The Illusions In Between

by J M Robison

  Jaicom may be lying to himself, but it actually is delightful. Sleeping on the ground reminds me of gypsy camps I’d sleep at with Father during our travels across England, sharing hot meals with them in exchange for a magical favor: fix a broken wheel axle, torn canvas, move felled trees in the road. The gypsies would always find something for us to fix. We’d listen to their tambourines, Father handing me mugs of mead since Mother wasn’t around. The gypsy stew—

  “Ah! This is absolutely delightful!”

  I roll over and slug Jaicom.

  “Ouch. What was that for?”

  “I was eating gypsy stew with my Fǽder until ye made a ruckus.”

  “Hmmf.” He rolls so his back is to me. He hasn’t removed his hat yet.

  Though successful with my daydream the first time, the sunlight makes it near impossible to get back to campfires and gypsy stew. Forcing firelight to occupy the vision behind my eyes anyway, coupled with the real silence around me, I crave the sounds of a rebec or a psaltery. I dredge up the memory of their music, the way I would clap along while barefooted gypsies danced to the chime of bells around their ankles, my spells adding an illusion of starlight to sparkle around them just to add poetic flavor to the mood.

  Spells. My amulet. The Faewraith it summoned back at the train.

  I can’t have that happen in Rome, too.

  I roll to my feet, seeking Joseara who lays just across the way. She hears my approach and rolls over to look at me. I jerk my head toward Varlith’s heavy body, thick chest rising and falling in sleep, flicking the tip of his tail like a dog might flick his ears. I step over Varlith’s tail to walk behind him. Joseara joins me quietly, clearly understanding I don’t want Jaicom to hear us.

  “I know we shall be flying most of the way, but I foresee us staying in a hotel if Jaicom has his way and I cannot know if we should run into another search party,” I say in a near-whisper. “The Frenchmen at the train didn’t touch the females, so…” I inhale. And release it. I don’t like this, because for too long my amulet was held in someone else’s hands, but I can’t have other skin touching it and summoning a hungry Faewraith.

  I remove my amulet from around my neck and hold it out to her. The protective clutch I had on my amulet empties into a void in my chest. Akin to losing Brynn all over again. I swallow the sting. “So, I ask if ye would wear it. They shan’t search thee, and ye know spells enough to aid our situation if needed.”

  She nearly died six years ago. Bled out. She only lived because I whisked her into the Fae Realm before the last few drops pumped out of her heart. Nothing dies in the Fae Realm. I relocated my own blood, and Brynn’s blood, into Joseara’s body. It revived her, though I had fears what damage wizard blood might do to her once outside the Fae Realm.

  Nothing, it turns out, except she can touch my amulet without summoning the Faewraith, and even command the simple spells I taught her. I have my doubts my daughter is the first sorceress, but I trust the Fae will react adversely if they ever find out I created a Fae Wizard without their knowledge or consent. As the Fae see it, it’s me commanding those spells because my blood is in Joseara.

  She looks at the amulet and takes it without question, looping the chain around her neck with a neat tuck beneath her tunic to hide the blood-filled gem. “We can’t risk another Faewraith, or Varlith disturbing all of France a second time with a body they associate with the devil. If humans only ever see a thing one time, they start disbelieving they saw it at all.”

  I hope her logic holds true for all the hundred or so passengers on that train.

  We walk back to the spot of dirt we’ve claimed as our camp circle. The unguarded sun overhead would be murder if it were summer and not spring. I consider sleeping in the shadow cast by Varlith’s body until he rolls over and stretches out as if to occupy every inch of the field. Dirt is softer and warmer than stone, but I don’t think Jaicom would agree with me. The way his chest rises and falls indicates he’s still awake, but he doesn’t make a peep until nightfall.

  * * *

  I managed to force a few hours of sleep, rising to my feet at twilight. “Everyone up.”

  Joseara rises to her feet without a yawn or stretch. Jaicom rolls onto his knees, using his cane to stand.

  “That…” Jaicom says, not making eye contact with me, “was...the…worst sleep I’ve ever had in all my twenty-four years of living.”

  “Because you slept so well after you witnessed me, for every intention, die.”

  Jaicom looks solemnly at Joseara, and I can’t decide if it’s even my place to interfere. I decide not to. Jaicom knows how to handle himself. In this moment, he does nothing but watch her every move as she re-pins the shroud across her nose and mouth, shoulders her pack she somehow managed to retain from the train and walks over to Varlith who has twitched awake because of the bickering.

  I look at Jaicom. He looks at me briefly, shakes his head, and follows her.

  I’m less worried about people spotting us in the dark. The moon is waxing, but not enough light yet for anyone to take a guess that it’s a dragon they’ll see pressed against the dark expanse of stars.

  Dragons can see in the dark, and I direct Varlith to fly above the train track and follow it to Paris. We weren’t far. I direct him south-east from there. I lived before the time of maps, so navigating by stars is not lost to me.

  My eagerness to reach Rome keeps me awake. Joseara doesn’t make a peep behind me. She’s not even touching me. I have to keep looking over my shoulder to make sure she didn’t fall off. I’m certain Jaicom would say something if she did since he’s sitting behind her. I’m starting to believe I’ve brought along a robot, such as what I’ve seen in other realms with my father–mechanical automations that feel nothing and do what they are told. But she answers that question for me.

  “Get off!” she barks.

  Jaicom snorts behind me. “Wha…? Oh…sorry, Joseara. Fell asleep.”

  Joseara shuffles closer to me as if to get away from him. I made her sit between us, despite her complaints. She stops jostling me about as she shuffles to get as comfortable as one can straddling the scaled back of a dragon, and I think we’ll be all right for the next while.

  “I need to use the water closet,” Jaicom calls up to me.

  There’s no help for it. “Varlith, land.”

  The dragon’s nose dips downward, and in a smooth descent, we land. We all take our turn sliding off.

  Jaicom looks around critically. “I said water closet.”

  I clearly forget who I’m traveling with. “Forgive me, Lord of Valemorren.” I bow to him. “I shall fly back to England to collect a water closet for thee and return post-haste.”

  He grips his cane in both hands, grumbles, and stomps off into the darkness.

  I sit in the dirt. My mind buzzes in that strange limbo where you feel you’ve had enough sleep but know for certain you did not. I think back to the Italian staring directly at me back at Calais. I believed at the time he was following me for the purpose of reporting to the Illuminati when I got closer to Rome. He might have followed us onto the train, but there’s no way he could have followed us on dragon back.

  I don’t know if that’s a good thing. I can find the Pantheon well enough, but if they aren’t expecting me, will Brynn still be there? Or will they have to bring her there from somewhere else? Is that not why the Italian was following me? Was he even following me? Maybe he was just an Italian getting a good look at an Englishman. I don’t know. I’m tired, and the fist in my chest won’t relax.

  Joseara sits next to me. Mindlessly, she picks up a twig and drives trenches into the dirt. It takes me an exaggerated second for my weary brain to realize she’s talking to me.

  “…disjointed being back in the Human Realm,” she says, and I scramble to figure out what I missed when she started talking, “knowing I’m aging and knowing I could die.” She pauses, and I can feel her heart through the words she shapes on her tongue. “I don’t have a real purp
ose in life, Zadicayn. I expressed as much on the train. I feel like an arrow God shot in the sky just to see how high I would go, to see where I would land.”

  I know she’s pouring her heart out to me while she’s got a second where Jaicom isn’t around. Females don’t want advice, just need to know someone hears them, Brynn has told me. Joseara is not about to pour it out to Jaicom. Or Varlith.

  But I’m the guy that if you approach me with a problem, and I’m so inclined, I’ll attempt to fix it. “Why not live out here for a while?” I spread my arms out before us, to the dark valley below. “Well, maybe not in France, but the three families aren’t hunting ye anymore. Aklen’s in the dungeon, Basil Garfair is dead, and the woman Wyndham has— Why art ye laughing?”

  She uncovers her mouth and laughs freely, the sound loud and startling and so foreign I look at her yet a second time like she might be a robot.

  “Sorry. You just…said dungeon. It’s…funny because no one says dungeon anymore, yet you use it like it’s everyday speech.”

  I suppress making a comment. “As I was saying, those three families who were hunting thee are not hunting thee anymore, so no need to stay in hiding. I can make thee as many Fae Coins as thou desires, and ye can move anywhere in the world ye want to go. Find a purpose for yeself.”

  She’s shaking her head before I’ve finished. “My face, Zadicayn. No one will—”

  “Will ye shut up about thy face? We all stopped seeing thy scars a long time ago. Ye be the only one who still prizes them like a trophy. No one cares about thy scars. Thy scars are not nearly as ugly as the scars I’ve seen deep inside of people. Maybe it would stop festering if ye gave it some air.”

  She sits stone still and as silent. Regret catches up to me, but if I apologize, then I will undo everything I’ve felt for a long time about her. I still can’t sleep alone at night because my nightmares about being trapped in the undercroft will come back. I still cry like a child at meaningless things, because having gone without human contact or touch for over three hundred years damaged my emotions, and I still haven’t figured out how they are supposed to work. Those are my scars, and I don’t flaunt them around like a war prize to get attention and pity from others, in the way I feel Joseara is doing with hers.

  I bite my lip to keep from apologizing, though I know I’ve hurt her. She stands and walks off into the dark. Now I’ve got to ride all the way to Rome on the back of a dragon, with her sticky silence directly behind me.

  Jaicom hasn’t come out of the bushes yet, but I’m not going to check on him unless he screams for help. I lie down and close my eyes, thinking to catch just a brief nap…

  Chapter Fifteen

  Darik

  I should be watching for the next shipment of girls since they don’t happen in a pattern, but this new English girl is just as important.

  I’ve scoured Castel Sant’Angelo’s grounds for additional exits. There are none. I skip two meals to make certain the man and English girl didn’t leave. But it’s been twelve hours, and they haven’t exited to even feed themselves.

  Sant’Ivo forgive me, I need sleep, food, and water. Still, with regrets for abandoning my search, my human needs roar far louder. I walk back across the bridge to my hovel above the clock shop. Too tired to scale the outside wall to my window, I limp in through the front door.

  Elma’s with a customer when I enter. She raises her eyes to me. I flop my hand in greeting and turn the sharp right to ascend the stairs. I’m sweaty and hungry, but too tired to do anything more than slurp the stagnant water from my wash basin to quench my thirst. I crash on my blanket and know sleep as intimately as the biblical understanding of the word.

  I’ve no idea what time or day it is when I wake, and I do so only because my belly hurts with hunger. It’s dark outside my window, or, rather, the hole in the brick wall of which I call a window. Elma would have closed up shop by now and put herself to bed. I look in my cupboard for hard cheese and bread.

  I help Elma in her shop in exchange for my lodging and a pittance. If I’d had any actual skills, I could earn enough money and live in an actual house with an actual wife. Thanks, padre, for abandoning me at such a young age. Truly, he likely died by cutthroats since Englishmen are rumored to have lots of money, but I can deal with hate and anger far better than sorrow and loss.

  I wash my bread and cheese down with the same water I use to wash my hands. It tastes like plaster walls and fish market. I need fresh water and a bath before I do anything else. If I get sick, I’ve got no way to medicate. I doubt Sant’Ivo will bring me back from the dead again.

  I haul my homemade, oiled-canvas bag out of the cupboard and secure it to my body. I slide my body out of my window and scale down the brick alley wall using the familiar hand holds. Two dogs below growl and bite at each other over a piece of inedible refuse tumbled from a bigger pile nearby.

  Sant’Maria still has its lantern lit, so it’s not midnight yet. I come onto Piazza della Rotonda, looking toward the heavy mass of architecture ancient Romans named the Pantheon and built to outlast them.

  I strip off my clothes and slide into the cold water at the fountain in front of the Pantheon. A quick scrub under the fountain head and I spring out, jumping about to dry before dressing again. I hold my canvas bag open to the water spout. Underground aquaducts come to mind, and I don’t know why it took a cold bath for me to think about it.

  There’s a hidden passage connecting Castel’Angelo and the Vatican. Given the man and Englishwoman did not come back out, he’s either locked her in the castle or taken her to the Vatican. There are plenty of such places. Rome did not build out; they built up. Temples and houses and forums were built on top of each other, but some of the places can still be reached if you climb down the right stair and turn down the right passage. Like how the fourth century San Clemente can be reached via the stairs in the sacristy of the basilica near the coliseum.

  I’m sure I can access Castel’Angelo, but it will take time, and I’ve got to protect that Englishwoman’s baby until then.

  I tie off my water bag and carry it back to the clock shop, the extra weight only noticeable on my climb up because of bruises and broken ribs I’m still nursing.

  I sleep until sunrise, then climb out of my window again and up the wall to the roof. I can navigate rooftops to the next street over, in case someone is watching my comings and goings. I’m not worried about the Amadio Camorra discovering where I live–they think me dead from the poisoned blade that pierced my hand. But good habits should be kept.

  Ferdiano is at his usual morning rituals in the temple and gives me a mournful look as I stride across the space toward him.

  “I was certain you’d die in the night,” he says.

  “For serving a saint, you lack conviction in miracles.”

  “I’ve just never seen one.”

  “Do you still have that baby brought in yesterday morning?”

  “The one out of wedlock? Yes. I have a couple coming to consider it for adoption this afternoon.”

  “Turn them away. I want the baby kept.”

  “You want to adopt?” His raised eyebrows say he doesn’t find me a fitting father.

  I almost say yes to unsettle him. “No. Something strange about it being given away. The girl was English.”

  “So? Your English father married an Italian.”

  “But that baby was not a newborn. It’s several months old.”

  Ferdiano fumbles with his hands and screws up his face. “What do I know about babies? Can’t say I’ve ever seen a freshly born baby to know the difference.”

  “She also didn’t speak a word of Italian. Consider the oddness of bringing an English woman to Rome just to abandon the baby. Even if she conceived in Rome, she would have learned some Italian in the nine months before birth.”

  Ferdiano presses all his fingertips to his forehead. “Are you an undercover poliziesco? I refuse to accept that smart mind of yours still lives on the streets.”


  I don’t want to believe it either, but there’s no help for it. I’ve effectively ruined any social standing I may have had due to my thieving when I was younger, which started when my father never came home.

  “No, Ferdiano. I’m not poliziesco. But I still want to use my mind to help others.” I lean in closer. “After the man gave you the baby, I followed them. He took her to Castel’Angelo…and he levitated over the curtain wall!”

  “Devil’s magic?”

  “Ey.”

  Ferdiano makes the sign of the cross over himself. “Then what?”

  “Nothing. I watched for twelve straight hours, and he didn’t come back out. Or her. I’ve seen this before–minus the devil magic–and the girls are sold. Please keep the baby here until further notice. If I can save the woman, she’ll want her baby back.”

  “You better come nurse the baby yourself every day, because I only have one wet nurse, and she’s not fond of working even for emergencies.”

  “Please?”

  “Darik, I—”

  I drop to both knees, both in humor and in deepest sincerity. “Ferdiano, please.”

  He puffs his cheeks. “Remember when I told you not to involve me with your underground dealings with the human trafficking?”

  “I’m not the one who brought the baby here.”

  “Get a real job and marry, for Sant’Ivo’s sake. You’re not beyond redemption yet.”

  “Marry? Why, of course.” I lock eyes with Valentina who sweeps by us in her long white temple smock, clearly investigating why I’m still on my knees in front of another man. Summing up every ounce of charm I’ve never had, I ask, “Valentina? Will you marry me?”

  Her cheeks blossom, and she scurries away.

  “Hmm,” I muse as Ferdiano slaps his forehead. “Maybe I should have brought flowers. That would have made a difference, no? But then, I suppose, there is the matter of keeping a wife by giving her a place to live that isn’t where I currently live, and working at a job where I currently don’t work, and bringing her clean food and water from where I currently—”