigger. If Woglet was a bright silver, then the basilisk was a mixture of all metals: iron and copper and silver, all mixed together and glinting in the sun. She was a magnificent creature—clearly the victor of numerous battles, for there were places where the hard scales were broken, and there was a ridge of scar tissue under one wing. The mirrored shades around her eyes were so large Dorie thought she might fall under her spell even with no attempt on the basilisk’s part to hypnotize. In her mouth she carried a deer, which she set down before the egg, casually snapping one leg when it tried to flee.

  Dorie swallowed. They were going to try to get the goo away from that?

  Back in the cave she saw the outlines of the other two eggs—a clutch of three, similar to the wyvern. As she looked closer, she noticed more details today. The eggs were fully buried inside a nest of branches and leaves and what looked like several sheepskins, possibly with sheep parts still attached. Unlike the wyvern pairs, this basilisk, at least, was on her own. At least at the moment, Dorie reminded herself, looking suddenly around. The staggered hatching gave each woglet a chance to have the parent’s full attention for the fascinating attempt before moving on to the next. What did you call a baby basilisk, anyway? A boglet?

  The egg was rocking and Dorie turned her attention back to it. The now-familiar sound of the eggtooth chipping away—only much, much louder—filled the air. A few more pecks, and there was the triangular head poking through.

  It was much like the woglet hatchings after all. They watched as the newly hatched basilisk hypnotized the deer, then tore into its belly. It wobbled happily over to its parent, who ushered it to the cliff’s edge for a first flight. No time like the present, apparently.

  Dorie came back to earth to find the other two quietly arguing.

  “We’ll pack it away in the copper,” said Annika. She unpacked a small copper spoon and a series of vials from her pack. The spoon seemed laughably small next to the egg. “If we hurry, perhaps we’ll still be able to test it when we get to the lab.”

  “That’s five hours from here,” said Tam, working with his own spoon. “The most the copper has extended the five-minute shelf life is an hour. There won’t be anything left in five hours.”

  “It’s a basilisk,” pointed out Dorie. “The albumen may have different properties—we know it’s probably stronger.”

  They ignored this. “Someone had to be the first to try the wyvern albumen,” said Tam, “and someone is going to have to be the first to try this.”

  “Thomas, it’s a story,” said Annika. “The basilisk albumen in the eye is just a story.”

  Dorie sucked air between her teeth. He couldn’t really be suggesting that he put that stuff in his eye, could he?

  Tam looked up at Annika, his face inscrutable behind his glasses. “I thought you believed in my stories,” he said.

  Annika looked at him for a moment. Then, without turning her head, she said, “Dorian? Let’s cut to the chase. You’re clearly the best trapper of the three of us. Bring me a rabbit—and do not argue. Just do it.”

  “But—” said Dorie. Annika just looked at her. Dorie sighed and went just out of sight so she could turn half-blue, and then remembered she couldn’t and kicked a tree stump, wondering just how she was supposed to catch a rabbit as a human. Behind her, the other two hurriedly scraped the goo into copper, looking around every other second for returning basilisks.

  “You are too valuable to the Crown,” Annika said quietly but firmly to Tam. “I was hired to make sure you did not get into trouble. I will test the basilisk albumen.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” said Tam.

  “I believe in your research,” she said simply.

  “They’re stories,” he cried out, suddenly finding himself on the other side of the argument. “They point the way. We can’t always take them literally. What if it burns your eyes; what if you go blind?”

  “Thus the rabbit,” said Annika. “I will watch it for five minutes. Then I will take the test. I have eyewash with me if I think I need it.”

  Dorie wasn’t that much of a trapper without her fey senses. Anyway, there wasn’t always a rabbit around when you needed one. She set Woglet down on the ground and said, “Find me something.” She didn’t have much hope that he actually understood her, but he was still growing like crazy and used every opportunity to hunt, so she hoped that it would work out regardless. She watched him watch the ground, and when his eyelids flicked out to fascinate something, Dorie swooped down and grabbed it. “Sorry,” she told Woglet. “Find another for yourself, okay?” She took the wriggling field mouse back to Annika and Tam, who had just finished cleaning out the egg. “Let’s get out
of here though, can we?”

  They hiked back down to a safe distance—downwind, just in case the basilisks were smellers, though Dorie didn’t think they were—and set up camp in a cave too small for a basilisk. Woglet swooped in after them, curious about what they were doing with his mouse.

  “Not as reliable as the rabbit,” said Annika, “but it will do.” With her usual cold-as-ice expression she dipped her gloved finger into the egg and patiently waited for the right second to coat the mouse’s eyes with albumen. Dorie shuddered.

  The mouse squealed, then went limp. Well, that’s done it, thought Dorie. But then the mouse started moving again. Annika set it down on the floor and it scampered around their feet and out the cave door, handily avoiding obstacles and seemingly none the worse for the experiment.

  “Annika,” Tam tried again. “That’s hardly a valid field test.”

  Annika smiled softly at him. “You can’t stop me, Thomas. If you try it, I will try it, too. It might as well be only one of us.” Her face was an implacable mask as she touched her finger to the egg and put one drop in the corner of her eye. She sucked in a painful breath, but Dorie never saw regret write itself across her face. Annika held her breath, eyes closed, counting out the length it had taken the mouse to calm down, while Tam readied the eyewash, seemingly prepared to force it on her in another second.

  Annika opened her eyes. The left one was still pale blue against white. The right one was solid silver.

  Dorie forced down a yelp, as well as the useless question burning on her lips: Can you see?

  Annika turned her disturbing gaze to Dorie, and Dorie was unable to look away. Was that due to its strangeness? Surely she could pull away if she wanted to. But she didn’t.

  “I can see,” Annika said slowly. “I see … faint blue shimmers. Some far, some near.” She blinked at Dorie, her gaze remaining there for a moment. Then slowly she looked away. “I get a sense that there are fey across the ravine, in that direction.”

  There were fey over there. Dorie could sense them, even without her other fey powers. She shivered. What new advantages was this going to bring to the city?