CHAPTER FIVE #3
They strolled up the avenue arm in arm, chatting idly and mostly one-sidedly.
Though the summer solstice was still a week away, the Midsummer Gala had taken place the night before, signaling the end of the social season in the capital city; with the wealthy readying to abscond to the countryside with all their wealth, the streets were unusually empty.
Sabina had been to the gala and had all the latest gossip.
Sy tried to pay attention, but his thoughts were split; half present and half under the gloom of the Lichtenwald.
He would need to leave soon – tomorrow or the day after, if he could manage it.
Many of the shops in Upper Bunting, missing their clientèle, would be closing up until autumn, and he would need supplies.
What did one bring along on a hunt for a magical creature?
Food, of course. A tent? He would need some kind of weapon.
A gun? He almost laughed at the thought.
Soon enough, his absence would be noted.
He couldn’t risk word of his intention spreading.
He would leave a note with his building’s superintendent – he would say he was joining Duchess Abigail on retainer at her estate.
Believable enough, and with no one to refute it until autumn, it would cease all questions until then.
Especially from those who would be most disapproving, and most likely to ask.
Edgard would not summon him for a time, but Sy knew the king – or his failing organs – would quickly grow impatient, and a summoning from the center of the Lichtenwald may be too painful to even attempt answering. Time was of the essence.
When they reached the colonnade, they stopped briefly under its arches to admire the sunset’s play over the Wryneck River as the water trickled by. A couple on a rowboat floated past, their laughter echoing under the colonnade’s dome.
“Don’t you ever wish you had someone to float down the river with you?” he asked suddenly, leaning against one of the great white columns.
Sabina lowered her voice, mock seductively. “I’ll float down the river with you if only you ask, Sylas.”
“No, I mean…” What did he mean? Certainly not what his mother and father had, a companionship born of love and lust at some point, he had to assume, but then cooled to a barely contained resentment that occasionally, and more often as their shop suffered loss after loss, simmered over into outright cruelty.
No, not that.
“I don’t know what I mean,” he concluded with a sigh. Nor did he know what had come over him. The sunset, he suspected. Great beauty had that effect on him.
“I do. You’re not as mysterious as you think.
” She adopted an airy tone. “You want someone to call your very own. To stay by your side no matter what. Someone who makes you want to do the same, despite yourself. Despite everything.” She dropped her affect and patted his chest. “You’re a dreadful romantic.
It’s your least attractive quality. You go all moon-eyed, did you know? ”
He felt himself flush. “I did not,” he admitted, grudgingly, brushing her hand away.
“Or you used to, anyway. I thank all seven skies no one has looked at me that way. Let me tell you, the day I float down the river with someone is the day I die.” Sabina shook her head, her fringe bouncing with the motion. “Can you imagine me in charge of a household?”
“Hardly,” he agreed, laughing softly. They made quite the pair, in their way. Domesticity fit her like a circus tent; he could not imagine a household at all. Not with his debt. Who would take on such a burden? Not anyone he knew, and they could afford it.
Not anyone.
He’d known that. He’d always known that. It was only that he insisted on seeing meanings where there were none. And where had that gotten him?
When he’d been a bookbinder’s son in Lower Bunting, the picture of his future had been black and white.
Bleak and detestable to him, but clear. Then he became a spellscribe, a King’s Wizard, and the picture of his future had been streaked with shades he’d never known possible, though muddied and seeping like over-wet watercolors.
Now, the promise of relief brought his future into vibrant, unmistakable color: he was trapped.
And while some part of him had hoped an escape might come in the form of connection with another soul, another body, a connection that flowered in spite of everything, he saw now: it could only come from clawing, from cold calculation, from coin.
“Come along, Sylas,” Sabina said, sensing his unmysterious melancholy and tucking her arm through his again, apparently forgetting her promise to leave him at the colonnade. “Walk me home.”
After dropping Sabina at her brother’s manor in ?bender Heights, he strolled home with a lit cigarette, thinking again of parakeets in cages, and considered what she’d said. She’d been ribbing him for his self-seriousness, but there was a certain truth to it.
Despite yourself. Despite everything.
But why, he thought as he climbed the many stairs to his small, empty apartment, must everything be done in spite?
When he reached his floor, he stopped short.
A figure stood outside his door, her clasped hand hovering above the polished wood, as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether to knock.
Roughly the same age as Sy, only an inch or two shorter, she dressed plainly but for an exquisite leather jerkin, and wore a large knife sheathed in a belt on her waist. A messenger bag hung off her shoulder, and her ash-brown hair was pulled into a loose braid down her straight back, where a hatchet was strapped.
She carved a striking, statuesque figure, especially against the sunset’s last light streaming in from the window behind her. In her other hand, she clasped a folded, crumpled newspaper.
Excessive leather, excessive weapons. A hunter. Here to answer his ad. His heart leapt.
Even so, a heavily armed women outside his door was not a particularly welcome sight.
“Can I help you?” he called, making his voice firm, wishing he had carried his pen.
Arm still hovering, she turned to face him. Her eyes, round and keen, studied him, measured him. He almost took a step back; he felt like nothing so much as a sparrow under the eye of a hawk.
But what startled him most was their color, a beautiful spring green, almost seafoam. He felt compelled to sit her by the window and paint them. Instead, he stood poised – to do what, he wasn’t sure.
“My name,” she said finally, in a low but surprisingly melodic voice, “is Anya Degen. I saw your ad. I’m here to warn you to stay the fuck away from the forest.”