Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure
Page 41
She had not minded the meetings so much, for they gave her the hope that Mistral would put itself back to rights and become the organization she always felt it could be. Director Walden had invited her to assist, for so many of the Egyptian artifacts Irving had handled were in doubt now; were they genuine, had they been stolen? There was much yet to discover, and Eleanor hoped to be a part of it.
“Indeed so,” he said, and wiped his hands on his handkerchief. “I was even in touch with Adrian, and we have agreed to find a way forward.” Mallory stared at the handkerchief for a good long while, so long that Eleanor nearly asked him what he saw in the smudges of gravy there. Did they hold the key to all resolutions with his brother?
When Mallory looked at her again, his look was certain, as steady as she had seen it. “Miss Folley, I have a proposition for you.”
“Dreadful company, indeed,” she murmured and shook her head when Mallory gave her a curious look. “Pray continue, Agent Toad.” After all they had been through—
“Considering all that we have been through of late . . . ”
Could he read minds now? Eleanor supposed she would have to better mind her thoughts if that were the case.
“ . . . and seeing how extraordinarily well we have gotten along . . . ”
Eleanor thought of the ways they had argued, of the ways they had nearly devoured one another, and had to agree it was indeed extraordinary.
“ . . . and also taking into consideration the apparent attraction”—and here his eyes fell again to his splotched handkerchief—“we both have for myth and artifact—”
“Agent Toad.” Mallory’s eyes came up at her interruption, and she pursed her lips, holding back the bulk of her amusement. “Have you noticed that when you are particularly invested in something, you tend to sound like an archaeologist reciting a paper on the precise construct of dust found within an otherwise empty tomb?”
Mallory tilted his head. “Truly?” He folded his handkerchief, then proceeded to shove it into his jacket pocket. “I had hoped this would be infinitely more intriguing than that.” He sat straighter on the bench, looking directly at her. “Miss Folley, I am proposing a courtship. Being that you are of age and that I am of age, and that we share an attraction for one another, in addition to our love of adventure and—”
Eleanor’s heart skipped. “Mallory—”
“I have decided—”
“Mallory—”
He pushed forward, plucking at his rumpled tie now. “I have decided—decided rather a while ago, I should hasten to add—that my heart has . . . ”
He fell to silence when Eleanor’s hand covered his above his tie. She nudged his fingers away, then loosened his tie with one certain tug.
“So formal,” she whispered and pulled the length of fabric free from his collar. The tie was warm from him, as everything that touched him must surely be. She could not imagine a person who radiated more heat than Virgil Mallory.
“Miss Folley, is it the delivery of the proposition that vexes you, or the proposition itself?”
She folded his tie into her hand and tucked it with equal care into her own cloak pocket. Later, she thought, she would look back on this and be astonished she had kept her mind as well as she did, when inside she felt as though she were falling to pieces. Pieces which only Mallory knew how to reassemble properly, after he had cleared the dust and dirt with fingers and breath.
“Soul cake, missus?”
The sudden trio of voices at Eleanor’s side startled her, proving her less steady than she believed. She laughed out loud and without thinking gave the bag of cakes to the trio of children, their faces brightly painted. As they scampered on their way, Mallory slid closer to her on the bench.
“You have me reconsidering the entire proposal,” he murmured. “You’ve just given away perfectly good cake.”
Eleanor leaned into Mallory’s side, and his arm came around her shoulders to keep her close. “You aren’t asking out of obligation, are you?” she whispered. It had been a tiring two weeks, and much had changed for both of them. “I only ask because the night I changed into . . . ” She laughed softly. “Oh, whatever I am . . . ”
Mallory’s free hand came up to cup Eleanor’s cheek. “A beautiful jackal,” he said. “Daughter of Anubis. My tesorina, if I might be so bold.” His fingers stroked down the curve of her cheek, over her jaw, and down to the thrum of her pulse in her neck. “No obligation. On either side, Eleanor. Should you not feel—”
Eleanor’s finger over Mallory’s mouth silenced him. His treasure. She wouldn’t let him debate, wouldn’t let him go down that path. “I accept your proposition, Agent Toad,” she said.
Mallory’s mouth curled up beneath her finger. “I won’t move your hairbrush.”
She smiled too, under the press of Mallory’s mouth, opening herself to him and the possibility that lay ahead of them. If they could leave the shadows of the past behind, there was no one Eleanor would rather walk ahead with—no matter where the path curved or fell apart.
“But will you write me poetry?” she asked when he lifted his mouth to drop a kiss on her nose.
He moved closer and brushed his cheek against hers, marking her in all the ways he might, despite little goblins running to and fro. He laughed, low and dark. As the night sky above them erupted in explosions of violet, gold, and blue, Eleanor closed her eyes. It was not Anubis’s face that rose in the darkness for once; it was Mallory’s.
“Every day, Eleanor. Every day.”
Howth, Ireland ~ October 1929
Clear moonlight washed the treeless cliffs, ocean waves pounding far below. Eleanor could hear their roar and shivered as she drew her robe around her. Winter would be upon them soon.
She moved through the house barefoot. Her feet ached with the coming of the cold, even though doctors told her it was normal. She was an old woman, they said; did she think she could run as she had when she was young?
The back door stood open an inch, and she pushed it wide, stepping into the garden. All the flowers were sleeping now, but come summer, the garden would be a riot of color. She looked over the fenced-in space and frowned; was it only the lack of warmth in bed beside her that had woken her, or—
A wolf’s lonesome cry carried over the fields, reaching down into her bones. She knew that cry, and even now it made her smile. Once more and twice more, the cry came, and by the time it sounded yet again, she was at the edge of the garden, nightgown discarded on the back fence alongside Virgil’s robe.
She ran. Slower and more cautiously than she had once, but she ran, letting her human self fall away until she was bounding on four legs through long and fragrant grasses that led to the curl of the river, where the ground grew soft and bore the mark of her mate. She followed the gurgling water, leapt over stones, and watched the moonlight spread outward in rings across the surface of the lake as the touch of a nose and tongue broke the water’s surface.
The wolf lifted his head, water dripping from his silvered jaw, and howled one final time before leading the small jackal in yet another chase. His shoulder dipped to the ground, tail wagging in the air. Then he leapt away from the water and into the long grass, until she was running by his side, as she ever had, as she ever would.
Acknowledgements
To my readers, be it first or last draft: Deva Fagan, Michael Mazour, Jennifer Kahng, Aimee Li, J. Anderson Coats, Anna C. Bowling, J. Kathleen Cheney, and Kenneth Kao. For plying me with virtual cake and avocados, Beth Wodzinski. For always going above and beyond, Sean Wallace, Paula Guran, and Natalie Luhrs.
To they who know what I know not: Sophia Kelly Shultz for all things Egypt; Mary Robinette Kowal for etiquette and protocol; Lazarus Avery for weaponry; and Joseph O’Flaherty for matters concerning Ireland, Catholicism, and wolves.
For endless conversations about the naming of things, for suggestions as to what may hide within cases and nooks, for images of parchment and bronze airships, and monsters howling on opium winds, one
can only thank the muse—should such a creature exist.
About the Author
E. Catherine Tobler is a Sturgeon Award finalist and the senior editor at Shimmer Magazine. Among others, her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and multiple times previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. For more, visit www.ecatherine.com