by Ted Sanders
“But why?” Horace breathed.
“Those raw ends, that’s why. That’s what makes us sensitive to the Medium. Whereas Tan’ji like you can only feel the Medium through a single, highly specialized instrument, we Tuners can feel it across the entire spectrum. And then with the help of a harp, we can learn to manipulate the Medium in small ways. In fact, we were given our first harps the very next day. Mr. Meister led us to believe they were the objects we had been meant to find.”
Chloe boiled furiously. Her mother had been so young—not much older than her sister Madeline was now. What Jessica was describing now sounded like torture, like the worst kind of deceit. She marveled at how the woman could stay so calm.
“Almost right away, Mr. Meister introduced us to the wicker harp,” Jessica said. “I couldn’t use it at all—it was way beyond my skills—but Isabel was sharper and it was no trouble for her.” She laughed abruptly. “I think she got a bigger bundle of rubber bands than I did, if you know what I mean.” She looked up at Chloe, and her face softened. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing about it. But it’s been so many years, and I came to terms with it a long time ago.”
“You did, maybe. But my mom didn’t.”
Jessica reached out and took Chloe’s hand, a steely fist. Chloe tried to unclench. “No,” said Jessica. “She didn’t. And I’m sorry for you both. I’m sorry for your family.”
“The Wardens did this to her. They made her this way. She should’ve been Tan’ji.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you, Chloe, but I like to be careful when assigning blame, especially when it comes to the Wardens. And there’s no question that as a Tuner, Isabel became much more powerful—and needed—than she ever would have been as Tan’ji. Especially after the wicker harp.”
Jessica was just about the hardest person in the world to argue with. “Miradel,” Chloe said, trying not to sound sulky.
“What?”
“The wicker harp. That’s what she calls it. Miradel.”
“Okay,” Jessica said slowly. Her tone suggested that harps weren’t supposed to have names.
Chloe crossed her arms, unsure how to say what she wanted to say next. She wasn’t particularly good at asking for favors. “I want you to meet my mom—to see her again.”
April’s mouth fell slightly open. Horace said, “Whoa.” Chloe held up her hand to shush them both.
Jessica shook her head. “I can’t say that sounds like a good idea.”
“I’m asking you.”
“But why? What would be the point?”
“I need to know why she’s here. You know her better than anyone.”
“Chloe, that’s simply not true.”
“My dad knows her, but he . . . I can’t really trust him right now.”
“Well, maybe you should try,” Jessica said. “Maybe you should talk to him.”
The very suggestion lit fires in Chloe’s head. “No, that’s—no. Listen to me.” Her throat strained with the effort it took not to shout. “I. Need. Your. Help.”
Jessica gazed at her for a long, silent moment, looking sad. She broke her cookie in half again. Chloe stood there, fighting off her doubts. Outside in the night, somewhere up above, Arthur croaked lazily. Loki growled and bristled, staring. Just as Chloe was about to call it all off, Jessica spoke.
“Fine,” she said. “Tomorrow night. Dinner, here at the house. Invite your dad too, if you like.”
Chloe’s knees nearly buckled with relief. She locked them tight. “Thank you.”
“I’m just doing for you what you would do for me,” Jessica said. “What you’re always doing for Horace.”
“What’s that?”
Jessica shoved the crumbled cookie into her mouth. “Being brave,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Between Friends
BY THE TIME DINNER ROLLED AROUND THE NEXT NIGHT, Horace’s nerves—which had begun to simmer the moment Chloe suggested their mothers meet—were boiling over. He’d never seen his mom so anxious before, and if she was nervous, he was sure there was good reason to be.
April and Chloe—and Arthur, of course—had gone back to the academy early in the morning. April was headed back home tonight to talk to her family. Beck was driving her, with Gabriel as escort. With any luck, she’d be back by Sunday.
Horace’s mom had spent the day cleaning the house and preparing the meal. She made both meat loaf and an enormous dish of macaroni and cheese, plus a veggie plate and a daunting pile of rolls. And a pie. Horace didn’t get the sense that she was trying to impress anyone; the flurry of activity felt more like busywork than anything.
When the doorbell rang at 7:29, his mom smoothed her dress. “It’s going to be fine,” she said. Horace had the distinct feeling she wasn’t talking to him.
They answered the door. Chloe came in like she lived there. Right behind her, to Horace’s surprise, came Joshua—the mysterious little boy who had written with the Vora in blue. Isabel came in last, carrying a large patchwork bag. There was no sign of Chloe’s dad. Isabel and Horace’s mom exchanged muted greetings and then an awkward, one-armed hug, during which his mom’s earring got tangled in Isabel’s bushy red hair. Horace was shocked to hear his mother stammer nervously like a child, clearly flustered.
Technically, Horace hadn’t been introduced to Isabel yet, but she shook his hand and then introduced Joshua in turn. She didn’t explain his presence. The boy shook Horace’s hand gravely, and then his mother’s, saying to both of them in turn, “Thank you for welcoming me into your home.”
“Quite the manners, I see,” Horace’s mother said, and then she turned to Chloe. “Where’s your dad?”
Isabel answered for her. “He dropped us off, but we thought things might be better without him this time, all things considered. He sends his apologies.”
“That’s fine,” said Horace’s mom. “I gave my husband a pass, too. He’s out with friends tonight.”
Isabel clapped her hands together. “Perfect. Just us moms, then.”
Chloe rolled her eyes at Horace. Now that he was seeing her and Isabel side by side in the light, he could see just how much they resembled each other. They were clearly mother and daughter—same small frame, same fierce but pretty face, same dark, intelligent eyes.
While Horace’s mom took Isabel and Joshua on a mini tour, Horace and Chloe set the table. In harsh whispers, Chloe complained about how she was sure Isabel had talked her dad into not coming.
Horace said, “Oh, I don’t know. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to be here either.”
Chloe scowled. “Why is everyone dreading this so much?”
“Not everyone likes confrontation as much as you do, Chloe.”
A few minutes later, the five of them sat down to dinner. It was clear from the start that nobody really knew what to say. The last time Horace had seen Isabel, she’d more or less saved his life, and it seemed strange not to acknowledge it now. But at the same time, she was the woman who’d nearly killed his best friend, and who’d abandoned her as a child—an opposite but equally awkward topic of conversation. And although his mother made a few game attempts at small talk with Isabel to get the evening started, they clearly had nothing small to talk about. The way Horace figured it, they were here to talk about big stuff anyway, so they might as well get to it. But he wasn’t going to be the one to say so.
Only Joshua, with a kind of innocent, robotic formality, seemed oblivious to the tension around the table. He piled his plate high with food and dug into it with gusto while everyone else nibbled. Between bites, he recited a list of his twelve favorite foods, inspired by the fact that macaroni and cheese was number two—the box kind, not the homemade kind. He then launched into his own bizarre account of the journey he, Isabel, and April had made into the city, burying them with details about directions, distances, and landmarks, but saying almost nothing about what had actually happened.
Joshua was just describing the location and orientation of an
ice-cream stand near the Chicago Botanical Gardens when Isabel interrupted him, pointing her fork at Horace. “You’re the Keeper of the Fel’Daera,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Quite a coincidence, if you believe in that sort of thing. Who could’ve guessed the Fel’Daera would choose Jessica’s son? I tuned the box, you know, back when I was with the Wardens.”
Horace didn’t really appreciate the reminder. “Yeah, that’s what my mom said.”
“She tried to tune it herself, if I remember right, but the box was a mess,” said Isabel. “Isn’t it spooky that your mother held your Tan’ji in her hands years before you even existed? A thing like that can’t happen very often.”
Possibly just another coincidence, Horace thought, but that hardly concerned him as much as the first thing she’d said. “The box was a mess?” he asked. “How?”
“Oh, the veins were clogged and tangled. Some of them nearly torn. I don’t know what happened to its last Keeper, but . . .” She shivered dramatically, scrunching up her face in fearful disgust.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Horace.
“Let’s just say not every Keeper retires, if you follow me.”
Horace’s mom sat back, watching. She looked sharp all of a sudden—angry and impatient. “Can I ask you why you did it, Isabel? Why did you steal the harp?”
Isabel hesitated briefly before answering. “Miradel was mine.”
Horace’s mom frowned at the name, shaking her head in consternation. “You knew the harps weren’t ours to keep.”
Isabel laid down her fork. “Why are you attacking me? You know what they did to us.”
“I’m not attacking you. I’m trying to understand the things you’ve done.”
“We were supposed to be Tan’ji.”
“I’ve never been crazy about that word.”
“Tan’ji?”
“Supposed.”
Isabel scoffed. “Semantics. You know as well as I do that our instruments were there that day. They were ours, and now they’re lost.”
“I’m the first to admit the Wardens should have told us what was happening.”
Isabel rolled her eyes. “Very polite. You weren’t nearly so polite about it back then.”
“To be fair, I wasn’t nearly as grown-up, either.”
“We still could be Tan’ji,” Isabel insisted. “The veins are still there. If they can snip them apart, they can sew them together again.”
“And that’s why you came back.”
Horace had been frozen in his seat, overwhelmed by his mother’s knifing tone and the rapid-fire exchange, but at these words he looked over at Chloe. Her face was a brewing storm.
Isabel seemed to remember herself too. “You got me sidetracked. I came back for my family. To ask forgiveness.”
“Except you haven’t,” Chloe said abruptly. “Asked, I mean.”
“Of course I have.”
“No, you haven’t.” Chloe’s expression turned thoughtful, remembering. “In fact, you haven’t even said you were sorry.”
Looking genuinely bewildered, Isabel began to sputter. “I . . . of course I am. I’m so sorry—sorrier than you can know. But even if I did beg for forgiveness, would you care? You’re not going to forgive me—and you shouldn’t. Not yet.”
“No. I shouldn’t. But you should still ask.”
“It hurts too much to ask for something you won’t give. You know what I want. I’m sorry for leaving you, Clover. A thousand times sorry.”
Her words sounded sincere, but to Horace she looked anything but sorry. She and Chloe glared at each other across the table. Horace was struck again by how alike they were.
“Why is Isabel sorry?” Joshua said. He’d stopped eating and now sat wide-eyed, half a roll in his hand.
“Because she’s a terrible person,” said Chloe. Isabel shoved her chair back and shot to her feet, stalking out of the room.
No one spoke. Joshua looked as if he was about to cry. Chloe poked guiltily at her macaroni. “Well, that was exciting,” she said after a while.
Jessica sighed and stood up. “I’ll go get her.”
Chloe stuck her fork upright in her meat loaf. “I think our dads had the right idea tonight,” she said.
“You were the one who wanted this.”
“I’m aware of that, Horace. Thanks.”
“What were you hoping would happen?”
“I don’t know. Your mom just seems to have the answers so much of the time. I thought she could help.”
“Maybe she can. Maybe she is.”
“Maybe.” Chloe looked over her shoulder out the doorway. Horace took a bite of a roll. He could hear his mother and Isabel talking in low voices downstairs. Chloe said, “I went to see Mr. Meister today. To ask him about the kaitan.”
“The Tuner machine? Wow. What did he say?”
“The usual. Drastic times. Drastic measures.” She glanced down at the Fel’Daera. “It was because of the box that they turned our mothers into Tuners, you know. Not that that’s your fault or anything.”
Horace, mouth half full, stopped chewing. “What are you talking about?”
“According to Mr. Meister, he was expecting a delivery at the time. An Altari was coming, some kind of big shot, bringing a few very powerful Tan’layn. ‘Instruments of great consequence,’ he said.”
Horace swallowed. Sil’falo Teneves. The Maker of the Fel’Daera. “And one of those instruments was the box,” he said.
“That’s what I gathered. Some of the instruments were in bad shape, like Isabel was just saying. The Wardens needed a Tuner if they had any chance of finding new Keepers for these powerful instruments, but they didn’t have one. And so . . .”
“So the kaitan.”
“Yup.”
Horace slipped his fingers into the pouch and rubbed the lid of the box. So much history there, so many unknown deeds. It was hard not to feel connected to them all, hard not to feel responsible.
“I don’t want you to feel guilty,” Chloe said, reading his mood. “You had nothing to do with that. It was all Mr. Meister. And honestly, I think he told me that story today—about the Fel’Daera—so that I’d forgive him for turning my mom into a Tuner.”
“And do you?”
“Not really. Especially since he wouldn’t tell me what her instrument was. But think about it—my mother had to tune the box so that the box could find its Keeper. And that Keeper turned out to be you. It’s sort of . . . cosmically satisfying, I guess.” She elbowed him. “Even though it took you like twenty years to show up.”
He laughed. “To be fair, I had to be born and stuff first.”
“Some excuse.” She took a bite of meat loaf and chewed it slowly. “So . . . I’ve been thinking. About whether or not the Wardens could actually fix my mom—you know, make her Tan’ji again. I know she’s kind of crazy, but what she said makes sense. If the Wardens can undo being Tan’ji, why can’t they redo it? Like you said, anything is possible, right?”
Her tone was light, the way it always was when she floated an idea she wanted to believe in, but couldn’t yet commit to. Whatever else she claimed she felt, it was clear Chloe hadn’t totally given up on her mother. “It might be possible,” Horace said. “But it sounds to me like her instrument—whatever it was—was destroyed by the kaitan. Or as good as destroyed anyway.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about Miradel.”
“The wicker harp? I don’t see how. Surely you can’t just create the bond with any old instrument. Especially a harp, I would think. A harp isn’t Tan’ji.”
“But you said it yourself—maybe Brian could do it. You saw what he did with the Ravenvine.”
Joshua said, “What’s the Ravenvine?”
Horace actually jumped—he’d forgotten the boy was even here.
“April’s Tan’ji,” Chloe explained.
Joshua looked deeply impressed. “So it’s fixed now? Brian fixed it?”
Chloe just frowned at him, apparently realizing she’d said too much. “The point is,” she told Horace, “maybe the reason Isabel can’t control the wicker harp is because she’s not Tan’ji. Maybe if she could be bonded to the harp, things would change.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
Chloe bit her lip. “Maybe.”
“Besides, even if Brian could do something like that, it’s hard to imagine Mr. Meister would allow it.”
A voice behind them spoke. “He does enjoy his rules.”
Horace and Chloe spun around. Isabel stood in the doorway, looking especially wild. She couldn’t have been there long, but she had obviously caught Horace’s last words.
Isabel came in and took her seat. “Sorry I stormed off. Emotions got the better of me, as they sometimes do. But I suppose sometimes we all do things—and say things—we wish we hadn’t.” Isabel leaned forward, staring hard at Chloe. “So tell me,” she said, her tone as light as her gaze was heavy. “Who is this Brian? I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”
Chloe shrugged, acting nonchalant as only Chloe could. “It’s no pleasure, believe me. He’s nobody special—T-shirt collector, girl chaser.”
But Joshua piped up. “He fixed April’s Tan’ji.”
Isabel’s dark eyes glittered. Her mouth fell open and she blinked several times before collecting herself. “So it’s fixed! Incredible.” She lifted her glass of water. “Cheers to our Brian.” She took a sip, though no one else had so much as moved. Then she sat there for a full minute, apparently lost in thought. Horace could hear his mother banging around in the kitchen and he almost got up to help her, just to get away. Joshua continued to work on his meat loaf, and Chloe fiddled with the dragonfly.
At last Isabel broke the silence. “And tonight April is headed back home, yes? To tell her family she’s been invited to join the Wardens?”
“That’s right,” Horace said.
“I’m surprised you two didn’t go with her. Someone needs to keep her safe.”
Chloe glowered at her. “She’s got company. They can handle things.”
“Oh, good,” Isabel said, sounding genuinely relieved. She shook her head. “A lucky day for her, lucky for sure. I guess our trip was worthwhile after all.” She gave Chloe a sad look. “Even if nothing else comes of it.”
