Chapter 9 #2
Venceslao considered this, then nodded. “A shared hardship often improves otherwise unacceptable conditions.” He sounded like a scientist quoting a textbook. I wondered if he knew how dry he was.
Lyubor ignored the exchange, her eyes tracing the curve of the wall as if mapping each face against a private ledger.
“The first time I saw this many people in one room after finding ourselves on your world, I believed we could rebuild,” she said.
“Tonight, I am less certain. There is too much loss behind every new name.”
I leaned against the pillar, the stone rough and cold against my shirt. “You lost people. Family?”
She looked at me, her eyes bright in the shadows. “My daughter. Dawnswer. She had her father’s hair.” Lyubor’s own was nearly white; I pictured the man’s as black as ink. “I think of her when I see these girls dance. The last time we were together, it was her dod yn oedolyn. Coming of age.”
She said the words in her own tongue. I let her go on.
“There was dancing and music, but not like this. More formal. More beautiful, I thought at the time. The whole village came. Dawnswer wore blue, like the sky, and she danced so hard the skin split on her heels. She would not stop, even when she bled.”
Yaloni’s eyes were fixed on the floor, but she was listening.
“What happened?” I asked. I didn’t need to, but I wanted the answer out in the air, not stuck in Lyubor’s throat.
“Magic took her,” Lyubor said. The words were as flat as if she’d said the rain took the roof.
“She and several others went into the forest to intercept a human troop movement. Ambush. She was leading. It should have been a simple strike, but a portal came, and they were gone. Only a single witness remained. She said it was as if the world itself unzipped, and time froze. A white orb with blue swirling through it, like living tentacles of magic. They vanished and did not return.”
The hair rose on my arms. It was the same color as the Blue Wave and the same appearance as the storm that had later dropped Lyubor and the others onto this Earth.
Lyubor’s voice stayed flat. “We searched for weeks, but the war required our attention. Many blamed the humans, but I’ve seen nothing that points to them.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I stood there and said nothing.
Venceslao spoke up, his voice low but very clear. “Many of the younger elves believe Dawnswer and the others are still alive. That she was taken to a different world, perhaps this one, as we were. Some claim to see her in dreams.”
Lyubor snorted, a rare crack in her armor. “I do not dream of her. She is gone. That is all.”
The music changed, softer for a few bars before the next fast one hit. Across the room, Autumn and Joy linked arms and kicked in a wild, synchronized step. Joy’s hair was damp with sweat and clung to her face in black stripes; she laughed so hard I felt it in my chest.
I looked at Yaloni, then at Lyubor. “Dawnswer and Yaloni, they were close?”
Lyubor nodded. “Raised as siblings, but were not. Dawnswer was three years older. They learned together and shared the same victories and defeats. It is why Yaloni will not leave me, even when she is angry.”
Yaloni kept her eyes.
“Sorry,” I said, half to her, half to the air.
She surprised me by answering. “Don’t be. My loss is not yours. It was war. We all lost someone. What matters now is not what was, but what will be.”
“Do you want to go home?” I asked. “Or is this home now?”
Yaloni looked up. “Home is where my people are. I do not know if the humans here are different. But you are different.”
Lyubor gave her a small, parental nod. “We will stay, for now. The other world was dying. This one is at least alive.” She took a long look at me.
“Taylor says the Blue is intelligent, but directionless unless guided. I do not trust her, but I believe her. She knows too much about magic for someone who has no magic at all.”
“Taylor is… complicated,” I agreed. “But she’s usually right.
” I paused for a moment to watch the girls dance and have fun.
“She, uh, Taylor, has access to vast amounts of knowledge. Like many libraries in one. Her knowledge often comes not from her own experiences but from others. And while she’s not capable of magic, she is very interested in the subject.
Where she’s from, it was like this world before; it simply didn’t exist, despite the legends and countless stories that included it. ”
Lyubor took a drink from her cup, then swirled the liquid and watched the current. “Do you ever feel it? The Blue? The portal storms? Not as fire or as power, but as if it were alive?”
I thought of Emma, of the cold tingle that always came before a real surge, the way my hair stood up before the world bent out of shape. I nodded. “Yes. Even here, tonight, it’s like it’s watching. Waiting.”
Venceslao said, “It will come again.”
Lyubor answered, “Of course.”
A single hard knock cut through the music. The ballroom doors banged open, and a gust of wind rolled in off the channel, sharp and wet. For a second, the string lights rattled on their wire, and the whole room went hush.
Deri stood in the doorway, water streaming from her fur, her body hunched, eyes wild and black with adrenaline.
She looked like she’d run all the way from the docks.
In two bounds, she cleared the floor and landed in front of me, her chest heaving, hands clenched so tight her claws cut into her own palm.
She didn’t wait to be asked.
“It’s Heddy,” she said. “She’s not waking up.”
Lyubor set her drink down and followed me through the crowd, Venceslao and Yaloni on her heels, as I sprinted for the door. The world shrank to the pulse in my ears and the cold press of the wind against my skin. There was only the moment and the need to get there before it was too late.
Wind and rain slapped my face, cold and sharp. I kept my eyes on the lights ahead and pushed harder. Nothing else mattered. I had to reach her.
I ran hard across the Casino grounds, rain slapping my face and soaking my shirt through in seconds.
My boots skidded on wet gravel, caught, and I pushed harder.
The infirmary building stood thirty yards off, a squat concrete box that had been the Casino’s maintenance shed before we converted it.
Yellow light leaked from the windows, thin and sick-looking against the dark.
Deri ran beside me. Her fur stuck to her skin, water running down her face. She didn’t say a word. I heard her breathing, rough and fast, same as mine.
I hit the door with my shoulder and shoved through.