by A. L. Knorr
"Hello?"
The sound of her voice echoed into the empty blackness. Cool, stale air touched her skin, smelling of dust and moldy grain. She called out again, cocking her ear to listen. The place felt like a tomb. She stepped inside and took a few tentative steps forward. The door banged shut behind her and darkness swallowed her. She waited until her eyes adjusted and caught sight of a dim glow from cracks in a door far ahead of her. The door appeared to be hovering several feet off the floor.
Jordan called out for a third time; no response. She walked forward and her eyes adjusted further. She could just make out a short set of steps leading up to the door.
"Ouch!" she banged her shin on something sharp and bent down to feel the corner of a cold metal shelf. The locket pressed against her fingers, directing her onward.
There came the scuttling sound of tiny, clawed feet, as some small animal panicked and scrabbled for cover. The shapes of crates and bags came into focus, stacked in haphazard piles and clusters on the floor. She reached the steps and ascended, turning sideways and ducking through the small passageway, which had clearly not been built to accommodate Strix. She reached out for a handle and found a jutting piece of metal. She followed it to the cold iron latch, which she lifted. The door swung easily and silently toward her. She took the final step up and passed into the light, letting the door close behind her.
Jordan found herself standing on the periphery of a fantastic hallway. An ornate red carpet threaded with gold ran the length and breadth of the hall. Glass sconces lit the way, and huge, elaborate paintings of landscapes far too large to appreciate properly in a hallway had been hung on the gray stone walls. Rustic wooden furniture—chairs and tables topped with vases stuffed with tall ornamental grass—warmed up the space.
The locket strained behind her fingers, begging Jordan to walk through the wall in front of her. Taking in the opulence of the broad corridor, Jordan shook her head. From the outside, the building looked like a drafty fortress; from the inside, it looked like a gallery.
A woman who would look completely at home in any corporate boardroom in America appeared from around the corner at the far end of the corridor carrying a stack of papers. She had dark-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose and red hair swept back into a tight professional-looking ponytail. She wore a pencil skirt, a button-up blouse and a matching vest with a small silk bow at the throat. She was reading one of the pages in her arms rather than watching where she was going, taking small steps in black pumps. Jordan was so surprised to see someone looking so like an Earthling that she just stared at the woman. The businesswoman blinked up at Jordan briefly as she passed by, gave a demure smile without really looking at her, then looked down at her paper and carried on.
Jordan watched the woman sway down the hall, completely bemused. She strode after her. At the end of the hall, the woman turned left, and the locket tugged Jordan right.
She turned and carried on.
The locket urged her to walk through the wall on her right. There has to be a room on the other side of these walls. The hallway was warm and Jordan's brow began to feel damp and sticky with moisture. The hall suddenly came to an end and a cavernous room opened before her. A small desk sat in front of a tall, narrow window, behind which another secretarial looking woman sat. She was scribbling furiously into a ledger with a pencil. She too was dressed in corporate clothing, but she was younger and plumper than the lady Jordan had passed in the hallway. Her fingernails were painted a pretty shade of pastel green and her eyeshadow matched. Her blonde hair was swept up in a tight bun and small diamond earrings sparkled from her earlobes.
The locket strained away from the girl and toward a set of enormous double doors opposite the desk. Upholstered chairs sat clustered together in front of a cold fireplace, unused and looking like the staged set of a talk show.
The young woman looked up at Jordan and greeted her in what the new Arpak was beginning to recognize as Rodanian.
"Pardon me, I speak English only," apologized Jordan.
The girl smiled a bright welcoming grin at her, as though meeting someone from her hometown far across the world. "And beautifully," she complimented. "You almost sound American."
Jordan bit off the 'I am' that surged to her lips, and instead said, "I'm looking for Jaclyn Kacy. Do you know her?"
The smile froze on the girl’s face. It was as though she had turned into marble.
Through bared teeth, she replied, "Jaclyn?" in a very uneasy tone of voice. Her eyes darted to the doors behind Jordan and then back to Jordan's face. Her previously rosy cheeks lost their color.
"Is something wrong?" Jordan's palms felt clammy. The girl’s reaction was not comforting.
"Um." The pencil in the girl’s fingers dropped to the tabletop with a clatter, she snatched it up again and fiddled with it. "How do you know Jaclyn?"
She said ‘Jaclyn’ in a hard, sharp way, loading the name with meaning. Jordan swallowed with an audible click, her throat was dry.
"She's my mother."
The girl pursed her lips and tilted her chin down to peer at Jordan over the tops of her specs. The film of ice that had formed at these words was so palpable that Jordan gave a little shiver.
"Right," the girl replied. She laid the pencil carefully in the seam of the open ledger. "That's a new one." She pushed her chair back from the desk and stood, her movements stiff.
She lowered her voice a notch but still spoke with authority. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave. Quietly. I'm not sure who has put you up to this, or what they're paying you, but—believe me—it’s not worth it. You need to go, before you get into a situation you can't reverse." The girl's green eyes darted again to the large doors behind them; the same doors the locket was straining toward.
Jordan was aghast at this. "Why would someone pay me to—?"
"There is no Jaclyn." The girl said this flatly, as though the phrase had been drilled into her head so many times, it had become meaningless. The girl placed her fingertips on the tabletop, making two little spiders with her fingers. She leaned forward. "For your own good, miss." Her eyes actually turned pleading, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Go away, and don't come back." Her pupils darted to the door once again and then back to Jordan, wide and desperate. "Please," she hissed.
A confused fear struck at Jordan's heart, but she steeled herself. She lowered her voice in response to the girl having done so. "I have come a long way to find my mother." She showed the girl the locket, keeping a tight hold on it. She clicked the small latch with her thumb and it snapped open, revealing the portrait inside. "I know she's here. This locket led me to her. Against all odds, in the face of the years that have separated us…" Jordan's voice began to tremble. "If you don't let me through those doors, I will let myself through."
The girl's eyes widened to the size of teacups as she looked at the artwork in the locket. "Where did you get that?" she wheezed, a hand flying to her throat.
Jordan snapped the locket closed and clenched her fist tightly around it. "Doesn't matter. Are you going to let me in?"
"I can't!" The girl looked agonized and put a hand out toward Jordan. "You don't want to go in there."
"Oh, but I do." Jordan clenched her teeth and turned toward the door, striding across the carpet, her footsteps silent.
There was a scuffle behind her as the girl came around the desk and chased her across the room. A freezing cold hand wrapped around Jordan's bicep. The girl pulled Jordan to a stop.
"Don't," she whispered, and stepped in front of Jordan. She put her other hand on Jordan's shoulder and began to push Jordan back the way they'd come, angling her toward the hallway. "I can't explain it, but I'm doing you a favor right now. Besides, the door is locked; you can't go in unless you're invited. I have no key." She said the last word softly and conspiratorially, as though she was now on Jordan's side and Jordan should trust her.
"This is ridiculous." Jordan resisted the girl. "I'm going in there, one way
or another. I have come too far to—"
There was a loud click, and one of the double doors swung open.
The secretary uttered the shocked squeak of someone who's been caught stealing. She snatched her hands away from Jordan, and whirled to face the open door. She plastered a stiff look of calm and serenity on her face; the result was a rictus of doll-like fear.
In the doorway, surprise passing over his face at finding a woman and an Arpak standing awkwardly close together, was a tall and golden Arpak man. The surprise faded as quickly as it had come, and a cool disinterest took its place. The Arpak’s feathers looked as though they'd been dipped in gold. They glittered uniformly, with no distinct markings or pattern, and reflected the firelight from the sconces along the wall. His cool beauty made Jordan take an involuntary step back—which was good, because the girl also stepped back, the two of them moving in tandem. His skin was pale and freckled, his hair so blonde it was nearly white—the color of summer wheat. He was tall and lanky, with a long torso. A black velvet vest with gold piping wrapped itself snugly across his chest, belted at the waist with thick, black leather. A single dagger with an obsidian hilt glittered from his right hipbone, and black leather pants encased his long slender legs. He oozed wealth and superiority. His cool, dark blue eyes fell on the secretary, then on Jordan, and skipped over them the way a stone skips over water. He breezed by, leaving a pleasant, spicy aroma in his wake.
The heavy door began to swing shut; Jordan saw her opportunity. While the girl was still ogling the beautiful Arpak male, Jordan dashed around her and darted through the shrinking gap. Her feathers just slipped through behind her. The last thing she heard before the door slammed shut was a gasp from the secretary and the word "No!" expelled on a sigh of terror.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As the door banged shut, Jordan halted just inside, her face a mask of shock. The locket pulled free from her fingers and flew across the room.
Jaclyn, who had been bent over a large wooden desk, looked up and gasped with surprise. A hand flashed out, as quickly as a striking cobra. The locket slapped against her palm, hard, and her fingers closed around it. An Arpak man who had been bent over the same desk straightened, his mouth agape, his eyes on Jaclyn's hand. One of his hands flew reflexively to the hilt of the blade at his hip.
Jordan forgot to breathe as she took in her mother's appearance. She just stood there, her back to the door, her heart hammering in her chest, and her vest feeling as restrictive as a straightjacket. Her torso felt hot and prickly, but her feet and hands felt cold as ice.
Jaclyn was even more beautiful than all the photographs in the Kacy parlor showed. Her hair was no longer long and curled, but bobbed and hooked back behind her ears. She was tall and willowy; her every line and curve screamed femininity. Her thick-lashed, chocolate-brown, doe eyes, now graced with fine-lines, were dressed in subtle makeup that made them look even larger. Her cheekbones were dusted with peach blush and small black pearls glittered from her ears. She wore a long-sleeved wine-colored shirt with quilted lines stitched into a diamond pattern and a snug pair of black leather pants. The foot that Jordan could see peeking out from behind the desk wore a tall, laced-up boot with a low heel and stitched flourishes across the toe. Jaclyn's olive skin was pale, as though she hadn't seen the sun in a long while. The overall impression Jaclyn gave was one of competent glamour—a high-achieving, high-society commander.
Jaclyn's fist remained frozen in the air, clenched around the locket. Her eyes tracked from the locket to the woman at the door. Her fist slowly lowered. Jaclyn's eyes narrowed. With a fast, bird-like movement, Jaclyn looked down at the locket in her hand. Her expression showcased that she'd seen it before, but maybe not in a very long time. She didn't open it, but looked back up at Jordan, her head tilting.
"Where did you get this?" Jaclyn's voice was soft in the way a wolf's pelt is soft—cloaking a dangerous, predatory imperative beneath it. She put a hand out toward her companion as though to say, ‘relax’.
Jordan's body remembered that it needed oxygen to live and she finally took a breath. Jaclyn's question had sailed by unheard, for Jordan was in shock about something else entirely. Words finally found their way out, bursting like they, too, needed air desperately.
"You're not Arpak!" The one thing Jordan had been expecting was conspicuously absent—wings. "Or did you just recently return from Earth?" Jordan thought that her own voice sounded small, wounded.
The change in Jaclyn's face was subtle, but belied a moment of monumental realization. Maybe it was Jordan's voice, or something in her face that reminded Jaclyn of Allan, maybe the way her mouth moved when she spoke. Jaclyn's generous lips parted with a soft intake of breath.
"Jordan," she breathed, recognition changing the landscape of her face and dropping her shoulders. Her eyes turned glassy as she stared at her daughter.
"Mom?" Jordan took a few tentative steps forward, but stopped when Jaclyn made no move to welcome her. Emotions pelted Jordan: confusion, happiness, excitement, unease, bewilderment, disbelief; she felt like a cocktail of substances that should never be mixed.
The Arpak man, whom Jordan had barely registered, covered his mouth with a hand and stared at Jordan. His eyes darted from one woman to the other and then settled back on the Arpak with the yellow wings standing in the middle of the room. He dropped his hand.
"How did you get in here?" he barked, his voice a low growl.
Jordan finally looked at him. "I walked in through the basement.” She looked back to her mother. “I'm sorry, I didn't know how else to find you. I just followed the locket." As she spoke, she realized that the Arpak with her mother was young—maybe only early-twenties—but he was armed like Toth had been. The hilts of multiple weapons gleamed from their leather sheaths. He moved with a liquid grace as he stepped around the desk. He had soft, unlined skin and a rosy, youthful complexion, untouched by loss and years. He rested a palm on the hilt of a blade, his weight shifting forward onto the balls of his feet, as though preparing to come at her. He had light gray wings with soft orange primary feathers, and long, dirty blonde hair tied back. There was something familiar about his face. Jordan wondered if he was related to the other blonde man who had left the room only minutes before. His eyes were hard and glowered at her.
"Ashley," said Jaclyn, her tone sharp. The man looked at her. Jaclyn's look was withering and the Arpak bared his teeth in what seemed to Jordan the look of a cowed dog. The tension in the room was palpable.
Should I be afraid? Maybe the girl's warnings had been sincere, but Jordan hadn't come all this way to chicken out. Being afraid of her own mother seemed ridiculous, unthinkable. My mother is sweet, nurturing, a soft-heart…isn't that what everyone has told me since I was little?
Jordan took a step forward, her eyes on Jaclyn. "You left us. You left me without a mother. Why? What happened to you?"
"If you take another step—" the Arpak man hissed.
"Ashley," warned Jaclyn, putting a hand on his arm. Her knuckles were white. "She's not here to hurt me."
"She knows now," Ashley replied. "She's seen you."
"It's not yet clear what she knows," answered Jaclyn, her eyes locked on Jordan.
Confusion and despair snuck up behind Jordan and wrapped around her in a long, slow, creeping hug. None of this is making sense; not Jaclyn's reaction, not the exchanges between her mother and her mother's guard, not this strange and ornate office where she'd found her, not the fact that she was on an island off a port used solely for handling trading vessels as they passed in and out of Maticaw. It was bizarre. And to add to the confusion, it was pretty clear that Jaclyn was in charge here.
Jordan did take another step but Ashley stayed where he was, with Jaclyn's hand still on his arm.
"What are you doing here?" Jordan demanded, her voice rising a little. Anger began to burn in her gut as the shock began to pass and made way for her assumptions to spill forth. "I thought I'd find you in some dangerous circumstance, thou
ght maybe you were being kept against your will. What else would keep you from your family? I thought you were Arpak!" Jordan cried this last one out, loud and forlorn. "Why else would you leave your baby? You never even left a note. Do you know what a mess you left behind you? Do you even care?" Jordan's heartbeat pounded strong and loud, like a warship's drum as its oars worked to carry it to ramming speed. She fought to steady herself and made fists to stop her fingers from trembling.
"Here you are," she went on. "Human, and—and what?" Jordan looked around at the room: tall ceilings, rich-looking upholstery and furniture, bookcases and shelves full of documents, scrolls, and ledgers. An elaborate chandelier hung down from the ceiling, illuminating the room. Three tall doors led off to goodness knew where and there were no windows in the room, not one. It was a beautifully furnished cell and clearly a place where business was done. "You're a CEO or something? On Oriceran? Is this what you abandoned your family for?"
Jaclyn crossed her arms over her chest. "You don't have a clue what you're talking about," she accused, her voice icy. "If I thought I could raise you and also do what I was meant to do, I would have. But it would have killed Allan for me to take you away. I was being kind."
" ‘Kind’!" Jordan spluttered. "We're your family!" She was losing the fight with her emotions. Her nose tingled, the edges of her vision grew blurry and her sinuses felt like they were filling up with her brains. "We needed you. I needed you." Jordan's voice hardened. "What kind of a woman leaves her family—"
"Clearly you didn't need me," interrupted Jaclyn calmly. She gestured to Jordan's wings. "I see you've discovered your heritage." Her beautiful face softened as she gazed at her daughter. "Perhaps that is for the best. It will force you to take a side."
"Take a side?" Jordan echoed. The room went fuzzy. Jordan's hands went to the sides of her face and pressed there, as though to keep her skull from falling apart. She squeezed her eyes shut. This is agony. Jordan couldn't have felt more gutted, more disappointed, more shocked, than if the armed Arpak had run her through with one of his blades.
