“Thanks for trying to save me earlier,” Kira said, taking a seat.
Jared cautiously sat beside her. “Not that it’ll do much good. I’m so sorry about your situation.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You see…oh, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, you go first.”
“I wish I could do more for you.”
Kira gave him a crooked half-smile. “There is something you can do.”
“What is it? I’ll do it. Anything.”
She took his hands in hers and locked eyes with him. Her hands shook but her voice was steady. “I considered all night and ‘bout near bit my fingernails to the stubs in the deciding of it. Now I’m sure. I…I want you to be the one to kill me.”
****
“There’s one thing I want to know,” Lynne said once she and Gwen were the only ones in the conference room. “You had Vincent join in on that mirror on the wall. Kira must have never learned that Seasons can’t transmit information instantly like that except within their own realms.”
“Unless it’s to blood relatives,” Gwen said.
Lynne stared. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Gwen picked at her fingernails. “Nope. He’s my little brother. Our clan was almost completely wiped out by diseases Europeans brought to our shores. Then the settlers destroyed the rest. He and I found our way here. We learned new languages and took new names over the course of the centuries. As far as I know, Vincent has never returned to our native plane of reality.”
They sat in silence for a while. Eventually Lynne scratched her head and asked, “Shall we rustle up some lunch?”
“Good idea, I’m starving.” Gwen rose. “I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone about the two of us.”
“Hey, I don’t really interact with my father. He left my pregnant mother for the Faerie Queen.”
“Wow.”
Lynne linked arms with Gwen as they exited. “Secret for secret. Even half-Fae must repay debts.”
****
Twig was more depressed than she had ever been. Now, she was four days old, but Kira’s memories hardly got this depressing either. When Twig had finally, timidly announced herself and pledged her fealty to her creator, Kira patted her wooden head in a distracted manner. “Swell. Welcome home. Make yourself comfortable.”
Everyone was kind, but she felt purposeless, adrift. She slipped away from the conversing flesh-persons and went for a walk to clear her mind.
The first open doorway Twig entered was a storeroom for model helicopters and trains, dusty with lack of use. She wondered if that was her fate. Was she going to be a forgotten toy, only with the added tragedy of being conscious of her situation? Then she noticed a small portal in the wall, glowing too brightly for her to see through the other side. Only yelling and clashing sounds came through.
This was dangerous. She shouldn’t stay.
There was something in this room that did not seem to be a simple plaything, though. It lay on the splintered floor, apparently discarded. Twig rubbed her rough-hewn ears. The thing was whispering. What it said seemed to be nonsense, yet it had all the weight of revelation.
“Geek. Glyphs. Hands. Fall. C. P. R. Season. U. Season. S. R. S. L. Y. Season. Ankh. Birth. C. P. R. Rebirth. Rebirth. Rebirth. C. P. R.”
The strange object was too heavy for her to carry. So she dashed back to the fish pond, screaming, “Jared! Help me!”
****
“Why me?” Jared asked.
She turned her face away and hugged herself. “You’re a lot like me from what I seen. I mean, from what I have seen. Lonely in the world. Didn’t ask for any of this. Just tripped into responsibility you weren’t ready for.”
“I’m from Next Door, Kira. I’m not comfortable with killing you as it is. I would also be trapped. I’d never be able to go home.”
“That’s a part of it. I’d like the man who kills me to have to give up something for it. Selfish of me, mayhaps, but I wouldn’t want someone washing my blood off his hands in the sink like it was a squirrel’s. You tried to save me even when you knew full well it was a foolish notion. In what I … I have … seen in the world, those that want power ain’t … aren’t …the right people to hold it. They’re loathsome and greedsome, often even if they’re one of the few who has plans to make the world better. Most of the time if they’re not wrong-headed about it at the start, their heads get swollen anyhow despite. You’re a good man and you haven’t a mite of that breed of ambition. I want to make you my heir.”
Taking a few deep breaths, Jared tried to make some sort of intelligent statement, to argue for someone else, anyone else. What came out was, “You’re so beautiful.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“I’d rather you say it again.”
“You’re beautiful, and strong, and…and I’d never be able to forgive myself. The only thing that would make me feel more awful is … is … well. I’d feel even worse if I said no.”
Tears glimmered in Kira’s eyes, but she was smiling. “We’ve got some time. There’s something else I’d like to do before it.”
Jared did the scariest thing he had ever done. He kissed her.
Fortunately, she kissed back.
Brushing a stray hair from her forehead, he asked, “Would you like me to stab myself after you die, ending this stupid system of magic so nobody gets trapped in this stupid situation and does stupid things like falling stupidly head over heels because of some stupid bunch of chemicals in his stupid brain and how utterly magnificent you are?”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, Kira replied, deadpan, “No, that would be stupid.”
“Seriously though, you should get anything you want.”
“I’ve never been in love. Not real love. I’m not even sure I’m in love now. It’s so sudden-like. What I know is that I like you and admire you, and I believe I need to celebrate being eighteen.”
“You mean…?”
“My bedroom’s this way.”
****
Twig wanted to tear her hair out. “You couldn’t find Jared or Kira anywhere?”
“I think they’re busy, Twig. It can wait,” William said.
****
“I don’t have a condom.”
Kira kissed his jaw. “Seasons are infertile. I’m dying tomorrow, so don’t worry about infecting me. As for infecting you…”
“Please don’t remind me. I’ve…um…”
“You seem nervous.” She stripped her tank top off over her head.
“Of course I’m nervous! I’ve never been someone’s first before, and certainly not someone’s last!”
“I’m sorry.” She guided him to the bed and lay down.
He relaxed, kneeling above her, and unbuttoned his own collared shirt, tossing it aside. “It’s all right.”
He unzipped her jeans easily, Kira sliding them down her narrow hips and kicking them to the floor, but spent an awkward eternity fumbling with her brassiere.
“Need help?”
“Not good with bras. Never was.” A moment and some finagling later, both were naked.
Kira found herself mite chilly but plenty excited. “Up to par?”
Jared whistled. “I should say so. I like the sun over your heart.”
“You’re not bad yourself, mister.” She chose not to mention that tomorrow the sun would be over his heart, to keep his mysterious glyph tattoo company.
“Have you kissed before?”
“No. Does it show?”
“You have a lovable difficulty figuring out where the noses go.”
“Say that again.”
“Miss Bossy. Ow! I didn’t agree to smacking! Lovable. Lovable. Loved. Love.”
“What do I do with my tongue? Is there tongue? Tongue happens at some point in this business, don’t it?”
“I generally let it happen like this.” He demonstrated.
When he pulled away, Kira bit her l
ip. “Would take some getting used to. Ain’t altogether bad, though.”
“Next bit sometimes hurts a little if it’s your first and you’re nervous.”
“Everything that’s good in life hurts a little bit at first.”
“It’ll go a lot easier if I warm you up.”
“…My.” Kira breathed. “I’ve done that with mine, once in a while to help sleep, but it’s nice when someone else…oh. Well. You’re…mmm.”
Jared smiled and kissed her neck. “Glad to be of service.” He stroked and teased, bringing his left hand into the action as well, until she shuddered and keened with feeling. “Good?”
“Yes,” she murmured, pulling him in for another kiss.
“May I now?”
“Yes. Don’t mind blood none, I seen plenty, and in this castle I can magic any stain away.”
“There actually doesn’t have to be any, if we do it right. Thank you for trusting me.”
She laced the fingers of her right hand with his. “I had to trust someone one day.”
****
“I’m really, really, really, really sorry about this, ladies,” Radcliff said, managing to wriggle far enough out of his bonds to turn his head to look at Naomi and Ruth. “Really, really.”
“Couldn’t have known,” Ruth replied. “At least we’re still on our way to Kira, just in a less comfortable fashion than we planned.”
“Fat lot of good my new hands are doing me,” Naomi muttered.
“Lack of gags is a privilege and not a right,” Queen Mab of Faerie told them, her voice dripping with honey.
“Is there a disturbance, Your Majesty?” the coach driver asked the royal in the passenger seat.
Mab glared briefly at the prisoners, who sat in a plush and velvet carriage with the option of requesting water or toilet breaks. There was no need to be cruel. It wouldn’t do for Gwen to think they’d been cruel to her consort, too. She patted the driver on the back. “It is nothing to trouble yourself about, Sir Orion. Let us go on. Only a few hours to Summer’s castle. One cannot trust the unwashed multitude of humans to get anything done efficiently.”
Sixteen
A New Day Dawning
Kira was asleep when Jared felt the need for a midnight snack. He found a terry cloth bathrobe in the closet, just his size, and padded barefoot to find some kind of pantry. He found William in the nearest kitchenette, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“Was it good?” William asked airily, with a gentle smile. He was barefoot in purple pajamas. “You can turn on the overhead light if you wish. Do you drink milk with your sandwiches? Many people do.”
“Wait…how did you know I wanted a sandwich? Why are you making me a sandwich in the first place? You’re not an internet stereotype.”
“I don't know what that means, but I’m fond of you. I have a tendency to feel empty when I’m not doing something for someone else. After our own one-night-stand you started sleepwalking and mumbling things like ‘PB and J, please, Mom,’ until I walked you back to bed. Also, I was passing the time before pointing out the new discovery. There’s an object on that counter over there. I’m not sure what it is. Twig insisted it was important.”
“It’s a defibrillator. Not sure what one’s doing here. Where’d she get it?”
“On our side of a portal she didn’t risk exploring. She heard a lot of machines and shouting. Was trying to figure out what to do with herself. Poor thing. What’s a defibrillator, now?”
Jared stepped towards it and slid his hands over it, awash with memories. “It’s a medical instrument used to correct a heartbeat that’s so fast or erratic that a person is likely to die from it. I worked in the emergency room for a year before I got transferred to Intensive Care. I also took a class on using them, hoping I could save my mother from her next heart attack after she had her first. The doctor said she would be likely to have more. It didn’t work out.”
William made a sympathetic grimace as he sliced the crust off the bread. “One only uses it on those whose heart rate is wildly out of control, then? How is that defined?”
“Cardiac arrest comes in a wide range. Some people have come back after being medically…” Jared froze.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“This world has magic and chemicals, and, and plants I don’t know about. Is there any sort of poison that causes extremely rapid heartbeats before death? You were friends with Djones growing up; did he ever mention something like that?”
William frowned and pondered. “The Gallows Foxglove. We got in a fight when he used our dormitory room sink to practice distilling the sap. And medically what?”
“Medically dead, William. Medically dead. For only a few seconds. Medically. Not permanently! Technically! Temporarily! Loophole-finding-y!” His eyes luminous, Jared grabbed William and kissed him with fierce joy. Then Jared picked up the defibrillator and ran whooping back to Kira.
William trotted after him, carrying the sandwich aloft like an overexcited waiter. He found Kira wrapped in Jared’s collared white shirt, which reached to her knees, sitting up and cautiously touching the defibrillator.
“Are you sure it’ll work?” she asked.
“No. I’m not, but it’s a hell of a lot better option than anything else we could try, and there could be another attempt on your life, like, any moment now. Hi, William. Put the sandwich down. I couldn’t eat at a time like this.”
“It sort of stuck to my hand,” William said, embarrassed, as he deposited it on the bedside table. “What do you need? I want to help.”
“Find an electrical outlet and plug this in, please. It’s an older model that doesn’t have batteries or a computer guide.”
Kira concentrated. “There should be one in this room. I ain’t – I am not, I should say –precise with my power as yet. Only had it a few days. I have had it only a few days.”
“You don’t have to correct your grammar all the time. I won’t judge you.”
“It’s tensifying. You’re all educated and whatnot. Here’s extract of Gallows Foxglove. I use it all the time for the necessary incantations at home.” A carved wooden cup appeared in her hands, filled with a brownish-pink liquid.
“Right, you’re from Creektown, makes sense for you to keep that custom,” William said.
“I’m looking forward to either of you telling me what ‘the necessary incantations’ are.” Jared handed the defibrillator to William and hugged Kira tightly. “Later, I mean. Do you trust me to do this?”
She nodded. “If I trusted you a few hours earlier…”
William reached a socket after a minute of searching. “Give it to Jared, Kira, and have him feed it to you. It’ll count as him being your killer. Lady Autumn and I had lengthy discussions regarding the technicalities of the Lore.”
“Even if this doesn’t pull through, thank you.” She tilted her head back and let him pour the drink into her mouth. He gently wiped a stray drop from her chin with his thumb.
Then Jared checked the light to make sure the defibrillator was operational. “Okay. However scared you are, I’m more scared. But however determined you are, I’m more determined. Here’s all I have and hope for.”
William took Kira’s hand and squeezed it. “It won’t take long for the drink to kill you, if that helps. I won’t lie and say it’s painless.”
“Thanks for the honesty.” She reclined among soft pillows and closed her eyes. They waited in horrible silence. Jared took a precautionary puff on his inhaler in case he was going to hyperventilate from nerves.
Then her eyes flew open again. William winced as she tightened her fingers around his hand and perched on the edge of the bed like his knees had gone weak. Jared could barely breathe. “It’s starting?”
“What the hell do you think?” Kira’s words were angry, but came out like a pleading gasp. Jared reached to stroke her hair, hold her other hand, hold her, anything. She shook her head even as her whole body started shaking. “Watch my, my
pulse, nurse. Your job...I stay dead, it’ll be because this...was impossible, you hear? Not because...you slipped...”
“I’ve got you,” William murmured. “Gallows Foxglove is quick. I promise it’s quick. You’re being so incredibly brave, sweetheart, my admiration knows no bounds, we’ll move mountains for you…”
Jared tuned out any other exchanges between Kira and William. His world narrowed to a single focal point. He had to monitor her pulse with nothing but counting under his breath and two fingers on the side of her neck, right under her jaw, feeling it leap under her skin. He had to ignore how he could feel her shudders as well as the increasingly wild heartbeats, and look away from her face in case she was crying. If he saw her crying, he wouldn’t be able to continue. He almost hated William for appearing so calm when Jared felt like he was on the verge of his own heart attack. He wanted to wipe his sweating brow, but that would mean letting go of his white-knuckle grip on the defibrillator resting on the bed beside Kira. He also wanted to scream. He was an imposter. He wasn’t even a real doctor, and he had the gall to take ridiculous liberties with how an induced cardiac arrest would work in the real world he knew.
But this wasn’t the real world he knew. Jared took a deep breath, and another, because Kira needed him to act like he was calm. He bit the inside of his cheek and steadied himself. This wasn’t the real world. It was real to the people born and raised here, but it was a different kind of real. Things didn't work here like they did Next Door. This place ran on magic, not proper physics or biology. Even unique sentient dolls were mildly interesting at most. That strangeness affected everyone on this side of the walls keeping the worlds apart.
He breathed, he counted, and he calculated. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t from here. In this world, Amber could move things with her mind. In this world, Rain could fly. Maybe here, having been too late for one woman he cared for, he’d be in time for another. Maybe the universe would not call his bluff. Maybe it would let him raise the dead.
Kira stopped shivering. He continued to count...and count...
Seasons Turning (Timely Realms Book 1) Page 16
