“Yes. But not always, and not often. You have been summoned, Finch. Is Teller as unhearing?”
“More so. This is the seat of my power. Teller sits beside the seat of Jay’s power.” Her arms tightened involuntarily, as if to hold the creature closer. As if to absorb what he offered.
The fox shook his head, turned, and licked her cheek.
It hurt.
“You do not understand,” the fox said, its voice changing although its form did not. “You are mortal, yes. She is Sen. You should not matter, but you do. She has made a path with, and of, the rest of you; you are important to her. As important as your city. As important as my forests.”
“What are you doing?” Jester demanded. He reached for the fox, and the fox turned. Finch couldn’t see its expression; Jester could. He paled but held out his arms anyway. Her own tightened. To Finch he said, “Your cheek is bleeding.”
“Do not question me, little mortal. You do not understand. Do you think your Terafin can save your mortal city? A god walks the plane. The world once again coalesces, and the ancient things left in the shards of their half-divine sleep are waking. Do you think she can stand alone?”
“She won’t have to stand alone,” Jester said.
The fox growled. It was a sound that implied a dragon’s throat. “She will. Because she is Sen. She is not you. She is not Finch. She is not us. Not even we could do what she intends, in her abysmal ignorance, to do. She is not even aware of it. She is terrified of it.
“And you,” he said, head curving to meet Finch’s steady—and surprisingly angry—gaze, “will doom her. Do you understand?”
Finch shook her head. “I would never, ever betray her.”
The fox’s laugh was bitter and wild and achingly lovely. “You are stupid. You are foolish. You are ignorant.”
This, oddly, was comforting. It made the fox sound very like the cats. Finch missed them. Missed them but was profoundly and uneasily grateful that Jay hadn’t left them behind.
“She is not what she was,” the fox said, bringing its voice under control. Finch wondered if he was aware of her comparison. “She is what she is. But she has chosen to leave the larger part of herself with you. If you cannot accept her, you will lose her. If you lose her, she will not preserve what she intends to preserve—she will not even see it.
“And if she cannot, you must. But to do that, Finch, you must see us. You must understand what you see. You must be as comfortable with it as you are with this box.”
“Nothing in this box can kill me,” Finch replied. “Not without effort and not without warning.”
“Ah, Finch, I see you are armed with nothing but naïveté this morning.”
Finch looked up, arms tightening, to see Jarven almost lounging against the closed doors. She hadn’t even heard them open, and from Jester’s tight expression, neither had he.
• • •
Jarven entered the room, raised a brow at Jester, and stopped to rest against the outer edge of his own desk. “The tea,” he told Finch, “will be cold.”
Jester bristled—if one knew him well. Finch adjusted her grip on the fox and lifted a hand in den-sign.
“I must admit,” Jarven added, as he strode toward his chair, “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” He spoke to Jester, offering him the rare nod that passed between equals.
This unnerved Jester immediately, as Jarven had no doubt intended. Jarven’s smile did the rest. It reminded Finch of why Lucille was so uneasy, her wordless uncertainty circulating throughout The Terafin’s Merchant Authority offices. Jarven’s smile was not the smile of a harmless old man. It was a tight, brittle smile, pasted expertly over a vast well of rage.
Rage.
“You will excuse me,” he continued, as he made his way to his chair, “if this meeting was meant to be private or exclusive. I have had a very trying day, and I am not of a mind to retreat from my own office.”
“Are you ever of a mind to retreat?” Jester asked, his voice mild. It was, sadly, mild in the same way Haval Arwood’s achieved mild.
Jarven would notice, of course. Jarven did notice. The shape of his smile changed, and Finch felt some of the tension leave her jaw and shoulders.
“Strategically, yes, now that you inquire. I don’t suppose you have anything useful to do?”
“I try to avoid that,” Jester replied. “But you’re Jarven ATerafin, feared throughout the patriciate.”
“It is not the patriciate that is my chief concern at the moment,” came the curt reply. Jarven was not in a good enough mood to deflect or deny Jester’s mild exaggeration. Finch wanted to know where he’d been, what he’d done—or what he’d failed to do. “If, however, you are otherwise unoccupied, tea would be helpful to those of us who aren’t.”
Jester lifted brows, very briefly, in Finch’s direction; she nodded.
The man whose office Finch now shared—while he lived it would never truly be her own—sat heavily, placing his elbows on the surface of his desk and propping his jaw up with his hands. It was not an act; Jarven was exhausted. Exhausted and furious.
“I will not have you staring at me as if you’ve already become Lucille,” he snapped. “I already have one of those—I do not need another.”
“She’s just worried.”
“Yes. She’s breathing.”
This startled a chuckle out of Finch.
“I will thank you not to take amusement out of my current predicament,” he said, his voice almost superbly waspish, some of the Jarven with whom she was familiar returning to the arched line of brow.
“I am certain,” she replied, voice lighter, “that if you explained what your current predicament is, it would destroy all my ability to be amused.” She walked toward her own desk—or tried.
She could not move her feet.
“I will assume that you did not actually brawl with Jester,” Jarven said, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“Of course not!”
“Then what, Finch, happened to your cheek? You might as well tell me; it will either amuse me or give me a target on which to alleviate my . . . frustration.”
Her arms felt weighted, heavy, as she realized that Jarven had entered the office, walked to his desk, noticed the wound on her cheek—and had not, apparently, noticed what she now carried in her arms.
He misread her expression—and for once, not deliberately. “You can’t honestly think that anyone would miss it? The polite might refrain from remark, but I am not in a mood to be polite.”
“Put me down,” the fox told Finch. “Put me down in front of the man.”
Finch’s arms tightened. She didn’t even know why; she felt a sudden chill, as if her burden were ice. Fur-covered, golden ice. She didn’t speak, didn’t voice her denial. And she could not ask why Jarven couldn’t see the fox, because of course, that would alert Jarven himself.
“Finch,” the fox said, voice rumbling. “If you do not do as I ask, I will be forced to bite your hands. Or eat one.” There was no humor at all in the threat.
Jarven, however, had noticed the changing play of her expressions; he was frowning. It was a sharp thing, that frown, something to cut yourself on a few times before it was gone.
She needed her hands. But she needed Jarven, as well—and even if she hadn’t, she was not certain she could blithely do as the fox demanded. She couldn’t even name her fear, it was so visceral, so instinctive.
“I will not ask again,” the fox told her, voice now soft.
Jarven’s hands fell to the desk, as if something in that soft voice had made itself audible. It was clear that the fox remained invisible to him, but he had become aware that there was something to be seen—something that he could not.
She knew that Jarven was the greater danger to her, in the end. But she had lived with Jarven for a decade and a half. She could weather his anger, if it became necessary.
“You will not,” Finch told the fox, “command me in my own home.”
• • •
&nbs
p; The fox looked up at her, taking his eyes from Jarven for the first time since Jarven had entered the room. She met—and held—his gaze, wondering if the dress she wore was proof in any way against magical teeth and jaws. Her hands, however, like her face, were not covered in the cloth, and she had no doubt—at all—that the creature could, if it desired, carry out its threat.
“Finch.”
She looked up to Jarven’s distinctly engaged expression; boredom, and even rage, had burned from his face, leaving only their echoes in its lines.
“You are clearly not addressing me.”
“No, of course not. I couldn’t stop you from commanding me anywhere you chose.”
“I am awaiting clarification. It is the elderly who are often expected to loosen their grip on sanity and reality, not the young.”
“You’ve been playing at that for decades. It doesn’t work on me.”
“No, more’s the pity. And I will have an answer to the question.” He frowned. “I suppose Jester knows the answer.”
Finch nodded.
“Then I will let him back in. I am now in the mood to take tea, and I dislike lukewarm tea.”
“Jarven . . .” The fox was watching them both, his head bobbing between them, the menace of him once again hidden, sheathed.
“You gamble,” the fox told her.
“I don’t, actually,” Finch replied, while Jarven’s lips tightened. “I would not dream of issuing commands to you in the forest. But you are not in the forest.”
“I am, Finch. I never leave it.”
“You aren’t,” she replied. “If you insist that I must see you—the wilderness, the forest—and I must accept you as part of me, you must do the same.”
The fox looked astonished. Its brows, so much a part of its face she had missed them, rose. She was fixed, frozen, her arms tiring at the weight of him, but she met and held his gaze.
And then, the small creature laughed. The weight left her arms, although the fox did not, and she stumbled as her legs once again moved at her own command.
“Perhaps,” the fox said, as it curled into those arms, “you are wise to avoid the forest. You do not understand the necessity of respect.”
“Oh, I do. I do. But The Terafin demands far more of us than simple respect.” She said, to Jarven, “Can you see him now?”
“No. And I am beginning to wonder—” He stopped at the knock on the door. “Enter.”
Jester came in, bearing both a tea tray and a frown. The tray, he set down. The frown, he deepened. He held his peace until Jarven lifted a brow at him.
“You can pour for yourself,” he said. “I’m getting a drink.”
“You don’t want to touch that cabinet without my permission.”
“Finch, can I have a drink?”
“Jarven,” Finch said, which was half an answer, the other half being no.
“Fine. Yes, please do help yourself.”
“Why can’t he see you?” Finch asked the fox. This caused Jester to stop, hand on brass knob; Finch met his gaze reflected in beveled glass. It was a narrow cabinet, and was meant for display, although it was of course perfectly functional—and stocked. Lucille had forbidden its use; she wanted all food and drink in the funnel of her oversight.
Jarven, however, didn’t care if Jester was poisoned. Finch did, but thought it so highly unlikely she said nothing.
The fox rumbled. “Because this is your home, not mine.”
“Explain, please,” Jarven said, at his most pleasant, his most patient.
“Jester came to visit me at the behest of a visitor.”
“And that visitor?”
“You might have seen him a few days ago, when Birgide brought us all to the forest.”
“Ah.” After a longer pause, his less patient expression reemerged, and Finch felt instant relief. “The fox?”
“Very good!” the fox exclaimed, in what sounded to Finch like genuine pleasure.
Jarven did not appear to hear this either, which was just as well. Condescension was only acceptable when it came from Jarven; it did not travel to him unless he desired it. “And why did this fox wish to visit us?”
“Me, Jarven. He wished to visit me.”
Jarven swatted the correction away as if it were a fly. A fruit fly. “Do not make that face, Finch. You will wind up looking like a much more elegant and demure version of Lucille—and neither of those looks would work for her.”
“They’d work for me,” Finch replied stiffly.
Jarven rolled his eyes. He was staring at her as if he could make the fox appear by force of will alone. “Why did he wish to visit?”
“He is displeased with my irresponsibility and wished to know why I am failing him.”
The fox nodded, well-pleased with her answer.
Jester, however, was not. He was a curious shade of pale—too pink to be white, but very close. Finch had seldom seen him stand so still. Even the surface of the drink he now held didn’t ripple with the usual little movements.
“If he thinks you irresponsible, he is not as perceptive as I would generally expect from those who are ancient and immortal.”
“The wisdom of the forest is not the wisdom of the streets,” Finch replied, her arms involuntarily tightening.
“Ah, yes. I forget myself.” And he did no such thing.
“If it amuses you to test,” Finch told him, in her most Lucille-like voice, “Please do it when I am not here. I will, of course, grieve for you should you die—but I cannot afford to die with you at present.”
Jarven laughed.
And the laugh tugged at Finch’s lips, pulling them up as her own amusement caught light from his. He denied nothing, of course. And while he could do so with grace, he acknowledged Finch’s perception.
“Lucille would be proud of you,” he said, fondly. “What does the eldest want from you?”
“He desires that I do my duty, nothing more.”
“I see you are wielding naïveté this morning. Given the immediate future, I am almost disappointed in you.”
Finch said nothing.
“In particular, I am disappointed that you feel that it is an appropriate weapon to wield against me. Be a mouse if it pleases you. Be a steel mouse. But that is a ridiculous assumption.”
“How so?” She did not argue or counter. She waited, the warmth of golden fur heating her arms and her torso.
“Things ancient, things wild, do not define duty the way you do, Finch.” He had not said “we.” “If you believe that you are called upon to do your duty and nothing more, you fail to understand the ancient concept.”
Finch opened her mouth, and the fox very gently bit her hand; he did not draw blood. Her hand didn’t hurt. It was almost like a very hard kiss. “Hush, little mortal. I want to hear what he has to say.”
She kept her gaze fixed on Jarven, without hope that he would not recognize the little signs in her reaction that betrayed the fox’s interjection. This is my home. “And what is the ancient concept? You are older and more experienced, but you are—to my knowledge—still as mortal as the rest of us.”
“I have not, you may have noticed—and if you haven’t, Lucille certainly has—been much in the Merchant Authority offices of late. You do such fine work I feel my presence here almost irrelevant. I am cheered immensely to find that this is not the case this afternoon.”
“Jarven.”
“I have been speaking,” he continued, thoroughly enjoying himself, “to gods, Finch. I did attempt to interact with the god-born, but they do not have answers to the questions I ask—they are slow and intractable, and all conversations end with the equivalent of ‘I have to ask my father.’ Or mother. It is not satisfying, and I have therefore petitioned the cathedrals. I have spent some time in conversation. As a member of the House Council.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jester empty his glass; she hadn’t been aware of him drinking from it until now.
“You are not empowered to speak on behalf
of Terafin.”
“Am I not? A pity. I was forced to be direct, and the political error—if it is indeed considered such—cannot be waved away with a nod to the slow faculties that are a product of age.”
“Where did you find him?” the fox asked Finch.
“He was in the office when I was sent here by my Lord.”
“Interesting.” The fox lifted his head; breath tickled her chin. Sweet breath. “He took you in?”
“He was commanded to teach me by the same Lord that commanded me to attend him. Yes, in a fashion.”
“And he did not kill you. Did he damage you?”
“Finch,” Jarven said, steepling his hands. She realized then that it had been a while since she had seen that familiar, sharp gesture.
“No,” she told the fox. “He did not damage me. At the beginning, it would have been like trapping a—a mouse. I had neither defense nor weapon against him. He is not a careful man. If he sets his sights on something, he will move toward it in the most direct path he can take.”
Jester snorted. The fox turned instantly toward him. “You do not agree?”
“Jarven’s concept of direct or straight would shame a corkscrew. If there was a straight path, he would mistrust it instinctively. If he could walk safely through the front door, he would waste an hour sliding in through a window.”
Jarven’s raised brow was not entirely friendly; Finch was certain Jester knew it.
The fox, however, nodded thoughtfully. “You do not like him.”
“No.”
“You do not trust him.”
“Gods, no.”
The fox turned back to Finch. “He did not harm you because you were not worthy of harm?”
“No one,” she said gravely, “is innately worthy of harm. And many of the people he has harmed in the past—or attempted to harm—”
“Does he fail often?”
“Almost never.”
“But not never.”
“No. And those who have defeated him—or at least have not been defeated by him—are probably as close to friends as he has.”
“Would you consider yourself a friend? It is a mortal concept,” the fox added, appearing to want to be helpful.
“Of Jarven’s?” She frowned. “I think of him that way, yes.”
Firstborn Page 9
