by Cat Adams
It wasn’t until she was finishing putting on heavier socks that she finally heard him moving around downstairs. The sound felt almost comforting, in a weird way. Maybe it was because she was so accustomed to the absolute silence in this big old house. Sela was so seldom home, after all, and now she was—Sela. I hope you’re safe, wherever you are.
“Mila, what manner of witchery is this that you’ve crafted?” Tal’s voice floated up the staircase. He wasn’t yelling, but something about the words caused her to hurry and finish putting on the heavy leather boots she’d pulled out from the back of the closet.
By the time she reached the top of the stairs, she could hear a strange chirping. No, more a humming—like a recording of sopranos being played too fast. She tipped her head past the bannister when she reached the bottom of the stairs and found Tal staring in awe at the little pysanka on the mantel. But it was no longer a simple black-and-white egg. It was glowing with the strength of a hundred-watt bulb and vibrating in the indentation that kept it upright on the block of wood. It wasn’t the vibration that was making the noise, though. That seemed to come from within the egg, as though something was alive inside … and struggling to get out.
She walked up to it and stared alongside him. “What did you do to my egg? Why is it glowing and humming like that?”
He turned his head and raised his brows. “I was going to ask you the same thing. Is something wrong with it?”
She found herself shrugging and shaking her head. “I don’t know what could be wrong. It’s just an egg. It’s not like it’s a bomb or anything. Or, at least, it didn’t used to be. Could it have something to do with this whole mess? The weird portal thingy or Sela?”
That gave him a thoughtful expression and he reached into the pocket of his slacks. She suddenly realized he’d removed the cloak he’d worn since he’d arrived. The charcoal-gray shirt he wore matched the cloak perfectly, but seemed made of pure silk. It flowed and stretched over his muscles like a living creature that was even more entrancing than the egg. That seemed just wrong, though, so she focused her attention back on the thing that could very well turn her house into a smoking pile—with her underneath.
Tal removed the fire opal and held it out toward the egg. “Lapaty.” The word startled her, because it was not only Ukrainian, but one of the words Baba had used over and over when she was a child. It meant “catch” and she could still remember trying to wrap her tongue around the language—so strange sounding to her little American brain. Even when Baba had changed the letters from Cyrillic to the ones she recognized, they weren’t pronounced the same. The ‘a’s were too hard, the ‘y’s were actually soft ‘i’s and the ‘i’s carried the sound of ‘ch.’ Even Candy had picked up on it quicker than Mila. But she still recognized the words when she heard them, even if she had to concentrate to re-create the word later.
The egg immediately reacted to the word. The humming stopped and moments later, so did the glowing. It was just a pretty pysanka again, with interlaced suns and trees covering the snowy whiteness. “What did you just do to it? Was that word some sort of spell, and where did you learn the Ukrainian language? You and Alexy both sound British—well, him more than you, but still.” She was babbling, and she knew it, but it just seemed a day for it.
He pursed his lips and stared at the gold-bound stone. “There are any number of words, in many languages, that serve to focus power. The word itself has no power. It’s just a vehicle for the will. And I have no idea what I just did. All I cast was a simple test to see if the glow from the egg was magical energy. It is, and it’s of such a pure quality that it nearly stings my tongue.”
“Your tongue?” Could he somehow taste magic? What would it taste like? Now that the egg wasn’t glowing anymore, she reached out to pick it up—barely resisting the urge to stick out her tongue to catch whatever taste it held. Tal’s hand shot out to stop her, but it was already in her hand. It felt warmer than the room, as though it was a healing egg after it had absorbed the sickness.
“Be very careful, Mila. We don’t know enough about it yet for so close an inspection.”
He had a point. But in returning it to the pedestal, she heard a small rattle. She shook it lightly and watched Tal wince at the sound. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
She shook it again. “Hear that? That’s what’s left of the yolk and albumen. I prefer to dye raw eggs and leave them to dry naturally. The process takes months or years, and you have to be really careful with the eggs for fear they’ll break. You can wind up with a stink bomb that will clear a building. But this egg is only a few weeks old. It can’t have dried out by now. But it rattles and it’s too light to still have the yolk intact.”
Tal looked around the room as she continued to trace her fingers around the familiar designs. The egg was cooling now. She raised it to her nose and detected none of the faint musty scent that normally accompanied a drying egg. “Are there any other eggs about? Perhaps ones more hidden, that might not have been tampered with?”
That made her think. “Only a few in my workshop that aren’t done yet. Unless … I wonder if Candy put the ones she bought from me in the fridge. She’s more nervous about leaving them out than I am.” She couldn’t help but chuckle. “But then again, she has moments where she’s not entirely graceful. She broke one Baba made when we were practicing for cheerleading squad in school. She tried to catch it and wound up wearing it. Her mom had to buy her a new uniform. Never could get the smell of rotten egg out of the fabric.”
Tal apparently had smelled a rotten egg before because he grimaced. “I would probably do the same. It’s not a pleasant odor.”
She shrugged. “Eh. You get used to it. The scent of the dye is pretty hideous too after a few months. I know some artists who throw away their dye after every session. I can’t afford that, and the dye isn’t affected by a little egg slime.”
“Be that as it may—” He started back toward the kitchen. “Let’s see if she was kind enough to oblige us.”
Mila led the way, after gently returning the pysanka to the stand. “I hope they’re here. That one in there isn’t a really good representation of the art. You probably noticed the scorch mark on the bottom. I held it too close to the candle when I was melting the wax and ruined it. You don’t really notice it while it’s sitting on the pedestal, but the others are much better … some of my best work.”
“I’m sure they’re lovely, but I’m more interested in discovering whether they glow and sing. One of the men I followed at the hospital mentioned eggs and that Vegre was gathering them up. Maybe this is the reason. He was always mad for power, wherever he could find it.”
“So, who is this Vegre guy, and why was he in prison?” Sure enough, Candy had dutifully left the eggs in the padded wooden crate. She pulled out the box and handed it to him. “I mean, is he going to react … violently when we run into him?”
He gently placed the box on the counter and looked at her while opening the lid. “You’re not going to run into Vegre, so it hardly matters. As soon as you take me to wherever your grandmother has taken the girl, you’re done. You’ll go back to your life and forget any of this ever happened.”
Mila drew back and one hand dropped to her hip. “Excuse me? A criminal breaks into my house—” Tal opened his mouth, but she raised a hand to stop him. “No. He broke in. I don’t care if it’s a kicked-in door, a shattered window, or a weird green magic portal. The point is, I didn’t invite him in. He kidnaped my roommate and quite possibly burglarized the house. I haven’t checked to see if anything is missing because, hey—if he got in once, who’s to say he wasn’t in here yesterday, too?”
Tal let out a slow breath and rolled his eyes. Well, if he thought this was some sort of childish tantrum, he was dead wrong. She let him say what he had to say, but made it clear by crossing her arms and tapping one foot that she wasn’t buying it. “Vegre only broke out of prison this morning. He can’t have been here any earlier than tha
t.”
She brushed some imaginary dust off the nearest egg, her favorite. The deep brown turned out just the right shade and the outline of the two stags in rich yellow-gold raised it from just pretty to elegant. “So, you’re an expert on magic portals for this OPI group, Officer Onan? You’re willing to swear this particular portal was created by, and used only by Vegre, just today?” She was baiting him, and couldn’t even say why. But it ticked her off that he was dismissing her so lightly and ignoring the threat this magician posed to her future. There’s just something about his attitude that’s tweaking me … making me more aggressive than normal. “Then how did Sela get in? She wasn’t here ten minutes before you and your friend arrived. Can you guarantee that the gate won’t reappear when I’m sleeping tonight and someone will kidnap me, too?”
Talos had picked up one of the eggs, a mosiac pattern of cobalt-blue, red, and black, and was inspecting it closely. None of the eggs in the container were glowing like the one in the other room and she had no clue why that one particular egg had been special. There was a moment of silence as she stared at him, let him digest what she’d said. Because she wasn’t leaving this room without an answer. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was worth staring at. He had a strong jaw that was starting to sprout a five o’clock shadow. His slender nose might have been broken once upon a time, and those eyes—wow. They were nearly the same blue as the egg he was carefully placing back among the garish plastic “hay.” She found that the bright yellow-and-pink plastic Easter basket hay was best to highlight the rich colors of the varnished eggs and, frankly, if she didn’t pad them, top and bottom, they often didn’t make it out of Candy’s less-than-tender care. She hated to call anyone clumsy but … well, she was.
He offered a small nod. “You’re right, of course. I don’t know Vegre cast the gate. I don’t know how Sela got into the house and I don’t have a clue whether anyone has invaded your home before today, or if they’ll come back.” He turned his face and met her eyes.
She realized he was angry—furious, in fact. She didn’t know what in particular had angered him this time, and didn’t really care. She’d seen furious before and wasn’t willing to back down on this. Still, staying aggressive was only going to ramp up the tension higher, so she let out a sigh and leaned back against the counter edge. “Look, I’m sorry your partner pissed you off and walked out, but that’s not my fault. And, I know I’m not a cop like you. But I’ve got a brain, and since we can’t call the cops up here—who would throw us both in the nearest nuthouse, and we apparently can’t call your cops, I’m all you’ve got to help figure this out. Because I’m not willing to walk away from it. So you can either take me along, or I’ll follow behind … sloppily, I might add, since I have no training.”
While his voice remained stone cold, something she said must have amused him. The muscles in his jaw relaxed and his eyes lost their angry intensity. “There’s always the option that I could just walk out and do it myself. Trust me when I say you can’t follow what you can’t see.”
She met the challenge with raised brows. “Good luck on finding Baba then. You don’t know where the cave is and you don’t look the type to torture me to get the information.”
He was nodding with a small smile and tapping a finger on the edge of the box. “Then it seems we’re at a standoff. We both want answers and we only have a few days to get them. Not only will the illness the girl has fully manifest by then and be horribly contagious, but any possible trail to Vegre will be stone cold.”
A few days? Reality slammed home in her mind with the weight of lead. It was all fun and exciting to think about racing around to solve this puzzle, but today was only Wednesday. There was a mortgage to pay, the company New Year’s party to finish planning, and piles of folders on her desk at work. Then panic set in as the image of her desk blinked into her mind. “Geez! The Johnson brief! Oh, man!” She prayed to the Heavens Nancy had finished typing it after she didn’t show back up at the office. The filing deadline was tomorrow and their regular courier was next to impossible to schedule this time of year. If she had to use Yellow Cab again, accounting would have a fit.
“The Johnson brief?” Tal raised his brows questioningly.
She slapped her palm against her forehead repeatedly, until her teeth rattled. “God, I’ve been such an idiot … yelling at you for not including me in this, when I don’t have time to help anyway. I’ve got a job that I have to be back at tomorrow. I can be so stupid!” She raised her voice to a near scream and slammed shut the lid of the box with such force that she gasped and reopened it rapidly to make sure she hadn’t damaged the eggs. She gingerly lifted and inspected each one while her heart beat like a triphammer. “Wouldn’t that have been a perfect ending to the day? Where are my so-called brains today?” She let out a frustrated noise and was surprised when she felt a warm hand touch her shoulder. She looked up to see Tal staring down at her with a sad expression.
“We’re both under a great deal of stress today. I keep forgetting that. You’ve apparently known Sela for nearly as long as I have, so of course you’d be worried. And now your grandmother is missing and your real life is still out there, waiting. I’m sorry. If your Johnson brief is anything close to what I’m facing when I return to Rohm, you have my utter sympathy.”
She reached out and touched his hand and offered a tired smile. Her heart jumped a beat when he returned the smile and turned his hand to squeeze hers lightly before removing it. “Well, at least I can get you to the cave tonight and help you find Baba. Time moves so fast down there that I can still get back and have a good night’s sleep.”
Confusion replaced the sadness on his face. “I don’t understand. Guilders have no power over time. It moves at the same speed in Agathia as here.”
She shook her head while putting the box of eggs back in the refrigerator. “I don’t know about Agathia, but where we’re going, it doesn’t. I distinctly remember that we could visit Baba’s friend Viktor for the whole afternoon, and only an hour would have passed up here. It’s how we kept the secret about Baba training me from Mom for so long.”
“But this Viktor lives underground? Do you know the city name?”
She shrugged and walked back toward the living room, crooking her finger over her shoulder for him to join her. “Viktor didn’t live in a city. His gardens are huge, and I don’t remember any neighbors. We would explore for hours, Candy and I. If someone else lived nearby, we would have seen them. But I think I remember walking in the house once while they were talking and hearing Viktor say he was going to Virile tomorrow and asked if Baba needed anything.”
That stopped Tal dead in his tracks. “Do you think he might have said Vril instead of Virile?”
“Oh. Yeah, I suppose that could be. Why? Is that important?”
Tal was nodding when she turned with coat in hand. He grabbed his cloak and swung it on, quickly fastening the hooks until he appeared swaddled in the thick wool. “Very much so. Vegre’s minion mentioned they were based in Vril. Perhaps this Viktor had a method of reaching the city that would be quicker than making the journey up here. Do you know what sort of magicwielder he is? What guild he belongs to?”
She couldn’t help but laugh as she pulled on her coat and gloves and reached for the door handle. “I don’t remember Baba ever mentioning him using magic, but now that I’m thinking about it that way. some of the stuff he did that just seemed normal when we were kids, could well have been magic. And remember that until a few hours ago, I didn’t remember magic existed and thought geeders lived in burrows like squirrels and were about this tall.” She held up her hand and put her fingers about four inches apart while squinting.
He joined in the laughter with a deep chuckle that sent shivers up her spine. “It’s sort of a shame we aren’t that tall. Vegre would be a lot easier to manage.”
The night wind rushed through the door when she opened it, icy cold and smelling of evergreen from the neatly trimmed bushes around the porch. S
he turned back to reply, but caught her breath at the sight. The breeze had set Tal’s hair and cloak fluttering, and with the dark smile, beard-stubbled face, and glittering blue eyes, he appeared every bit the wild, untamed magician of every movie and video game she’d ever seen. Her stomach lurched quite pleasantly when his gaze caught hers and his expression returned to the one he’d had in the kitchen earlier. She couldn’t help looking him up and down and letting out an appreciative breath. “Personally, I’m really glad you’re not four inches tall. I like you just … oh, yeah, just like that.”
Before he could reply, she turned and walked out the door, nearly tripping over her own feet to get to the car. Hopefully, by the time she got there, she could pretend the blush that was burning up her face was from the cold wind.
CHAPTER 9
The car turned off the main highway onto a side road that was thick with dirty slush from the recent snow. Mila slid to a slow stop when she reached the first wide spot, next to a pair of dilapidated letter boxes on an iron post. She looked out the windshield with worry etched on her face, drumming her fingers on the padded leather steering wheel cover. “We should probably walk from here. I’ve got all-wheel drive, but if it gets any colder while we’re down there, this stuff is going to freeze and we’ll be stuck. I’m not a great winter driver yet, so I tend to stick to the main roads.”
It made good sense to Tal. While he didn’t relish walking in the snow in the dark, Mila seemed confident of where they were going. Too, there were other vehicle tracks disappearing into the darkness, and with the letter boxes, the road obviously went somewhere. He unfastened the seat belt and lifted one foot onto the cushion to tuck his pant leg into his boot. She watched him with undisguised interest, so he explained. “The more clothing you can keep dry, the warmer you’ll stay. I’d suggest you do the same.”
