Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
GABE
After thinking so hard today, my brain is struggling to process, and I’m convinced that’s why it takes me so long to understand what I’m seeing when I walk into the farm manager’s cottage.
The living room is full of people: Skye and Daniel cuddling in an armchair, my brothers and Tom on the couch, and Marc in another chair, and they’re all staring at the TV.
I glance over at it myself and see a bunch of people in clothing that looks like it’s supposed to be medieval but really isn’t. Trust me, I’d know. I’m a historian. “What are we watching?”
“Dragonville,” Marc replies absently, shifting in his chair but staying completely focused on the screen.
Ian scoffs. “House of the Dragon,” he corrects.
“The Game of Thrones prequel?” I’ve been meaning to watch that, but between working on my doctorate and dealing with all the weird shit that’s been going on for the past year, I never got around to it.
“Yep.” Tom takes his eyes off the screen to smile at me, but there’s something not right about it. He looks tired… and sad? “When the boys heard I haven’t seen it yet, they insisted.”
“Yes!” Marc yells, making us all jump. I look back at the screen to see an almost unrecognizable Matt Smith—who’ll always be the Doctor to me—with blood streaked all over him and an implacable stare on his face.
“I like these people. These are interesting humans; that one especially. He doesn’t worry about other people’s feelings. Or their lives.”
Matt—my brother, not the actor—laughs so hard, he snorts, and Ian says, “He’s barely got started.”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Marc to watch this,” Daniel adds. “It’s giving him ideas.”
“It’s dinnertime anyway. Connor and Kieran want to eat with you guys.
” I look pointedly at my brothers. “Kieran arranged for the meal, and it smells incredible.” He also had some packed up for me and Tom when I begged off from family time.
He’s a little too invested in me and Tom hooking up, if you ask me, but at least it means we can finally have a date. If dinner at my place counts as a date.
It does. Otherwise we’re never going to have one.
“Food?” Ian’s eyes light up. “Yes.” He picks up the remote, presses Pause, and tosses it to Daniel. “Thanks for letting me be in charge.”
“You didn’t give us a choice.” Skye tucks a lavender lock behind one ear. “If I remember right, when we came in and asked what you were watching, you—”
“Oh no, our dinner’s getting cold!” Matt announces loudly, scrambling to his feet and jamming them into his shoes. “Whatever stupid and misguided things we may have said that we deeply regret will just have to wait until we get back.”
“Yep! But this has been great, and we should do it again sometime,” Ian adds, halfway to the door already. “’Kay thanks bye!”
I gaze after them, shaking my head, then turn back to Daniel and Skye. “Do I owe you an apology on their behalf?”
Skye scoffs. “No, I was kidding. Are you guys staying for dinner?” He looks from me to Tom, pointedly leaving Marc out. Marc’s intently studying the frozen frame on the TV and doesn’t seem to notice.
“Thanks, but we have plans.”
“We do?” Tom teases, standing and coming over to kiss my cheek. I like that—the casual affection. I want someone in my life who’s willing to give me cheek kisses in public as well as deeper ones in private. I want Tom in my life.
“If you’re free?”
He grins, then flips a wave at his best friend. “Sorry, Skye, I’ve got plans. But you and Farmer F—uh, Daniel can have a nice quiet dinner together.”
Daniel’s face scrunches up with curiosity. “What were you going to call me?”
“’Kay thanks bye!” Tom declares, laughing as he grabs my hand.
“Don’t worry, you’ll like it,” Skye soothes his boyfriend, glaring at Tom. “Don’t even think of running off and leaving him here.”
We all look at Marc, and he finally looks away from the TV. “If I didn’t know that was fake blood, I’d almost be fooled,” he says. “This show is really very good. And dragons are an excellent idea.”
“Help us save the world, and you can watch the rest of it,” I promise. “And Game of Thrones. You’ll like that one too. Lots of violence and killing and disregard for people’s feelings.”
He lifts an eyebrow, but for the first time, that doesn’t make me want to rip it off his face. “I can’t watch the rest now?”
I shake my head, and Tom says, “No, it’s time to go home. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
With a roll of his eyes, Marc disappears.
Daniel stares at the now-empty chair. “You’re very good at managing him,” he tells Tom. “He sometimes listens to you.”
“What a handy skill for me to have picked up. It’ll be so helpful when other demons are trying to rip out my liver. I can ask Marc for help, and maybe he’ll listen.”
“And on that appetizing note, let’s go eat.” I tug the hand I’m holding and draw him toward the door. “Have a good night, you two. Thanks again for letting the boys crash here.”
Their goodnights follow us outside, and then Tom and I stroll through the evening quiet toward my cottage.
“So…” He swings our hands. “Plans, huh?”
I chuckle. “Yeah, those plans too. But first I thought we’d eat. Just us. Alone. In private.”
“Oh my god, say more things like that.” He laughs, and it finally lifts that note of sadness that’s hovering over him.
“I would, but I’m scared I’ll jinx it.”
“Let’s run,” he suggests, and I can’t think of a reason we shouldn’t. So we run, hand in hand, giggling like little kids, across the grass to my cabin, and then clatter onto the porch slightly breathless.
Inside, the food I left warming in the oven has made the place smell amazing, and Tom moans in appreciation.
“Beer, wine, soda?” I ask, heading for the kitchen.
“Let’s have wine. I’ll get it,” he offers, and there’s something so beautifully domestic about both of us moving around my tiny kitchen, me dishing up our food, him pouring drinks and setting the table. I could do this every night for the rest of my life and be happy.
We sit down to eat, and he studies my face. “Long day, huh?”
I nod. “I’d feel less crappy if it had at least been productive. But we just went around and around in the same circles we’ve already covered a million times.”
He frowns. “They didn’t have any new perspective to offer?”
“Some.” I shrug. “But it kept leading back to the same basic problem, which is that we don’t have the power to do this.”
“I wish I could help, but I barely even understand the basics of what you do.” He forks up some more food. “I feel pretty useless right now.”
I put down my fork and reach out to grab his hand. “Nope. You are the farthest thing from useless.”
“But—”
I shake my head. “No. Come on, Tom. You’ve made things a million times easier for us by taking care of the small things. And keeping the boys occupied. And trying to manage Marc—which, by the way, is superhero-esque.”
His lips twitch. “Superhero-esque?”
“Superhero… like? What’s the word for when you do something that’s like what a superhero would?” Shoot, I know it. It’s on the tip of my tongue.
“You’re asking the wrong person. I used to copy off Skye’s English homework. Math was my subject.”
I clap a hand over my mouth in pretend horror. “You’re a math person? Well, it’s a good thing I found that out before we got too far into this.”
Chuckling, he picks up his fork again. “You history nerds are all the same. Afraid of numbers.”
I take a sip of wine. It’s pretty good, and I make a mental note to get another bottle like this.
“We’re not afraid of numbers… exactly. It’s just that they don’t tell exciting stories like words do.
Superheroic!” I shout as the word pops fully fledged into my mind. “Oh my god, that’s it. Superheroic.”
The fond, indulgent smile he’s giving me makes my insides warm. “I’m not superheroic,” he asserts. “I’m just running errands and keeping your brothers company. Watching TV and sparring isn’t a hardship.”
He’s wrong, but I don’t want to spend tonight arguing with him. “Okay, if you want to feel useful, how about you listen to me explain my theory of how to rebuild the barrier and give me another perspective?”
Doubt flashes across his face. “I probably won’t understand half of what you tell me.”
“That might help. Maybe I need to explain it to someone who isn’t already familiar with the otherworld and etheric energy.”
He settles more comfortably in his chair. “Hit me with it.”
I take a moment to gather my thoughts and then start slowly, first laying out the top-level details of what a gateway is and what I do. He’s heard this before, but saying it out loud, explaining the basics that everyone I talk to already knows, helps me to cement the theory in my mind.
“…so the first hurdle is that, unlike with a gateway, there would be nothing to anchor the patch to. Because it’s not a patch if there’s nothing there to patch.” That’s repetitive but true. “I can build a barrier the same way I build a guard for a gateway, but I need something to anchor it to.”
“You’re not talking about a physical anchor, though? Because this is energy.”
I nod. “Right. The thing is, if what Marc’s told us is true, the energy in the otherworld is slightly different from here. They’re close enough to the same that gateways don’t cause catastrophic issues, but still slightly different.”
“Like freshwater rivers running into an ocean?” he suggests. “Both water, but different.”
“That’s a decent analogy, but in this case, it would be more like two seas meeting—one freshwater and one saltwater. They both have equal tidal pressure, so at the point where they meet, they just slowly integrate.”
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
“That’s what I’d anchor the barrier to. In fact, I’d build the barrier from that intermingled energy. It’s not truly of either world and is itself a line of demarcation. Sort of.”
Tom’s squinting slightly. “I think I get it. If you built the barrier purely from Earth energy, it wouldn’t necessarily stay where you need it, because there’s no way to fix it to that point.
But mixed energy from both worlds belongs at the point between worlds.
Or at the point where worlds meet. As long as the energy pressure remains the same in both worlds, the mixed energy will remain in the same place. It’s self-anchoring.”
Relief floods me. Marc and Connor and the team from the Collective all agreed with my theory, but hearing someone who’s never had to deal with etheric energy before validate it makes me feel better. This means it’s logical, not esoteric.
Well… as not-esoteric as building an energy barrier between dimensions can be.
“Great, so that theory is sound. Too bad there’s no way to test it. I tried opening a gateway and building from the mingled energies, but the first woven threads of energy anchored themselves to the gateway immediately. Which is what they’re supposed to do, but…”
“But it doesn’t help you confirm the theory,” he finishes sympathetically. “What’s the other problem?”
“The next hurdle is that it takes a lot of time and power to build a guard, and I’m assuming the same will hold true for the barrier. We don’t have that time, and I don’t have that power.”
“How much time?”
I shrug. “The gateway here at Mannix is about three by seven feet. It took me seven hours to build the guard.”
He lets out a low whistle. “Fuck. No, wait. How big is the barrier?”
I blink. What does he mean? “Do—”
His phone rings, and we both look over to where he left it on the kitchen counter. “You better get that.” With everything going on right now, not answering a phone call seems stupid.
He gets up to check it. “It’s Skye’s dad. Hold that thought.”
Skye’s dad? We just left Skye, so it can’t be something bad. I hope.