She cocked her head. “What do you think?”
“How would I possibly judge?” It seemed like an honest question.
It was her turn to say, “Hmm.” Then she added, “You should meet my family sometime. If I’m not around for some reason, get Marley to introduce you.”
He studied her. “Of course.”
She flashed him another smile, then backed away. “That’s all! Go about your business!” Then she turned and ran back to her car. Once she was safely inside, she turned back to look. He stood at the door, looking after her in faint puzzlement. He turned to go back inside, then paused and stooped down. As he picked up the mangled remains of the bracelet Branwyn had destroyed, she smiled to herself and drove off.
Next, she went to see Penny.
“See what I’ve got?” Branwyn waved the Machine fragment in front of Penny’s closed eyes. “It’s a strange little thing. It feels like it wants to be used. I’ve never felt anything like it before. And in the Geometry… it’s weird. It’s like something real in front of a TV showing the rest of the world.” She fell silent abruptly, then said, “TVs… I bet you would have handled this better than I did, Penny. You’ve always been able to talk anybody into anything when you put your mind to it.” She paused again, in case Penny wanted to argue that claim. She so often did.
But there was no argument, no movement except that of breathing. No Penny, Branwyn feared.
She stood up. She’d meant to make a long visit this time, just as she always did. And she couldn’t. What was the point of sitting with somebody who didn’t know she was there? It would only be for Branwyn’s own comfort, and she’d much rather be doing something. She’d much rather be working directly toward Penny’s restoration. Action Girl, that’s what they always called her when they were growing up, Branwyn and Penny and Marley. Always the one wanting to move, wanting to do. Every time she came by, she did so hoping it would be just in time to see Penny’s eyes finally open. But instead there was the monitor, watching her slowly die. Her eyes weren't going to ever open again unless somebody did something.
“See, this little toy might literally be the key to bringing you back to us. I want you back. I’m not the only one, but nobody else has any idea what to do.” She tossed the Machine fragment into the air and caught it. “The thing is, it’s going to unlock more than Tarn’s ability to save you. And I’m not sure I like those other things. They've got good points, but then again, they've got bad points.” She kissed Penny’s cool forehead. “But don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.”
Then she fled the silence, back into the busy life of the greater Los Angeles area.
She went to her studio, her real-world studio, where once upon a time, she’d bent and hammered metal that somebody had dug out of the earth. It seemed like a long time ago. Tarn hadn’t lured her in with promises to heal Penny, she remembered. She’d been looking for anything she could find, with only the vague hope that it might be useful for Penny, and he’d promised that learning to work the substance of the Backworld would pay off in the real world.
Sitting down at her workbench, she picked up a half-finished piece of filigree work and turned it over in her hands. It was a bracelet, the sort of thing that she could easily sell for a good price to pay for some of her stranger projects, like the baroque wrought-iron box fans. She looked at it for a few minutes until she remembered what she’d been aiming for, then started working on it.
Time passed, as it did. She focused. When she was a child, she’d embraced art as a way of making a private world for herself within the noise and distractions of a large household. Even for less inspired works, when she threw herself into a project, she lost time. It didn't take faerie assistance. She worked until she was done or until pain—whether hunger, bladder, or joint—made her stop.
This time, she finished the piece before pain set in. Out of habit, she glanced at the clock, noting how much time had passed, then studied the bracelet. Working with the wire for filigree usually involved mistakes here and there that needed correcting; she’d made fewer of those than she would have expected after her time away from the project. But if that was the magic Tarn had promised, she was disappointed. It was nothing more than the nimbleness of a few more years of practice. She might even have just gotten lucky.
She pursed her lips and activated the Geometry sight, hoping for something more.
This time she wasn’t disappointed. The lines of the Geometry were noticeably thicker around the half of the bracelet she’d worked on that night. Rather than just intersecting, several of the crossings knotted together. It was interesting. She had no idea what it meant, but it was new and different. Her trust in Tarn, what little she had, was restored.
Suddenly she was very eager to get back to her other studio, in Tarn’s realm. The more she practiced there, the more she’d understand those knots. But returning to Tarn meant she had to decide what to do about the Machine fragment. He was probably standing by his locked door, waiting impatiently. He was probably even annoyed.
She indulged herself in the image of Tarn striding up and down angrily, then sighed. It wasn’t a hard decision when she came down to it. All she could do was make decisions for herself. If other people didn’t like what she was doing, they could get involved. They could come up with better options, instead of sitting on their hands and hoping for things to change on their own. Or, she considered, hoping that things wouldn’t change at all. Both hopes were futile.
After getting a bite to eat, she went back to her family home. It was late, and the house was mostly dark. She expected Howl was lying in wait for her anyhow, possibly with Rhianna.
Oh well. It was Tarn’s brilliant idea to camp out in her family’s attic. She wondered if he realized just how obstructionist a determined pair of younger siblings could be.
She opened the front door quietly and stepped into the darkness.
The darkness on the other side wasn’t her house.
Tarn had moved the portal.
“Goddamn it,” she shouted. The lights along the walls of Tarn’s throne room flickered to life, but the throne was empty. “Tarn!” When there was no response, she stomped through the hall to the door behind the throne and threw it open. This time, the door was connected to what probably served as a bedchamber for a faerie lord. There was an enormous round bed on the far side of the room, with mussed sand-colored sheets and a teal coverlet. A collection of luxurious couches with raw silk upholstery in matching marine colors were arranged around a steaming pool set directly into the floor. Other accoutrements like mirrors and desks and wardrobes made sure the oversized room didn’t seem empty, but Branwyn barely noticed them.
Tarn was in the process of gracefully lifting himself out of the pool, stark naked. His body was just as beautiful as his face, with a muscular chest and a tapered waist and long, taut legs and—
For a moment Branwyn flashed back to her dream of the morning, but it was somebody else's bare chest, somebody else's hands—then she shoved the memory away, because sleeping dreams were meaningless, nothing and this naked celestial was real, right here and distracting enough.
He wrapped a silken dressing gown loosely around himself, and Branwyn found herself wondering where his companion was. That wasn’t the sort of bath one enjoyed alone. Not if you were a faerie lord. She felt certain of this.
She growled under her breath; whether or not he had a companion, he certainly wasn’t as annoyed and grouchy as she’d been imagining.
“Branwyn. I see you found the shortcut. Howl was having trouble defending the attic.” He looked amused. “He’s a good boy, but you have insistent siblings. Rhianna schemes and Brynn dreams and little Meredith is full of pleas. She’s got them all wrapped around her finger, especially your parents. Do let Howl know he’s been relieved of his tiresome burden.” His hair was wet, curling tendrils clinging to his forehead. The dressing gown clung, too.
“I don’t like the change. I don’t like you spying on my family either,�
�� she said. She sounded like a sulky child and she knew it, but she also desperately wished she hadn’t charged through the door. She could have taken a different exit directly to her studio. She could be working on the key right now, instead of staring at dripping wet, nearly naked, divinely crafted male flesh. He was her employer, and he was trouble, and he’d kissed her to save her from death when they first met, and she really didn’t need to be thinking about that right now. Fighting was better.
“They’re very loud. I can hardly avoid it.” He had a fond, distant look on his face.
“Move out of the house, then!”
“I can’t,” he said. “For better or worse, that entrance to Underlight is fixed until—until certain matters change.”
“What matters?” she demanded.
He gave her a long, cool look. She waited him out, trying to keep her thoughts focused on how he was invading her family home, and not thinking at all about things she was absolutely not going to think about. At last, he said, “The door you were so eager to complete acts as an anchor on Underlight. It drags. If I move the entrance now, the silken curtain will slip away in tatters and shreds, exposing Underlight to—” He paused, his expression changing. “Is something wrong? You seem out of breath.”
“I’m going to my studio to make your damned key,” she snapped, backing out of the room. Once the door was safely closed, she let out a deep breath. Then, after a moment’s thought, instead of going to her studio, she went to the gallery chamber where the locked door waited. Her studio provided nothing to her except a place that was nominally her own. The door was everything. She stared at it fiercely until she’d calmed down, then pulled the Machine fragment from her pocket.
She’d changed a Machine once before. It was called the Lullaby Plaything and it had been used as a sort of diagnostic toy. It had been a gentle thing, before Branwyn had touched it. She had turned it into a spearhead for Marley to use in a fight with an angel. For all its gentleness, it had made a good weapon. The nameless thing in her hands now felt harsh in comparison with the Lullaby Plaything, like it had been part of something dangerous once upon a time. But it wasn’t dangerous now, and it had no interest in hurting people.
Branwyn hoped she was never asked to explain those certainties. All she could point to if so was a vague feeling, as if her mind was assembling personality traits from the textures under her fingers. It was hard to analyze, and normally she’d resist anthropomorphizing a hunk of metal. But given the circumstances, she allowed herself some leeway.
Plus, listening to the fragment made it easier to manipulate it. She sat leaning against the door, passing the fragment from hand to hand. One of the little joints clicked out, and she tugged on it. It stretched under her fingers, then folded when she bent it. It really wanted to be of service.
Soon she was lost in a reverie of work, comparing the rod forming under her fingers to the lock she could feel within the door. It was related to the braid decoration that trimmed the lock and door. And the lock itself was huge; if it were mundane, it would require quite a large key.
She couldn’t make the Machine fragment stretch enough. It wouldn’t make a complete key. When she finally stopped in frustration, she had a smooth shaft, without the toothed bit that would actually turn a lock. Time and again, she pulled out a bit that matched what she felt within the lock, then inserted the key. The key would turn smoothly, without engaging the tumblers. When she withdrew it, the bits had receded back into the shaft.
This was, she reasoned, probably why the door needed a special material for the key. The lock resisted being opened. It needed to be overpowered. But thinking reasonable thoughts didn’t soothe her frustration and anger. She had a celestial Machine fragment, the very definition of “special material,” and it still didn’t work.
She found Tarn in his throne room, speaking with William and another of his servants. He raised a hand to pause the conversation when she burst through the side door. His gaze traveled from the metal shaft in her hand to her face, then he gave a tiny, unsurprised sigh.
“It doesn’t work,” Branwyn stated. She narrowed her eyes. “And you knew it wouldn’t. You knew. That’s why you didn’t care when I didn’t bring it here right away. That’s why you didn’t care when I went to work on it. I thought you’d be hovering over my shoulder, ready to throw that door open, but you’re sitting here instead.”
Tarn flicked his upraised hand and William and the other servant left the room quickly. Once the door closed behind them, he said, “I suspected, but I did not know.”
Branwyn sneered. “That’s a damn fine line.”
“It is the truth,” he said calmly. “The Machine is not powerful enough alone, I take it?”
“No, it’s not,” said Branwyn. “And I don’t know why, or how to fix it. I don’t know enough about what ‘power’ means. The material is very hard when I’m not working it. Do different fragments have different amounts of power, different qualities?”
He smiled faintly. “Oh yes. That is why some Machines can destroy me with a touch, while others are far slower and more insidious in their devouring.”
“The Queen wore this in her hair,” Branwyn said.
“Embedded in a comb, I think, but yes. I personally would not choose to spend much time in such close proximity to that little piece, but even if I held it for an extended period, its effect on me would be creeping rather than shocking.”
“Pity,” said Branwyn sourly. “Devouring, eh? They eat you? Vampire machines?”
“They absorb us, rather. “
Branwyn thought about that for a moment. Then she said, “Okay. If you suspected this Machine wasn’t going to be powerful enough to overcome the lock, why did you send me to get it? Just for kicks?”
He looked exasperated. “No, I did not send you to the Queen of Stone for ‘kicks.’ My other options were far more dangerous, and if there was a chance that the Queen Eternal’s hair ornament would work, then the goal would have been achieved at relatively low risk and small cost.” He paused, his multicolored eyes scanning Branwyn. She looked away. He went on. “It was unlikely, but it was a thing that could not be known until it was tried.”
“Are these other options more powerful?” She closed her eyes, wondering if the Queen of Stone was amused.
“Not significantly. But I believe they could be combined with the one you've already acquired to create something stronger than either is alone.”
He leaned on the arm rest of his throne, looking at her for a long moment.
“Well?” Branwyn frowned. “What are these other options?”
“Dangerous,” he said briefly. “Perhaps if I take some time, I’ll be able to find better ones.”
Branwyn shifted uncomfortably. Tarn’s expression was inscrutable and he seemed more serious than he’d ever been before. His eyes, dark and light, slitted half-closed as he watched her.
“How much time?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Years, perhaps. I’ve waited centuries for that door to be finished, let alone opened. I’m in no hurry.”
Branwyn was surprised the ground didn’t shiver underfoot like it had when he'd falsely claimed all the other artists had departed his realm; he’d certainly seemed like he was in a hurry before. “Penny can’t wait years,” she said sharply. “Let’s discuss the dangerous options. I’m tough.”
Tarn stood up and walked across the hall to her. He was barefoot, wearing dark, loose pants and a fitted dove-grey jacket he hadn’t quite finished buttoning. She took a step backward as he approached, and he stopped. “Tough? You run even from me, Branwyn. You are exquisitely fragile, beautifully mortal.”
“Shut up,” she said, and stepped forward, back to where she’d been standing before, two arms’ lengths apart. She had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze, which was better than staring at the poorly buttoned jacket.
A light touched his eyes. “And earlier, in my chamber?”
Branwyn scowled. “Sensible people lock the
door when they’re taking a bath. Or whatever you were doing.”
“I was, yes, taking a bath,” he said, and she could hear laughter unexpressed in his voice. “Alone, since I noticed you wondering. I happen to like baths.”
Her skepticism must have shown on her face, because he sighed and said, “Do you know what our crime was, those of us exiled from Heaven, cut off from the Sea of Dreams, bound to Earth, and locked away in Earth’s shadow? What terrible thing we desired that made us the most hated?”
Branwyn hesitated, then bit down on her sarcasm. She'd been wondering about this for too long. “Not really.”
“We wanted to enjoy the world.” He paused, letting that sink in. “Yes, Branwyn, I enjoy baths. I enjoy silk under my fingers. I enjoy lovely things.” His hand half-lifted toward Branwyn, then dropped. “I very much enjoy having a body, even if I am locked away from the vast world I gave up my name for.”
Subdued, Branwyn said, “Faerie seems like a pretty nice prison. It's a bit bigger than I imagined.”
“It’s a sandbox full of dreams. Appealing for a vacation, but after a few centuries, one starts to notice the difference. We can change the furnishings but the walls are always, always there.” His voice was neutral, but the light had fled his eyes.
“Do you even notice time? I thought that was a mortal thing.” This had been preying on her thoughts. How could anyone endure centuries, let alone millennia, of even the nicest prison without becoming a pile of mental goo?
He hesitated, then said, “We notice change. It comes so rarely here, and always brings destruction.” A deep weariness flashed across his face and was gone. “When the Covenant was enacted, I was not the Duke of Underlight. I was an individual. I believed the Creator made the world, the infinite universe for us to enjoy, no matter what the first wave of angels said.”
“Believed? Not anymore?” The last of her acid irritation fled in the face of his timeworn sadness.
“When he—and do not ask, for we do not speak his name—destroyed our names, it disconnected us from the Sea of Dreams, which is the womb from which all celestials are born and reborn. It might have been the final oblivion. They didn’t know. Many did not care. But the Earth embraced us. We’d already started learning to draw on her powers: to pull magic from the tide and the tectonic plates, from the rise of the sun and the change of the seasons and the howl of the storm. And when the first of us fell after the Covenant, he rose again from the energy field surrounding Earth.”
Infinity Key (Senyaza Series Book 2) Page 16