2. Peace & Quiet

2

Peace I'd expected more excitement out of living in one of the famous Spires.

Then Marin took me up to the greenhouses.

I had never seen anything like them. They stretched up for three stories and more than a hundred feet, with full trees growing up through large holes in the upper floors. Birds twittered up in the branches of those trees, in many colors and varieties. The entire ceiling was composed of paneled lights, shining with false sunlight, and the greenhouses were gardens unto themselves, with automated watering, dense beds of plants, and labels for every pot.

And that was just the greenhouse for the Material Plane.

The other three greenhouses contained plants unlike anything I'd seen before, from trees down to mosses and lichens. There were ponds and streams with fish, and insects and birds I couldn't have imagined. Small, jewel-toned six-legged geckos clung to the walls and plants in Abyssal, and long, white, fern-like tendrils glowed where they grew down from floating stones in the eternal night of Celestial, occasionally curling up as pale, many-winged moths blundered into them. Furred creatures the size of mice flitted through Ethereal on gleaming insect wings, sipping from enormous, vibrant flowers.

Marin was patient; she let me explore the three stories of the greenhouses for the better part of an hour, answering the questions that she knew and redirecting the rest of them with, "Kaylor would know best, I think . " But, at last, she laughed and told me I'd be spending plenty of time here in my future, and that if we didn't go back downstairs, dinner would burn. So I extracted myself from my examination of an enormous, reddish lichen with shocking purple spurs, and headed back downstairs with her.

Once I verified that Bashen had been right, and I could claim some supplies from Barixeor's stocks, I went back into some of the general storage and started hunting. While I had clothing that would serve for gardening, I'd sold all of the good-quality garments I'd owned, save for my boots, and both Marin and Bashen had worn well-made clothing, without darns or heavy wear. I spent some time looking for things that would suit, and went back upstairs to 14 Sky with an armful of folded clothing, and a plain, thick wool coat that would do well for working outdoors while it was still chilly.

Even holding the clothing left me shaky with relief, to the point of tears. I had five years of safety and nice things to look forward to, standing in the most powerful protection available to me. I would get to be clean. I would get to wear clothing without holes or worn spots. My body could learn to complain again at the cold, instead of the weary resignation I had so often felt over the past winter.

I spent the evening trying to settle into my new, enormous home, my emotions swinging wildly between tearful relief, eager excitement, and the sense of being a dirty little creature accidentally caught somewhere I wasn't meant to be. I'd never in my life had so much space, nor ever hoped to, and the space alone was only the first of the luxuries in the suite.

The rooms were subdivided, with an entry-room, sitting-room, and office in the earth room, and a large bedroom with a couch and table and a small bathing-room with an attached privy in the water room. All of the furniture was excellent, in very old styles, and the bathing-room had not only running water, but running hot water. The clothing I'd brought and the clothing I'd taken from storage didn't even begin to fill the standing wardrobe in the bedroom. It was more than I'd had in a long time, though, and I decided not to feel self-conscious about it. If I needed more clothing, I could take more, and it wouldn't put a dent in the supplies available in Barixeor.

I had so few keepsakes left. I'd fled the wizard with what I could carry on my back, and left behind anything that I thought he might have put an enchantment on, or been familiar enough with to track easily. I was pathetically weak, as far as power was considered, with ley impact more akin to simple animals than the average human. It made me close to impossible to dowse for, as long as I stayed in motion, but worked objects were easier to track than changeable humans.

I'd left them behind: my parents' wedding rings, the pearl on a fine gold chain that had been my great-grandmother's, the carved horse my best friend had made me, the watercolor painting my mother had done of toddler-me sitting in a field of wildflowers. But I put the few things I had left on my bedside table, setting the two small rocks from my parents' graves on top of the plain wooden box I'd bought to put their courtship love-letters in, and the dried sprigs of herbs I'd taken from the family garden beside them.

I kissed my fingers and pressed them to the wooden box, blinking away the tears that still sometimes rose without me calling them. It had been only three years since I'd lost them to the fire, and everything had changed so badly for me.

"We're safe, now," I whispered to the stones that were all I had left of their burying. "It's going to be okay."

The one from my father's grave was some sort of dark, fine-grained stone, about an inch across, and lumpy, with little glints of mica that reminded me of how he had always been laughing and smiling. The one from my mother's grave was a chunk of quartz, white and rough, because she had always been picking up "gemstones" just like it, and adding them to her collection of quartzes in all the windowsills.

After a few minutes, I took a deep breath and got up off of the large bed, walking over to one of the windows and staring out across the dark landscape. Moonlight glinted off of the waters of the lake. I thought again of the blue-eyed man who had looked up out of the water at me, and shivered. I'd been the focus of a beautiful, powerful man's curiosity before, and look where it had gotten me. I suspected, based on what Marin had said, that the water-horse would be curious about me for a while, because I was new and he was ancient. But I could bear being watched from afar, until he grew used to me and returned to his normal patterns. I would do my best not to draw Tsirisma Lake's attention, and, when Barixeor again had a sorcerer, not to draw theirs, either.

I turned away from the view over the lake and went into the private bathing-room in my suite to wash myself. It wasn't luxurious, but the shower and tub were better than anything I'd had access to in a long time, and the bathing-room came fully stocked with everything one could need. I scrubbed my whole body and washed my hair three times before it finally felt clean, and trimmed my fingernails and toenails while they were still wet. My hair was ratty towards the ends, from poor care and over a year without being trimmed, but it was long enough to be pulled back into a simple twist and held up with a hair-claw, and that hid the uneven split ends.

When the clock in my room neared eight in the evening, I headed down to 1 Sky, wearing one of the new outfits I'd claimed from storage. It was an older style of clothing, but straightforward and comfortable, a well-made skirt in a dark rust that came down just past my knees over a pair of loose brown leggings, and a long-sleeved pale yellow shirt laced at the throat. I found Marin in the kitchen with an older, balding man, who got up when I came into the room.

"You must be Safira," he said, in a pleasant, scratchy voice, and held out his hand to shake mine.

I took it, feeling the hard calluses on his hands, and smiled. "That's me," I replied. "And you must be Mister Kaylor, my master for the next six weeks."

He chuckled and sat back down, so I did so, as well.

"Aye, and well met, Safira," Kaylor said. "These old bones are too tired to keep up a garden and the greenhouses, even if the greenhouses mostly tend themselves. I'm looking forward to a quiet retirement."

I smiled at him, enjoying his comfortable nature. In his younger years, he must have been quite the handsome fellow, with those near-black eyes, deep umber skin, and easy smile. Kaylor must have been lean and strong in his youth. As an older man, he was wiry and spry, with a well-groomed white beard that offset his bald pate.

"Still wanting quiet, after all these years?" Marin asked, setting down plates in front of us. She gave me a generous helping of roast, so tender it was falling apart, with cooked potatoes and carrots, and a small heap of steamed peas.

Kaylor laughed at that, picking up his fork and knife and digging right into his food while she went back over to get her own.

"After all these years, can't say I'll ever want anything different," he said. "When you've known peace, do you ever really want to jump into the chaos again?"

Marin's bright laughter answered him as she brought over two glasses of water, and took a seat at the table with us.

"You know I don't," she said. "While I'd enjoy a challenge in the kitchen from time to time, I'm not going to trade solitude away for that."

I started eating, enjoying the good food and happy for the camaraderie.

"What about you, lass?" Kaylor asked. "You looking forward to some peace and quiet?"

I smiled for him, though what I was really looking forward to was respite from the constant fear and the toll of always running. "A little peace is just what I've been looking for," I said, with as much good humor as I could muster. "And Barixeor Spire is in as beautiful a place as I could hope for. It's a pity about the lake, though, as I do love to swim."

Marin smiled, the sort of smile of one holding back laughter, and shook her head. "I wouldn't, if I were you."

I laughed at that. Goodness, I couldn't even imagine. Given that the lake was equivalent to the water-horse's body, such a thing seemed like it would be beyond invasive, if it wasn't something that he welcomed.

"Believe me, I have no intention of being at all forward with Tsirisma Lake," I said. "Invitation only, and I'm not likely to get one," I added, drawing an X over my heart. "Besides, aren't lakes like this usually cold?"

"Can't say I know," Marin said. "I've never touched it. But 'Tsirisma' means something like 'steaming', there's a hot spring on the island, and the lake doesn't ever freeze over all the way, so it might not be that cold."

I sighed, putting some drama into it, and both of them smiled at me, the corners of Kaylor's eyes crinkling with his amusement.

"Such a shame," I said. "Though I suppose it's nice to have such a devoted guardian."

Marin shrugged one shoulder. "Not much to guard against, out here."

"Part of the charm," Kaylor replied, and they smiled at each other.

We chatted about unimportant things for the rest of dinner, with Kaylor mentioning that he wanted to show me the gardens in the morning, and then spend the afternoon walking me through the work that needed to be done over the course of the next fortnight. I told him that I was more than ready to start working, which seemed to please him. Once dinner was done, I took my own things to the sink, but Marin chased me off before I could start to wash them, telling me in no uncertain terms that the kitchen was her domain, and I was not to help.

So I went up to my suite again and perused the two bookcases in the office, hoping for a good distraction. One of them held basic reference works for a wide variety of topics. I found books on deportment, service, history, beekeeping, mushroom foraging, creative writing, art, myths and legends, and how to communicate using fans, among others. The other bookcase held mostly light reading, from romances to adventure-tales and mysteries. I liked reading, though I wasn't an avid reader by any stretch of the imagination, and I didn't like the sort of stories that ended up murky and full of gray decisions.

I ran my forefinger down the spine of a familiar romance novel, one that I'd once loved. Once, I'd believed in such things, but I was wiser, now.

I settled instead for a book on local pollinators, and read about butterflies and beetles for an hour before getting ready for bed. Once there, though, I stared at the vague darkness of the ceiling, still feeling tense and unsettled. Part of that had to just be a holdover from the fifteen months on the run. I knew that Barixeor Spire was as safe a place as could be found. It was remote, there were very few people here, the confluence would erase any trace of me, and the utilities run by mages, including their methods of hiring, were notoriously close-mouthed and prioritized discretion. I doubted that even the wizard would be able to pry the information of what jobs I'd applied for from them, let alone where I'd been hired.

But part of it, too, was that I wasn't here because of some deep-seated longing for solitude. I'd liked being around people, though I had never been a social butterfly. I knew I'd miss having close friends, and near-constant companionship. Marin had called Barixeor "lonely," and I knew that I would be lonely here. But I'd be safe, and I'd be able to garden, and I'd have the beautiful greenhouses to lift my soul. The most dangerous thing here was the water-horse of Tsirisma Lake, and he could easily be avoided. I was safe here, and that's what mattered, so I closed my eyes and stayed still and calm until I finally managed to fall asleep.