“Sounds perfect.” Layla set her menu aside and took up her wine as it arrived. It was delightful, crisp and sour like all good pinot grigios. Taking a sip of her espresso next, served with a sugar cube, Layla smiled, delighted. It was the best coffee she’d had outside of Seattle.
The server came around again and Tempeste ordered in fluent Italian with an odd guttural twist to it. Not writing anything down, the server nodded as her lovely gossamer ear-fins fluttered. Layla saw opalescent fins at her collarbones flutter also, and pegged her for a Saltwater Mermaid; a Lineage that frequently lived in coastal towns, whereas only Freshwater Mermaids were seen at the Paris Hotel. The pretty Mermaid server smiled as Tempeste finished his order, then hustled off.As their server moved away, Layla dug into her crostini, finding it perfectly toasted with a generous soaking of extra-virgin olive oil beneath the delicious olive tapenade. Ravenous, she had three pieces before she spoke again around a bite. “So. How do we find the Aviary?”
“Shush.” Tempeste glanced around, though the other tables near them weren’t occupied. “Let’s refer to it as… the Hope Diamond.”
“Isn’t that a bit obvious?” Layla frowned.
“People here don’t know or care about the Hope Diamond,” Tempeste snorted. “You were raised in the human world, remember?”
“Oh.” Layla chewed her crostini, then swallowed. “So how do we find the Hope Diamond?”
“We can go looking for it tonight, if you like.” Tempeste looked like he was about to say more when their seafood stew suddenly arrived, in a big ceramic crock. Bowls and deep spoons were set down and Layla salivated, smelling the most deliciouscioppinoshe’d ever encountered. They nodded their thanks to the waitress and ladeling generous amounts of stew into Layla’s bowl with a delighted smile, Tempeste continued as they dug in.
“Once we get close enough on the cliffs, you’ll feel a call from the feather, in the direction of the Hope Diamond. It’ll get stronger the closer you get. We have to be in the human world to feel it – the Hope Diamond is hidden in that realm rather than this one, another reason it’s so hard to find.”
“Yeah, why is that?” Layla asked around a bite of tomato-rich broth. A scallop-like object in her mouth popped as she chewed and she sighed in bliss, reveling in the exquisite texture and flavor. “Why are things harder to track magically if you’re in the human world?”
“Because the human world vibration is inherently without magic.” Tempeste chewed, wiping his lips with his white napkin in an effete gesture that reminded Layla of Reginald. “Magic is a finer vibration than the resonance of the human world, closer to the vibrations of an etheric realm. The human world is coarser, and finer resonances are generally lost there. Thus, they’re harder to track. It’s why your mother Mimi Zakir was able to hide herself, and you, in the human world. She had a talisman to aid her, but when someone of the Twilight Realm lives in the human world, their finer magical vibration essentially disappears into a coarse sea. Imagine slapping your hand into a bowl of water, and vibrating that water with a tiny diode at the same time. The fine vibrations from the diode will essentially become lost in the coarser vibrations of your slapping.”
“So how can glamours be applied in the human realm?” Layla took another bite of stew, enjoying a chewy nugget of mussel or oyster in the broth.
“They can’t.” Tempeste gave her a look. “Glamours have to be applied in the Twilight Realm, then you go into the human world and the glamour remains. They have to be re-charged, unless stabilized by a talisman, which holds the magic inside gems and rune work. It’s one of the many mysteries of the Hope Diamond, that it exists in the human world yet remains under a glamour so strong it’s practically un-locatable. And from the stories, magic is able to be worked there in full strength – don’t ask me how.”
“So how come I felt Adrian’s power when he and I touched in the art gallery back in Seattle?” Layla countered, digging into anything Tempeste would answer.
“Did you feel Adrian’s full strength that day?” Tempeste gave her a knowing look over his next bite of stew. “I’d wager not. And though your own power can rage in the human world, it will never be at full strength there. Why are there only ancient stories of Dragons among the human world? Because no Dragon has been able to shift in that magically-dead world for ages.”
“Could I have controlled myself from shifting if I’d remained in Seattle?” Layla asked, curious as she sipped her wine.
“Perhaps; perhaps not. Just because a Dragon hasn’t shifted in front of humans for centuries doesn’t mean other havoc can’t be wreaked.”
Finishing her wine, Layla conceded that was true. Reaching the end of her formidable bowl of stew, she sat back, breathing the fresh sea-scents and reveling in being full. As she and Tempeste sipped espresso, Layla gazed out to the twinkling lights of the sea-stacks with their precarious towers of houses perched on sheer cliffs. It all looked so impossible, the way those abodes were piled on top of each other, and yet she knew they had been secured by magic – probably stronger than any cement or steel available in the human world. Magic was confounding sometimes, and sometimes dangerous, but as she stared out over all the winsome glory, Layla realized it was also beautiful. Tempeste re-filled her wine from the carafe and they sipped, enjoying the deepness of the night.
At last, their meal was finished. Layla didn’t have room for dessert so they skipped it, paying with her Hotel credit card and sauntering from the cliff-bar with a hail of thanks to the waitress. As they moved back to the steps, Tempeste touched the mermaid post again. In a wave of light and disorientation, the cliff-bar disappeared, replaced by an empty swath of patio. With it went the colorful nighttime sea-stacks – the bustling city dying to a sleepy port-town once more.
It filled Layla with an indescribable sadness to watch it all disappear. As if the human world were darker with less color and gaiety, she felt the transition back to the place she’d once called home like a mist had rolled in through the harbor. It was as if everything had been swaddled in shades of grey, and moving down the whitewashed stairs, they meandered to the quay in silence.
Lights of boats twinkled in a placid sea beneath a sprawling dome of stars. Moving northwest along the old stone cliff-walk, they circumnavigated the headland, most of Manarola’s light soon disappearing from view. But as they lost sight of the city, Layla suddenly heard a call of birdsong in her ears. Halting, she blinked, realizing that they sounded like a tropical forest rather than anything active on the coast at night.
“I can hear them… Arini’s birds.” She spoke, reaching up to touch the silk pouch under her shirt. As she pressed the pouch to her chest, she suddenly felt a thrilling tremolo from Arini’s downy feather vibrating within.
“We’re close, then.” Glancing around, Tempeste motioned her on before him. “Move slowly along the cliff-walk. Find where it gets strongest.”
With a nod, Layla moved forward. As she stepped further along the stone walkway, high cliffs on one side and a sheer drop-off to the ocean on the other, she heard the birdsong in her ears crescendo, then fade. Retracing her steps, she found where the musical cacophony became strongest, at a piece of grassy cliff that jutted out past the stone walkway. Sitting on the retaining wall and sliding over to the unprotected side, Layla stood, listening to birds riot in her mind. She thought she felt a tug from the feather at her chest, as if it had connected to her heart and pulled her forward.
“Here.” She nodded at the short spar of grass, to where it dropped off to ocean nearly a hundred feet below. “This is the spot.”
“Walk forward, slowly, carefully.” Tempeste nodded at the place where the cliff dropped away in the midnight darkness. “If the bridge into Arini’s stronghold is active right now, you’ll step into his realm as you reach the end of the promontory. If not, I’m here to catch you.”
“What do you mean, active right now?” Layla glanced back with one eyebrow lifted, to glimpse Tempeste haloed by the stark glow of a porch-light far above the stone walk.
“Rumor has it there are certain times of day and night when the Aviary can’t be accessed.” Tempeste’s smile was wry by the light of the dwelling above. “Another precaution of the ancient magics that guard it. If the Aviary-access is active, you simply step onto the fortress bridge from the end of the promontory.”
“And if not?”
“You plummet to your death in the ocean.” Tempeste’s direct gaze was meaningful.
“Awesome. Fucking awesome.” Layla breathed, her heart hammering suddenly as her Dragon roiled in her veins, wide awake beneath Reginald’s gifts now that Heathren’s charm had finally worn off. But though she was terrified of simply stepping off into thin air and falling to her death in the crashing ocean below, her Dragon was strangely thrilled by the prospect of the test – like it was all some big, fun game.
