Chapter 7 In Which New Friends Renovate My Room #2
She raised an eyebrow, taking in the room.
I glanced around, too: Lene and Doctor Kitten on the bed, her brown fur against his white; Gaheris, frozen before her, and apparently in such distress that his head-fires had gone out, leaving him looking a little bit sad in his too-red tunic; and me, half-turned by my chair, hands clasped nervously in front of me, biting my lip.
I should note that when I bite my lip, I do not gently take the center of my lower lip between one upper tooth and my lower teeth, making an alluring red dent and drawing focus to my mouth. No. I gnaw the entire right side of my mouth until the skin is taut, drawing my jaw forward like an off-ramp.
“Lady of the True Dreams,” she said, inclining her head. She walked past Gaheris and came to stand by me at the desk. “I assume you received my email.”
“I was incorporating the changes when you walked in,” I said, gesturing to the two screens. She smelled like… synthetic vanilla? Had the Gray Knight put on perfume? I felt myself sway closer to her, sniffing.
“Does it require clarification? I have come to assist you, if needed.”
I stopped myself, nostrils dilated, and met her eyes.
“We can go through them together,” I said, “since you came all the way over here.”
On the bed, Lene rolled away from Doctor Kitten and opened her right eye to stare at me. I frowned back, in a way that must not have been menacing. She smirked and then raised her very human-looking hand to her own mouth and started grooming it. I wondered if her tongue felt like sandpaper.
The Gray Knight closed her eyes and brought her hands together in a complicated twisting gesture. When she pulled them apart, an acorn hovered between her palms, covered in sparkling gray filaments.
The gray filaments were connected to her fingers, too, like a cat’s cradle.
The farther she pulled her hands apart, the more they stretched the sides of the acorn; it grew until it was wider than her torso and as high as her waist. She flicked her left hand sharply, and the acorn spun to the floor; when it stopped, it had a seat carved into one side, and supporting legs that kept it upright.
She settled into the seat, hands on her lap, and stared up at me. I gaped back: The acorn had stretched between the fibers of her magic, pulled wider like taffy at her touch. My heart pounded.
She jerked her chin, indicating that I should sit.
I thumped into my chair next to her and grabbed the mouse, brightening the screens.
I moused over to the Excel file, but the Gray Knight’s hand covered mine to keep it still.
I stared down at her hand where it covered mine—satin-smooth brown skin, without the ridged texture of prominent veins.
She had a little scar on her ring finger.
The backs of my fingers tingled where her fingertips brushed my knuckles.
“Before we review the financial model, we should discuss the definitions for the contract you sent over yesterday,” she said, releasing my hand and gesturing to my Outlook icon.
Shaking off the discombobulation from her touch, I nodded. I pulled up the email I’d sent her and opened the draft agreement.
Understanding my purpose in Faerie would be far healthier for my cortisol levels than exchanging lingering hand touches with the Gray Knight. I highlighted the first point, Teach, and looked at the Gray Knight expectantly.
“You will provide six one-hour lessons per human week,” the Gray Knight said.
I stared at her.
She stared back.
“This is the beginning of the negotiation process,” Gaheris prompted, from somewhere behind me.
I turned to stare at him instead. I’d honestly forgotten that he was there.
Had he created a portal? But when I glanced past him at the area he’d demarcated, there were lightly pulsating gray vines pouring from a sliver in reality.
I looked away, because if you can’t see something, it isn’t happening.
“Sahir told me you would need guidance,” he said, by way of explanation, while I stared determinedly at my computer screen. “You must negotiate the terms of your bargain.”
“One lesson per human week,” I said to the Gray Knight, who I assumed would protect me from the… portal situation… if need be.
“Four.”
“Two.”
“Two lessons for two hours each.”
Shit—was Doctor Kitten safe? I glanced over my shoulder at him and found Lene curled entirely around his body.
“Fine,” I said to the Gray Knight.
It was a win: four fewer lessons to plan out per week.
I couldn’t help it—I looked at Gaheris again. He’d returned his focus to the portal, which was no longer oozing tentacle-vines but had turned pitch-black.
“If you are fired from your job at Tartarus, you have failed in your agreement.” I whipped my head around to where the Gray Knight was pointing to the next line.
So much for my cortisol levels: The Gray Knight was going to give me anxiety with or without touching me. “I can assure you if I am fired I’ll feel like a failure,” I said. “But I don’t have control over that.”
“Is that the Princeling’s concern?” She leaned back in her chair, eyes on Lene and Doctor Kitten.
“It wouldn’t be a terribly fair term if there were something like layoffs happening, right?” My insides whirled around my abdominal cavity like frozen bananas in a blender. I probably would have puked if I had anything left.
She inclined her head, thoughtfully, and my panic started to ease. Without an actual commerce or work system, she’d likely never thought about the possibility of not having a role in society or being able to provide for herself. At least the Gray Knight was realizing what she didn’t know.
“We can amend the term to state that you cannot take any action which you reasonably should have known would lead to your termination. So you must continue to attend work and turn in deliverables.”
I sighed. I hadn’t been actively planning to give up on my job in order to get out of this ridiculous situation, but I didn’t relish the thought of losing the option.
The Gray Knight examined her slender hand. “And, for the last terms”—she nodded at the collective few about me finding a way out of Faerie—“we may consider any quests under three days’ length.”
“Um—” I twisted the gold ring around my index finger. I tried to channel my mom, who’d given me the ring when I graduated high school. “There shouldn’t be any quests.”
“Knowledge is earned, not given. You, of all the humans I have met, are most likely to understand the value of knowledge earned,” she said, and if the Gray Knight were capable of coquetry, she would have fluttered those thick lashes at me.
But the Gray Knight merely stared at me with those fathoms-deep eyes, with the unshakable expectation that I would see the justice in this.
I groaned. “Fine,” I said, making the edit.
“Then your ten years begin today.” She stayed in her chair, looking at my computer screen. “I will provide you with more information on your human classes tomorrow. Turn to your other work.”
I tabbed back over to the Excel model, a bit too dazed to process what I’d just agreed to but still relieved to have some sort of plan in place.
“The next note is to update the inflation assumption,” I said. “You said you didn’t want to use our curves at two percent, and instead wanted… this.” I gestured to the screen, where a series of numbers from 1.3% to 7.6% were arranged in an incomprehensible nonpattern.
“The Crone says there will be continued inflation for the next ten months,” the Gray Knight said, sanguine.
“O-okay,” I said. “Um, did she guess that or can she actually see the future? Because that might be uh, insider trading?” I frowned. Magical fortune telling was definitely not listed in the definition of “insider trading.”
“That is not insider trading,” the Gray Knight said. “Did you not study for your licensing exam, lady?”
“Of course I studied,” I said, thrown violently back into the feeling of being scolded by my dad before a chemistry test.
“I suppose you cannot help it if you have only human retention,” she said, completely disregarding the point that using concrete knowledge of the future was probably unethical.
I stared at my knees under the gray cotton dress. “I don’t think that addresses the issue,” I said, twisting my fingers into the fabric at my thighs.
She put her hand on my shoulder. I froze. “A careful advisor is a boon indeed,” she said. “And I have spoken often with the Princeling about how fortunate we are to have you advising us.”
Her hand was so strong. She squeezed the top of my arm.
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate the compliment.”
“Let us move on to the next item, then.” She jerked her chin at the screen.
A minor explosion suddenly went off behind us, causing the Gray Knight and me to jump out of our seats.
“I will fix that,” Gaheris called, breathless. He was shoulder-deep in a self-contained stretch of water, like he’d somehow brought a 3D projector into my bedroom to display a patch of ocean. There was half of a fish next to him, the other half presumably swimming happily through the Atlantic.
“How did you…” I started, but trailed off, not sure what the question would even be.
“Coordinates,” he moaned, his feet kicking as he treaded water. “I mixed up coordinates. Latitude, longitude—why did you humans pick two words that sounded the same?” He flapped his hands for emphasis, causing water droplets to splash up into his hair, which remained aflame.
Having always struggled with latitude and longitude myself, I didn’t feel qualified to answer that question.
“Should we help him?” I asked the Gray Knight, already moving to grasp his hand. I hadn’t touched Gaheris before, and his skin felt strange beneath my fingers—like a poreless stone. I tried to pull him through the water, but no matter how hard I tugged, he came no nearer.
“I need to dissolve the spell,” he said, gasping a bit for breath. “Or I will not be able to get out. My legs are somewhere in the place you call Greenland, I think.”
And indeed, the water splashing onto me felt icy and miserable. Could faeries experience hypothermia? Even ones that were constantly on fire?
“Come back to work, Lady of the True Dreams,” the Gray Knight commanded.
I looked at Gaheris, who nodded that it was all right to leave him. Tentatively, I sat back down at the desk. I glanced over at Lene and Doctor Kitten. Neither had so much as moved because of the sound.
The Gray Knight directed me through the next several points on the document. Most were relatively simple. At some point I heard a gurgling sound like water draining, but I resisted looking.
When we finished, she sat next to me as I emailed the updated model to Levi for review. “Why do you not send it to me?” she asked.
“I need Levi to approve it so I can send it to the client,” I explained.
She stared at me. “I am the client,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I asked you to make these changes.”
“Yes.”
“I sat with you and made these changes.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t come up with these systems. But Jeff’s my supervisor, and he wants Levi to review it, so that’s what we do.”
She shook her head. “In Faerie, if you cannot accomplish a task without supervision, you are not assigned it.”
“Well, don’t you need supervision while you learn?” I looked out the window, at the wide lawn and the winding pathways.
“We apprentice and then we perform.” She wove her fingers together, an idle gray glow playing between her palms.
“And what do you do?” I asked. “Gaheris talks to rivers and Lene spies on people from trees. What’s your task? Financial modeling?”
She spoke seriously. “I am the Princeling’s to direct.
But in the Court, we all have different functions.
The Crone watches, and listens, as well you know.
The Red Knight and the Blue Knight will take positions, and debate them, so that the Princeling can understand the issues facing his people.
They go out into the countryside and speak to our citizens, and bring back concerns for him to address. ”
She fell silent.
“And you?” I prompted.
“The Crone knows, and the knights Red and Blue listen, and I learn,” she said. “When we decide upon a course of action, I execute.”
“Like an operations manager!” I said, too excited. But she smiled at me.
“Perhaps, like an operations manager.”
“Thank you for providing insight,” I said, bowing my head.
She shifted in her chair to look at me more directly. “You went to his aid,” she said.
“What?”
“The faerie. You went to his aid.”
“Gaheris?” I asked, glancing at him where he’d finagled himself a space on the bed next to Lene.
Whatever magic he’d been trying to do must have taken a lot out of him—he was fast asleep and snoring, little curls of smoke coming out of the higher nostril.
No one had asked to sleep on my bed, but that was pretty low on my list of concerns.
“Yes.”
“So?” I crossed my arms, bracing myself for some reproach.
“You did a kindness, unbidden and without request of fair return.”
“He looked like he needed help.”
The Gray Knight nodded. “And this was sufficient for you,” she said. “He needed it and was therefore worthy of your aid.”
I sighed. “A guy was drowning in a magic bathtub in the middle of my bedroom. There’s no mystery here.”
She stood up, her gray eyes locked on mine. Without looking away, she put her hands on either side of her chair. The gray magic sparked in my periphery—I could see the chair shrinking out of the corner of my eye as we looked at each other. “There are more mysteries than you see, Miriam Geld.”
I stood as well, suddenly tired and longing to be alone. “Thank you for your assistance. It sped my review greatly.”
The acorn chair had shrunk back to size in her hands, and she pocketed it. I glanced at the lump it made against her leggings.
“We can work together again, if you are inclined,” she said, bobbing her head. Without waiting for a response, she turned and strode from the room.