The Office of Shadow

by Matthew Sturges

  "Open it," he says. "Today is a special day."

  But she doesn't want to open it. The wrapping is so beautiful and the suspense so exquisite. She looks at Tanen, but his expression is, as always, impossible to read. He simply stares at her until her fingers reach for the bow.

  "Is it my birthday?" she asks.

  "No. You do not have a birthday."

  Inside, her heart is swelling. Is this how it feels to be cared for? She remembers her parents, but she's been warned many times never to think of them, so she puts them out of her mind. She pulls delicately on the bow, and it comes undone with a soft slipping noise, barely audible.

  The paper is smooth, its folds perfectly straight. Once the ribbon comes off, the paper unfolds itself and lies flat on the table, revealing a silver box.

  "Open it," says Tanen. With trembling hands, she does.

  Inside is a tiny figure of a swan, made of tin, painted blue. There's an even smaller tin key. She picks up the swan, holding it gingerly in both hands, turning it over.

  "Oh, it's lovely," she whispers. Should she give him a kiss on the cheek? In books, when a father brings a daughter a lovely gift, she kisses his cheek. But Tanen is not her father and has told her so many times.

  There's an opening in the swan's back. Tanen points to it. "Put the key in there and turn it. Hold the wings down while you do so."

  The key fits perfectly in the swan's back and she turns it, the wrong way at first, then properly. As it goes around it clicks, the way the clock in the hall does when the maid turns it. She is not allowed to wind the clock, and she has always wondered how the clicking must feel. It's even better than she imagined; the mechanism inside the swan offers the perfect amount of resistance to her touch.

  "Don't overwind it," scolds Tanen. "You'll break it." She stops, nearly letting go.

  "Now place it on the table and watch."

  When she lets go, the swan begins to flutter its wings. It bounces on the table, once, twice. Then it takes flight, shaky at first, then more certain, turning in wide, lazy circles near the ceiling.

  Sela laughs and claps her hands. She watches, rapt, as the swan dips and sways and finally comes to rest on the dressing table, just where it started. Its wings flutter a few times more and then stop.

  "May I do it again?" she says, reaching for the key.

  Tanen places his hand on hers. His touch is cool, his skin dry. He takes the swan and drops it on the floor, crushing it under his boot. He points. "Pick up the pieces," he says.

  Sela wants to cry, but knows that if she does then one of the crones will punish her. So she kneels and picks up the swan's remains: impossibly small gears and springs and a spiral of metal that burns to the touch.

  She places the pieces gently on the table before her. She should have known. She should never have let herself believe that there would be kindness. Only Oca was kind, and then only when no one else was around.

  "Some people," says Tanen, "are like this swan. They are not real. Not elves, but machines. Carefully crafted, they appear to be just like us. They speak and cry and bleed, and their insides are not gears and springs but flesh and bone, ingeniously created by our enemies."

  "How will I know which is which?" asks Sela, breathless.

  "I will tell you. I will point them out to you."

  "And then what?" Do not cry. Do not cry.

  "And then you will stop them, just as I have stopped your swan. The swan feels nothing. It is nothing. It is only a clever machine."

  "Some people are clever machines," says Sela.

  "Yes," says Tanen. "And nothing more."

  "You said today was a special day," say Sela, remembering.

  "Yes, indeed I did. The crones tell me that today is very important."

  The crones have told her about this. They have told her that it is the beginning of a great change, that she will have to be ready. They feel her fore head several times a day. They place strange instruments on her belly and back and listen intently to them. This morning, she remembers, one of them lifted her head and said, "It's time."

  "Stand up and come with me," says Tanen. "I want to have the crones examine you again."

  She stands and realizes that it is warm and wet between her legs. Something thick is running down the inside of her thigh. She steps back, nearly tripping over the leg of her chair. On the floor are three drops of blood in a perfect triangle.

  She feels dizzy. "What's happening?" she asks. "Am I dying?"

  Tanen smiles, the first time she has ever seen him do so. His smile makes her more nervous, not less. "Quite the contrary, Sela."

  He takes her face in his hands and looks hungrily at her. "Today your life has finally begun."

  The city at night, after a rainstorm, was a glittering wonderland. Kerosene lamps and witchlights twinkled on rain-glazed cobblestones. Distant thunder from the retreating storm rattled beneath the tip-tip dripping from eaves and the muted slap of boots on wet stone. Here in the alley, earthy smells and human smells and dank smells and chimney smells mingled into an aroma different from all of the others, the after-rain smell.

  The dress Paet had given her was constricting and uncomfortable. He'd given her scented powders for her skin and hair, and painted red circles on her cheeks. She hated it.

  She knocked on the door at the end of the alley. "What do you want?" came a muffled voice from inside."

  "Bryla sent me, she did," said Sela. She was talking in Ecara's accent, the way common city Fae talked.

  The door was opened by a sullen stump of a man with thick arms and legs and silver tips on the points of his ears.

  "Didn't send for anyone tonight," said the man.

  She smiled a helpless smile and shrugged. "Bryla said to me go to Enni's place, and so that's what I done," she said.

  She smiled a lopsided smile and waited, waited. The man looked at her. Wait. She felt the click and a thread sprung up, seething, bloodred.

  There were two kinds of male lust, Sela knew. One was a desire to possess, to grab, to take something away. The other was an opening up, an exquisite longing for communion. This was decidedly the former.

  Sela stepped forward a bit and the thread deepened. Sometimes when it was this thick she found herself knowing things. "You're ... Obin, right?" She reached out and touched his collar.

  "All right, come in," said Obin. "But don't get your hopes up. It's dead in here tonight."

  "The rain," she tried. Yes, that was right. Rain was bad for business.

  The door opened onto a narrow hallway. Obin led her through it and into a small parlor where three women sat, all heavily perfumed and tightly corseted, as Sela was. They all looked tired and bored. When they saw Sela, a tension sprung up in the room. A green-brown web of suspicion and contempt formed among the women.

  "Who's she?" said one. She was thin and pale, with dark hair, and delicate hands. There were circles under her eyes.

  "Bryla sent her," said Obin. "Don't know why."

  "She can't just come in here on a night like this," said the dark-haired woman. "That's silver out of my purse."

  "Now now, Perrine," warned Obin. "Let's be ladies, shall we?"

  Sela sat primly on a vacant love seat and waited, ignoring the glares from the other women. After a minute or so, their attention drifted and they began a desultory conversation that Sela ignored.

  A knock came at the door and Obin went to answer. A young guildsman, nervous and polite, entered the parlor and looked at the women. Sela waited for him to find her with his gaze. The instant his thread appeared, she pushed back against it. Not me. His gaze slipped past her, the thread evaporating. The guildsman settled on the dark-haired woman, Perrine, and she led him through an arch in the back of the room.

  Two more men came, and each time Sela pushed them away. For a little while, she was the only girl in the parlor. Obin tried to strike up a conversation with her, but she pushed back against him as well, and he lost interest in her.

  Perrine reappea
red after half an hour, followed by the young guildsman. His eyes were glazed, and he had a dopey smile on his face. Perrine looked haggard and stumbled a bit. She flopped down on the couch and took a cigarette from a box on the center table.

  "Young ones," she said after he'd gone. "Hate the nervous young ones."

  They sat in stony silence for several long minutes. Then another knock, and in came the man Sela had been waiting for. He was just as in his portrait, with cape and cane and a wide mustache. He bowed low when he saw the dark-haired woman. "Lady Perrine," he said in a booming voice. "So good to see you this lovely evening."

  Perrine smiled and waved, suddenly alert and attentive. She stood and curtseyed, and Sela followed her lead.

  The man looked Sela's way. When his thread sprang up she leapt at it, dragged at it. He looked at her, bewildered for a moment, then smiled.

  "Ah, whom have we here?" he said. Sela felt Perrine's thread go purpleblack. It stung, but she ignored it, smiling.

  "Sir," she said.

  "Perrine," said the man, "you are first in my heart, of course, but I would very much like to get to know this new friend of yours."

  "Of course, Guildsman Heron." Perrine seethed.

  Heron took a silver khoum from his pocket and pressed it into Perrine's hand. "You're a treasure, my dear."

  Sela smiled and took Heron's hand. To Obin, she said, "Where shall I take him?"

  "Upstairs, second on the left," said Obin. "Everything you need is in the room already."

  Sela nodded. "Thank you."

  They went upstairs without a word. Sela found the room Obin had indicated, and they went inside. There was a bed and a small table upon which were laid out a bowl, a candle, a packet of herbs, and a stoppered glass bottle.

  "I trust your preparation is of adequate strength," said Heron, removing his cape. "I prefer an intense level of connection."

  "You won't be disappointed, love," said Sela. She unstoppered the bottle and poured its contents into the bowl, then mixed in the herbs. The potion shimmered momentarily. It was an Insight preparation, similar to icthula, but with a decidedly different purpose.

  Heron undressed while Sela prepared the draught. He climbed into the bed, and the bedsprings rattled beneath him.

  "I'm ready, ready, ready," he said. His thread, bloodred flecked with brown, throbbed.

  "Almost there, dear," said Sela.

  She knelt on the bed and brought the bowl to his lips. He drank and lay back, impatient. She lifted the bowl and pretended to drink.

  "Now come here and give us a kiss," he said.

  Sela placed the bowl on the bed and leaned down toward him. She put her hands in his hair, ran her fingernails down his cheeks. He sighed happily, the effects of the potion beginning to affect him.

  Heron's eyes closed. Sela took a small knife from her bodice and drew it across his neck. His eyes opened wide. He tried to speak, but only managed a thick gurgling sound. He pawed at her, grabbed at her hair and yanked at it.

  "You're not real," said Sela.

  Once she was certain he was dead, she stood and walked out of the room.

  Indirect problems require indirect solutions.

  -Fae proverb

  ilverdun maintained consciousness as his captors dragged him roughly town the stairs and outside. He felt the sun on his face, but his vision was blurred; he saw only blue sky and moving shadows. He was lifted into the back of a closed wagon, and presently the wagon began to move.

  With each bounce over the rough cobblestones, Silverdun's wrist shot pain up his arm. One of the guardsmen had bandaged it, and the bandage was already wet with blood. That deep, deep red blood. The light in Annwn, its red sun? Silverdun shuddered; his body wanted to die, but Silverdun refused to allow it. He'd never experienced anything similar.

  The wagon turned, and its wheels rolled onto smooth stones. Silverdun smelled hay and horse dung. He tried to sit up and made it to his elbows. Ironfoot was slumped next to him. His eyes were open, and he looked back at Silverdun.

  They were pulled from the wagon and carried inside a cool place that reeked of urine. There were calls and shouts. Silverdun was placed on a straw mat on a dirty stone floor, and he heard Ironfoot grunt next to him. There was the sound of metal on metal. Silverdun raised his head again. He and Ironfoot were in a small jail cell. He closed his eyes and slept, despite the pain from his wrist. A little while later he came awake and felt something cool and soothing on his right hand. He looked over to see someone, an old woman, applying a salve to the stump of his wrist.

  "Surprised he's not dead," said the witch.

  Silverdun almost wished he were.

  Perrin is studying for his fifth-year exams when a message sprite alights on his windowsill.

  "Hey, Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun!"

  Perrin looks up from his studies, scrutinizing the sprite. "I'm not Lord Silverdun, foolish sprite," he says. "That's my father."

  "Well good news!" shouts the sprite. "You are now! Your father's dead!"

  Perrin grabs the thing around its waist. "What? What are you talking about?"

  The sprite blanches. "Aw, shucks. I was hoping you were one of those guys who didn't like his dad and was going to be happy to find out he was thrown from his horse and killed instantly. Then you'd probably want to offer me candy!"

  Perrin throws the sprite at the wall, but it veers off and lands on top of a bookcase. "Hey, it wasn't my fault. Sheesh."

  "Get out of here!" shouts Perrin.

  The sprite pauses at the window. "So ... where are we on the candy issue?"

  The next day a carriage arrives to take Perrin back to Oarsbridge Manor, where his father is to be buried in the family plot. Mother is waiting for him at the front door. She embraces him, and he lets her. Father's body is laid out in the parlor, on the carved wooden bier that has been in the family for hundreds of years.

  Perrin feels almost nothing when he sees his father. He examines his emotions carefully, and can come up with nothing other than a bland annoyance at having been summoned away from school during exams.

  Mother is standing in the doorway, watching him. "Whatever you're feeling is all right," she says.

  "I don't feel anything," says Perrin.

  "That's all right, too."

  "Everyone always tells me that he was a great man, a great lawmaker," he says. "I never really paid that much attention to his career."

  "He never paid that much attention to you, either."

  "He was extremely cordial."

  Mother laughs, and raises her hand to stifle it. "I suppose he was, at that."

  The funeral is well attended-seemingly by every member of Corpus, both lord and guildsman alike-and goes on for hours. It is dusk by the time the last statesman completes his encomium and sits. Perrin watches his father go into the ground, and suddenly he is filled with regret. He squeezes his mother's hand, and she squeezes back. She sees his tears and seems to understand them, even though he himself does not.

  Afterward, Perrin's uncles Bresun and Marin take him aside. Bresun is father's twin brother, the younger by ten minutes, and Marin is much younger, the child of Grandfather's second wife.

  "My deepest condolences ... Lord Silverdun," says Bresun, emphasizing the "Lord."

  "Thank you," says Perrin. He's known that the title would someday be his, of course, but he'd assumed that it would be many years in the future. "It's all a bit much. I confess I am somewhat overwhelmed."

  "And who could blame you?" says Bresun. "Title is a great obligation, and not one to be taken up lightly."

  Perrin nods. He has never liked Bresun.

  "Since you're not yet of age, you'll need to appoint an overseer for the estate," Bresun continues. "I will, of course, be more than happy to assume that role."

  Marin smiles weakly. "It's a fine idea, I think."

  "Thank you," says Perrin. "I will consider your offer."

  This is not the response Bresun wants. "I can assure you, son, that there is n
o one better acquainted with your father's affairs than I."

  "Fine," says Perrin, suddenly not caring. "I accept."

  Over the next few days, Perrin spends most of his time with a quill in his hand: penning thank-you notes to the many attendees of the funeral and signing a never-ending flood of documents for the solicitors. He falls asleep at his father's desk and is woken in the early morning by his mother's touch on his shoulder.

  "Come, Perrin," she says. "There is something I want to discuss with you."

  They walk out the south entrance, onto the lawns where Perrin played as a boy, and down the grass to the row of peach trees. The trees are in bloom, and they smell sweet and full.

  They pass through the small gate set in the wall and continue down the path to the knoll that overlooks the river and the fields. The stone bridge after which the manor is named is still there after all these years, still in daily use.

  "These are your lands now," says Mother.

  "Yes," says Perrin, though he finds it hard to accept.

  "Your father managed them well," she says. "He was always fair to his tenants, and they respected him."

  "Everyone respected him, apparently."

  "And rightly so. But I do not think you have any interest in managing our estates, do you, Perrin?"

  Perrin stops walking and looks at her. "Of course I do. It's my responsibility."

  "Your responsibility, yes. But not your desire."

  "What are you getting at, Mother?"

  "I want you to donate these lands to Aba."

  "To the Arcadians, you mean."

  "To Aba, I mean."

  "Doesn't Aba already own everything anyway?" Perrin smirks.

  "You're too old for that snotty attitude, Perrin," says Mother. "You demean us both. I have considered the matter prayerfully for some time."

  "Mother," says Perrin. "You can't expect me to just ... hand over my estate. It's madness."

  "You have an enormous trust that will give you income for the rest of your life, Perrin. You don't need the money."

  "It's not about the money. I don't care about that."