“Oh! Can I see your home?” That perked her up.
“We could stop there and pick up some of my things if you really want to. It’s very humble,” I warned her. I’d enjoyed my years living in my apartments, but I had no way of knowing what she would make of the simple style of lodging.
“I still want to see it,” she said, her curiosity shining through.
Her questions continued as I led her into the station to buy our tickets—“How did the humans survive without magic? Where did they keep the animals that pulled the parked cars? Was there someone inside the ticket machine? How did they get the glass windows so thin and clear?”—until I had to coax her through the process of using the “moving stairs” to get to the upper platform. I continued to scan our surroundings, unable to shake the feeling of an eerie presence like something was lurking, but as far as I was aware, the only thing out of place was the craven desire that had been haunting my every breath since joining with her.
The train was loud when it arrived, making her cringe away from the sound, but she followed me onto the rail cars when the doors opened. We seated ourselves away from the doors, and Celeste kept her small bag in her lap with her hands laced over the top of it protectively while she stared at the inside of the metal car with visible apprehension.
“Will you tell me about your trinkets?” I asked, nodding to the bag. I was curious about the meaning behind the little items she’d chosen to bring with her from Faery, and I hoped that talking about something familiar to her would help to ease some of her anxiety in this new situation.
She blinked at me and seemed to only then remember that she was holding them. “Oh, yes.” Opening the cloth bag that she cradled in her lap, she pulled out the small wooden box she’d brought and opened the latch. Inside were a handful of tiny, carved figurines made of stone. “They were my friends,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “They’re just little animal carvings,” she explained as she plucked one out, holding it up for me to take as the train began to move.
I plucked it from her fingers and assured her that all was well when she gripped the armrests of her seat and gave me a startled expression. “This is normal,” I said to reassure her. “Tell me about this one,” I said, holding up the carving. It was a shiny, pale-green stone with white threaded through it, similar to a piece of jade. The other pieces in her box were different pale colors of similar stone—pinks and blues and a few light browns. “That one is an irin,” she said, referring to the mounts they rode, “and this one—” She paused to pick out a blue piece. “—is a bear. I’ve got a bird, and a mouse, and a cat, too.” She passed them to me, each in turn, all of them about an inch tall and simply carved.
“How did you come to have them?” I asked, passing the last one back to her. I kept my focus split between her and the rail car, careful not to let myself become too distracted by this intriguing insight into something important to her.
She tucked them carefully back into their box and closed the lid and latch before returning the whole thing securely to her bag. “My uncle gave them to me one at a time when I was little. He would visit other kingdoms as an emissary, and when he returned, he always brought me a new one if he could find one. They’re made from a really common gemstone found in Faery, but I loved them. I didn’t have many friends growing up, mostly just Apollo and my brother and sister, so when they were busy, I would imagine that the little animals were my friends and come up with little adventures in my mind. I have jewels and gowns and fancy artworks, but there’s something about these cute little carved animals that makes me happy to look at them.”
An announcement from the speakers let us know that we were arriving at the next station, which was our stop.
“Which one is your favorite?” I asked as the train began to slow.
“The irin,” she answered immediately. “I always thought they were the most enchanting creatures.”
“Thank you for sharing them with me.”You’re not alone anymore.
Her answering smile as we rose and made our way off the train made my heart beat faster. Someday I would ask her more about them—what caused the color variations in them, which ones had been given to her first, what her imaginings had consisted of. But for now, we had a Gate to find.
The guard at this one was a man with obvious elvish ancestry who barely acknowledged us as we passed through. Gateways within the Void were much more spartan than the ones in the Boundlands, and generally sported the same metal signage found on highways—clear, concise, easily legible, but entirely lacking in any kind of character.
Snowgard was an elvish town in the far north that seemed to do brisk business with Amsterdam and was at least five times the size of Bhalden’s Post. I hired a small wyvern drawn carriage from the bevy of coachmen lining the street at the gate, hoping to spare Celeste the exertion of riding horseback any more than necessary.
“Would you like to stop at one of the restaurants here for lunch?” I asked as we passed through a business district. Our destination was on the far side of the city, and I was genuinely concerned about her energy levels. A break would probably be good for her. I was just about to ask the driver for a dining recommendation when she shook her head absently as she watched the shops and diners go by.
“No, I don’t want to stop,” she said lightly, surprising me.
I frowned at her. “It’s lunch time.” It was a little past lunch time here, but it was lunch time according to what our bodies were used to from our time at Sorrow’s Keep. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“A bit,” she admitted, turning to me. “But I can just eat some of the snacks that Helda packed us.” Her smile was earnest, but I felt like I was missing something. I dug one of the miniature cakes out of my bag to hand to her, and as she politely accepted, I raised an eyebrow, waiting.
She bit her bottom lip, trying to keep her grin from widening. “The faster we leave the sooner I can… ” Her words cut off, but her gaze dropped to my lap before returning to meet my eyes again with a knowing look.
I grabbed the corner of my cloak and stuffed it over my lap, feeling my face and ears grow hot. Evidently, I hadn’t been doing as well as I thought hiding this new unrelenting need that vexed me to no end. She tossed me a flirty smile and took another bite out of her cake, which only made me grow harder. For a brief moment I considered asking our driver to divert and take us to the nearest hotel. We could stay the night and finish our journey tomorrow. Until I remembered that my friends were expecting us, and Levi had already told Lysander I was coming. I couldn’t bear to disappoint that little face. I closed my eyes and groaned, letting my head thump against the back of the carriage, but I couldn’t help but be smitten when Celeste giggled in response. This was torture.
The elvish guard at the São Paulo Gateway greeted me, but only managed to give Celeste a wary glance before we slipped through the Gate amongst the long line of people entering the city. It was startlingly warm once we stepped out into one of the parks near the city’s center. Trees towered overhead, blocking out the view of the nearby buildings and providing ample shade for the moment. We moved off the wide footpath out of the way of the elvish commuters to remove her cloak and outer layers of our clothing, placing the extra garments into our bags before making our way to the edge of the park.
Celeste’s mouth dropped open when we reached the street, clearly shocked at the abrupt change in our surroundings. “Wherearewe?” Her eyes were the biggest I’d ever seen them as she took in the masses of buildings that suddenly crowded the skyline.
“The largest city in the southern hemisphere,” I explained as I fished my phone out of my bag, trying to pay attention to both her and our surroundings. The niggling thought that I shouldn’t have her here in the Void still bothered me, but I was beginning to think that was just my mind reacting to the vulnerable nature of having Celeste in a place like this with prowling spirits and no sustaining magic.
“What is that?” Celeste asked, looking at my phone.
“It’s like a calling stone, only with more cat videos,” I explained.And less useful. A small prayer for a decent amount of battery formed on my lips as I powered it on, and I was relieved to see I had more than enough to order a ride-share to the next Gate. “I’m arranging our transportation.” There was a cafe with outdoor seating farther down the block, so I led her to one of the covered tables while we waited for our ride.
“Why do people call you so many different things?” Celeste asked me as we took our seats, her attention seemingly focused on the architecture and masses of people around us. “The guard at the last Gate called you Reaper. Do you want me to call you something else? No one seems to call you Victor but me.” The frisson I felt when her gaze momentarily touched mine made my skin prickle.
I watched the crowd, people meandering through street vendors and looking in storefront windows as I considered her question. “I feel like the names people give me relate more to who I am to them than whoI amto myself. To my family I am Vitya, or occasionally Victor. To friends and acquaintances, I am Grim. To the souls I protect, I am Death. To strangers in the Boundlands, I am a Reaper, and to your people, I amVeardur. To my closest friends, I am something else entirely.” I had no idea how I was going to explain the “Eeyore” moniker Levi—and, therefore, now also his son—bestowed upon me. I studied Celeste’s face, wishing I were better with my words. “I like my name, Victor. Not many people actually call me that, so it feels special coming from you.”
