by Zoe Chant
Ansel had already come to the same conclusion. None of the knights seemed the slightest bit concerned about the fact that Tadra did not recognize Kevin, or even that she couldn’t speak. They didn’t seem to care about the coming battle or their captivity. All of these things were dismissed as unimportant as they shed their weapons and tromped out of the garage into the house. They acted nearly drunk, skipping away from any topics of significance, fakely jovial like a troupe of mall Santa Clauses.
“I’ll call in an order!” Heather called.
“First dibs on the shower!” Gwen countered.
Then they were all out of the garage, the door swinging slowly shut behind their happy chatter, and Kevin, Tadra, and Ansel were alone.
“I wondered if you’d be trouble,” Kevin said thoughtfully to Ansel, moving between him and Tadra.
“I wouldn’t be if you were her true key,” Ansel answered. He’d been completely prepared to let Tadra find her happiness with her key, but if Tadra said this wasn’t him, Ansel was just as ready to fight him as he’d been to welcome him.
Maybe more ready, to be honest.
Tadra stepped forward and Ansel had to divide his attention between them. Who? she signed.
“Who are you, really?” Ansel asked for her.
Kevin didn’t answer, but he turned his gaze to Tadra and grinned. “I’m your key, of course.”
Fraud, Tadra signed angrily.
Ansel balled his hands into fists.
Kevin’s gaze swiveled back to him. “Don’t get any fancy ideas about hurting me. I may not be her soulmate, but her key bond is mine and I have her reins tightly in hand. Anything you do to me will only harm her.”
Ansel could not doubt his sincerity, and it filled him with white-hot rage.
“The key bond is their weakness, you know, not just their strength. Robin was a little trickier, but I know every crack in their armor and pride was always their greatest flaw.” He glanced scornfully at Ansel’s clenched fists.
He faced Tadra. “It’s a shame that your firebird is tangled so deep with your human self. I have no need for this shell you inhabit, but I need your firebird.”
Then he was making a sweeping motion with one hand and Ansel watched in horror as Tadra sucked her breath in and collapsed in place, like a puppet with all her strings cut. Before he could take a step, not sure if he was going to try to help her or attack Kevin despite the man’s warning, Kevin turned his blue eyes—unnaturally blue, they seemed now—to stop him in his tracks.
Ansel had read descriptions, in horror books mostly, of blood running cold. None of the fanciful literary turns of phrase really did the feeling justice. It was like he had spikes of ice stabbing him from the inside of every vein. And then, just as swiftly as it started, it was gone. Ansel stood still for a moment, trying to make sense of what had just happened to him, and Kevin turned back to Tadra as if dismissing him as a threat.
“My little firebird,” he said, kneeling to pat Tadra’s head as if she was an obedient dog, then tipping her chin up. “You don’t have much power here, do you? More than my bleaks now, though. They have been away from our world too long, and they can’t use power like you can, they can only use it up.” He clucked in disappointment. “It's been much easier to get things done since you woke up, but I’ll have to be careful about how much I take at once. I only need enough for the portal home, at the end of it, where my full army waits.”
Ansel turned to get one of the knights’ discarded weapons, then caught Tadra’s tiny, urgent sign out of the corner of his eye. Stop. Stop. Cold. She was making the hand motion discreetly, looking up at Kevin with a slack expression of wonder and fear.
No, it wasn’t cold. It was freeze.
“Poor little mute bird,” Kevin said. “I wasn’t sure how my spell was going to work. I didn’t have much time to figure out the enchantment, or how Robin had altered it as it was cast. Henrik’s counterspell only confused things, of course, but in the end, I got what I needed. Not all of your shieldmates, unfortunately, but you alone ought to be enough for my endgame, and they have been neutralized.”
Tadra’s hands were still fluttering. To an observer, it might have just been nervous motion, but Ansel watched her fingers avidly, trying to figure out what she was saying. Game? Play a game? Play along? Pretend?
He itched to do something, to attack Kevin while he was turned away, to get between him and Tadra. But it terrified him how much control the man had over Tadra; he’d been able to drop her with a mere motion, and it sounded as if he did have the key bond, whether it had been meant for him or not. Ansel balled his hands into fists. Was Kevin the reason behind Tadra’s weak spells all this time?
Play along, Tadra repeated.
Kevin glanced back to Ansel, who forced his hands to relax and tried to make his face look vague and confused. If Kevin was controlling the others, it was an easy assumption that he was trying to do the same to Ansel.
“Were we going to order food?” he asked blandly. “I think I have a coupon for one of the delivery services.”
Chapter 19
Ansel’s indifference was so convincing that for a terrible moment, Tadra was sure that he’d been caught in Kevin’s spell and she despaired of ever getting him back. She was alone in this world in truth now, adrift and truly powerless against an enemy she knew nothing about, facing a man who claimed to be her key.
Then she saw Ansel’s hands lift to reply with the sign she’d given him, just as subtle as hers had been. Play along.
Relief flooded her.
“Tadra appears to have fallen,” Kevin said, and Tadra made herself look even weaker than she was actually feeling.
“She probably just needs some sleep,” Ansel said off-handedly, and Tadra was looking at Kevin’s face at the right moment to see his mouth curve into a satisfied smirk.
Ansel continued. “This happened a few times while you were gone, I think.” He even scrunched his brow, as if he were struggling to remember.
“It’s no big deal,” Kevin said smugly. “Let’s get her to bed.”
Tadra saw the flash of fury in Ansel’s face and she made a show of struggling to her feet with his help to help distract Kevin from seeing it.
“Sure,” Ansel said, and if his voice sounded somewhat strangled, he had made his face look serene and careless by the time Kevin looked at him. “I wonder what the others have decided to order. I should make sure there’s something I can eat.”
Tadra made herself allow Kevin to pull her back up to her feet, not feigning all of her weakness. She gave him a slow, sleepy blink, like she couldn’t focus her thoughts, and that seemed to be what he expected.
“Oh, here, I’ll help,” Ansel offered casually when she could not quite keep herself from flinching away from Kevin. She tried to make it look like a wave of weakness, rather than an act of disgust and was grateful for Ansel’s steadying arm. “She’s got a room upstairs. I’ve got you set up in the last guest room downstairs by Daniella and Trey. Just a futon, but I’m sure it’s a step up from whatever bleak prison you guys were in.” He chuckled and shrugged.
Kevin didn’t protest. They had come out into the living room, and Tadra’s state did not go unnoticed.
“Tadra, are you unwell?” Trey asked.
“Is something wrong?” Henrik wanted to know.
Rez furrowed his brow, like he was confused about something.
Their keys didn’t even seem to notice.
Ansel, copying their careless lack of concern, shrugged off the questions. “She just gets these dizzy spells. It’s probably nothing to worry about, she’ll be fine in an hour or two.”
If Tadra had held doubts before that something was wrong with her shieldmates, those doubts were cemented into certainty now by their casual acceptance of Ansel’s brush-off. At any other point in their long history, the other knights would have taken action, suggesting solutions, offering comfort, insisting on solving what was wrong with her. Now, although they looked sympathe
tic to her discomfort, they were painfully suggestible to the idea that it was of no great concern. Rez didn’t even offer his healing power, as if he’d forgotten he had it.
“Feel better soon!” Heather called cheerfully. She was sitting in Rez’s lap, looking over one of the menus from Ansel’s fridge.
“Rest works many wonders,” Henrik said with a knowing nod.
“I can take her upstairs,” Ansel offered, sounding almost too casual.
Kevin shot him a suspicious look. “I’ll get this arm,” he insisted.
Tadra wished she had the energy to pull away, but didn’t want to betray her cognizance, so she laughed and let the two of them support her up the stairs as if she had merely indulged in strong drink.
The door to her bedroom was not wide enough to walk three abreast, and Ansel reluctantly let go of her there. She felt his hand squeeze hers, briefly, and then Kevin was walking her into the room and lowering her onto the bed.
Ansel breezed in behind them and shut the curtains. “There we go,” he said cheerfully. “You’ll be right as rain in no time, Tadra. Kevin, why don’t I show you where you’ll be staying and you can put your order in for food. What would you like? Michigan cuisine isn’t all that much to brag about, but there’s a great pizza place downtown. Daniella works at a cafe with good all-American food, we’ll have to take you there some time.”
He sounded just like the others had, bubbly and unbothered by anything. It was incredibly un-Ansel of him and Tadra wanted to warn him away from overacting.
But Kevin didn’t know Ansel at all, so Tadra feigned sleep and tried not to shiver when Kevin pulled the comforter up over her. Between the two of them, Kevin seemed to be satisfied that his mischief was working. Tadra lay with her eyes closed for a long moment after they left together, then crawled from the bed to open the door and cling to the doorframe, wishing that her weakness had been entirely an act, too.
Robin. If any of them could shake off an enchantment, it would be Robin, the wisest and strongest of them. She had to get them aside from the others, try to pry up underneath the veneer of the spell. With Robin on their side again, she and Ansel would be able to free the others.
Except that she couldn’t speak to Robin, unless she risked writing. No one but Ansel understood her.
She tried to stand at the doorframe and failed; all the strength was gone from her legs so she slid down and sat in the open doorway. She could hear merriment from downstairs, and she listened to the distant sound of it with her heart in her throat. They all sounded so joyous and familiar...and so fake. They looked like her shieldmates, but they’d been tampered with, damaged, and she was angry and dismayed.
And worst of all, she was helpless.
She set her jaw. Kevin, or whoever he was, had taken her vigor, but he had not taken her will.
There was a shout from downstairs, and loud laughter.
“Be right back,” Ansel called from the bottom of the stairs, and Tadra felt her spirit lighten. Ansel was still on her side, was still the warrior of light that he’d always been.
She swung her door open a little wider as he came up the stairs and down the long hallway, but he put his finger to his lips as he passed by. He was soaked; clearly he had spilled something on himself to give him an excuse to change. Clever Ansel. Clever, and brave, to try to fool someone like Kevin, clearly a dark magician of some skill.
Ansel ducked into his own room and grabbed a dry shirt, then stood in the doorway and signed from there as he continued to make obvious noises in his bedroom. Anyone listening carefully from below would know that he was there, far away from Tadra’s door. Too far for normal conversation, but not too far for them.
Tadra was apparently not entirely out of energy, because watching Ansel take off a soaking wet shirt and getting a good look at his finely sculpted chest before it was covered with a dry garment was enough to make fire rise in her blood despite the lethargy in her limbs.
She let herself enjoy it; it wasn’t like she could look away and risk missing some of the signs he was making, and Kevin wasn’t her key, so she now owed him no loyalty.
Break...magic...shieldmates. Ansel was asking how to break the spell over her shieldmates.
Tadra had to shrug, and lick her lips a little. She made the sign for Robin, an R to her forehead.
Ansel nodded and Tadra signed, apart, alone. They had to get Robin alone.
Ansel nodded again. Smart. How?
Tadra gestured to her eyes, covered her wrist and shrugged. Watch and wait. She pointed at him, then her mouth with a frustrated frown. Only Ansel would be able to talk to Robin.
We’ll fix this, Ansel signed. He made the sign for protection and pointed at her.
Ansel would protect her.
Tadra was surprised to find tears welling in her eyes. She had never guessed that she would want someone to protect her. She was the firebird guardian, a champion of the powerless. But it didn’t feel like weakness to accept Ansel’s shelter and support. It felt like home.
In a world that had taken a terrible unsteady turn under her feet, he was still solid and trustworthy, a partner she could depend on.
He had already taken longer changing his shirt than the act really warranted so he reluctantly shut his door, loudly, and whistled as he walked past her room down the hallway again without slowing. She couldn’t decide what to sign him as he went by and it ended up a muddy mixture of thanks and sorry and good.
She curled the sign for I love you into her lap when he had already passed.
Chapter 20
Kevin was looking at him suspiciously when Ansel came down the stairs in his new shirt.
Ansel kept his face as neutral as possible, trying to funnel his memories of stoners in his college classes. He was suggestible, he had no suspicions, he was completely normal and not-at-all paranoid. As far as he knew, everything was going exactly as it should, he had no doubts or reservations or independent thoughts.
The others made it easy, talking about a whole lot of nothing that he could join in on easily. He caught them up on the dogs, who were blissfully absorbing all the attention. He detailed the many things that Vesta had destroyed and everyone laughed at his comic descriptions of Fabio’s heartbreak.
“I’ll pay for the damages,” Heather assured him, cuddling Vesta in her arms like a baby. “She was just missing her mama, weren’t you! I was gone for so long!”
“She does that when you’re in the bathroom,” Rez pointed out wryly.
“Socks is...somewhere,” Ansel told Gwen when she came down, freshly-showered.
“She’ll come out in her own good time,” Gwen said without worry. Socks was pretty independent, but Gwen’s nonchalance still seemed a little over the top.
They all admired the trimmed Christmas tree and exclaimed with guilt over the presents that he and Tadra had wrapped and placed under it.
“You should go shopping tomorrow!” Ansel suggested as casually as he could manage. “Take Tadra to the mall and show her Santa Claus.” Robin wouldn’t be able to go somewhere as public as the mall, which would leave them home, alone, with Ansel.
“We can get photos in Santa’s lap!” Daniella joked.
“I am not sure if I like the idea of you in this Santa’s lap,” Trey protested with mock jealousy.
Then the delivery driver arrived, and the dogs exploded into a frenzy of greeting and guarding.
Once the driver had been tipped and sent on his way, Ansel went to the kitchen while the others unpacked it in the dining room. “Who wants drinks? Kevin, what’ll it be? We’ve got sodas, some beer, water…?”
“Don’t drink Ansel’s almond milk!” Heather and Daniella chorused.
Kevin chuckled and Ansel had to grit his teeth and hope that it looked like he was smiling.
Kevin had been at the last battle for the faery world, he said, which meant that he, too, was from that place. He didn’t appear to be a bleak and he didn’t have the same awkward puppet-blankness that a human who
was ridden seemed to have. He clearly didn’t think he was being controlled. So what was he? A human? A human witch who had fought at the side of Cerad? Ansel had been under the impression that Cerad’s army had been one of darkness and dours, and Kevin seemed too big and blond and tanned to be a faery.
Gwen came into the kitchen to help him bring out drinks, and Ansel tested her cautiously. “So, you guys had a bit of an adventure, I guess. How did you get hurt?”
There was a purplish bruise at her temple, and Gwen’s face crumpled in concentration as she touched it. Then her face seemed to clear. “It was no big deal,” she said, with a shrug and a smile. “We’re back in plenty of time.”
“Time for what?” Ansel asked pointedly, glancing at the open kitchen door.
“Time for Christmas,” she said carelessly. “What else?”
The end of the world as we know it, Ansel thought, thoroughly unsettled. “What about the...end of the year?” he asked. He didn’t want to accidentally trigger some kind of protection that Kevin had laid on her, and he didn’t know how this magic of control really worked. Were they all brainwashed? Would Gwen tattle to Kevin if Ansel was too obvious with his questions?
“We should get fireworks,” Gwen said breezily. “Oh, we’re almost out of cola. Put it on the shopping list? We’ll need to go out tomorrow and battle the Christmas Eve crowds.”
That wasn’t at all the battle that Ansel had been thinking of. “Good idea,” he said faintly as she bustled out with an armful of bottles and glasses.
It reminded him of something, and after a moment, he finally realized that Gwen’s behavior matched the aftermath of a dour. The host never really acknowledged that they’d lost control of themselves, or that anything was ever wrong. They came up with an explanation for what had happened, no matter how incomplete the story seemed, and everyone around them accepted it without question.
Except Tadra...and Ansel.
It made some sense if Tadra was immune to Kevin’s magic if he was using her own power. But Ansel was only human. Only human...and not Tadra’s key.
