by Jada Fisher
“Actually, I just got a huge lead on it thanks to my sister.”
“Your sister? You mean the one that’s literally laminated over there?” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the crystalized forms laying on the ground, and I nodded. “Huh, weird.”
I knelt on the ground and set the books in front of me. “But, I’m going to need your guys’ help. How are y’all on your foreign languages?”
12
A Moment of Respite
I laid against the cold ground, my head on Bron’s chest and Mallory’s on my stomach. We had spent so much of the night studying as much of the page as we could, I was worried I would be too tired for the next day and unable to perform to Baelfyre’s satisfaction. The last thing I wanted him to think was that I was up to some sort of shenanigans and have him investigate just what I was studying at night. That would literally ruin everything.
But, try as I might to sleep, it evaded me. I just had so much on my mind, and the pressure of the situation was really starting to get to me.
“You’re awake,” Bron murmured from behind me.
I didn’t turn my head, lest I wake Mallory. She looked like she needed all the rest she could get, and I just hoped that she wasn’t coming down with something.
“Yeah.”
“Something bothering you?”
“Everything.”
“I figured as much.” His fingers stroked through my hair, and I let myself enjoy the soothing movement. I just had to not think about how greasy my hair had to be. Ugh, when was the last time that I had showered? I couldn’t even remember. It seemed ages ago since I was in my own world. “Do you remember when our biggest worry was the anti-humanists in my world?”
“Our world,” I corrected. “And yeah.” I half-laughed, half-sighed. “If only you hadn’t been so persistent after the café, then none of this would have happened.”
“Yeah, because the anti-humanists would have snatched you right up.”
“Not if I hadn’t touched you. That’s when my hallucinations went into overdrive. I guess it took direct contact with someone who had a powerful bloodline to unlock whatever it is that fuels this Seer stuff.”
“…that’s what happened from your perspective?”
“What do you mean from my perspective?” I asked quietly. “You felt it too, right? That’s why you took so much interest in me.”
“What? No.” I felt him shifting behind me, but my head managed to stay settled in the center of his chest. “I… Really? That’s why you think I noticed you?”
“Well, yeah. Unless it was the dropped coffee pot, but I didn’t think that was that memorable.”
He laughed, bouncing my head up and down lightly. “Goodness. That is interesting. No, it wasn’t the coffee pot, or even the first time we touched.” He chuckled again, and I had to wonder what was so hilarious. “I first noticed you behind the counter because you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”
“What?!” I objected, nearly sitting up but remembering Mallory just in time. “Bron, there is no way that is possible.”
I felt him shrug. “I would like to think that I’ve proven I am not one to lie.” He must have sensed that I wasn’t convinced, because he kept talking.
“You were tall, like a tree, and your hair was a combination of lilac, teal, and pink that made me think of summers on the island with my great-great aunt before she passed. You had this sad sort of smile to you, one that made me want to ask what was wrong and see if I could help.
“But then you would greet a customer, or laugh, and your face would just light up in a way I had never seen before that moment. It was so, uh, real, I suppose you would say. With no motivations or politics behind it. You were just…kind.”
I could feel myself blushing, my body temperature spiking as he kept right on going. While I was long past the days where I thought I was hideous, I certainly was no international beauty either.
“And your eyes! They were so different from my own. And of any other dragon. They are almost shaped like almonds, but big and sparkling with this sort of energy that I needed to get to know more.” He faltered for a moment and I thought he was done, but then he picked up again. “Perhaps I shouldn’t mention it, but I would be committing a lie by omission if I didn’t mention that your, uh, figure was certainly alluring in and of itself. You have certain features that I find quite…appealing. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”
“But…but I’m fat.”
“If you say so. I don’t know exactly what equates to the human equivalent of overweight. I just know that I like the way you look. I like that your thighs are strong, and you look like you wouldn’t snap in half if—” He stopped short and I swore that I felt him warm too. “Let’s change the subject. What did you first think when you saw me?”
“That you were really, really hot, and really dangerous.”
“Well, I suppose you weren’t wrong on either count.”
“Wow, real humble now there, aren’t we?”
He shrugged, and his fingers scrambled my hair a bit more. “I have been aware of my physical appeal for many years. I appreciate it, and sometimes I even take pride in it, but in the end, it is just another descriptor for me, not who I am.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. That was the most philosophical thing that I had ever heard him say, and it sounded so funny coming from his lips.
“What? I was not telling a joke.”
“No, no, you weren’t,” I said once I caught my breath. “It was just how you said it.”
“Was it? Well, I am glad I was able to make you smile.”
“Me too,” I said, sighing contentedly. “And I’m glad that we met.”
“Really? Even though it caused the complete destruction of your life, plunging you into a world that you didn’t even know existed, where you became a pawn in a great chess match that we were critically underprepared for that also caused the disappearance of your sister, the one person who has truly been with you your entire life.”
“…wow.” I said, eyes going wide. “You were paying attention.”
“I try.”
I chuckled again and snuggled into his chest even more. “Even with all that, I’m still glad.”
“Then I will consider that a compliment not to take lightly.”
His hand went from the top of my head to my shoulder, and I felt much more at peace than I had before. Bron was going to be a great prince, war general, and even king to his people. I just needed to make sure that he got back home in order to do so.
13
Day In and Day Out
Despite the certain danger that clung to every moment of our lives, our days fell into a sort of routine. The prince also finally figured out that he had to feed us—I had no idea who tipped him off to that—so we would get a meal with Galivnod in the morning and one at night as I was dropped off in my cell.
The day would start with a strange conversation where Mal didn’t say much, then we would have a couple of hours before the guards would get me, and then my hours with Baelfyre.
If I ever worried about being too bored, at least Baelfyre kept it spicy. Sometimes he was rage-filled and violent, and sometimes he was cool as a cucumber, but no matter what mood he was in, we were working our way through the alphabet and were getting to the point where we’d be able to more successfully translate whole pages instead of just random symbols.
Then, once I was returned to my cell, we would eat under guard supervision, and once they left, we’d spend four or so more hours studying the crystal page, which we were also making pretty good progress on.
It helped that Mickey would sometimes visit me in my sleep, espousing wisdom and helping me figure out anything that had stumped me. Her presence wasn’t guaranteed, nor was it always coherent, but I appreciated that it was there nonetheless.
It was hard to say how much time had passed. Was it a week? Two? A month? I wasn’t sure. All that I knew was that all of our hair was getting shaggy and w
e were pretty rank. Goodness, what I’d do for a bubble bath.
“Hey, Mallory, you okay?”
My friend blinked rapidly, then looked to me wearily. “Pardon?”
We were all sitting around the books, our notes haphazardly spread across the floor. We were staying up far later than we should, but we were so close to breaking the conditional cypher that we all couldn’t sleep.
Well, Mallory could probably sleep. With each passing day, she looked a little worse. Nothing near fatal level, or like she was dying, but the girl was definitely sick with something. It reminded me of when she had allergies as a kid and would sometimes miss two weeks of school, but a little subtler.
“Maybe you should rest,” I said, caressing her cheek. She leaned into my hand, but a look of determination crossed her face.
“Not when we’re so close. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“It just might be for the entire world,” Bron mused, studying the page of notes that we had a breakthrough on the previous night.
“I got it!” Mal cried, jumping to her feet. “I got it!”
“What?” My head whipped to her. As charismatic as she had been, she had certainly been more reticent since we’d been captured. Of course, I didn’t blame her for that. She was in the tenuous purgatory of not being in Galvinod’s custody, but basically being promised to him. I certainly didn’t envy her.
But I would make sure that never happened. It was the least I could do, considering my sister had gotten her into this mess.
“That last symbol chunk we were on! It’s not a phrase, it’s a directional indicator.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Now Bron was on his feet, looking over her shoulder at the page.
“We thought this symbol told us what tense all of these other ones were in, but that’s not how it works. I don’t think that there are even tenses. It’s just telling us the path to read.” She seemed to be able to tell I wasn’t getting it, so she laid her book on the ground and pointed to one of the symbols toward the middle of the page.
“You said Baelfyre mentioned that this was read in downward columns. But I think he was only partially right. You start by going that way, but you change when you hit one of the directional symbols.” She shuffled through our notes and held up another with four different symbols on it. “We figured out these meant right, or justice, left or loss, up or sky, and down or earth. They’re the only ones we found that have solely the two meanings.
“So here, let’s start at the symbol for birth, or beginning, or dawn, whatever you want to call it. Now, we follow it down until we hit the symbol for right, then we go that way until we hit the direction for up. It’s like a map!”
I grabbed the paper and pen, writing furiously in the direction of her finger. Soon, I had the whole page written out in standard English order.
“This is it!” I cried. “We translate this, we have the answers!”
“And the dragons don’t,” Mal said happily.
“Exactly.” It took a lot to not cry right then and there in sweet, sweet relief. “All we have to do is translate this and figure out the meanings.”
“No big deal, right?” Mallory said from the ground, where she had curled into a bit of a ball.
“No big deal,” I agreed to be supportive, but my gut told me something very different.
And as a seer, you’d think I’d learn to listen to it a bit more.
“A shingle of the maw, dew from the split circle. Spirit of the sighted and the rising of the star.”
“…what the heck does that mean?”
I sighed. All those nights of hard work just for a couple sentences that didn’t even make sense. “I don’t know.”
“It’s a riddle,” Mal said slowly, rubbing the sides of her head. “Baelfyre said that this was a sort of fairy tale book, right? Well fairy tales love riddles, or at least they do as far as I understand.”
“I suck at riddles,” I said with a sigh, sinking to the ground. “Mostly because the answer usually just comes to me like someone’s whispering next to my ear, so when there’s no voice, I have no idea how to answer.”
“Huh, that’s cheating.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“It’s obviously how to evoke the crystal. Or break it. Or maybe use it as a weapon.” Mallory rolled onto her back and sighed at my words. “Maybe obviously wasn’t the right word, but that would at least be my guess. I saw in a vision twice now that we can pretty much call upon it if we’re motivated enough. So, I would say that’s gotta be how we break it.”
“What could these things be then?” Bron asked. “Let’s take it one at a time. A shingle of the maw. What could that be?”
“Maw means mouth, right?” I asked. “…what’s a mouth shingle?”
“Does shingle mean something else besides what you put on a roof?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m not exactly an architect.”
“What if its something that can be used as a shingle? Or just looks like one? Or maybe…rhymes with it?” Bron puzzled out, rubbing his chin.
I closed my eyes and pictured a classic shingled roof. Goodness, that word was starting to sound less and less real the more we repeated it. But nevertheless, I focused, picturing the sunbaked, cream walls and the red, red roof.
They overlapped each other neatly, the bottom of one covering the top of the other to reflect heat and send water running down them when the rains came.
I could hear the sound of the water rushing down the shapes, heading toward the gutters where they would inevitably flood the yard. It reminded me of the time Bron and Baelfyre had been fighting off dragons in the palace yard, the water from the sprinklers making each of their scales shine like they had been—
“It’s scales!” I said, my spine jolting so hard that it popped. “The shingles of the maw are, uh, mouth scales?” I looked to Bron. “Is that a thing?”
He nodded. “Inside of our lips, we have special, softer scales that protect the softer tissues of our mouth from burns or other battle damage. I’ve heard they look very similar to the inside of a snapping turtle’s mouth.”
I blanched at that. “A snapping turtle’s mouth is like some gross alien landscape, but great, we can always harvest yours. If we get to a place where you can shift.”
“I might be able to do a partial one. But you would have to remove it right before you need it.”
“Why’s that?”
“The inside of our mouths has a high concentration of ammonia. If you take them out and don’t immediately soak them in that, they rot and disintegrate within an hour or two.”
“Oh wow, that is, uh…interesting.”
“Really? I always thought that it was a bit foul.”
I didn’t know quite how to respond to that, so I just kept plowing forward. “What’s the next part? Dew from the split circle?”
“Yeah. I’m going to assume that it’s a liquid,” Mal said. “Maybe a liquid that’s usually found in the morning. But I have no idea what a split circle could be. Um…the moon? Maybe? Does that make sense?”
“I don’t think the moon splits.” Bron said. “More waxes and wanes. But I do think you’re right about those liquids.”
Suddenly, Mallory was cutting in. “I think we should clean up and all get to sleep. We’re not going to get many more chances at rest, and solving a riddle while overtired really isn’t all that great.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said, patting the top of her head. “Maybe a good night’s rest will do us well.”
“I know I won’t say no to it,” Mallory said, rolling over and putting her head in my lap. “But I’m always tired lately.”
“Yeah, are you okay, girl?”
She made a broad gesture and sighed. “I’ll live.” She hesitated a minute, then corrected herself. “I mean, whatever I’m coming down with is much less likely to kill me than any of the hijinks we’re bound to get up to while escaping and subverting these less than friendly dragons.”<
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“Good to know.” I scooted back to lean against the wall, but Bron was already arranging himself so that I could lean against him instead of the cold partition. I thought about arguing with him for a minute, especially considering he never got a turn being cushioned by someone else, but I knew it would be futile.
Besides, maybe it was selfish of me, but these hours resting against his chest, feeling his warmth and strength through my back, were one of the things that helped me get through each day. When things got bad with Baelfyre, I would just close my eyes and think of Bron holding me.
Who would have thought that the hot boy in the café would turn out to be so important to me? I certainly hadn’t seen it coming.
Unlike every other night, this time Mal sat down right next to me, her eyes flicking toward me almost as if she was asking my permission. I nodded, of course, and she leaned against both Bron and I, her head resting on the swell of my chest.
It was nice. Oftentimes, we felt a bit fractured, like it was us, the Strangers, vs her. We had dragged her up in our mess and then got her stuck here.
But for just tonight, it felt like we were one unit. Just a group of desperate survivors working together to stop the beasts intent on killing us. We stayed that way, our limbs all intertwined in each other, until we fell asleep.
14
Cracking the Code
I woke up feeling more tired than I had been before I fell asleep. My body ached, and I could tell that our routine was getting to me. I needed a soft bed, and maybe a full-body massage, as well as to just walk around in the sunlight outside like I wasn’t a prisoner of a group of genocidal dragons.
Maybe that was what was getting to Mallory, some sort of scurvy or something. I imagined that there wasn’t a whole lot of vitamin C in our diet between our breakfasts with Galvinod and bare bones dinners with the guards.
However, my mind was instantly filled with the riddle, turning it over this way and that. I felt that since the first example had been so metaphorical, the other ones were likely to be just as obscure. I needed to be less literal and think more like I was writing a fairy tale.
