by Zoe Chant
Maybe he could get a pet of his own, something well-behaved and mellow. Maybe a big, gentle dog, like a Newfoundland, or a Saint Bernard. But was it cruel to adopt a pet when the end of the world was coming anyway?
He thought he imagined the tap on the door the first time. It was just the sound of the house settling, or a creak of the baseboard heat somewhere. Maybe Socks, prowling past.
Then it came again, a soft, swift tap-tap at his door.
Ansel rose to open it, hoping and knowing who he’d find.
“Tadra,” he said, achingly. She was dressed in the fuzzy red bathrobe that Henrik had given her, one bare leg rubbing the other nervously beneath the hem. Her hair was dark in the shadow, with a halo of red-gold. “You probably shouldn’t be here.”
The hallway behind her was quiet—there were voices from downstairs, but Henrik and Gwen had gone to bed even before Ansel. Probably not to sleep; their door was shut.
Tadra made a gesture that wasn’t a sign but was obviously a scoff, then put her hand in the letter X and tilted it down. Need.
“What do you need?” Ansel asked, equal parts reluctant and hopeful. He knew what he needed, and he was too used to not having it.
Ansel, she signed, moving closer. Or maybe privacy.
Someone was coming up the stairs. Ansel opened the door wider to let her in and shut it but didn’t latch it, afraid that it might catch the attention of whoever was coming upstairs.
She stood very close when he turned around, close enough to make his breath catch.
She moved her hands like they were water, smooth and graceful and Ansel didn’t think that any of the motions she made were words at all, but he knew exactly what she wanted before she put the letter A against her mouth.
Him.
Ansel made a sound with no translation. “I’m not your key,” he reminded her quietly. It was hard to think straight and stay noble with her standing that close, looking at him so trustingly. He might have been, he reminded himself.
She pointed to him and scooped her hand back to her chest, flattening it there. You are my heart.
It was dark and the noises in the house were all distant, making everything seem out of step with time itself. Ansel seemed to feel his own heart seize and stop beating.
“Tadra,” he said quietly. “Tadra, my love…”
She closed what space was left between them, slipping her arms up around his neck and kissing him passionately. Ansel didn’t even try to maintain self-control this time, catching her up into his arms to open his mouth to her hungrily. He kissed her with all the regrets and desires he’d been battling back, all of his thirst for her there on his lips as he claimed her tongue and pulled her tight against him.
She was so long and lean and alive in his arms, at last. Her hair was silky and her skin as velvety as her plush robe. Ansel could not have her close enough, could not kiss her hard enough to make up for all the days he hadn’t dared to touch her.
It was minutes later, panting for breath, that he remembered the door behind her, cracked open to the hallway, and the risk they were taking. Gwen and Henrik often slept with their door open so that Socks could come and go as she pleased, and their bathroom was on the opposite side of the hall. Heather and Rez, at the far end of the house, might need to let Vesta out unexpectedly. He wasn’t sure what they might do, how deep Kevin/Cerad’s grip on them went. Maybe they’d simply forget anything they saw, but maybe Kevin had them honed to act as his observers, as well.
He drew away from Tadra, just far enough to whisper near her ear, “Are you sure?”
She didn’t let go of him, but Ansel could feel her hand at his back as she curled in her ring and middle finger and spread her thumb apart. I love you.
He latched the door as quietly as he could manage while he was still kissing her, then took her face in his hands, threading his fingers up into her hair the way he’d been longing to do for so long. They stood, kissing for an unmarked time, savoring every touch, every unspoken confession, until a sound in the hallway made them freeze together.
A door creaked and closed.
They were still for a moment longer until Ansel could wait no longer. He kissed her again, more fiercely yet, and she untied her bathrobe belt and let it slip off of her shoulders.
She was naked underneath, as gloriously nude as she been when he first freed her from her glass prison. Ansel thought that she was even more beautiful now than she’d been then, because he knew how amazing she was inside.
He didn’t speak, and she couldn’t, but words were unnecessary. Every fingertip was a tome, every kiss was a pact. He was unable to stop touching her to even attempt to undress himself, and they retreated to his bed and toppled onto it together, trying to keep it from creaking as their urgency for each other swelled.
Tadra straddled him, only his pajamas between them, and spread her hands over his chest and rubbed against him like a cat in heat. Ansel bit back his groan and reached to take her by the waist and roll over with her, kissing the place where her neck met her shoulder, down to her collarbone, cupping her breast and making her writhe and silently beg, clawed fingers pulling him closer.
He kissed down to worship between her breasts, teasing her nipples with his thumbs. It felt so good to use his hands on her at last, to touch what he’d yearned for so long, to talk with her in signs on her flesh. He kissed everything he could reach, working his way slowly down her responsive body, stroking her sides and making her arch up at him in quiet, desperate need.
I love you, he signed, touching the core of her pleasure reverently as he kissed her belly.
I love you, she signed back, before his mouth closed on the folds of her vulva and her fingers dug into his back.
Ansel licked her gently, as patiently as he could manage, touching all the places that made her surge and clench, until she stiffened and released, her breath going quick and then slow.
Just as he’d gone down on her, he worked his way back up, kissing her belly to her breasts as she caressed his shoulders and buried her fingers in his hair. One of her hands made it down, inside his pajamas, and took a commanding hold of his hard cock.
Ansel almost choked at the touch, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to make a noise, gritting his teeth and holding himself still so that he didn’t accidentally cause too much exquisite sensation. He finally put a finger to Tadra’s lips. Wait.
He rolled off of her and she sat up to watch him go in concern. But he didn’t go far, only to the bedside table, silently cursing the noise of the opening drawer. It took more rummaging than he wished—his hopeful condom had sifted rather further down in the junk that had accumulated than he expected; it had been a very long time since his life had included a companion in his bed that wasn’t one of the dogs.
Tadra furrowed her brow as she observed him, then she smiled as he ripped open the package with one hand and his teeth and slipped off the rest of his clothing with the other. He unrolled the condom down over his cock, and if she wondered what it was or why he wore it, she was much more interested in being laid back down on the bed as he covered her and claimed her mouth again.
She spread her legs eagerly and Ansel had to pause and gather all of his self control at the hot, wet feel of her, at the touch of her lips against his, the hiss of her breath. One of her hands was between them, her palm flat on her chest making tiny circles: please, please. Her other hand had the same message, pulling at his shoulders to draw him closer.
It was a moment from a movie when everything went to slow motion as he slid gently into her. She threw her head back and pressed up around him, tight and blazing hot around his cock. Every thrust was deeper and harder and hotter, until Ansel could not tell what was pleasure and what was delicious torture and they were moving together to a crest of release like nothing he had ever experienced before.
Not crying out, trying to stay silent, was one of the keenest challenges he had ever faced. He wanted to roar in triumph, to shout as she shivered and
slackened in his embrace and he came at last.
They lay together a long while after, tracing patterns on one another's skin, making blurry signs that weren’t quite conversing, kissing whatever was closest, tangling limbs and fingers in hair.
He didn’t have to be her key to know that they were meant to be together. She was his, and he was nothing in this world without her.
Chapter 27
Tadra tried to speak, because an act like that, a physical joining so acute and profound, might have healed even her voice as well as her heart, but she was not terribly surprised to find no sound in her throat. When she closed her eyes and reached inside for the magic of her firebird, it fluttered as muffled and distant as ever.
But that didn’t diminish her joy at all.
Ansel loved her.
He loved her with his warrior’s heart and his beautiful body and his clever fingers. He loved her the way that she loved him. Theirs was a true connection of two souls that saw each other and longed to be one. A bond of friendship, strengthened by attraction and sealed with pure, unselfish love.
Ansel left her with a last, reluctant kiss to stand and strip off the curious clear cover he’d put over his cock, twisting it and tying off the end of it. Tadra mimed a child and stop. She knew how babies were made, even if she’d never considered that she might have one of her own. She was a knight, not a mother, and the very idea of it filled her with a knot of complicated feelings.
Ansel nodded and signed, Not now.
Not now, she agreed. Not now, with a great battle looming and her shieldmates compromised and her own world lost. Not now, but maybe someday. Someday...with Ansel. He returned to the bed from throwing away the device and drew her into his arms once more. The room was chilly and there was sweat cooling on their skin. He was her warmth and safety and Tadra curled up with her arms around him and buried her face into his neck with a sigh. The creak of the bed was loud in the quiet room.
She wasn’t sure how long they lay together like that before there was a scratching at the door that made them both freeze together.
“Probably Socks,” Ansel whispered near her ear. He got up quietly and opened the door a crack before she could yowl.
Robin’s whispered swearing dispelled this assumption, and the fable slipped in and then leaned against the door to close it behind them. Ansel snatched his robe from the hook and put it on, looking deeply chagrined; Tadra had wondered how much of his weird prudishness about nudity had been that he didn’t want to admit his attraction to her.
Apparently not all of it.
He brought her the robe she’d dropped on the floor and she shrugged into without embarrassment.
Robin, she signed respectfully.
“Don’t mind me,” Robin said sarcastically. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt anything fun when the end of this world is nigh.”
“I’m not sorry,” Ansel blurted.
“Good,” Robin said with a chuckle. “As long as she’s not sorry.”
Not sorry, Tadra signed with a smile, even though she flushed. Everything about her felt better. If her shieldmates were still enspelled and there was a terrible darkness waiting to unleash over the world in a few short days, at least she would go to her battle with Ansel at her side and in her heart. If he wasn’t her key, he was still hers in every other way. When he sat gingerly on the bed, she snuggled shamelessly up against him.
“If we could get to business?” Robin suggested.
Tadra mimed choking herself, signing her firebird and then smooshing her hands together.
Robin glanced at Ansel.
“She’s asking if there’s a way to keep her power from Cerad. Can she take it from herself somehow? Destroy it?”
“The deep magic is part of you,” Robin said, speaking to her directly. “Destroying your firebird would kill you, just like your human body dying would take the magic with it. Because of the key connection, you would probably doom Cerad with you.” They said it thoughtfully, as if they hadn’t considered it before.
Tadra squared her shoulders. It was the ultimate sacrifice, and she thought she could make it, as terrifying as the idea was. This was the kind of choice she’d been trained to make, her greatest final duty.
“That’s not an option,” Ansel said fiercely, his hand finding hers.
“I agree that it is a very last choice,” Robin said grimly, but they didn’t bother to deny that it might be one she might have to make.
Why? Tadra mimed dropping something.
Ansel looked at Tadra’s hands as she signed. “Why...drop? Why break…? Oh. Why didn’t breaking her ornament destroy her magic half?” He looked at Robin. “How was I able to put her back together? What role does the ornament itself play in her...whole existence?” That was more than Tadra had asked, but she nodded in agreement. Sometimes, it felt like Ansel knew what she meant even when she didn’t have the words to sign.
Robin frowned at Tadra. “Like most magic, it is...an interpretation of what is actually happening. The spell was to make them fragile, and the way that the magic and this world translated that was to make it seem as if they were literal glass. The truth is more complicated, and the ornament is really only an illusion.”
“I put it back together,” Ansel protested. “It was real glass, I felt it, I held it in my hands. I...kissed it. It was a real, glass ornament.”
“It is real, but wasn’t all of her,” Robin tapped their chin. “The rest of her was suspended not-here, not-real. When you repaired her avatar, you had to draw her back as well. If the pieces had been separated, if they had been too small to put back together, you would not have successful in that endeavor.”
Ansel rubbed the bridge of his nose and Tadra made a rude noise with her lips. “I feel like this is one of those fringe science quantum mechanics things that no one really gets, where the more you think you know, the less you actually do.”
Robin smiled. “I’m trying to illustrate the complexity at work. Every assumption you make is an approximation of what is actually there. Your brain wants reasons and limits, and they don’t always exist.”
“Like the ways each of the keys has a different way of tying their knight to the magic forces here?” Ansel said, like he was trying desperately to wrap his mind around what Robin was trying to explain.
“Exactly. It is similar to the way that these glass vessels are indeed tied to the physical being of their knights, and to the way that it is not at all what they are.”
Robin looked piercingly at Ansel. “You did not merely put her glass vessel back together, or Tadra would not—could not—be here. You healed her beyond the physical, your will stitched her back from broken parts. You concentrated on it, didn’t you? Focused entirely, thinking only of the cool glass, of mending every seam, of all the broken places in your own soul that longed for her. And that focus let you do what you didn’t know you couldn’t.”
Tadra’s hand squeezed Ansel’s, and he looked at her with raw, dark eyes. “I wanted to be a part of this whole magical quest, to have a greater purpose,” he said quietly. “And I wanted you. I wanted this.”
You found me, she signed at him with her free hand. I love you, she mouthed.
Ansel leaned in for a swift, hungry claim of her mouth that prompted Robin to make a noise of disgust so loud that they all looked in worry at the closed door.
“Let’s keep that stuff to a minimum,” they said much more quietly. “What we’re trying to do here is not to make out like horny teenagers, but perhaps figure out a way to stop Cerad. We are running low on time and opportunity.”
Tadra signed and had to repeat it as she mouthed the words for Ansel to understand. “Does that mean the ornament doesn’t actually matter?” he asked for her.
“Did you listen at all?” Robin scoffed. “They are entangled. You would not have been able to bring her back without repairing the physical anchor. But glueing some pieces of glass together would not have worked without great magic.” They turned to Tadra. “Your
human form, your glass avatar, your firebird, and your key, they are all connected. Shattering the ornament would disrupt a part of the balance. If you broke it into enough pieces, the human body would break just as surely.”
“She survived the first time because it wasn’t badly broken?” Ansel asked. “The white glass ring wasn’t damaged at all.”
“I believe that it all would have turned out much differently if it had been,” Robin said. “I do think the damage to your glass avatar is why you cannot speak.”
Tadra found herself touching her throat, where one of the seams in the glass had been. So many tiny pieces of luck. That Ansel had the skill to repair her and the will to bring her back. That the injury of her avatar had not been worse. The loss of her voice seemed a very small price to pay for her resurrection.
Ansel was watching her, like he always did, and Tadra was happy to return his gaze without pretending that she wasn’t.
They were interrupted by the sound of scratching at the door, this time very definitely Socks as she howled her affront at the closed door that was keeping her from claiming a spot on Ansel’s bed.
Ansel swiftly opened the door for the cat, who immediately decided that she didn’t want in after all.
Ansel returned to the bed after he’d shut the door carefully behind her again. “Destroying Tadra’s firebird is no kind of option. We need another way to stop Cerad.”
“We must free my knights,” Robin said decisively. “With their power, we could keep Cerad from opening a portal and win against the bleaks he has already on this side.”
“Would he hurt Tadra when you did that?”
Tadra decided again that she liked having Ansel feel protective of her. He was so adorable and ruffled and it was such an unexpected joy to be under someone else’s wing. She made a dismissive gesture and he scowled at her. “I have a real problem with that possibility.”
“He needs her power,” Robin said. “I believe that the key connection works for him, but it also works against him. His bleaks were able to find a way to use human anchors, but his connection with Tadra prevented him from doing the same; he couldn’t forge a new conduit. He has been powerless in this world without her and I do not believe he would lose that again unless he had a better option.”
