Rianne
Slide twenty-six: “Embracing Your Corporeal Journey”
I fall asleep sitting up.
Slide thirty-eight: “Managing Work-Life Balance in Multiple Dimensions”
Stenrik gently shakes me awake. I’ve been drooling on his shoulder. There’s frost in my hair.
Slide fifty-two: “The Power of Positive Manifestation”
I eat the last of the expired cheese balls and seriously consider whether the library has any books on surviving permanent magical bonds with ice elves who patrol statues of dead friends.
Slide sixty-three: “Shadow Resources: Yours to Discover”
Keith’s presentation has been running for three hours. Several shadow creatures outside are pressed against the windows, taking notes. Carl holds up helpful signs: “NEXT SLIDE,” “PAUSE FOR EFFECT.”
“Is it just me or are the shadows more... solid?” I ask Stenrik, who has not moved from his position reinforcing the barriers.
“They’re becoming more corporeal as the barrier thins,” he confirms. “Keith mentioned feeling ‘more substantial than ever.’”
“Keith has never felt more corporeal!” Keith calls out without looking away from his screen. “Keith’s mass has increased by twelve percent!”
I tilt my head, studying Keith. The PowerPoint. The name tag. The entire business seminar aesthetic. “Wait. Corporeal or corporate? Did they—no. That’s ridiculous. Nobody gets that confused.”
Stenrik’s ear twitches. “The Marriott incident of 1994 is not well documented.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not discussing this.”
I stand and stretch, my back popping in three places. “Time for a brain break. Come on. We need to talk.”
Stenrik looks relieved to be pulled away from the presentation as we make it back to the reference section. I place the Chronicle on the desk, where it glows faintly. Mister Poofypants the Third drapes himself across it, his bulk covering most of the symbols.
“We should probably discuss the actual ritual,” I say. “You know, the permanent thing that’s going to bind us forever?”
“We should.”
“So. Synchronization. How does that actually work?”
“We must align completely. Breathing, heartbeat, even our magical resonance.” He picks up the Chronicle, displacing the cat, who makes a sound of pure outrage.
“I don’t have magical resonance.”
“You do now. The Chronicle marked you.” He opens the book, and the symbols seem to pulse. “Here. Your name has been added to the registry.”
I lean closer to look. Sure enough, there’s my name in glowing silver script: “Rianne Martinez, Librarian, Unprepared but Willing.”
“Unprepared but willing? That’s what it says?”
“The Chronicle is... honest.”
“The Chronicle is rude.” I grab a pen, ready to edit, and a spark jumps from the page to my finger. “Ow!”
“You should not try to change it.”
“You could have mentioned that before I started it.”
“I assumed it was obvious.”
“Nothing about this is obvious!” I wave my hand, trying to shake off the tingling. “I’m a librarian! The most magical thing I usually deal with is finding where teenagers hid the romance novels!”
“Where do they hide them?”
“Behind the encyclopedias that no one uses anymore.” I sit on the edge of the desk. “So we just... breathe together and save the world?”
“Essentially.” His ear twitches.
“You’re lying again.”
“I am simplifying.”
“What are you not telling me?”
He sets the Chronicle down carefully. “The ritual requires complete trust.”
“Okay...”
“Complete trust. You must trust me entirely, and I must trust you.”
“And?”
“And trust cannot be forced or faked. The magic will know. As we discovered last night.”
“But we just met.”
“Yes.”
“And the bond is permanent.”
“Yes.”
“So we have to completely trust each other to be permanently bonded, even though we’re strangers who already failed once?”
“Essentially.”
I study him in the emergency lighting. He looks deeply uncomfortable. “Have you done this before?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“The ritual was not scheduled for another thirty years. Edgar was supposed to prepare his heir, just as his grandmother prepared him.”
“But Edgar died.”
“And you triggered the Chronicle early.” His ear twitches. “The treaty requires renewal every hundred years, but it can be invoked at any time if the Chronicle is activated.”
“So this is a mistake. An accident.”
“An unexpected circumstance.”
I process this. “Why isn't Margaret's partner doing this renewal?”
“The treaty requires new participants each century,” Stenrik says. “Once bonded, you're done. You can't renew again.”
“So this is your only chance.”
“And yours.”
The weight of that settles between us. One shot. One bond. Forever.
“Wait.” I narrow my eyes. “If you've never done this, and it wasn't supposed to happen yet, why you? Are there other Vetrfolk?”
“There are. But I was already here. Henderson's statue.”
Right. His post. Where he's been for 150 years. “So we're both unprepared, neither of us knows what we're doing, and we have to completely trust each other to be permanently bonded?”
“Essentially.”
“That's not better!”
From the basement, a sound echoes up through the vents. Not mechanical. Not wind. Singing. Someone or something is singing down there, in a voice like grinding stone.
“What was that?”
“We should investigate.”
“We should absolutely not investigate the singing basement.”
“The building’s foundation stone is in the basement. If something has disturbed it—”
“Foundation stone?”
“Every treaty building has one. It anchors the magic.”
“And ours is singing?”
“That is... unusual.”
The singing gets louder. It sounds like...
“Is the foundation stone singing Barry White?”
“It appears so.”
“Why?”
“I do not know.”
We descend into the basement. In the corner, the foundation stone—a normal rock with googly eyes stuck to it—is indeed singing “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.”
“Someone put googly eyes on the ancient foundation stone,” I say.
The singing stops, and the googly eyes move, focusing on us. “Finally. Visitors.”
“Edgar,” the stone grumbles, its voice like gravel in a blender. The singing stops. “Last time he visited. Thought it was hilarious. Couldn’t get them off—stuck with some kind of permanent adhesive that reacts with the magic. Been stuck for six years.”
“The stone talks?” I squeak.
“The stone talks,” Stenrik confirms, sounding resigned.
“The stone is BORED. Do you have any idea how tedious it is being a foundation? Decades of holding up this building with no one to talk to except the occasional mouse?”
“I’m sorry?” I offer.
“You should be! And you two—worst matched pair I’ve seen since 1887. No trust, no connection, just awkwardness and that terrible wine I can smell from here.”
“Hey! My wine choices are not—”
“Your wine choices are criminal. And you!” The googly eyes swivel to Stenrik. “Three hundred years old and still emotionally constipated. No wonder the magic is failing.”
“The magic is not failing,” Stenrik protests.
“The magic is definitely failing. The barrier is thinning. Shadow creatures are becoming corporeal. You failed last night, didn’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“I’M THE FOUNDATION. I FEEL EVERYTHING.”
The stone starts humming “Let’s Get It On.”
“Is the stone... matchmaking?” I ask.
“The stone is trying to save everyone from whatever happens when the worlds fully merge.”
“What happens?”
“Nobody knows! 1847 was before my time. But based on Keith, I’m guessing corporate shadow takeover.”
“We’ve tried the synchronization—”
“You’ve tried nothing!” the stone bellows. “Your first attempt was a joke. You can’t synchronize if you can’t even have a conversation without deflecting.”
The stone starts humming louder.
“Please stop,” we say in unison.
“Then practice. Here. Now. With me as witness.”
“In the creepy basement?”
“The creepy basement where you can’t overthink because you’re too worried about spiders.”
I am worried about spiders now.
“Fine,” I say. “But if this fails—”
“It won’t fail if you stop thinking it will fail. Also, Carl’s outside the door. He wants to watch.”
I turn. Carl is indeed there, holding a sign: “CARL SUPPORTS TRUST EXERCISES.”
“Hi Carl,” I say weakly.
Carl waves enthusiastically.
“We’re all going insane, aren’t we?” I ask.
“Probably,” Stenrik says. “But at least the symptoms are interesting.”
“Interesting. Right. My life motto: at least the unprecedented consequences are interesting.”
The stone switches to “Sexual Healing.”
“Too much?” it asks.
“Way too much,” we confirm.