Mallory kept his silence as they rode on, and Eleanor slid closer, which resulted in Mallory’s arm warmly encircling her shoulders after all. She thought she could have stayed right there for the remainder of the night, but when the cab pulled up to the townhouse, she disembarked as a proper person would, and walked inside with Mallory.
They placed the glass seal in the overnight vault, and said a short good night under the watchful eye of the doorman before parting ways, he toward his wing and she to hers. There were not so many women agents within Mistral, but they had been given the same private quarters as the men had; not every agent kept a room within the townhouse, some having families and homes, but Eleanor was grateful for the space. Her own family home lay far distant in Dublin, where her father and his assistant were once again safely entrenched, back in the Nicknackatarium, where Anubis would hopefully leave them be. Eleanor had had quite enough of her father being in peril, be it physical or emotional.
She woke in the night to a sound at the window overlooking the garden, a scrabbling that sounded like bird’s feet against the glass. It would not be the first time—birds enjoyed the garden as well as Mistral’s agents, and sometimes a reflection in a window confused them as they attempted to leave. As she wrapped herself into her robe, she pictured talons raking the glass, but when she reached the window, only shadows remained, the glass unmarked. The small balcony outside her window was empty, the garden below cloaked in darkness the night’s moon did not puncture.
She was slow to sleep again, but slept dreamless once she finally did.
* * *
The private Mistral garden was crisp in the cool November morning and Eleanor shivered as she stepped past the leafless trees; some leaves yet clung, but the bounty of summer was long since faded, frost replacing blooms. She wore only her nightclothes, covered by a modest robe, and it wasn’t enough against the chill. Mallory was already there, similarly dressed, and on seeing her, made a grand and sweeping gesture toward the dressing screen he had brought. Eleanor almost laughed at the sight of it, for it looked monstrously out of place within the garden, its panels depicting a rushing waterfall However, where one might have expected curling froth, there spilled instead ladies who were clothed in only the barest bits of splashing water. Among them, peacocks, ducks, and—
Eleanor tilted her head. “Is that a crocodile?” Her breath fogged in the chilled air, but not even that could quite conceal the horror of the art before her.
“I think it’s swallowing a swan… Isn’t it beautifully terrible?” Mallory said, and yet Eleanor heard affection in his tone nonetheless. “Auberon pulled it from a closet when I suggested you might appreciate a bit of privacy for the morning’s lessons.”
Eleanor’s cheeks warmed. It wasn’t that Mallory’s partner knew they were practicing their forms, but that Mallory had realized it might be awkward for her. If one began clothed, shifting one’s shape resulted in a loss of clothing. Mallory had always said starting unclothed was best, but finding her form took time, so rather than stand shivering and exposed, Eleanor could be somewhat concealed.
“Thank you, Virgil,” she said, and moved toward him and the screen. She paused to look at him, his cheeks red in the crisp air, and before she could ponder otherwise, kissed him soft on the mouth. She didn’t care about propriety, not when they were about to shed their human forms and run about as beasts.
Mallory’s mouth was nothing but receptive—he tasted of coffee, and Eleanor enjoyed the thought of him up early, taking time to have coffee in his rooms before wrestling the dressing screen into the early winter garden. At the touch of Mallory’s hand in her hair, she drew back, her heart pounding like a hammer in her throat. His hand, warm despite the morning cool, rested against her cheek.
“You said it was helpful to be passionate,” Eleanor said. “Before shifting?”
Mallory opened his mouth, and his voice came out strangled. “A- Angry. I— That is, anger seems able to uh, influence the change—hasten it. I am not, Miss Folley, angry.” He gave her a smile and stepped back from the dressing screen. “Warm, though. That I will allow.”
Eleanor stepped behind the screen, its backside shielded by soft evergreen bushes so that she was enclosed in a room of sorts. The back of the wood panels, however, were no better than the front. Here, the painted women had emerged from the waterfall, the animals placed carefully in front of any indelicate body parts. Eleanor stared at the woman who appeared to now be dancing with the crocodile, its belly rounded with recently devoured swan.
“Oh, dear,” Eleanor said, and had to smile at Mallory’s laugh.
“Miss Folley, we should begin by disrobing, and you shall not be dancing with a crocodile, no. We’ve no such beasts in this garden, only ourselves—beastly enough, I should think. Can you feel it within you, the jackal?”
Eleanor listened to Mallory shed his clothing and watched as each article was draped across the top of the dressing screen. She could not feel the jackal until then, until the idea that Virgil Mallory stood naked on the other side of the dressing screen filled her mind’s eye. Then, the jackal that she was gave a little leap, seeming to press claws against her skin for release.
“Yes, I can,” she said, and untied her own robe, letting it join Mallory’s over the screen. Once naked, she stood shivering in the November cold, but knew it would not last long; she would be swallowed by the jackal and warm again, soon.
“You must not only feel it. Picture it—her. She’s of the desert, isn’t she? Long-legged and swift as loose sand. Her eyes, Eleanor—they are your eyes, sepia ink over gold. See into them and through them, as you do.”
Eleanor flushed at the compliments, and saw the jackal she was clearly. Compact body, sleek and fast; sharp face, fathomless eyes. Eleanor felt as though she were holding a hand out to the jackal, felt the press of her cool wet nose, and then, two-legged Eleanor was gone.
The transformation had never happened so quickly, but even this swiftness did not eliminate the pain. They had not yet found a way to circumvent the pain of leaving one form and taking another; Mallory wasn’t sure they ever would. She heard him whine in pain as he too found his own beast.
It was a messy process and rather felt like her body was trying to turn itself inside out, bones shifting from one form to another; some longer, some shorter. The inward jackal swallowed the outward human, doing its best to take rational thought along with it. Eleanor focused on her name, making of it an anchor to keep part of herself separate from the beast, removed and watchful so that she could learn.
Daughter.
Eleanor heard Anubis in her mind then, his hot, fetid breath against her flickering ear. She said nothing in return, her jackal mouth ill-suited for words, her jackal mind trying to remember what words were. When she did, it was Mallory she thought of, and she moved cautiously around the screen, to find the large brindled wolf sitting, waiting. It was not a thing the wolf often did, waiting, and Eleanor yelped in happiness at the sight of him. As these things went, he was an attractive beast, dark brown fur shot through with bits of gold. He regarded her patiently, his dark eyes betraying nothing before he leapt toward her.
Delight shot through her and she bounded away, under low hanging branches with Mallory at her heels. He stayed close, but never overwhelmed her even as Eleanor was certain he could. Two squirrels had thought to enjoy the early morning quiet of the garden, but on seeing them, Eleanor pounced for them, sending them fleeing in opposite directions. Had she possessed a human mouth, she would have laughed, but in her jackal form, she found herself yipping.
She let the squirrels go and so too the single rabbit she spied further on, and stalked Mallory around the dormant rose bushes and to the base of the fountain, where they pushed themselves up to drink the water that had not yet frozen. It was icy against her tongue, cold droplets flecking her nose when Mallory dipped a paw into the basin. Eleanor ran and he chased, and they pushed themselves further than they had in prior lessons, until exhaustion p
ulled them both to the ground.
Eleanor did not sink behind the screen, but in front of it, unable to find complete shelter before she felt the jackal form slipping away. Mallory believed that holding the form for longer periods of time exhausted their minds. So it was now that Eleanor felt as though she were melting, one form into the next, and did not quite care that Mallory watched as fur withdrew into bare flesh. This brought pain, too, the shift of bones and muscle into their previous forms. Mallory changed too, reaching up to pull Eleanor’s robe from the dressing screen and cover her.
“Was it terribly painful this time?” he asked, tying his own robe back into place.
Eleanor nodded. “I can’t imagine it not being—even you, after all these years feel the pain?”
Mallory rubbed his hand over her shoulder and arm, and nodded. “Aye, it is. But you did fine today, better than fine—it came easier?”
Eleanor admitted that it had. “I thought of the jackal’s eyes, as you said, and remembered what it was to see through them—remembered the first time, in your parents’ home, when you made me angry enough to change.” She smiled about it now, but only a few weeks prior, she had been furious with him, and terrified by the change overtaking her, a change that had resulted in a ball of angry jackal in Mallory’s lap. With his help, she was learning the way, though, the way that he had learned entirely alone as a young man.
Now, she pulled her robe closer and gave herself a moment in his arms. “Don’t you suppose…if Anubis is a living, breathing being much as we are, what else must be true, Virgil? Gorgons and minotaurs…mermaids and sirens. Even think on Goblin Market. Do you suppose they were creatures that actually existed?” She looked up at him, his face in silhouette against the brightening morning sky far above. “You have seen Anubis, how he resembles the artwork made of him.”
The silhouette of him shifted, and Mallory pressed a soft kiss into the tangle of her hair. “I know what you are thinking, Miss Folley, that if such things exist, and surely they do, because we also do, then there are also more such creatures within this world. Creatures we might yet find, and maybe of those like us…befriend.”
She heard the ache in his voice, and burrowed closer, sliding an arm around his middle. “It was lonely, your childhood.” It wasn’t a question, for she knew the answer without him having to say another word. A young man, plagued by transformations he did not fully understand or control, she didn’t have to imagine the terror; she had experienced it herself only a few weeks before.
Mallory bowed his head to hers and exhaled, a low breath that was warm. “I tried to tell them so many times, my family, but the words never came. The idea that I would ever find another to share the experience never entered my mind. How does one look, knowing that any others are probably hiding as well as I managed to hide. And then there comes the day one can no longer hide.”
Eleanor recalled the way they had been shut into the tomb, he a wolf and she his intended meal. He had come back to his human form, deciding trust was the easier course than consumption. Eleanor was quite pleased it had gone that way, all things considered.
“It’s not a foolish hope to hold to,” he continued, “but I would caution you even so. It is a thing not easily explained, and most would turn away in fear.”
Eleanor nodded. “I picture my father face to face with Anubis and know he would faint dead away. He would not believe it, despite all he knows of the ancient world. Perhaps because of that. Taking it a step further, that his daughter is such creature…” Eleanor trailed off. “Quite impossible. I see why you never told your own family, Mallory, nor even Caroline.”
Once, he might have grunted at the mention of his late wife and set Eleanor at a distance, but now, he grunted and held her closer. “We learn as we go and are imperfectly made by each step. But today…” She heard the smile in his voice and warmed at it. “Today was a good beginning, Eleanor.”
III.
The archive, largely an ill-gotten collection of unorganized artifacts from Egypt and beyond that occupied a set of rooms within the Mistral townhouse basement, sprawled before Eleanor, doing its best to intimidate her. She refused the very notion, staring into the face of the mess, nearly daring it to defy her orderly ways.
“I will discover every nook and every cranny, and what each may hold,” she murmured to the otherwise empty room. “Should you be hiding papyrus astronomical maps from oldest Nabta-Playa, I shall find them.” She had no idea if such things existed—most maps of the sky had been made upon the earth itself, in stone circles, however, if they existed and were here, she would root them out.
She took a deep breath and smelled only the ancient world, preserved and sealed behind these doors for goodness knew how long. She had no idea how long Howard Irving had secreted items away—largely in search of Anubis’s own rings so that he might entreat the god to return his daughter from death—nor did anyone else know. A life’s work, she thought, gazing at the debris before her.
From the main room, a series of smaller rooms branched off, and within one of these, Eleanor heard the sound of items being knocked from shelf. It should not have been possible, she was alone down here, but what was possible had been radically redefined for her in recent days, so she moved toward the sound. Standing outside the door, it came again, as if someone were inside, rooting about for—
As she watched, Anubis himself emerged from the door; he didn’t have to open it to pass through the portal, incorporeal as a ghost might be. He did not seem surprised at the sight of Eleanor, even as she was surprised by him; given an opportunity to guess who might have been within the storage room, she would not have chosen him.
He was tall enough that he had to tip his head down, his jackal face bearing a smile that might have been one of amusement. His eyes, pools of blackest ink, were lined in gold, just as he had been drawn in countless tomb renderings, his stench that of the foulest graves. Eleanor’s nose wrinkled, supposing it was bad form to greet an ancient god with an expression of disgust; perhaps one day, she would be accustomed to it, but not yet.
Daughter.
He thought the word, but Eleanor heard the rumble of it within his chest, as if he had spoken. He wore a shendyt, falling in perfect ivory folds against the pure black of his skin; he moved within the room as a trapped animal, eyes seeking the corners, the exit, and seeming to calm only when he looked at Eleanor again.
A curious room.
Eleanor could not imagine what it must be like, to see the items of his homeland in such a jumble, but did his discomfort reach beyond that? “None will harm you here,” she said. It felt ridiculous—who might actually harm him, he who plucked hearts from chests as if they were flowers from the ground?
She thought she saw his shoulders relax, however, and found it curious. Perhaps it was as simple as him not liking the indoors; perhaps he was more comfortable beneath the spreading night sky. That she was thinking of him, Anubis—he who presides over the god’s pavilion, the Guardian of the Scales, the lord of the sacred land—in such human terms amused her greatly, but the small realization comforted her some; perhaps, deep down, he was as anyone else, possessing likes and dislikes. He might have grown comfortable pulling hearts from chests, but standing within an archive was beyond him.
“Were you…looking for something?” Eleanor couldn’t fathom that, either; what might an ancient god need in this room?
Only you, daughter. You are learning the ways of your new form?
Eleanor did not know if he had watched her and Mallory within the garden, but she did not ask. She only nodded, wondering if this encounter was an opportunity to ask every question she needed an answer to. Anubis, as if knowing her thoughts, laughed low.
“The change is easier—though not without pain. Do you—” She eyed his form, shaped as any human man until one reached the jackal head.
I am as you see me, and also the jackal, but am not, and never will be, only a man.
The words were edged in scorn, “only a
man,” as if those who were lacked a vital aspect. Not an entirely surprising viewpoint from a god, Eleanor decided.
“I suppose that—”
“Miss Folley?”
At the sound of a new voice, Anubis evaporated as though he had never been; no trace of him remained, no hovering bit of black smoke, no lingering stench of an opened grave. Here and then gone, and Eleanor stared. Surely he hadn’t been uncomfortable after all, given his swift ability to flee the room’s confines.
She turned to find a woman framed in the archive doorway; Eleanor recognized Miss Sophie Baker who normally occupied the desk in the front foyer, keeping agents and visitors alike in strict order. She knew nearly everyone who came into the townhouse. Hers was a friendly face, bringing to mind the good Doctor Fionnlagh given the round spectacles she wore. Eleanor wanted to ask her if she had seen Anubis just now, but given the placid smile on her face, Eleanor suspected not. Anubis didn’t generally inspire smiles and tranquility in anyone who randomly encountered him. Miss Baker held a sealed letter out for Eleanor.
“Agent Mallory asked I bring that to you, said to tell you that he and Auberon shall meet you at one, for luncheon and revelations?”
Eleanor crossed to the door to take the proffered letter and had to laugh at that. “Luncheon and revelations sounds about right. Thank you, Miss—”
Eleanor broke off, noticing the way Sophie was studying the archive beyond Eleanor’s shoulder. Her hazel eyes skimmed the space entire, then went back for a more leisurely pass, to pause on this shelf or that table. Eleanor recognized the look because she had worn it for so long herself. It was the look of a person who wanted inside, who wanted to do more than they’d been assigned. The look of a girl with her hands pressed to the glass side of a vitrine, nearly drooling over the mummy that lay within.
“Sophie, isn’t it?” Eleanor asked.
Miss Baker blinked at the mention of her name, and turned her attention back to Eleanor. “It is.”
The Glass Falcon (Folley & Mallory Adventure Book 2) Page 2