by Deanna Chase
It took nearly an hour before I found myself slipping and sliding up the walkway to the front door of a small brick cottage in the northwest quadrant of DC, almost at the Maryland border. A welcoming light glowed on the front porch, and I could just make out a soft chime inside when I pushed the doorbell.
The door opened immediately. An Zheng introduced herself with a balletic handshake, asking me to call her “An.” She ushered me into the house with smooth gestures, taking my coat so gracefully that I scarcely had a chance to apologize for flinging snow to her floor, for stamping cold and wet from my boots in her entryway. I leaned against the wall as I eased out of my shoes, and I was grateful for the slippers An offered.
My hostess urged me into a spartan living room furnished in shades of taupe and ecru. She pressed me to take a seat on the simple couch that stretched against the far wall, between two framed scrolls of sharp, black calligraphy. I edged around a bare rosewood table, and I sat.
When I’d heard An speak on the phone, her softly accented voice had seemed young, steady and confident. Now that I looked at her, I had no idea how old she was. Her hair was snow-white, and it flowed like a mane to the middle of her back, tumbling in soft waves as she moved. Her eyelashes, though, were as black as coal, long and thick, framing her eyes as if she wore a thousand coats of mascara.
She was wrapped in a loose dressing gown the exact color of an aquamarine crystal, a perfect balance of blue and green. It was accented by fine gold threads stitched in a scallop pattern, making the fabric gleam like the shifting scales of some exotic fish. The sleeves of the robe were finished with soft cuffs of white fur, rabbit maybe, or angora, something designed to ward off the bitter winter cold outside.
“Would you like some tea?” An asked in her perfect musical voice.
I didn’t want to put her to any trouble, but I thought it might be rude to refuse. “Let me help,” I said, starting to rise.
“No, no. You sit. Relax. I’ll only be a moment.” I didn’t feel any magic as she issued her command; I sensed no special power forcing me back to the couch. But suddenly it seemed like a gift to sit in the quiet room, to listen to the water running in the kitchen, to hear the soft plink of cups and saucers pressed into service. I leaned back against the sofa cushions and breathed deeply, willing myself to match the easy quiet of my hostess. I closed my eyes to concentrate better.
I didn’t hear An return to the room. I wasn’t even aware of her presence until the bamboo tray she carried made a soft sound as she set it on the rosewood table. Embarrassed, I sat up straight. An gave me a gentle smile. “The storm takes much out of all of us,” she said.
The storm. And stressing about gifts for my husband. Husband. I still thrilled at the word.
An sat in the plain chair beside the couch, her smooth face not betraying a hint of emotion. I could smell the tea brewing in the red clay pot, a smoky oolong. Two teacups nestled by the round pot, each made of plain white porcelain, small enough to nestle in a human’s palm.
I recognized the tea service. I’d studied the Chinese tea trade in my days as a librarian, working with a collection that specialized in early American history. After all, our colonial forefathers had been greatly frustrated by their English overlords when it came to trade with the Far East; they’d longed to bargain directly with China for tea and other goods. Shortly after establishing independence, American tradesmen had initiated commerce with their Chinese counterparts. They’d learned the social rules, mastered the etiquette.
Junior people poured tea for those more senior. People of lower rank poured for those of higher rank.
I was more than willing to dispense the tea, if that would put me in An’s good graces. “May I?” I asked, gesturing slightly toward the pot.
She inclined her head with the same perfect grace she’d used to welcome me, but a tiny smile pulled at the corners of her lips. I caught my breath and poured, secretly thrilled that I didn’t spill a drop of the rich green-brown tea. An reached toward the table and tapped her middle finger against the smooth wood three times, a long-standing tradition meant to convey wordless thanks.
We lifted our cups, each taking the time to appreciate the oolong-scented steam. I waited for her to sip first, and then I swallowed. The tea was heady, tinged with smoke and the memory of green, growing things.
“So,” An said after taking another sip, and I felt our balance shift. We’d now arrived at the heart of the matter. “You seek qilin ink.”
“Yes,” I said. “I need it for my warder.” I paused, to see if she understood David’s role in my astral life. An inclined her head in silent invitation for me to continue. “He has a pen fashioned from a griffin’s quill. With qilin ink, he’ll always be able to discern the truth.”
“A griffin’s quill. That’s powerful magic.” An seemed pleased, as if she would be honored to pair her ink with such a valuable instrument.
Her tone gave me the confidence to continue. “My warder is also my husband.” My cheeks grew warm. In the ten days since our marriage, I hadn’t used that word with a stranger.
An said something in Chinese, a few syllables that seemed to mean, “Congratulations.”
I leaned forward, pleased to have achieved such rapport. “Of course, we would both place great value on the treasure of qilin ink.”
An nodded. My compliment was clearly appreciated. She took one more sip of her tea before she set her cup on the rosewood table. Her long eyelashes brushed her cheeks before she returned her gaze to mine. “I can help you,” she said at last. “I can sell you one ounce of qilin ink for your husband. It will cost two hundred thousand dollars.”
I knew what was going on here.
I needed to bargain. I was supposed to negotiate a fair price with An, one we could both live with. Haggle.
But I couldn’t imagine a satisfactory endpoint. Not if An was starting with two hundred grand. I glanced at my purse, where it sagged against my boots in the entryway. My poor little wallet wasn’t going to cough up a thousand dollars, much less whatever amount we ultimately agreed upon.
The best defense is a good offense. But I couldn’t go on attack. Not here, in the middle of An’s living room, when I’d taken advantage of her hospitality and drunk her tea.
Turn the other cheek. But An hadn’t insulted me. She’d merely stated the truth. A difficult truth, to be sure, but qilin ink was hugely valuable. Sarah Anderson had told me as much at the courthouse.
All’s well that ends well. Right. Maybe. It was as good a cliché as any.
I had to do something. I had to try to make this work. I swallowed hard and said, “I wasn’t actually thinking in terms of money.”
An gazed at me serenely, those long-lashed eyes never blinking. “You had in mind a trade?”
“I own the Osgood collection. It’s a set of artifacts gathered over the past ten centuries—books, runes, tools. Everything a witch needs to practice magic.”
An’s nod was majestic. “A valuable hoard. If I were a witch.”
Of course she couldn’t use the vast majority of my holdings. My mind flew through the catalog of books. There was only a handful of volumes on Eastern magic, and nothing of true interest for a qilin, for anyone who wasn’t sworn to Hecate.
But I had to have something else. Qilins were traditionally robed in fire. What did I own that was associated with the Guardians of Fire? What could I trade for ink?
Carnelian—I had perfect chunks of the orange-red stone. Sunstone—I had a handful of pinkish crystals. Tiger’s eye—I had strands and strands of perfectly polished beads.
But as perfect as my specimens were, none of them had great external value. I could use them to work magic; I could anchor perfect spells in their rubrics. But An could walk into any store that sold crystals and buy similar stones for a few hundred dollars.
Similarly, my herbs had no external value—cinnamon and cloves and juniper could all be bought at the supermarket for a few bucks. My runes were worthless to a qilin,
my silver flasks and iron cauldrons too. I had nothing of value to anyone who wasn’t a witch.
Except the Morningside Athame.
The thought came to me as if Hecate herself whispered in my ear.
I had no idea how much the knife would fetch on the open market. With its sleek stone blade and its perfectly weighted grip, its silver finger-guard and its carefully carved runes, it would attract countless mundane buyers. And the knife would fetch even more from a wealthy witch. Members of Hecate’s Court would fight for it. My old enemies in the Washington Coven would covet it almost beyond reason.
But the qilin might desire it even more. The Morningside Athame was fashioned from obsidian, from volcanic glass. It was born of fire like the qilin’s soul, and it had flowed like water, like the silken gown An wore.
“A knife,” I said. “An athame.”
An waved her hand over the tea service, as if she were inviting me to bid on the clay pot and porcelain cups. I described the Morningside Athame to her, reciting its pedigree like a spell. My fingers clutched at air as I spoke, forming the shape of the grip, feeling the weight of the blade.
“Ah,” she said, when I finally trailed off. Her lips quirked in an echo of the Mona Lisa’s. “I believe we have a trade.”
Immediately, I felt a pang of loss, sweet and sharp beneath my breastbone. I loved the athame.
But I loved David more.
“I can’t get it for you tonight,” I said to An. The instant I set foot on the marble doorstep at Blanton House, David would be alerted to my presence. He’d know I was home, that I wasn’t at Melissa’s, and there was no way I could conjure up another excuse to head back out in the storm. “Tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll bring it tomorrow.”
She nodded again, that slow, sweeping acquiescence. “Tomorrow,” she echoed.
Business concluded, I didn’t waste any time leaving. I still had to get to Melissa’s, to use the key she’d given me when she moved into her upscale condo building. She’d be sound asleep in the master bedroom, dreaming in the big bed she shared with Rob when he wasn’t traveling. I’d crash on the couch in the living room, snagging as much sleep as I could before she woke me to help with the day’s baking. I’d return home with some breakfast treat to cover my night’s activities.
It would have to be something special. Something to get me past the pain of forfeiting the Morningside Athame.
But David was worth it. He was worth anything in my collection. I loved him, and I wanted him to be happy. Despite all the odds against me, I’d have the perfect gift in hand by Yule.
* * *
Two nights later, I was ready to celebrate the winter solstice. The longest night of the year. Yule.
Outside, snow bucketed down, and it was hard to see the street a dozen yards away. Tradition said we should burn a Yule log, brightening the long night and welcoming the sun god back from his long winter’s rest. Alas, neither David nor I was up for a fire on the hearth, not while we still fought insurance companies over the consequences of the last flames we’d watched together.
But we had lights on our Yule tree, tiny white bulbs that made our sun-shaped ornaments sparkle. We’d turned on the candle-shaped lights in our front windows as well, sending a message of peace and rebirth to anyone who happened by on the street. It was a perfect night to spend with loved ones, cloaked in introspection about the past year, looking forward to the future.
I had mulled some wine on the stove, heating our mugs with boiling water before I added the spicy drink. David had roasted a leg of lamb, tossing in a mix of root vegetables as the meat sizzled in the oven for the last tempting hour. After we’d feasted, I put together a plate of Melissa’s most tempting holiday treats—Cinnamon Smiles and Nutmeg Knots and a handful of Sugar Suns—and carried it into the front parlor.
I joined my husband on the couch. As David slipped his arm around my shoulder, the radiators clanged to life, adding to the cozy, insulated feeling. “Mmm,” I said, as his fingers did something distracting to the soft skin beneath my ear.
“I could get used to this,” David murmured.
His lips were warm and soft, and the scrape of his beard against my cheek made me think about how he looked in the morning, tangled in our sheets. I was ready to take his hand, to lead him upstairs and test whether the image in my mind matched reality, but he gently pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. For a moment, I thought the huskiness in his voice was lust. But then I realized it was something else—remorse. Or maybe regret. Chagrin?
“For what?”
“When we met, I could support you. Support your Academy. I owned property, and I was stable and steady and nothing was going to stand in my way. That’s all gone now.”
I leaned back enough to look into his serious brown eyes. Green glinted deep within them, a hint of the emotion that constricted his voice. “What are you talking about?” I cajoled. “When we met, I was a flighty librarian who didn’t have a clue about the powers I possessed. I was an emotional wreck, a liability as a witch, and I had no idea what I wanted in life.”
I thought that would get me at least a smile. When it didn’t, I settled my left hand over David’s heart, flexing my wrist so the lights from the tree caught my silver wedding band. “Hey. My point is, we’ve both changed. And we wouldn’t be together if we hadn’t. I wouldn’t wear this ring. We wouldn’t be married.”
“I want it to be more. I want it to be perfect.”
“It is more. So much more than I ever imagined it could be that first night, when you read me the riot act for awakening Neko. So much more than I thought it would be just two weeks ago. When everything changed.” He started to shake his head, but I cut him off. “No, it isn’t perfect. But nothing ever is.”
I leaned in to seal my statement with a kiss. He resisted me at first, holding his jaw tight and keeping his shoulders stiff. But I wasn’t willing to take that answer. I let my fingers elaborate on what my lips said, and I felt the moment he chose to relax, the instant he decided to give in.
When we both finally surfaced, he cupped my cheek with his hand. “I love you,” he said, looking straight into my eyes.
“I love you, too.” We’d said the words before, plenty of times. But now there was an urgency to them. We’d been through hell, getting to Blanton House. Almost nothing had turned out as we’d planned. But we were together, and that’s what mattered.
He broke the connection first, turning to glance at the Yule tree. “Look,” he said. “There are presents under there.”
“Fancy that,” I said, as if I hadn’t placed one of the gifts beneath the pine boughs. I scrambled up and collected both packages.
An had been as good as her word. She’d taken the Morningside Athame in exchange for the qilin ink. The precious liquid came in a stoppered porcelain vial, the white background covered with a riot of red, gold, and blue that picked out a classical image of a qilin.
I’d placed the gift in a plain box, wrapping it in hunter green paper and tying it with a simple red bow. I thought An would approve.
The present David handed me was the opposite of the one I’d wrapped for him. The package was as long as my forearm. The wrapping paper depicted a jumble of precious stones—rubies, emeralds, and diamonds all glinting off each other—and a tumble of curling ribbon cascaded around the gift.
“Go ahead,” he said, nudging the package toward me. “You go first.”
My stomach thrilled with anticipation, as if I were a child stumbling downstairs on Christmas morning to find treasures from Santa. I tugged at the paper, ripping it away. I’d never understood people who worked carefully at the edges, who peeled back gift wrap as if it should be preserved for the ages.
David smiled at my enthusiasm. He laughed outright as I gasped at the ornate box I now held, a gorgeous intarsia of ash and yew. “Go on,” he said. I flung open the box, already catching my breath to cry out at what it held.
I did cry out—a gasp of shock that I quickly t
wisted into shaky laughter.
Inside the box was a silver sheath. Inlaid with obsidian, marked with runes, it was the perfect match for the Morningside Athame. The scabbard was carefully worked and charmed with signs of power, the ideal replacement for the simple leather sleeve that had held my knife.
And it would never hold the blade I’d traded away.
“David,” I breathed, my eyes filling with tears. It was so perfect, so thoughtful, and I’d ruined his perfect gesture before he’d ever made it.
He leaned in to kiss me, but I knew he’d taste sorrow on my lips. “You shouldn’t have,” I said, edging away. “This cost too much. We can’t afford—”
“You’re worth it,” he interrupted. “You’ve always been worth it.”
Not if he knew I’d traded the athame. Desperate to gain a few minutes, I thrust his own wrapped gift into his hands. “Here,” I said. “You have to open yours.”
Of course David was one of those people who worked carefully at the edges. He slipped one finger beneath the tape, carefully freeing the green paper. He turned the package around and completed the maneuver on the other side. He slipped off the red ribbon and slid the plain box out of its paper.
“Go on,” I urged.
The porcelain vial looked impossibly delicate in his hand after he lifted the lid. The painted qilin burned against its white background. David stared at it, uncomprehending.
“It’s qilin ink,” I said. “As a warder, you’ll always be able to tell the truth, using this ink with—”
“My griffin quill pen,” David said, each word heavier than the last.
“I know it’s extravagant, but this is our first Yule together—”
“Jane, I can’t—”
I rushed on before he could interrupt. “Our first as husband and wife, and I had to—”
“I don’t—”
I cut him off again. “We’ll tighten our belts from here on out. I know that. We need to. But I had to—”