by Zoe Chant
“He said it was easier since she woke,” Ansel said, just as Tadra remembered it as well.
Ansel, Tadra signed suddenly. He might hurt Ansel if he thought that he wasn’t safely enspelled.
Robin guessed her mind. “Cerad would have no reason to keep Ansel alive if he thought he was any danger to his plans.”
Protect, Tadra signed. Protect Ansel. She liked the idea of protecting Ansel almost as much as she liked the idea of him protecting her. It was a complete alignment of both her values and her affections.
Robin looked at Ansel for translation, but Ansel was gazing at Tadra. “I don’t want you to worry about me,” he said tenderly.
I am shieldmate, Tadra signed proudly. She didn’t have signs for her vows, but Ansel knew them by now. I protect.
“You are the Firebird Knight of the Fallen Kingdom,” Ansel said, taking her hand and kissing it. “You are a Protector of the Broken Crown. You are Robin’s bravest knight, and the most foolish.”
“You are disgusting,” Robin said, rolling their eyes. But they were smiling, and Tadra knew that her mentor approved of the direction that her heart had taken her.
Someone out in the hallway stumbled to the bathroom and they all hushed, listening, until the toilet flushed and a series of doors closed again.
“We should not be caught,” Robin said. “If Cerad knows that we have escaped his influence and are working against him, we will not have the freedom we have now. Go on as you have before, and I will also attempt to break my knights free on my own.”
They gave Tadra a quick touch of their forehead, pinched Ansel, and slipped out the door to return, no doubt, to their new dollhouse downstairs.
Tadra took her leave more slowly, kissing Ansel a reluctant goodbye. She wished she could linger, and lay in his arms much longer, perhaps even make love again. As thoroughly as he had satisfied her hunger, he had awakened new ones, and Tadra knew that no bed would be restful without him again. She twined her fingers into his thick hair and stroked the rough stubble on his jaw and wished she had her voice to tell him exactly how dear he’d become to her as she lay her forehead on his and breathed his breath.
She wasn’t even sure what words she might use if she could speak, because what she felt for him transcended her ability to express it. Like Robin describing magic, the way she loved him wasn’t a matter of logic or limitation.
He didn’t offer any words of his own, and he didn’t have to; Tadra knew his heart like her own, and his hands said plenty.
At last, reluctantly, she kissed him one last time and made her way back to her own bedroom.
Hours later, when Socks decided to claim a spot on her bed, she was still awake trying to puzzle a way out from underneath Cerad’s control that didn’t in any way risk Ansel’s safety.
Chapter 28
For Ansel, the next few days were a blur of trying to bluff his way through every interaction with Cerad. He translated for Tadra as needed, careful to keep their real conversations subtle. They maintained a perfect cool facade, friendly, but not close. He caught Cerad watching them and he feared their secret language would be cracked, so he kept his interpretations near the truth and his physical reactions to her locked down as hard as he could whenever Cerad was around.
It was easiest to keep distance between them, because she made his skin tingle with proximity, and it was hard not to smile foolishly if she brushed up against him or let his hand linger if they both reached for something at the table. It would be even worse to flinch away at the electric touch of her, so Ansel practiced keeping every motion lazy, every expression distant, and they kept away from each other without looking like they were deliberately doing so.
It was hard not to watch Cerad, too, to try to figure out if there was suspicion behind his icy blue eyes. Ansel got good at letting his gaze slide sideways off of anything he was looking at.
It helped that Cerad didn’t seem concerned...about anything. He wasn’t bothered by the dogs, he didn’t have strong opinions about meals or entertainment. He seemed mild and emotionless, and aside from the way he watched everything with smug, narrow-eyed interest, he could have been just a friend visiting from California.
It would have been impossible for Ansel to continue his charade if Cerad had staked any claim on Tadra herself, but to their relief, Cerad’s interest in her seemed purely for her firebird’s power. He drained her several times over the week, for purposes they could only guess, but not to collapse, only to slight faintness. Ansel pretended to shrug it off with the others and inwardly hated Cerad more than ever.
At night, they made up for their cool outer expressions with hot, desperate touches. Ansel had to smuggle new condoms in during grocery runs, feeling like an errant teenager with his first girlfriend, but it was worth every frustration to have Tadra in his arms, to kiss her and lay her back on his bed—or on the floor if the bed wanted to creak too loudly—and tell her without words all the ways that he loved her.
There was nothing in the world that was better than those stolen moments with her legs wrapped around him, speaking only in sign and skin, bringing her to gasping pleasure and falling with her into a sea of satisfaction.
The biggest risk to each tryst was unexpectedly Socks, who took a closed door as a reason to yowl for admittance, even when she didn’t actually desire entrance.
Twice, the Siamese cat was an interruption at the worst of times, and finally, fearing that his closed door, or Tadra’s empty bed, would draw unwanted questions when the cat woke one of the others, Ansel took to leaving his door propped open just enough for her to come and go as she pleased as he had before.
This necessitated making love to Tadra more quietly than ever, and Ansel thought that having to stay quiet and secret only heightened the sweet elation that they found together.
Each night, he found new discoveries in her kisses and on her gorgeous body. She had a scar that matched the one on her nose in the small of her back. She had to write the explanation for it, dragonvine, which didn’t clarify much until she drew a rough botanical sketch of a thorny vine with grasping tendrils. Ansel traded her for the story of falling down a flight of outdoor stairs into a barrel full of recycling. “I was lucky it was mostly plastic,” he said, showing her the scar on his leg. “But there was one glass bottle.”
It wasn’t all sex and comparing scars. They also plotted, filling whiteboards with lists of things they knew about Cerad’s plans, weaknesses they observed through the day that they hadn’t been able to share, anything at all they might use to stop him.
Robin joined them in these war sessions sometimes, though they always waited until very late at night, giving them evening privacy without comment or complaint.
During the days, the three of them each took acting cues from the enspelled knights and keys, floating around as if they were in an opium haze, happy to joke and go through all the motions of a normal life, shying away from any topic too serious or any reference to danger or future. They didn’t spend any more time with each other than with any of the others.
The keys had all previously arranged to take time off from their workplaces, originally planning to spend this week preparing for the great battle, and it felt a little like they were all on a retreat together, determined not to think about the work waiting for them.
Ansel chipped away at the others as he could, when privacy was possible, usually coordinated between the three of them. His early experience with Gwen suggested that an approach dealing with their partners might be most successful; suggesting danger to their keys did seem to crack through the creepy veneer of carelessness.
Twice, Ansel thought he was going to get through, first with Trey and later with Heather, but each time there was some interruption—Cerad once and a choking dog emergency the second time—and when he tried to follow up, he found that he was starting again from scratch.
Tadra and Robin had no better luck.
“I might be able to break the spell working at it directly with
magic,” the fable said late on the second to the last night of the year. “But it would not go undetected and…” They looked down at their hands unhappily.
They didn’t have to finish.
“We’ll need every scrap of what’s left of your power to close the portals back to your world when Cerad opens them,” Ansel finished. They were all sitting on his bed, Tadra cuddled against his side, Robin cross-legged on a throw pillow.
As far as they could guess, Cerad was simply biding his time until the veil thinned, when he could most easily use Tadra’s power to open a portal for his forces on the other side. His bleaks on this side—they still had no idea how many there were—had some power, but Robin guessed that it was not enough to hold portals to faery open for long.
With the knights’ power unlocked by their keys, it should have been an easy task to subdue Cerad and any bleaks on this side, leaving Henrik and Robin to seal any portals. But the knights had been sidelined, even if Cerad couldn’t use their power directly, and Robin was badly diminished.
“I don’t like the risk, but we can’t wait any longer,” Robin said firmly. “If I can break the spell, we will have the knights’ power and Henrik has enough skill to close a portal without me. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. Cerad is going to make his move and if we have any chance of stopping him, it is now, tonight.”
Tadra put her fist to her chest.
“All of us?” Ansel said. He squeezed Tadra closer to his side.
Robin shook their head. “Let me try alone. You two will be our fallback plan if I fail. That he doesn’t know you are free is the ace up our sleeve.”
Ansel looked down at his hands and thought wryly that it was kind of Robin to include him as any kind of asset. He didn’t have any magic, he wasn’t Tadra’s key, and he was a mediocre fighter at best. He was the hound-keeper, the land-owner. What good was he going to be in any final battle? Was it possible that Robin thought he’d be a liability and that was why they didn’t want him there? Tadra was a warrior, but Cerad would be able to neutralize her with a thought. There was nothing of Ansel to neutralize.
Tadra stirred against him and Ansel realized she’d been signing.
“We’ll be…” Ansel frowned at her hands and guessed, “rearguard?”
She smiled at him in delight and nodded and Ansel’s heart squeezed. She was so beautiful, so brave. She never complained about Cerad’s theft of her magic, though Ansel knew that it filled her with frustration. She never stopped trying to find patterns in the information they had, filling whiteboards with notes and theories, all of them meticulously erased before she went back to her own room. Ansel had never even imagined a woman with a spirit so invincible.
Robin cleared their throat and Tadra sat up from Ansel and bowed her head, crossing her fists across her chest. Robin floated to touch their forehead to hers and they were still that way for a lengthy time. Robin said something low and private and Ansel looked away, trying not to overhear.
“Good luck,” he said gruffly, when Robin left her to touch his own forehead. Their hands pressed briefly at his temples.
“Thank you,” Robin said. “For your hospitality and your courage. You are a valuable ally and an admirable man. I watched you for a long time during my first year in your warehouse and took your measure well. You are a credit to your world and have a true heart. I am honored to have you at my side in any battle.”
Ansel was sure that there was a formal response that Robin would expect from his knights. “Sure thing, Tinker Bell,” he joked instead. “Break a wing.”
Robin snorted with laughter and gave Ansel’s forehead one final knock with their own. “I know why Tadra likes you.”
Then they were gone, slipping out the door and disappearing downstairs.
Socks oozed in as the fable left, giving an offended little mrrt. Ansel latched the door behind her and returned to the bed to gather Tadra back into his arms.
Robin would take on Cerad directly, and they would win. Ansel had to believe that, because the alternative was so awful. The fable would break the spell and free the knights. Tadra clung to him; her worry and uncertainty didn’t need any hand signs to convey. There was no way to know how the battle would go, how or when Robin would initiate it.
When she lifted her mouth to his, Ansel kissed her desperately. Robin was their only chance, and Ansel knew that both of them were wondering if the fable would be forced to kill Cerad to save the world...
...and if Tadra would die with him.
It wasn’t worth it, Ansel thought. Let the world burn, as long as he could keep Tadra safe.
But even as the idea occurred to him, he knew that he wouldn’t do that even if he could. Tadra wouldn’t want to live at anyone’s expense. She was selfless and pure-hearted, and she would offer her life before she asked it of anyone else.
Ansel felt her thumbs on his face and realized that his cheeks were wet with tears. “I love you, Tadra,” he said. “I love you more than I ever knew was possible.”
Her cheeks were tear-streaked, too, and Ansel bent to kiss them away. This wasn’t the end, he couldn’t believe that it would be.
Robin would find a way to save them all, to stop Cerad and keep dark forces from toppling their world. Ansel had to trust that the fable would win the day, because he couldn’t think of any other option.
He worked his way back to Tadra’s mouth for a desperate salty kiss as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
Ansel felt the moment that Cerad tapped into their key connection, in the sudden stiffening of Tadra in his arms and the subsequent weakness that made her go boneless.
But it was much, much worse than usual. She jerked and struggled weakly, her head lolling away from their kiss, and then went terribly, deathly still.
“Tadra!” Ansel cried, not caring if anyone in the house heard him. “Tadra, no!”
Chapter 29
Tadra woke slowly in the dark, lying in an unfamiliar bed, feeling like she’d been rolled flat like a pizza and then baked. Her muscles felt like melted cheese.
She giggled a little to herself, because cheese was such a joke between her and Ansel. They had so many wonderful jokes together.
“Tadra?”
The bed wasn’t unfamiliar, it was Ansel’s, and he was curled up around her on one side. On her other side, a warm, heavy lump began to purr.
Tadra found Ansel’s face and patted it. He sounded so worried, and when he exhaled, she felt his breath against her skin. Dear Ansel. Dear, kind, good Ansel, with his big heart and knight-like loyalty.
The memory of her collapse flooded back as Tadra banished the last of her weariness and sat up.
Socks stood up, stalked to the foot of the bed, and started grooming herself as if she’d been embarrassed to be caught purring.
Robin? Tadra signed.
“I don’t know,” Ansel said achingly. “I couldn’t leave you. I don’t know what happened. Robin never came back.”
Cerad had reached for her power, taking more of her than he’d ever taken before, but what had the outcome been? Had Robin been able to break the spell? Or had Cerad triumphed over the fable when they battled?
The house was quiet and the light around the curtain suggested that it was morning...morning of the last day of the year, when the veil between worlds was the weakest.
“Are you okay?” Ansel wanted to know, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “Is there anything I can do?”
Good, Tadra signed. She tilted her hand back and forth. Sort of.
Out in the hallway, the door at the far end of the hall opened and there was the sound of a small dog streaking out. Shortly after, there was the thumping of a larger dog coming up the stairs and the two of them did laps of the upstairs and downstairs, eager for outside and food.
It sounded heartbreakingly normal.
Rez, grumbling, went down the stairs to let the dogs out and Gwen came stumbling out of her room for the bathroom.
Tadra t
ested her limbs and found that her strength had largely returned. Better, she said, and Ansel caught her hand and kissed it. Best, she signed.
Socks, having finished her grooming, jumped off the bed and walked to the door to meow demandingly.
Ansel and Tadra exchanged a complicated look with no words. Were her shieldmates freed of the spell or did they still need to pretend? If they were to maintain their charade, Tadra would have to sneak her way back to her room. Was it worth even trying any longer? Whatever was going to happen today was going to happen. There was no stopping it now.
Socks yowled again and Tadra gave Ansel a quick kiss and rolled off the bed to her feet. Her legs were steady beneath her and she pulled her robe tight around her and padded to the door. She cracked it open and then walked boldly out, nearly tripping over Socks, who was second-guessing which side of the door she wanted to be on.
Tadra had only gone a few steps when Henrik emerged from the room he shared with Gwen.
“Shieldmate,” he greeted casually, moving to let her pass to her room. He didn’t seem curious that she was coming from Ansel’s room in her robe, or pause to comment on her purpose. Tadra’s heart sank and hope that she didn’t realize that she was holding onto faded to ash. Henrik was still enspelled, more sunk in his careless stupor than ever. The real Henrik would have at least been curious.
Robin had clearly failed in their quest.
And that begged the question of what had happened to Robin themself.
Tadra dressed quickly and finger-combed her hair. By the time she had emerged from her room, Ansel was coming out of the bathroom, already dressed.
They descended the stairs together, but distant out of habit, carefully separate and not looking at each other long.
