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Chapter Four

Four

Noel stepped into the dry desert that was Earth, her wing hem curling at the assault right on the tail of this afternoon’s. It has to be a punishment, she mused. No sooner had she gotten home than Sidriel’s reminder that she was to bring August back immediately had landed on her desk. That August had refused to cross the portal, even for a holo tour, held no sway with the old jin. But there were ways to force the issue, all of them working best when undiscovered.

An unpleasant sensation rippled over her wings, and she drew them close. She’d timed her arrival for dusk, and still it was painfully bright; the lights at the embassy’s portal floor were more intense than at home. Her people here were adapting, their comfort levels shifting until Earth’s natural light was tolerable. Which was irritating in itself. Welcome to your new hell, Noel, she thought, hating the idea that her body would change: her fingers shorten, her eyes thicken, her wings become useless. This wasn’t Puck’s paradise. This was Puck’s hell.

“Madam Noel,” the portal agent said as he handed her a moist-air canister. “I didn’t realize you were returning. What may I assist you with?”

Eyes nictitated, she reached for the canister and took a sip of air. “This is appreciated,” she said, relieved. “I need to speak to August.”

The agent’s wing hem curled in a soft hush of sound. The Earth-side interview had been hours ago. The portal floor was almost abandoned. It was obvious that no one had expected her return. “I think he’s in his room. May I escort you to the receiving desk?” the aide said, and Noel shook her head. It was only a few steps, and the young jin waiting there had already stood. Pulling her basket of blok fruit tighter, Noel gave the agent a wing-knuckle crack and headed over.

The fruit had been tainted with a toxin that acted too fast for their spark-assisted metabolism to negate. Undetectable, it would make August ill enough to force a return home. And once there, he would remain. And I will be forced to abide here, she thought, worried for him. Worried for herself. It was a bad situation, but if she didn’t have a reason for him to stay other than that he could tell when they lied, she had no way of saying no to the old jin.

Guilt pricked at her as she imagined his distress, and her wing knuckles rose over her head until she noticed and forced them down. You never should have come here, August, she thought as she glanced through several panes of glass to the courtyard and its tree. Leaving the embassy had been a huge error in the mer’s judgment. It had been born of his desire to explore what Earth had to offer, and now neither of them would get what they wanted, him sent home and her forced to take his place. Puck take it, she thought as she reached the desk and the flustered jin clamped her wings closed in respect.

“I’m here to go over a few things with August,” Noel said pleasantly as the red jin almost bowed. “Is he in his quarters?” True, her people didn’t lie, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t. It was simply so easy to tell that they seldom did.

“Madam Noel. Of course. I’ll alert him of your arrival and arrange for an escort.”

Her eyes were on the basket, and Noel flicked aside the silken covering to show her. “An escort isn’t necessary,” Noel said, not liking her subservient attitude. “I know the floor plan. Just tell me where I can find him.”

“Yes, madam. He’s in one of the private residences reserved for the permanent Earth-side employees. It’s directly across the courtyard in the new annex.” Her multitude of wing rings jingled as she pointed through the courtyard. “You can go through the observation lounge, or round through the barracks. A new door has been installed to connect both sides.”

Through the barracks? Not even on a day with no wind. “I’ll go through the lounge,” she said, glancing at the hall-like room. It had been from here that the humans had watched her kin, and a dry humor took her in that the glass hadn’t been replaced, leaving an awkward three-foot-high wall and a useless air lock.

Her steps were silent as she passed through the hall toward the newly opened area of the embassy, raising her wing knuckles to those who noticed her but not pausing for conversation. A group of mers and jins clustered about a human in one of the common areas. Will? she wondered, unable to tell. Apart from height, hair, and skin color, they all looked alike, especially when they kept changing their clothes. August, though, didn’t seem to have a problem.

Whispers filtered into the passageway from open doors. They were muted and dull, hard to understand through the dry air. The medical reports claimed that the distortion lasted a week, something she wasn’t looking forward to. Puck take you, Sidriel.

She glanced at the courtyard as she made her way around it, her sure pace faltering when she realized that the dark sky wasn’t a layer of cloud, but open air, dark from a lack of light. She was looking at space, and it was unsettling.

The abnormality of it struck her more certainly and deeper than even the air she couldn’t breathe as she passed into a small, deserted lounge and even the soft sounds of distant conversation abated. The six private rooms, medical lab, and the small waiting room had recently been given to their use. It had been designed for a human medical staff, and as one of the eleven permanently Earth-side agents, August ranked a large private room.

“Paranoid,” Noel whispered, shaking her head at the amount of space the humans had reserved for medical emergencies. It was extravagant, even for a facility designed to quarantine the potentially ill. But the longer she studied them, the more obvious it became that humans had a lot of issues. They were a middling species. They couldn’t fly and were not very durable, being neither exceptionally strong nor possessing a large range of tolerances, if their constantly changing attire was any indication. And though they were long-lived and could procreate in sufficient numbers, their maturation to that point was slow.

Taking the Earth in a leisurely conquest would not be difficult. Humans had so little to stop a subjugation, and their own desire for the more and the better would make them willing accomplices. And you want me here, why? she mused. Was she that difficult to work through? Had the truth of her original press release posed that much of a threat?

“August?” Noel called, surprised when she found the dark mer not at rest in a repair sling, but standing at a raised table, his battered wings held at an awkward angle. The colorful patches of tape gave him an almost feminine look now that he wasn’t in his ring uniform, at odds with the new scrape on his horn. He’d never etched them, and the new rough-and-tumble scruff made him appear…unexpectedly attractive.

“Madam Noel.” He turned, his eyes nictitating briefly in pain as his wings shifted. “I didn’t know you were coming,” he added, glancing at his wrist holo as it dinged to announce her presence. Clearly befuddled, he touched his casual body wrap. It was loose for ease of movement, more aligned with sleeping than meeting the woman signing your pay release.

“I wanted to assure myself of your condition after such a trying day,” she said as she came forward, the back of her hand extended for a low greeting. “Why are you still working?”

“It keeps my mind occupied. It’s good to see you,” he said, somewhat wary as he touched her hand with his. “Strong updrafts.”

“Strong updrafts,” she repeated as she set her basket on the desk. Guilt twitched through her as his eyes went to the basket. They were completely unnictitated in the bright light, filling her with envy and dread both. I don’t want to change. I don’t. “You will be pleased that after I consulted with my team, they have agreed that you can do your holo tour remotely,” she lied, stifling a wing twitch.

Immediately his shoulders drooped in relief. “Thank you, Noel. Renee will be pleased.”

“Mmmm.” She couldn’t look at him, and Noel reluctantly pulled the drape from the basket. She didn’t want to sicken him, but she could see no other way. If she didn’t get him across the portal, Sidriel would find another way to steal his updraft. Permanently. “I brought you a blok fruit,” she said, glad he had turned his attention to the dull purple orb the size of two fists. “You could use the extra protein to heal your wings.”

“Privilege bestows gracious gifts.” August flipped his tablet over to close out his session. “Thank you. They’re beginning to itch already. The peanut butter this afternoon was tasty after I got past the texture, but it took me all day to get it out of my teeth.”

Does he know I’m lying? How can he not tell? “Are you sure it’s from a plant?” Noel asked to cover her unease, and August grimaced.

“If Renee says it is, it is.” He pulled the basket closer. “This lifts my wings,” he added. “They call it butter because of the consistency. Which is awful.”

Truer words have not been spoken, Noel thought, taking the fruit from him. “I’ll fix it for you,” she said, flustered. “If I take the skin back, no one will be the wiser. They haven’t officially been cleared, and I probably won’t allow it. The Piers go through any excess we might have.”

August glanced at the archway to the empty common hall. “There are glasses in the medical lab.”

But his motions were slow and pained as he turned to get them, and Noel winced. “One is fine,” she said loudly as he vanished into a back room. Her raised voice sounded wrong in her ears. “I brought it for you, and you’re working. No need to get your hands sticky.”

August hesitated in the open doorway, two beakers in his hands. “I can’t ask you to squeeze my blok fruit,” he said, then his eyes nictitated at the unintended innuendo.

“Sit,” Noel said, her wing knuckles dropping in mirth. “Or, ah, stand. You’re…” Her words faltered as her mood crashed. “… compromised,” she finally finished, when the reality was he looked as if he had been flung up against a cliff and battered himself all the way to the bottom. “August. You need to come home. If only for a Pier to heal your wings.”

Gaze down, he shook his head. He set the beakers beside the basket, then retreated to a stool where he could sit without folding his wings. “I’m learning too much to leave, even for a day. Just yesterday I settled the question of if we can fly here.” He wryly looked at his scraped arm. “It’s only a few scratches. I gained worse playing rings.”

“I don’t like seeing you like this, and I didn’t like Earth seeing you like this even more.”

“It’s done, and I am not leaving,” he said firmly, and Noel cracked her toes in annoyance. “So what if they see us vulnerable? I’d think it would reassure them.”

“Perhaps.” Guilt made her slow as she nicked the end of the oval fruit and a juice so dark as to be almost black stained her finger.

“You’re like Little Red Riding Hood,” August said, and she looked up in question. “Bringing a basket of goodies to her ailing grandmother,” he added, pointing to an open book on the desk.

Her long fingers still encircling the unsqueezed fruit, Noel leaned to look. The human print was ridiculously plain and somewhat ugly, but the accompanying image was truly captivating with its tall, thick-topped trees and flowers growing in a preposterous profusion. There was a small human with a basket, but Noel did a double take at the malevolent figure watching the child from behind a tree. “That looks like a Hirwofa,” Noel said.

“It does, doesn’t it.” August winced in pain as he came closer. “It’s a book of children’s stories, and I think it curious that it tells of Nix, piscys, and Hirwofas.” His eyes met hers. “Renee gave it to me. I think the Nix might have managed a gate during the portal wars and some escaped here, using the creation energy they brought to appear human. Look at this.”

A cold feeling took her as he flipped through the pages, and images of piscys, Nix, and other fantastical beings she’d never seen spilled forth, large and fearsome, breathing fire while on the wing.

“I’ve seen other stories like this in their holo records, too,” August said, attention on the book as well. “All to entertain. And not just children, but adults.”

“Truly.” Her pulse was fast, and Noel returned to the blok fruit. “How long do you think they survived here?” Hands steady, she squeezed the juice out, and a musky, coppery sent rose as she filled the glass and turned the plump fruit into a rag of skin. “Many generations surely if they made stories about them.”

“Perhaps not.” August took a step back and stretched his wings. “Humans make stories as quickly as a piscy lays eggs. Humans might not know of creation energy or sparks, but they have clearly been exposed to what they can do.”

“Have you seen any indication if they are still sensitive to it?” she asked, profoundly glad that August wasn’t looking at her but at that book.

“No,” he said, his eyes nictitated.

He’s hiding something. Suspicious, she dropped the skin into the basket and wiped her hands clean on the silk covering. “August, are you sure you won’t come back?”

“I can’t leave Renee.” He closed the book and pulled himself to a pained, straight stiffness. “She’s been confined because Gorman claims that Renee was the one who told him I’d be at the zoo.” He looked at the juice but made no move toward it.

“Renee would not do that,” she said, and August clicked in relief. “She has been nothing but helpful. If I had thought otherwise, I wouldn’t have allowed you to make that recording with her.”

August’s head bobbed. “It steals my updraft that Gorman’s lies have damaged her credibility. I’m worried that if I leave, he will be a continuing problem, restrained or not.”

“Because he lies?” Noel pushed the beaker of juice closer. The sooner he took it, the sooner she could leave with him. And the sooner I have to take his place. Piscy piss…

“No. Because he tells just enough truth for others to believe his lies.”

He had taken up the glass, staring at nothing, and Noel forced her wing knuckles down. Is he going to drink it or not? Her own throat was like dust. Once she got August home, she would petition Sidriel to allow her to remain at home as well. Beg her. She’d rather live in the mountain wilds than here.

“You will keep me informed of any developments if it’s found who is responsible?” she prompted as she took the basket in hand as if to leave, and August seemed to rally.

“I will.” He set the glass down. “I know Gorman lies, but on the whole, humans are worthy of knowing. They live in such a chaotic world holding so much that it makes them equally good and bad. They need both traits to survive here.”

She hesitated, her basket looped over her arm. “Their world is that savage? Perhaps we can tame it for them.”

“As we have tamed ours?” August’s wings rose high in distress, colorful tape pulling to make him grip his wing hem. “Yes, they have learned to lie in order to survive, but I’ve gotten better in telling when they do, which helps negate the annoyance. I think they do it sometimes to make their world easier to live in. Noel, I know you want me to come home, but I like the variety. The zoo…” His breath came fast, a rush of blood darkening his wings. “I walked within an enclosure of animals called birds, not just one kind, but many, all able to fly and eat and nest at will. Living ambassadors, Renee called them.”

“As are we,” she said, but he wasn’t listening.

“The colors and shapes I saw,” he gushed, coming closer in his zeal. “Each bird suited to a small slice of needs so that all may partake and survive in a small system. It’s ingenious, actually, all their individual needs so precise that they minimize friction. The animals here evolved to share the world even as they strive to overwhelm it. Not like us, who have striven so deeply and so long that nothing survives but us.”

“Us?” Noel lifted her wings in annoyance. “It was the Nix who destroyed our world, decimating it with their pest species.”

August’s eyes nictitated briefly. “I don’t want to argue,” he said as he eased back onto the stool. “I only wanted to tell you what I see in them and why I want to stay. “They’re curious about everything. Renee…sometimes her thoughts are not viable, but they lead to others that are inspiringly creative. Just last week—”

“Tell me how those who excel at lying can be good at protecting anything but themselves,” Noel interrupted as she took up the beaker and handed it to him. Is he waiting for me to leave?

August stared into the black juice as if able to see the future. “I can’t,” he said. “Empathy is their defining characteristic, Noel. Empathy even as they struggle. Protect even as they harm. It’s their very fragility that gives them strength.”

Fragile… she thought, her annoyance that he had yet to drink faltering. “You were together when Gorman found you?” Her gaze darted to his scraped wings. “She looked well at the holo taping. How did she escape damage? You were carrying her. Fell ten wingspans through a web of natural wood fibers and onto engineered rock.”

“ Chrrr… ” August’s eyes nictitated, and Noel’s suspicion deepened. “I was. She was hurt. The sound she made. I’ll never forget it.”

“Then how…” Noel felt the blood drain from her wings as August turned away. “They can use creation energy,” she whispered, fear and excitement making her ill. “They can use creation energy as do the Piers to heal themselves and others. Why did she not heal you?”

“She didn’t heal herself. She didn’t heal anything.” August’s wings clamped. “Noel…”

Noel stood before August, seeing the truth of it. Puck take it, this was what they were afraid of. Humans could use creation energy. And when they found out, it would be disaster again. But her people couldn’t abandon Earth. Not now. She might not agree with Sidriel’s methods, but on this they were united. “Are you sure Renee did nothing?” she asked, and August’s jaw tightened.

“No,” he said, his small voice making him sound unsure. “Possibly?” he added, head rising. “I may have been knocked unconscious for a time. She was odd afterward. I wrapped my wings around her and protected her from the worst.”

He is lying. Humans still retained the capacity to use creation energy. Being able to heal was not a huge obstacle to overcome. It hadn’t helped the Piers. But Sidriel said the hidden histories claimed humans could snap, and glamour, and see the past and future—everything all at once. And with that, they could drive her kind away.

Not this time…

“You saved her from damage,” Noel said in agreement, suddenly alarmed at the glass in his hand. He had to stay here. August was their best tool to find out how far this went. No one else had noticed. Perhaps Renee could only use his spark. If so, this could be contained.

“By wrapping my wings about her.” August winced, his lie obvious, and Noel bobbed her head, willing to let him think she believed him.

As if feeling her suspicion, August stood unmoving, glass in hand. “It happened so fast. I don’t know.”

But he did.

An easy-to-read lie is as good as hearing the truth. “Mmmm.” She inched closer, intent on the glass of juice. If he drank it now, he’d have to go home. Sidriel would take things into her own hands. As long as he was here, she had control. I have control as long as he’s here. That’s why Sidriel wants him home.

“August, if they have a larger affinity to the spark than do the Piers, we need to know.” She reached to put a hand on his shoulder, intentionally tripping and knocking into him.

August yelped, the fast movement to catch his balance making his wings flash open. The glass of black juice tipped, and Noel gave it a smack, her wings snapping open to pull her back. August caught his weight, gasping at the pain as the beaker fell to send black juice like blood across the matted floor.

“I’m so sorry, are you okay?” Noel reached for his shoulder, holding it as he shuddered in pain.

“I’m fine,” he wheezed, head still down. “Give me a moment…”

“It’s going to stain. I’m so sorry. I’m so clumsy here.” But inside, fear tripped down to her wing tips. August would stay. She would retain a fingerhold of control. Sidriel would let him remain if she claimed August, and August alone, could give her a definitive answer to whether humans could use spark energy. They needed to know how far and how close the affinity was between humans and creation sparks. If the stories were true or just stories. “And I’ve ruined your treat. I’ll have an entire box sent.”

“I’m fine.” August straightened, his wings held apart from his body as he tried to catch his breath. “I need to bathe, anyway. The showers here are amazing.”

She dropped to her knees, wings spread behind her as she tried to mop it up with the silken cloth she had brought, not because she was worried about stains, but to hide her lies. “August, I want you to question Renee in greater detail. Do your best to find out how deep their affinity goes, if they have one, but do it in a way that she doesn’t know what you’re asking.”

Noel looked up from the floor. He’d backed away, the distance making her suspicious. In a smooth movement, she got to her feet and dropped the rag into her basket with the blok fruit rind. “Until we know, it may be better not to explain what spark energy is. No need to dangle abilities they will never be able to have in front of them. It might create bad feelings.”

“I understand.”

“It’s not as if they will ever get creation sparks of their own,” she said, and his wings finally began to ease. “I’m going to have a sleeping pod sent over,” she added. “You are a mer, August, and they are humans. Celebrate our differences. Use them to create a bridge, not a wall.” She shook her wings to ease her tension, and her hem rings chimed. “I should go. You’re tired.” And I have a jin’s mind to change.

“I’ll walk you to the labyrinth.”

Noel shook her head and began to move toward the door. Sidriel must be told. “No. I know the way.”

He looked down, bandaged hand touching his chest. “Strong updraft, Madam Noel.”

“Steady wings, August,” she said in turn, then left, not liking that the juice from the tainted blok fruit was staining her fingers like blood. She could tell Sidriel without any trace of falsehood that August had seen hints that humans could use creation energy, but that he wasn’t sure of their abilities or, more importantly, if humans could use any spark or only one belonging to a mer or jin they were familiar with. August had the best chance of finding out. That he was lying about it made no difference when the truth was so easy to see.

Noel sighed in relief, her steps easy now as she made her way to the labyrinth. The truth behind the lie made August’s position here immutable, and with that, she could remain where she belonged, on the right side of the portal and away from this hellhole of Puck’s inferno.

She’d feel guilty about it if the mer hadn’t made it obvious he liked it here.

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