I had barely woken up, and already the day had gone off the rails.
‘Rocky’ (as I had mentally dubbed him) sat in my basement—one large, carpeted room with a couch, two overstuffed chairs, a fireplace, no windows, and a half-bathroom off of the furthest corner—and carefully unwrapped his headscarf. He’d already taken off his coat. Meanwhile, I clasped my hands in front of me as hard as I could to keep them from wandering, fidgeting, or otherwise betraying how jittery I felt.
When first I had let him come in, I had tried leading him into the living-room. He peeked inside, staring at the large, room-spanning window, and asked meekly if I had somewhere without sun. That led to the basement, and I told him to make himself comfortable while I attended to matters upstairs.
Said matters were a) making myself more presentable, and b), making sure Cal didn’t cause trouble.
I brushed my hair, smoothed my clothes out, gave up and changed shirts, picked up the phone from the bottom of the stairs, and dug the last of the glass out of my foot. Cal watched me unhappily as I finished whispering both my explanation and my admonition to not leave the bedroom unless there was an emergency (in which case, he was supposed to either hide in the boxes of the next room, or wriggle out the bathroom window).
“But what if there’s something important, something I should know about?” Cal protested.
“Then I’ll tell you later, after everyone’s gone.”
“What if there’s something important that I need to tell you?”
“Then you wouldn’t be able to do it in front of an audience, anyway.”
He sighed dramatically, flopping down on my shoulder. He had made himself as small as he could—about the length of a pencil—and confined himself to tiny hisses blown straight into my ear canal. It tickled.
“This is just until I can get him to CENCA,” I said, scratching under his chin with a finger. “I would just drive him now, but he has something against the sun. Worst case scenario, I can take him this evening. But I’ll try to contact someone before that.”
“Is your phone not working?” He flicked his tail towards where it lay, face down, on the dresser.
Right. He’d been asleep. “It… uh… it broke.”
Cal squinted at me suspiciously—more cute than intimidating in his current form. “Why?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said, lifting my hand for him to crawl onto it. “Right now, I need to go back and keep my guest company. And really, please, stay out of sight. I don’t know if my nerves can handle another incident like last night’s.”
“But why do we know I can’t meet this guy? If he’s not from around here—”
“Whether or not he can be trusted isn’t the problem. We don’t know him, we don’t know if he can keep secrets. It doesn’t matter whether he has the best intentions in the world—not if he accidentally spills to Stanton or Martins that he saw a size-shifting dragon in my house.”
Cal sighed, ears drooping. He crawled from my hand into my pillowcase. “I guess you’re probably right.”
“Sorry,” I said, smiling apologetically. “Someday it’ll be safe enough for you to meet new people, but there’s a long road ahead of us first.”
He nodded, and curled up, snout barely visible in the pillow’s shadow.
“Jeanne?” he whispered, louder now, catching me in the doorway. “Later can you tell me what the plan is? I want to help if I can, and… it’d be nice to know.”
My hand went still on the door handle. “Yeah. Later.” I closed the door behind me, chewing on my lip.
Truth be told, I had no idea what the plan was. Getting him out of this dimension was still the best idea we had, but how or where to send him—
It didn’t matter. Right now, I had a guest to entertain.
And so, now, there we were, facing each other across a small coffee table.
Rocky looked largely humanoid—except that he was built from some kind of soft, gray stone, and, instead of ears, he had crystalline horns that pointed up and inward. He had, possibly, a beard and short-cropped hair, except it looked more than ever like moss or lichen. Underneath the long, floor-length coat—which only now struck me with it’s modern normality—I could see loose, robe-like clothing covered in shards of coloured stone, like someone had strung stained glass into a fabric.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t asked your name yet,” I said, extending my hand. “If I might be allowed the honor?”
He took my hand without hesitation; he was familiar with the greeting. “My name is Talsic Feldspar.” A light accent covered his words, but I couldn’t fully place it—just that it drawled.
“Mine is Jeanne Townford,” I replied. He had given me his name, so there should be no problem with me giving him mine. At least as far as I knew. “Can I get you anything?” Since I had no idea what type of extra-normal this was, it was up in the air whether I should be roundabout and overly hospitable, direct and practical, or some mish-mash of the two. “Water, tea, coffee? Hot chocolate? Food of some kind? I have some good bread.” What would he eat? The only rocks I had available for ready consumption were those found in Himalayan Rock Salt. But I didn’t want to be weird, and, well, I had gotten a fresh loaf recently.
Talsic was still neatly folding his headscarf, horns refracting the light of the table lamp. I hadn’t offered to turn on the overhead light—since he had turned on the lamp, I figured he was familiar enough with technology to have found the other if he wanted, and, well, he seemed to have a thing against light. Unless it was just the sun?
“I would like some water,” he said. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all. Would you like ice with that?” That was it. Southern American. Appalachian, if I had to pick a region; it’d been a while since I’d brushed up on my accents.
He nodded. “And then, if you could give me some advice?” His pupiless eyes turned up at me, shining with a subtle glow.
“I’ll do my best,” I promised. “And if I can’t help, I know people who can.”
I could hear the ticking of a clock in the distance, and wondered what his expression meant; the eyebrows—crystalline outcroppings similar in material to his horns—hadn’t moved yet as far as I could tell.
“Thank you,” he said at last. “Your honesty is appreciated.”
When I set the tall glass of ice-water in front of him on a coaster, his face still didn’t change. He nodded politely and sipped it, like he wasn’t sure whether it would burn him or not.
His shoulders dropped. “I don’t believe I’ve tasted this water before,” he said, sighing.
“Sorry?” I blinked. Did he mean water from my specific tap? I should hope he wouldn’t be familiar.
“I don’t recognize it,” he said, holding it up to the light, “this water, its minerals are… different than I am used to.”
Ah. Water did tend to taste different in different places.
He set down his cup on his knee. “I’m lost,” he said, turning his head back up towards me. “I don’t know where my home went, or where I have come to, and I haven’t been able to sense any kind of direction to turn to. It’s like either I or my world have vanished, and many of my senses along the way.” He tapped his horns. “They don’t seem to be working properly.”
I hummed a sympathetic noise. “Where did you come from?” I asked.
“The mountains.” He shrugged in a large, deliberate movement. “I know which ones, but I doubt I could you would know the names I know, and I don’t know what names humans have given them.”
“Maybe the Appalachian mountains?” I asked tentatively, hoping I hadn’t wildly misread his accent.
He just kept staring into his cup. “I don’t know. Have you heard of the Cregdündracu?”
“Yeah, sorry, that doesn’t sound familiar.”
Well, it was worth a shot. On the bright side, it seemed like his problem was fairly straightforward. He just needed a way back home, right? That should be easy enough once we figured out where that was. Easier than helping Cal, at least, a bitter corner of my mind whispered.
“I’m sorry for your trouble,” I said, keeping my voice soft. “Do you know how you got here?”
He shook his head, starting to trace the rim of the glass with his finger, making a faint, musical ring. “There was something going on down the mountain. I went to see, to make sure it was safe for my family. Humans, you see, do all sorts of things in the mountains. Sometimes it’s just them fooling around, sometimes they build something—but sometimes it’s something… bad, or something that hurts us, and not everyone knows where our territory starts.”
I tactfully decided not to ask what their modus operandi was for when the humans were trespassing.
“I had to go see. And I don’t think it was just humans there, but I don’t know who else was with them, or what kind of creatures, even. Some of them were large, most resonated bone-deep of Mithae, and shadows felt like they had eyes. And then, well, I got to the edge their clearing, and then I was in the woods on the other side of your street.” He gestured vaguely towards the front door before returning to his tracing. “I don’t know how it happened. Thankfully, it was night out. I could sense someone moving around in the house, so I figured I at least ended up in a place with sensible folk, and not solely daywalkers.”
The last night of flurried activity flashed back into my mind, and I bit back a sigh.
“When I couldn’t find nothing that seemed like home, and it was clear I couldn’t resonate with any sort of path, I came back here. I apologize for waking you, but I didn’t know where else to go.” He finally looked up from his cup. “You said you can help?”
“Hopefully. I’m kind of more of a daywalker than not—last night was an exception, I’m sorry to say—but I don’t think that’ll stop me from being useful.” I tried a conspiratorial wink. “I’m actually an agent with CENCA, so I should be able to do a thing or two.”
He tilted his head. “What is… sen-kah?”
I stuttered something incoherent, cleared my throat, and started over. “It’s, um, well it’s a place dedicated to helping extra-normals and humans get along, plus interdimensional travel control and that kind of thing. We can get you to wherever you need to go, since that’s one of our big things. At least here, in this dimension, and locally. But it sounds like interdimensional travel is what we’ll need, so that’ll work out.” There could have been better ways to react to his question, but, well—I had never not known about CENCA. Everyone knew about CENCA. Everyone had seen at least three of the TV shows or cartoons featuring CENCA agents. Intellectually, I knew that things were different in different parts of the world, and in different societies of extra-normals, but this was the first time that fact had been smacked in my face so clearly.
Talsic was definitely frowning now. “Inter-dimensional travel? What do you mean by that? What do you mean by ‘dimensions,’ or ‘here in this dimension’?”
I blinked. Not knowing CENCA was one thing—not knowing one of the basic building blocks of reality was another. It was less like he’d said he thought the earth was flat and more like he’d asked what gravity was. And maybe it was my own biases, too. I had never met an extra-normal that didn’t know leagues more about Mithae and dimensions than I did. But he knew about Mithae! How could he not know about dimensions? Could you even learn about one without the other?
“Well, um, it’s the travel between worlds,” I fumbled. “Basically, dimensions are different worlds? But like, not fully. They’re connected, so you can go between them. And they’re all similar to each other, in a lot of ways. Like, um, different layers in a cake? But it’s different versions of Earth, and definitely a lot more layers than a cake, and a lot more complicated.”
He tilted his head.
“Or, um, like pages in a book—different, unique, and distinct, but part of the whole?”
His pale eyes remained as blank and inexpressive as ever.
“Um, you said that there were humans and non-humans working together to do something bad in the mountains?” I grasped for some detail to investigate as a distraction. This would be more relevant, and would treat the problem, and keep us away from anything else that I might say to make him feel dumb for simply not knowing the same things I did.
“Well, I’m not so sure now,” he said, slowly, staring at me more intensely than ever, “though both were present. I think there were two groups of humans, and one was with the non-humans. The other group seemed distressed. I didn’t get close enough to see, but I have reason to believe—”
He was cut short by a sudden, sharp sound that made us both jump out of our seats.
Doorbell.
“Um, that means there’s someone at the door,” I said, not sure what to do with that; a sinking suspicion rooted its way into my stomach.
“Do you need to speak to them?”
“I… don’t know. It could be friends, or maybe not. But I said I would help you, and it sounded like you were saying something important.” It was half remorse for the interruption, half reluctance in case I was right.
He sat silently, as if considering. “You are the host,” he said, “and you have new guests.”
“You’re sure?”
He shrugged again in a movement that jolted his whole body. “It’s not as though I can be in a hurry, not when I don’t know where I’d be going.”
“Alright.” I stood up, hesitating. “Though we’ll see what we can do about fixing that, as soon as possible. If they’re friends, they may be able to help and I’ll bring them in. If they’re not, then, well, I’ll be back.”
He nodded, and I passed him towards the staircase.
Part of me hoped that it was someone I could simply shut the door on, but logic (and past experience) warned me that, more likely, they were from CENCA. Especially if there were any important calls that I had missed, or, perhaps, a whole work shift. With any luck, though, they wouldn’t be coming in person to fire me—that seemed too inefficient a use of resources for their style.
Pressing my eye to the door’s peekhole, I held my breath.
As I had half-hoped, half-feared, Stanton was there, with Moira Bentley—and this time, he’d remembered his coat. His hands were pushed deep into the pockets of said coat, as if he were bracing himself for cold, even though it was warmer today than last night. When I looked out the peekhole again, he cast a glance at the door that I could only describe as anxious. I drew back, fighting down the impression that he had seen me.
I was going to have to face him, after… whatever happened last night. His awkward coffee invite, Cal’s near fiasco, Stanton catching me at the portal, then in the car with my gun’s safety off, then his extended offer of help with CENCA—it all crashed back with the blood rising in my cheeks. Swallowing, I shoved down the intense desire to disappear back into the basement, make some kind of excuse to Talsic, and then flee out the back door.
Rubbing my temples, I let the initial jolt of adrenaline run its course.
Besides, Moira might be a good buffer. Possibly.
I wasn’t sure where I stood with her, and she was everything I was not. Pretty, sophisticated, fashionable, confident, social—everyone liked her, and she liked everyone. But I didn’t feel like everyone, or even anyone, and the fact that she was coming into my house—coming to see and judge my sparse, unclassy living space—struck me like a thunderbolt, different from the one Stanton gave me. Sure, I’d cleaned up last night, but that couldn’t solve… everything else.
Before I had further time to panic, the doorbell rang again. I reached for the doorknob—mind flashing over the unadorned blue-gray walls, thrift-shop furniture, and beige carpet with a cringe of embarrassment—and pulled it open.
“Hopefully we’re not interrupting your off-day, but—”
“Oh, um, hi, I’m so sorry, my phone broke and—”
Stanton and I both stopped, stuttered (and at least one of us blushed).
“Your phone? We did try to call you, but when it didn’t connect—”
“Oh, I wasn’t sure if it was an off-day, so I was worried, when I got up late—”
Moira laughed. Her voice held the faint music of a hereditary Indian accent as she interrupted us both. “We might have to start raising hands for permission to talk, if this goes on. Would you mind if we came in, first, though?”
“Oh, um, not at all.” I stepped aside, resisting the urge to perform a theatrical bow as they came through. That would hardly make things less weird. Besides, more important than worrying about my decoration skills, I needed to introduce Talsic as soon as made sense. For his sake, and for mine—the sooner they knew, they sooner the could help him, and, well, the less scrutiny on me, the better. Plus, it was my duty as an agent.
On the bright side, this visit was unlikely to result in my getting fired. Stanton would have brought someone from HR, or else Croft, not the new communications specialist. But Stanton was wearing his uniform and badge, and Moira was wearing a stylish plum blouse with her badge—being in communications and research, she didn’t have a set uniform—and she carried a sleek, cream-and-brown briefcase. So not courtesy call.
I hope this isn’t about the duffel bag.
Stanton let Moira pass by into the living room. “I guess I should apologize for dropping by unannounced, again.” He laughed, self-consciously, while Moira shot him a surprised glance. I guess she didn’t know about last night’s coffee-date drop-in.
“No problem,” I said, meaning more that he shouldn’t feel bad than that it wasn’t a problem. “Really. I was a bit worried about things, myself, since, um, my phone fell down the stairs last night and broke, so I didn’t have an alarm and then I woke up late, and of course, I couldn’t get any calls, and it was pretty late in the day so I was probably already marked as a no-show, and I was wondering if there was anything I’d need to know after last night. So, um, yeah, it’s probably a good thing. Or at least good to get an update, since I missed my shift.”
“Hopefully it’s not too, I guess ‘forward’ of me,” Stanton said, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact, “But I went ahead and gave you PTO for the day since I figured you’d need it. So no marks on your record.”
That’s when an incredible revelation struck me like sunrise: Stanton was also nervous. For one, very brief instant, relief relaxed me with its sudden sensation of equality, of being in this mess together like the team that we were. I promptly ruined it all by remembering that he had asked me out, and I had done nothing but babble nonsense at him.
“Um, no, that’s fine, that’s very thoughtful of you, thanks,” I managed, the important work thing, the one I was supposed to bring up, slipping away from me like water.
“We’re actually here to check up on you after last night’s incident,” Moira interjected, deciding that she’d better take over from Stanton, “and get your statement about it. We’ve also brought any paperwork that you might need, so that you can get it all done from the comfort of your own home.” She gave me a thumbs up.
“We thought it’d be a good idea to give you some time away from Headquarters,” Stanton added, “and Martins and I decided it’d be good for Ms. Bentley to get some field training.”
My brain peeked a corner to the fog enveloping it. “Thank you,” I said, clasping my hands in an attempt to occupy them, “I appreciate the thought. Also, it turns out that you have good timing, because it turns out I have something of a situation? Of the extra-normal variety, which I was needing to call in or otherwise report, so this saves me a trip to the office.”
Moira blinked, glancing around the room for clues, and Stanton frowned. He rested his hand on his belt, and I wasn’t sure whether or not it was a reflexive attempt to keep near his gun. “Are you—?”
I nodded with a display of un-felt confidence. “All good. Someone showed up at my door just a bit ago, and it seems like he’s having trouble getting back home. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go explain the situation to him, and then I’ll introduce you guys.”
Stanton nodded back, and Moira started to ask something about where to put the papers, but I was already headed for the basement (later I found it tucked neatly on the couch-side table, under one of my manuals).
Talsic had finished his water. “Friends, then?”
“Um, yes,” I said. I almost add “more or less,” since I didn’t really know Moira, but this didn’t seem the right time to bring it up. And they could probably still hear me. “Coworkers, from the place I was telling you about—CENCA. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to introduce them. They’ll probably be more help than me, in the long run.” I wasn’t sure if I said that because I was trying to convince him, or because I felt too whirly-headed to be of service to anyone.
He nodded, squaring his shoulders in an erratic motion, and giving a small smile. “Yes, that’d be fine.”
“Great.” I clasped my hands again, as if by doing so I could hold on to a thought process.
Stanton and Moira had apparently heard, since they were on their way to the basement as I came up the stairs.
“Let’s keep the lights low,” I said, as Stanton reached for the switch, “he doesn’t seem a fan.”
He nodded, and instead tucked his hand into his coat pocket.
Talsic stood up and bowed as they came in, low enough that his crystals horns pointed at them. He hadn’t done that with me; maybe I’d bypassed it with my own greeting.
“Uh, so, this is my partner and supervisor, Agent Percival Stanton,” I said, gesturing, “and one of our researchers and head communicators, Moira Bentley.” Somehow it felt weird that she didn’t have an extra title, like ‘agent.’ It felt weirder to use Stanton’s first name.
Both of them bowed back, apparently having decided that was the greeting he was more comfortable with.
“And, this is Talsic Feldspar, from… the mountains. We’re, um, trying to figure out which ones.”
“I showed up here quite unexpectedly,” he explained. “But I don’t appear to have a way back.”
The other two nodded politely in understanding. When Stanton glanced at me, I could practically see “a stray bit of portal magic?” in his eyes. Those happened randomly sometimes, and portal magic was typically attracted to sources of Mithae for grounding. Which, we didn’t if Talsic was a source or not, but it was a good place to start.
Moira’s eyes, similarly, held a question—but I couldn’t tell what it was. Only that, by her glance at me, she was waiting for the host to say something first. Unfortunately, I was more a child playing dress up than an actual host, and I had run out of script. After a longer-than-comfortable moment of looking from her to Talsic to Stanton, I fell back on an old reliable that, if nothing else, should give me time to come up with more ideas.
“Would anyone like tea? Water? Coffee? I have decaf, and I think I have some digestives still, if anyone wants a snack to accompany it. Those are cookies,” I added to Talsic, remembering my hunch that he was from the USA, and then remembering that he might not know what those were. I decided, though, that that was unfair. Cookies, after all, were more universal than CENCA.
Stanton hesitated, long enough for me to see that his brain was turning. “That sounds good, yes.”
Moira asked for decaf coffee, and Talsic for tea and cookies—both with cream and sugar, when I checked.
“I’ll help you,” Stanton said decisively, as if that was what he’d been planning. “Moira, if you would be so kind as to stay here and talk to our new friend?” It was half-question, half-order.
She nodded, and settled onto one side of the couch with what I hoped wasn’t reluctance. It was an old, flowery thing, a road-side rescue—and I hoped it didn’t look like it. I had made sure it was as clean as humanly possible before allowing it in my house, but still.
If I had any doubts about whether Stanton was trying to get me alone, they were tossed out the window as soon as we got to the privacy of the kitchen.
“Okay, so this is hardly the most important thing right now,” he said as I filled the kettle, “I realise that. But I do think we should deal with it, so we can focus on more immediate matters. Get the awkwardness out of the way, as it were.”
I turned towards him, but he wasn’t looking back. He had been here often enough for case discussions that he knew where the mugs were, and so he opened the cabinet and started pulling them down, settling them deliberately onto the white countertop. At a guess, it was part habit, part wanting to be helpful, part wanting to do something with his hands while he went over his lines.
“About last night—specifically the, uh, asking you out for coffee—I just wanted to say to not worry about that, right now. It was something of an impulsive ask, and after thinking it over more, I don’t think it was the right time. I kind of… sprung it on you, which wasn’t fair of me.”
Part of my brain noted with a mixture of amusement and shock that this was more stuttering and uncertainty than I had ever heard from him. Meanwhile, I automatically started the Keurig—catching myself just in time before I put a hot chocolate capsule in, instead of the decaf.
“So, um, yeah. We should probably talk more about it at some point, but, not now. Things should settle down more, first. If you want, you can just forget I said anything at all.”
This was a relief. Of course it was. It had to be. Any developments in our friendship would lead to more and more and more lying, and I already hated that I was lying to him at all. Getting closer to each other would just end badly, with one or both of us badly burned.
And yet, inexplicably, my immediate, intense reaction was disappointment.
“Oh. Um. Okay. Good to know.” I pulled down teas from the cabinet, only to realize all I had was early grey. Hopefully Talsic wouldn’t mind—I didn’t, and I knew Stanton liked black teas best. “Um. Thank you for telling me.” How much of it had to do with… the rest of the night? He had given me a second chance, yes, but that was for our job. Did this mean that he thought I was crazy now? A nice coworker, but too unstable to actually be around?
What am I on about now? This is exactly what needed to happen. Mutually amicable distance.
So, instead of asking “What about after this case?” I threw out a laughing sound, several octaves higher than sanity normally allowed, and said “Yeah, and on top of everything else there’s the new case. I’m afraid I’m too swamped for extracurriculars at the moment.”
There wasn’t much to do now except wait for the water to boil.
Stanton leaned back against the counter by the sink, tension easing from his shoulders. “Work does tend to keep happening,” he agreed. “Except, what do you mean by ‘new case?’ You’re not planning on taking this one, are you?”
Honestly? I wasn’t. I needed all the time off I could get to help Cal. Except, I also needed resources.
I shrugged, matching his pose. “Well, Talsic did come to me. And it should be a pretty straightforward case, right? Find out who he is, what he is, where he came from, send him home, fill out some paperwork, and voilá.”
And, more importantly, I would have an excuse to be at the base, with all the research materials I could ever want. Stanton would be too busy with Cal’s case to supervise me too closely, so as long as I looked like I was working I’d have plenty of time. This meant making a plan for Cal, and actually having the knowledge and means to back it up.
“I suppose that’s true,” he said, eyebrows knitting together thoughtfully. “I still think it would be better for you to take time off—if just for a week or so. You’re a good agent, but I don’t want you to run yourself ragged because you think you have to. After all,” he added with a twitch of a smile, “we do have other field agents. If it’s Mithae related, Welder would be a good fit.”
Tempting. But more delays meant more opportunities for Cal and I to be found out. I tapped my finger against my sleeve. “True, true. I guess I just… feel responsible, you know?” I intentionally lifted my eyes to his, crinkling an earnest smile before dropping my gaze. “I know I’m not, personally, but I know it’s a hard thing to be lost, and I want to help him if I can. Besides, this could be a good middle ground, right? Since I think you do have a point. At least about the case with Cal. Calernon. Agrabeth.” I stuttered and covered my slip-up with a hand wave. “You know, I’m still not fully sure if I have the dragon naming conventions right.”
Stanton chuckled. “Too many extra-normals to keep track of these days,” he said.
“And too few hours to memorize it all. But, yeah. Like I said, I think you’re right. I am—was—too caught up with the dragon case and everything it might mean. All the international stuff reminding me of, well, you know. Last time.”
As I hoped, he nodded with a sympathetic frown.
“So, maybe taking a smaller, lower-profile case would be a good change of pace, something without all the added pressure, and an actual distraction. Something else to work on to keep me occupied and not worrying about the dragon.”
I wasn’t sure what was more responsible for my nausea—my attempt to manipulate Stanton, or the fact that I was twisting so much of the truth to do it. He didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve to be stuck with a partner he didn’t even know not to trust.
The kettle whistled, and I moved to take care of Moira’s coffee while Stanton poured the tea. “You have a point,” he said, reluctantly. “But I want to make sure that you’re doing this because you think it’s a good idea, not because you feel guilty about what happened with the portal last night.”
I almost winced. Instead, I heard my mouth saying words, acting on my will make this happen. “I won’t deny that I have some… feelings, about everything. And that part of this is just that I feel sorry for him and want him to be able to get back to his family—he seemed quite shaken up about not knowing where they are, or if they’re okay. But besides that, yeah, I do think it could be good for me to work a nice, simple little case, and then when I have my head on straight, I can go back to something bigger. Maybe the dragon case, maybe not. Besides—” I indicated the kitchen and living room with a flourish—”I don’t have much else going on. Staying here, by myself, with nothing to do—I’d probably go crazy.”
He chuckled, fishing a spoon off the drying rack. “I can understand that.”
I knew he could. He was a worse workaholic than I was. Still is.
“Alright. I’ll let you have the case, but in return, I think you should take some time to see CENCA’s psychiatrist. At least once, to make sure that you’re processing this all as well as you think you are.”
I was too relieved to argue. Stanton had bought it, and didn’t suspect any ulterior motives (at least, that I could tell). “Yeah, sure. That’s probably a good idea.” I handed him the half-and-half that I had used to finish the coffee. I didn’t know how much cream Moira liked, but hopefully I’d gotten in the ballpark. I knew even less how Talsic would like his tea, considering I wasn’t sure what he ate.
That brought me back to his situation, my situation.
An idea sparked. It was stupid, but plausible. Besides, it would only be dumb if it worked, which I was sure it wouldn’t. It has to be stated that the was the core of my motivation here—I was convinced it wouldn’t happen, and I didn’t want it to.
“I did have a thought, though,” I said, before I could reconsider, “about Talsic. I know CENCA has a guesthouse for situations like this, but he does seem very particular about his environment. I could let him stay here, if he’d be more comfortable. I have plenty of space, and it could help me keep an eye on him, learn more about his situation, etc.”
And, crucially, if I was so open with my house, Stanton would never suspect what I was hiding under its roof.
Stanton laughed, a burst forced out by surprise. “You know, I rarely get to say this in our profession, but I think you can be way kinder than you need to be.” He shook his head, amused. “In this case I don’t believe it’d be necessary. Besides any other objections, we don’t know anything about him other than what he’s told us, so it would likely be… unwise to leave you alone with a complete stranger. And, as you said, CENCA has guesthouses for this very purpose. But, that is a kind thought, and, well, that’s something I appreciate about you.” He handed me another cup to carry, flashing me a bright smile as he passed by. “It’s one of the qualities that makes me glad you’re my partner.”
I could only hope he thought I was flustered as I remained rooted in place, robotically catching the cup. Calling me kind, saying he was glad to be my partner—that sickened me more than if he’d punched me in the gut. For a moment I stood, dimly realizing he had fixed my tea for me, on the verge of taking it all back, apologizing, arguing that I was the most duplicitous, two-faced liar in CENCA history. That I was deceiving him was bad—that he believed me so fully that even my lies commended me to him was worse.
“Hopefully they haven’t gotten too lonely without us,” he said, tossing another grin over his shoulder.
That snapped me out of it. If for no other reason, I couldn’t confess with two other witnesses in the house. Following after him, grabbing the digestives and balancing them between the mugs, I swallowed through a now tight, thick throat.
I need to get these people out of my house.
Everything had been high energy and stressful for the month at least, I had barely slept last night, and the pressure of my double life made me want to vomit at the very smell of tea. Neither had I eaten anything this morning, or last night. When was the last time I’d eaten a meal?
If I couldn’t get everyone out, soon, or if someone said one wrong word, I was going to have a meltdown that would definitely have Stanton reconsidering his decision to let me have the case.
The rest of their visit was faded into a blur of tight smiles, sparse words, and a throbbing behind my eyes. Somehow, I managed to maintain my façade, acting normal enough that no one commented—but every now and then I caught Stanton frowning at me. His concern largely manifested in handing me digestives at regular intervals, as if he suspected I was hungry.
But it wasn’t entirely wasted. Through the haze, I grasped several important things.
– Talsic called himself a silverie (not the same as a bronzeling, he was quite emphatic about that), and was from mountains further south.
– His crystaline horns worked like a compass and could tell him the way home, but that wasn’t happening. Other Mithecal functions of his (he did not elaborate) had also ceased.
– Silveries are sensitive to sunlight, and are typically nocturnal as a result.
– What he’d been investigating was, he though, some kind of meeting between humans and non-humans. He was worried about what might happen to his family if anyone else investigated, considering what had happened to him—but he never went back to what he’d been telling me before the arrival of the others. I decided not to comment.
– While I still couldn’t get a proper read on him, he did act pleased about me being the one to take his case. Looking back later, I would notice that, in contrast, he seemed wary of both Moira and Stanton; at the time I was too preoccupied to wonder.
– Stanton decided that my statement about the portal incident could wait, and that they’d be back tomorrow instead. I wasn’t to come in until Monday. Again, I offered to let Talsic stay, and again it was dismissed (as I had anticipated).
Once the impromptu meeting was all concluded, Stanton and Moira said they’d take him back to CENCA’s local guesthouse, by the base, and he began to bundle himself up. I promised I’d check on him soon, for which he thanked me.
On their way out, Stanton lagged behind to whisper, “are you sure you’re ready to take on another case?”
I mustered up as cheerful a grin as I could. “Yeah. Right now I’m just sleep-deprived. But I’ll head to bed early tonight, and I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”
“Alright,” he conceded, the crease in his brow warning me he remained unconvinced. “Until tomorrow, then. We’ll come a bit after lunch.”
And then they were gone.
I watched them drive off before sinking onto the couch, too exhausted to pay attention to my growling stomach.
I rallied before long, made food, rested, and got a start on the paperwork before giving up and going to bed. The morning, too, was unremarkable, and nothing notable happened until a bit after lunch.
The doorbell rang.
As expected, Moira and Stanton were there when I opened the door. In one hand, Stanton held a box that I couldn’t quite see, and Moira was smiling apologetically. Stanton, too—there was a tightness to his eyes. Behind them, Talsic was bundled (somehow) in even more fabric. He bowed at me.
As the cold winter air blew in, the certainty that my machinations had gone haywire anchored itself deep in my stomach. But it wasn’t like I could just close the door.
I bowed back, stepping aside to let them in with some polite welcome.
This would be okay, I decided. I could make this work. Somehow.
To Be Continued….