by Zoe Chant
She found many. There were tiny paintings everywhere, magically exacting in their accuracy. The downstairs room obviously belonged to Trey, and there were as many depictions of Fabio as there were of the knight and his key, including one where the hound was gleefully holding a curved yellow box labeled “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! The Original.”
The dogs followed her everywhere, excited whenever she shifted back and forth, as if she’d just returned from a long journey and she was their favorite person ever.
There was a larger door near the door to the house and it opened to a massive space that was clearly a place to spar, with thin mats down over a hard floor that seemed to be a single slab of rock full of inclusions. Weapons hung on the wall here, an axe as Henrik preferred, a sword of a design that Tadra had never seen, as well as more standard configurations, and a few battle staves.
She picked one up, testing her constitution with a few swings and turns. Fabio barked and fell to his elbows in an invitation to play. Tadra returned the weapon to the place she’d found it. She was certainly stronger than she’d been the night before; she would be able to fight in human form if her fate required it, even if her firebird was small and helpless.
Climbing back up the long stairs didn’t wind her, and Tadra opened each door to investigate every room.
The suite to the left of the stairs was spacious, with its own bathroom and a wardrobe-room large enough for a dance hall. It was filled with beautiful dresses that might indicate a woman of rank and stacked bins of raw fiber and uncut cloth in all the colors that Tadra had ever seen. There were likenesses of Rez here, standing with the woman who must be Heather. They were smiling at each other, and Tadra was struck by his happiness and her obvious adoration.
She was not sure she had ever seen him look so content and joyful in all the years she’d known him.
The room beside her own was much more utilitarian, with a similar configuration and the same snowy view from the window. There were no pictures of Henrik, but Tadra recognized Gwen from the artwork downstairs, and there were others who looked like her in the frozen portals hung on the wall. Their wardrobe-room had a white uniform hanging in it, a woven black belt draped around the hanging hook.
She walked past her own door, and the final room on that floor was Ansel’s.
It, like the kitchen workshop, looked much brighter and less frightful in the light of the day. Tadra sat down on the bed and the dogs leaped up beside her and made groaning noises of delight, rolling and playing on the smooth fabric spread. She patted Fabio absently and looked around, trying to absorb clues about the man who was her key in this world.
He was tidy, but not obsessive; there were a few items of clothing flung casually over the back of a chair, but the floor was clean. The surface of his desk was uncluttered, with just a few tools of his craft and Tadra’s ornament was in a box in the center, nestled safely in a curious transparent fabric made of bubbles. There was also a ring of white glass in the box, a fine strand of golden thread dangling where the firebird should hang.
She stood up and lifted the central ornament carefully into her hands, mindful of the dogs wrestling good-naturedly on the bed behind her. It would be just her luck to break her avatar again, after Ansel had clearly put so much effort in putting her back together.
It was a cunning representation of her firebird, and close in size to her actual diminished form in this world. She turned it in the sunlight, watching the light play through it and reflect from the seams where it had been repaired. There was one at her firebird’s throat, and she touched her neck as if she might feel it there on her flesh. Was that why she couldn’t speak?
She returned it reverently to the box and traced the ring that framed it, feeling a distant shiver of magic.
Beside the box was a sketchbook with a hard black cover and metal wire binding. Tadra hesitated only a moment before opening it. She wanted to know everything she could about Ansel. He was her key.
Chapter 7
Ansel pulled the car eagerly up in front of the garage, his stomach a tangle of nerves and excitement.
He hated every moment that he’d been away, worried that Tadra would be awake and alone, but more worried that she wouldn’t be awake, that she’d slipped into a terrible coma because he’d bungled her repair and ruined everything. Maybe he shouldn’t have even tried. He should have just waited until Robin had returned with the others.
He opened the trunk and hooked bags over his arms, considered the logistics of the other things he’d bought, and left them there, awkwardly pulling the trunk lid down to keep snow from filling it.
He kept remembering Tadra’s fluttering hands and her wild red hair, the way she’d looked naked—he had to jerk his thoughts away from that memory a lot. Her lively wit, her look of concentration as she memorized hand signs and absorbed all the wonders and technology he showed her.
The helpless sorrow in her face when she learned the fate of her world.
Even just thinking about that grief made Ansel desperate to fix it for her, but he knew that it was nothing he could repair with superglue and patience.
The dogs howled to greet him when he fumbled the keys in the door with one hand and he had to knee Fabio back as he came in, holding the groceries out of the way. “Yes, yes, I’m happy to see you, too,” he scolded.
Vesta stood on the back of the couch so she’d be taller and barked until his ears were ringing.
Then Tadra was flitting down the stairs and Ansel didn’t even notice the dogs.
She was dressed in a stretchy blue T-shirt, a sequin butterfly across her chest, and the knights had guessed her size well; the jeans looked like a good fit. Her hair was tousled from sleep and she was clutching something to her chest.
Ansel winced when he realized that she was holding his sketchbook. He never shared his work and was loath to sketch in public, preferring to keep his artwork hidden. He hadn’t picked it up in months, because the house was hard to find privacy in when it was full of knights with a poor sense of personal space and a fable who went out of their way to be as annoying as possible.
She didn’t offer to speak, so Ansel guessed that she still couldn’t. She signed hello and Ansel nearly dropped his groceries trying to sign back before he remembered that he could say it out loud himself. “Hi.”
She lifted the sketchbook with a curious look.
“I...ah…”
She put the sketchbook down on the counter and asked questions with her eyes about the grocery bags he was holding, crowding close as she touched the crinkly plastic in wonder and tried to peer into them.
“I got some more food,” he said. “I hadn’t stocked up on groceries because I wasn’t sure when the rest of them would be back, and there were a few things I thought you might like.” He almost tripped over Fabio taking the bags to the kitchen counter. “Fabio, out of the kitchen. Here, Tadra, I’ll show you!”
Sharing his grocery store purchases with Tadra gave it all new meaning, and Ansel thought that no Christmas in the world could compare to watching her discover each mundane item.
The carton of eggs was opened and shut until he worried for the cardboard hinge, and she marveled over the grapes, eating a few with relish when he urged her to. She was as fascinated by the packaging as she was the contents, crinkling and un-crinkling one of the empty bags and laughing soundlessly as it sprang back to its original shape.
She was like a child...and so very not, Ansel thought, watching her turn the frozen pizza package over in her hands as if she suspected it was a threat. “I got you one with cheese,” he explained. “All I had in the freezer was the cheese-free kind, and I’ve been told it’s not very good. I thought you should have a better introduction to our earth food.”
She rubbed her stomach, then pointed at a picture of cheese on the pizza box. They hadn’t learned the word for cheese yet, but Ansel could guess what she meant.
“Oh, I got you something else,” he remembered, when she found the
package of markers. “Be right back…”
Fabio followed him outside and Vesta wasn’t going to be left behind. She plowed directly into the few inches of snow, yelped in outrage, and jumped from footprint to footprint to tail Ansel to the car. “C’mon you guys,” Ansel told them, but Fabio was sniffing urgently for a place to relieve himself and Vesta was whining to be picked up, thoroughly over the slushy snow covering the driveway.
“I can’t carry you,” Ansel protested, his arms full. “Fabio, hurry up!”
When he finally got them all herded back inside, Tadra had managed to draw on the tips of her fingers with the markers. She shrugged and grinned at Ansel, showing off the blue stains.
“That’s what these are for,” he explained, holding up the whiteboards. “I’ll hang them up around the house and you can always have a place to write.” He propped it up against the coffee maker and demonstrated with a bold red squiggle that he promptly erased with his thumb.
Tadra’s eyes went wide, and she clapped her hands in glee. Brilliant! she wrote in tidy purple letters. Then she erased it with the side of her hand, to Ansel’s vague disappointment.
“Make sure you put the caps back on the markers,” he warned. “They’ll dry out and be no good if you leave them open.”
She nodded her earnest understanding.
She’d eaten the bowl of cereal he left her, but signed that she was still hungry. Ansel was relieved to see that she seemed completely recovered from her exhaustion the night before, flitting around with quick, eager movements. She all but danced around as Ansel put the last of the groceries away, peering into every cabinet he opened.
“I could make eggs and toast,” Ansel suggested.
Tadra tapped the pizza box that was still out on the counter and rubbed her stomach hopefully.
“That’s not something we usually eat for breakfast,” he said with a smile. When she looked faintly disappointed, he quickly added, “But there’s no reason not to!”
He showed Tadra the oven and the freezer, explaining their purpose, and unwrapped two individual pizzas to bake. They looked up words on his phone as they needed them: oven, hot, cheese, bake. Her most used words were questions: where, why, how, what?
Ansel explained how his pizza was different. “Mine doesn’t have regular cheese. I’m lactose intolerant,” he said. “Milk and cheese don’t agree with me.”
That led to laughing until tears rolled out of their eyes over the sign for fart.
“I’m trying to spare you that,” Ansel chuckled.
Tadra threw her arms around him and squeezed him, her silent giggle conveyed through her shaking.
Ansel reminded himself firmly that all the knights were just touchy like that, frequently embracing not only their keys, but each other, and anyone they considered a friend. He’d gotten used to the occasional surprise bear hug, and he’d had to explain more than once that the delivery driver did not want to be clasped in joy when he brought food.
But Tadra’s embrace was more dangerous than that, by a lot, and it tested Ansel’s resolve to do no more than pat her shoulder in return. She let go slowly, and Ansel thought her smile when she backed away was full of invitation.
Invitation he didn’t dare accept, and was probably misreading anyway. Ansel closed his eyes, which was worse, because then he could remember more clearly how she’d looked standing naked before him.
He wrenched his eyes open and found that Tadra’s expression had gone curious, probably because he was gritting his teeth like he was in pain. He’d have to be more careful with his expression.
The oven gave a cheerful tone to announce that it was hot and he set the timer and slid the pizzas onto the stone. Tadra went back to where she had set his sketchbook down.
“I don’t really show people that,” Ansel said, fighting back his urge to snatch it away from her.
Why not? she shrugged at him with a pointed look.
“It’s just...” Ansel wasn’t sure how to explain. “It’s private. I don’t usually share it.”
Tadra set the sketchbook back down on the counter, looking disappointed and guilty. Ansel wondered how much of it she’d already looked at.
Private? she wrote on the board.
Did they not have privacy? Ansel wondered. The knights certainly had a...unique understanding of it...an understanding that had led to many lectures about wearing clothing and closing doors. As Ansel was trying to figure out how to explain it, she shook her head and added sign? and pointed to his phone.
“Privacy is probably a useful word to know,” Ansel agreed. “You’re going to have to ask for it in this increasingly crowded house if you want any. Don’t expect it from the dogs, though. Always latch the door when you go to the bathroom.”
They looked up the word together and practiced it - their hands in an A formation tapping a thumb against the lips.
She pointed at herself, then drew fingers from her eyes to the sketchbook and added sorry. Her face, scrunched in guilt, said as much as her fingers.
Ansel felt his chest squeeze. “It’s okay,” he said quickly, because he didn’t want her to feel bad. Then his thoughts caught up with him and he realized that it really was okay. “I don’t mind,” he said in surprise.
Her relieved smile was brilliant, then her brow furrowed. Question, she signed, pointing at the sketchbook.
“Sure,” Ansel agreed. “You can look. I’m happy to answer any questions you have.”
She opened the sketchbook and flipped a few pages to an elaborate sketch of a waterfall, the top lost in fog. There was a tree hung with lace at the bottom, and a fox drinking from the pool. Its reflection showed butterfly wings. She tapped the picture, then herself, then spread her fingers in all directions. When Ansel looked at her blankly, she reached for one of the markers and wrote on the flat whiteboard: This is like my world.
“Henrik described it,” Ansel told her. “It sounded so beautiful. We have stories of faery. Old stories. I have some books I can lend you.”
She turned a few pages. It was a still life, roughly sketched, of the three ornaments hanging in the kitchen window. “We hadn’t found you yet,” Ansel explained. When he looked at the sketch, he saw only the flaws, how Henrik’s gryphon had too long a neck, how Trey’s dragon wasn’t quite posed correctly, a certain wrongness in the legs of Rez’s unicorn.
But Tadra seemed genuinely delighted.
The next page was a study of only the rings, overlapping and falling off each corner, and in the center, a blank space.
“I was just playing with negative space,” Ansel said apologetically.
She tilted her head at him, but Ansel couldn’t guess what her expression meant and she didn’t sign anything, flipping ahead to the final page that he’d sketched on.
This time, she did sign, moving her hand to point at her breastbone. Me.
It was a swift, spare sketch, just a few light lines, to capture the way she had looked sleeping. Her eyes were closed, her hair splayed across the pillow. Ansel had sketched her freckles, the barest suggestion of her nose and parted mouth, the length of her neck, a hint of her collarbone. He’d spent the most time on her hair, following the flow of it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling briefly like a creeper. “It was probably a violation of your privacy.” He’d done it from memory, hoping that getting the image of her out on paper meant she would haunt his mind less.
Tadra shook her head vigorously and made the I love you symbol with her hand, pointing with the other to the picture.
Ansel was dismayed by how much even just the sign on her hands made him feel. “That’s probably too strong a sentiment,” he suggested. “How about a thumbs up?” He demonstrated. “That means, well done, or good. Two thumbs up for special occasions.”
Tadra tapped the page and gave him two thumbs up. Then she scooped her hands toward her heart in an unmistakable instinctive sign. It fills my heart.
“I’m glad you like it,” Ansel said gruffly.
&
nbsp; They were sitting close together to look at the sketchbook, and Ansel’s phone, right beside it, so he didn’t have time to startle back when she leaned forward to kiss him. He’d half-expected her to press her forehead to his, the way the knights often expressed platonic affection, but he wasn’t ready for the feel of her warm lips on his, the tickle of her hair against the edges of his face, or the touch of her hand on his face.
It took every shred of his self-control not to kiss her back, to claim her whole mouth, to clutch her gorgeous body close. For a moment, not kissing her was all he could manage, then finally, fighting for every inch, he took her by the shoulders and set her away from him. “What are you doing?” he growled.
Confusion clouded her face. She pointed at him, gestured to herself and signed key into her palm. You’re my key.
Ansel felt his blood run cold, trying to remember what he’d said, and how he’d said it. Had he led her on? Had he longed so badly to be her key that he’d implied that he was?
He was no more capable of speaking than she was around the pain in his chest, and he could only sign back, shaking his head.
I’m not your key.
Chapter 8
Tadra thought that she had finally figured things out, had finally made sense out of this mad world.
She was a firebird knight from a different land, and Ansel was her key. They would be a couple, the way Trey was with Daniella, and Rez with Heather, and Gwen with Henrik. Possibly, they would adopt a strange animal companion. Ansel would unlock her ability to draw power from the clouded leylines in this place so that they could protect the world, and he would look at her the way that her shieldmates’ keys looked at them in their likenesses.
She wanted that more than she wanted her voice, or her firebird power.
She ached for that softness in his eyes, that stirring in her belly, the way his touch made her skin tingle with longing. Wasn’t that what she was supposed to feel for her key? She didn’t think she had mistaken the warmth in his face, or the way his breath caught in his throat when she touched him or stood close.
