Would you not like the chance to breathe again? I asked, as if it could hear my thoughts. But if I could share its breath, why not? We were fused together at that moment.
I breathed along with the door until one time in its past it slammed shut more forcefully than the others, and as it rattled in its socket I was rattled back into reality. My eyes flashed open again, and as I tried to let my hand fall back to its place at my side something unusual came to my attention; web fastened my palm to the door, sticky as I tried to pull away. Fused indeed, I thought, distastefully extracting myself.
The web, rather flexible and resilient, did not break as I managed to peel my hand away, and instead remained plastered over the hinge. Your target, Tanen, I thought, for that's what it looked like; and it seemed at that point I had fulfilled my mission to grant him some sort of insurance for his task.
*
He perched in the stairwell, ready and waiting. At his nod, I proceeded with the dinner tray. He was as ready as he would ever be, and I could only hope Victoria had not lost hope in us by now. And that our scheme would work.
I padded down the dark passage, the dishes rattling ever so slightly with my steps. I was half concerned that the target I had conjured would be reduced to a useless cobweb by now, but it appeared to still be holding strong. Besides, would a cobweb be any less affective, when it came down to it? It was merely a symbol, was it not?
I placed the tray at the threshold and rapped out the required knock, then retreated down the hall. It occurred to me to hug the wall as I realized I was now between Tanen and his target – all at once I was in the line of fire, and a strange force of adrenaline propelled me.
Not a moment too soon, either, because as soon as Felicity had that door open a crack, Tanen's poise went rigid with aim, and an arrow ripped down the hall and ate into its target – a splintered wedge. What happened then was mayhem. A cry escaped Felicity – something I thought was alarm, until the arrow's goal was recognized and it turned to a cry of rage. Tray forgotten with a clatter, Felicity retreated into the room with a whisk of her musty skirts and threw herself into slamming the door. But Tanen was already halfway down the hall, Dashsund close behind, and the arrow still wedged. It splintered under the force of Felicity's endeavors, but the men would reach their goal first.
I don't know what I planned to do beyond my role in delivering the tray, but in the end I stood there a little stunned as it all played out anyway, a witness in the hall. Felicity was shrieking – ridiculous sounds of distress – and dishes were clattering as Tanen and Dashsund stepped all over them to force open the heaving door. Then it was open, the splintered remains of the arrow falling away from the crack, and I gained a dim visual of the interior. It was a tumultuous visual though, as Tanen and Felicity were now scuffling and Dashsund was going for Victoria in the corner. They met somewhere in the middle, and then Victoria was being smuggled over the threshold as Felicity gained ground in the fight, and the door was being forced shut again. It ground shut on the three of them, a haphazard mess of limbs wrestling their way back over the threshold – once, twice, three times. Demanding they get out yet not letting them get there.
There were voices, too; Felicity's mad raving and Tanen and Dashsund yelling over it all, to whom or about what I could not say. Did yelling do any good, in the middle of all this?
Victoria was finally dragged through the door. Dishes clattered again. Tanen hit the door with a powerful fist to allow him to extract his ankle – battered, no doubt – and Dashsund slipped quickly free as well, his hands on Victoria's arms. Then the door slammed for good, and we were locked out.
She really has gone mad.
I stared, stunned. I had had no idea what had brewed and festered beyond that door. There was a collective moment of astonishment as everyone recovered from the scene, and then a slump of spirit as it became obvious there were still other innocents in there. We had gotten out with only one.
Regaining his composure, Dashsund steered Victoria down the hall by her arms. She was rattled, and let herself be steered by his grasp.
It had been a good while since I had last seen her, and while I recognized her, she was much altered. Dark circles under her eyes, poor diet evident in her frame, and lack of bathing overall had slashed her beauty down to an ebb. She had been stunning before, and now she looked starved and haunted. I caught her eye, briefly, as she was coaxed toward me, and saw, however, that the spark was still in them. She would be restored.
She did not speak to me, though I'm sure she had to recognize me. Perhaps she did not know how to go about speaking to her slaves while they occupied these roles. We were her saviors, now, and this world we delivered her into, if governed by anyone, was governed by us. This was our territory, and she would not know how to handle herself here. She had not dealt with the outside world in years. She was naïve as a child. The term 'master' would take on new meaning for her – we were the masters of this world not because of birthright or designated title, but because we had mastered it. Plain and simple.
Stepping aside, I ushered them past me. As Dashsund ambled by with his charge, I could see how shaken she was. It roiled off of her in waves as she trembled.
Sending a glance my way, Tanen grabbed his bow from its prop against the wall and followed. I eyed his ankle as he descended the stairs before me, but if it was injured, he hid the limp. Collecting myself, I retrieved the tray, cleaning up the dishes as best I could with my bare hands, and followed them down.
Letta was downstairs in the kitchen to receive us. A cup of tea was in her hands instantly, proffered to the shaken Victoria. “My dear,” she said. “Sit.” There was a stool for the purpose, and Victoria was helped to sit upon it. She took the cup shakily, holding it more for stability, it seemed, than sustenance.
Wrapped in a vibrant quilt, Ombri appeared from the adjoining room and watched from the sidelines, curious.
“Have a sip,” Letta urged, then looked to Tanen and Dashsund. “No others?”
“Felicity has gone mad,” Dashsund replied. “We're lucky we got back out ourselves. She guards the status of that door most fiercely.”
Hiding her dismay, Letta turned back to Victoria. “Are you well other than the fright?”
Victoria managed an uneven nod. “But Lesleah – she's ill. Taken with fever. Felicity won't see it, even though Les lies on the floor. She says we are better off, all of us, behind that barricade. That all the worse things out here will not hesitate to devour us, given the chance. Even after Mother and...” She could not say it, and, unable to finish, trailed off.
Enda scurried in with a shawl then, one I had not seen in a long time. I wondered where she had scared it up, but she appeared to have been at her wits' end looking everywhere for something. We were at the end of our supplies providing for all of these bodies. My Albino instinct told me it was high time to find a more fruitful haunt in the city.
“Well,” Letta said. “I suppose you've read the papers same as she has?”
Victoria nodded. It was a fragile nod, somehow, as if nods could be such. “It was clear enough there was some validity to her warnings. But it does not take a philosopher to realize one who hides behind a door and gets waited on day in and day out knows essentially nothing of survival in this world. I could not conform to that leadership. It did not rest well.”
“Smart girl,” Dashsund murmured, approving.
“How long has she been like this?” I spoke for the first time. All eyes turned to me. Then, I did think I saw recognition in Victoria's eyes, now that she was forced to address me.
“It's been in the making for some time. A year, perhaps. You could see the paranoia taking hold. The obsession cropped up a number of weeks ago. Since Mother and Father were taken she's been positively overbearing. But she doesn't acknowledge that they were taken – or that they were ever there.”
“What of Christopher and Vandah?” Letta wanted to know.
“She dotes on Christopher. He's like her pet.
And she doesn't dare mistreat Vandah because she is the only one to take care of her up there.”
“And Lesleah's illness? A fever, you say? How long has that spanned?”
“Two weeks. She lapsed in and out of it, at first, but now it's peaked.”
Letta glanced at Dashsund, but he shook his head. “There's no getting in there again.”
Ducking her head over her tea, Victoria seemed to pretend she hadn't heard, or was ignoring the implications.
I sighed.
“Well, minda,” Letta went on practically, “complications are a part of the language that is spoken in Dar'on these days. We deal with them as best we can, and if there is no dealing with them, we make a way for ourselves through other courses. It is a hard reality, but it is solid in its determination.”
Victoria's eyes flitted up, non-committal, and I could see it (for it was obvious): she knew nothing of determination. We had saved her, perhaps even welcomed her, at this point, but how could she survive? In a world of holding her own, she was a lost doe. It struck me then, too; the extent of it. This girl did not even know how to feed herself. Could she even serve her own bowl?
Suddenly I wondered how she could possibly even stand a chance, and our rescue mission went to pot where it had yet seemed a fresh success. But the look on her face was so pitiful, fraught with the pressures of not only holding her own for her sake but living up to standard for the rest of our peace of mind... I could not think about condemning her so swiftly. She was too pitiful to condemn.
I sighed again, inwardly, and turned away – but it was with every intention of helping her along, however much of a sufferance that would be. I did not know how we were going to do it, but it was what we did. We had acquired more stray puppies as of late...
Who was going to feed them? It didn't seem to matter. We had a calling, and Serbaens were sensitive about these things. I could swear they turned everything into a calling. But there was no dissuading them, when they heard it, and it would appear I had caught some semblance of the bug. The loyalty I felt for Victoria was inconvenient and, after seeing her tonight, seemingly somewhat ill-placed – she was a shell of a creature to earn any great sentiments from anyone – but I could not deny its empowering tickle. Something in the past had sparked it, and I felt for her.
And so the downstairs brood expanded a member, and Felicity's reign grew darker and heavier over our heads. But it was home, dark or otherwise, and great sentiments, however misplaced, still lived under its roof.
T w e n t y - F I v e –
True Colors
Because of our newly threadbare closets, and Ombri's apparent skill with a needle, we soon found ourselves employing an adept, eager little seamstress. I worried, at first, over being able to provide her even the bare essentials to make what we lacked, but “bring me scraps,” she said. “I don't need bolts.” And so we found ourselves being fashioned with the most glorious patchwork attire I had surely ever imagined.
In those early days after Victoria's deliverance, I watched my former mistress closely. There was no telling how a Master would respond to a halfbreed in her house. But she was careful to conform to an un-assuming attitude in our midst. She did not ask questions. She made no commands. I was glad that she could recognize she was out of her element.
More inconvenient than stretching our closets thin, it turned out, was determining bed protocol with so many people. We had a distinct shortage of pallets, now, and they were not big enough to share. Not unless, perhaps, you were lovers. We had no two people who fit that description.
In the end Dashsund offered up his pallet to Victoria and took a place on the floor. I wondered how long that would be bearable – and if he would ever complain if it reached the point where it wasn't – and hoped we did not pick up any more strays in the near future. And, pallets designated or not, we still had to cram in, now. I made sure to manipulate the rearrangement, when it happened, so that I did not land directly beside Tanen. I could not tolerate the thought of sleeping next to him. Too, that meant he could do naught but humble himself and sleep next to one of his titled Baedra, and that was a step I felt I needed to see him take. A step that he owed us.
I was somehow still astonished when he dared show his own distaste for the arrangement. I do not know if anyone else noticed it, but I saw the shift that was his discomfort, the brief stall for time as his scheming prejudice demanded he think of some way to get out of the scenario laid out before him.
“Bring the girl in here,” he ended up saying. “I'll take the other room.”
To me, it sounded just like the driven quest for separation that it was, but it was just his luck that to everyone else it appeared as some noble gesture. Him, taking the room of isolation so that 'the girl' could be warm and safe among the rest of us. Ombri, I insisted in my mind to his choice of words, and felt the boiling need to correct him start to bubble in my gut. But he got his way, unchallenged. I could have stomped from the room in a fury, and left them all to die of their blind stupidity if the reason I was angry did not involve loving the rest of them.
But it did not mean he had to remain unchallenged. This had gone on too long, I realized. I did not have to allow it.
As the transfer was made and Ombri adopted his pallet in the bedroom, I followed Tanen to his new quarters, and swept in the room after him. He dropped his blanket on the cot and looked up.
And I did it; I finally opened my mouth and let it out, something I had wondered myself if I could ever actually do. “The others may not see it – or maybe they don't care – but I do,” I came right out and put it to him. “I see the way you treat them, like they're less than you. Like you can't be contaminated by them. The Baedra.”
“I don't treat them like anything.”
“Because the 'treatment' is an avoidance. Please, Tanen. There's no way to make it smooth. It is precisely what it is, and well on display, and I won't tolerate it. That can't work here.”
Surprisingly, he was not as perturbed by being called out as I had somehow expected. “You're just jealous,” he said evenly, uncaringly. Warmly.
What? “Of what?”
“Of not getting to sleep by me.” It was not the response I was prepared to work with.
So it was me who blinked, caught offhand. I opened my mouth to protest, loudly and disgustedly that he would so vainly presume such a thing. But the most unexpected agenda presented itself in the turn of the tables, and I paused, considered it. For a moment it appalled me, the very thought – but it had the audacity to come with an instant, convicting intrigue pertaining to the possibilities, and I was just as appalled to find I could not deny it.
Disbelieving that this was to be my course, but silencing my better judgment, I took a road I never would have expected had the exchange been premeditated. My stance shifted, allowing him his accusation. I swallowed, as if becoming uncomfortable and sheepish. Let my eyes shift down and away from his. And really, there was no way I could look at him while playing along with such an absurd slant. “Maybe I am,” I let on, a daring confession.
It was his turn to wallow momentarily in the implications. Clearly, he had expected a response of a very different nature as well. But something came into his eyes, and even hoping for it, it found me unprepared for the impact. And again, hoping for it, I could not even say what it was. I could give it no greater name than a 'connection', and I suppose such a thing bore impact, where I was concerned, because we had never shared such before. I had never left the window open for it.
Tanen considered the window now, perhaps very wisely, but it seemed I was a decent actress, and he – a poor resister.
Frightened by my unexpected thirst for what I had invited, I staked a conscious effort of will into standing my ground as the man decided to take his cue, there in dark, crowded boundaries of the room where such an encounter was ripe to take place. He moved to test the waters as perhaps any man worth his greedy salt would, closing the space between us, inclining his head in conjunction wi
th mine, letting a tantalizing breath pass between us before he took the invitation and shuttered that window – with a kiss.
I was ill-prepared for it in many ways. Having not originally come to seek such a thing, never imagining it with him, and having no idea how to do it to name a few. But I was knee-deep in it the instant his lips touched mine, and I had a part to pull off.
I reached for his neck, my fingers grasping the thick arch of muscle there. Who was to say if it was the success of my deliberate seeking or if my senses were simply overly-stimulated, but visions poured into my head. Triumphant, I pulled more from him. I thought nothing of it, except for what it was: a necessary evil. He denied mistreatment of the Serbaens; let his inner thoughts betray him. I could find the extent of the truth myself. I had the power to exploit all of his deepest, darkest, prejudiced secrets. What had he called me? Siren... I could seduce him to his own destruction.
But what I saw was not what I expected. It was nothing that dethroned my accusations, but it changed the game.
I broke contact, and stared at him. He was watchful, as if expecting some inconsistent reaction, and so did not find it odd that that was it. It was just as well; for as he turned back to setting up the cot without further ado or transition, I was allowed to prolong my analysis of him.
There was nothing to see on the outside, though, and I was forced to simply come to terms with what I had seen internally. I would not have guessed he sheltered such a secret. But then I had to wonder – did he even know? It had not been a vision of some secret he kept; merely something attached to him. And when I thought about it – he couldn't know. He surely couldn't.
I had the sense to realize I would give myself away standing there, even if I did not quite have the sense to process the implications of the vision. So I turned, a slightly halting disengagement, and left him to his task, my own mission dissipating into half-forgotten, half-failed sludge in my wake this night. I tracked it out of Tanen's room in my footsteps, bringing it back with me to bed. I would just have to exploit his true colors another time. For the time being, rage had turned to intrigue. And I had lost my own true colors with the stunt.
A Mischief in the Woodwork Page 19
