C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

“Nobody’s fast enough to hold the wind.” Margrit heard wry sympathy in her voice as she stepped forward to offer a hand, though Kate clearly needed no help. “Are you all right? Should I—” Her own words caught up with her and she broke off, staring, then said, “Shit!” with so much enthusiasm she clapped her hands over her mouth. No one was fast enough to hold the wind, but Ursula Hopkins had done one hell of a job trying.

Kate gave her a steady look over Ursula’s head. Margrit parted her fingers to whisper, “You’re not twins.”

“Of course we are,” Kate said derisively. “We just have different fathers.”

The scornful comment followed Margrit the rest of the day. She’d accompanied Kate back into the house to make certain Ursula was all right, but the twins had resisted her prying into their heritage. Margrit was torn between understanding and disappointment: even if the prurient details were nearly four hundred years old, they still made a good story. They left at the same time Margrit did, none of them under any illusions: the djinn knew both where the twins were now, and whose children they were. They would be unlikely to disappear again, and so their only choice was to decide quickly how to establish themselves, and to do so.

Margrit tried to put those questions out of mind as best she could for the morning, taking second counsel on the trial she’d missed the first full day of. She’d been right: her coworker was well prepared, her presence more psychological reassurance than necessary. Watching him, she was more than aware that her failure to attend the day before had wiped out any confidence she might have provided. Guilt stung her, bringing a wash of tiredness that fed into a cycle. Part of her mind rang with recriminations: she should have been there to do her job. More profoundly, though, lay the awareness that, though she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, she felt more strongly about protecting and guiding the Old Races than she did about doing good for her own people. The two might be one and the same at some juncture, but for now, she had chosen Alban and his people’s battles as her own, and had to trust that her coworkers and others like them could fight humanity’s wars.

She had wanted to change the world. She’d simply never imagined she might do it in the ways she’d been offered.

Her cocounselor was one of several who took her to a celebratory, bittersweet lunch when the judge called recess. Assuring her he could handle the case, after lunch he sent her back to the office to finish packing and to find a small bouquet of daisies and pink flowers. A card lay at the vase’s base, and Margrit read it, then went back to the front desk to smile at the receptionist.

“The pink ones are sweet-pea flowers,” he said, before she asked, then smiled sheepishly. “Sweet peas and Michelmas daisies. They’re for farewells.”

“Sam,” Margrit said in genuine surprise and delight. “I didn’t know that. You know flower symbolism?”

Sam’s smile grew even more sheepish. “Me and Google, anyway.”

Margrit laughed and pulled him from behind his desk to steal a hug. “Thank you. They’re beautiful, and I’m going to dry them when I get home so they’ll last.”

“That’s not very farewell-like.” Sam grinned and returned the hug. “We’re going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you, too.” Margrit sighed and passed a hand over her eyes. “I’m going to miss this job. This new thing for Mr. Daisani will give me a lot of opportunities I wouldn’t otherwise have, but I’ll miss this place.”

“Well, we’ll take you back if you decide the air up there is too rarefied for your Legal Aid lungs.” Sam bumped his shoulder against Margrit’s, sending her back to her packing. “You are coming out tonight, right? The party’s planned. We’ll see you off in style.”

“I’ll be there for a while, at least. I’ve got another thing later tonight.” And there were waters to smooth with her housemates, if that was at all possible. Margrit shook herself and said, more firmly, “Right after work. I’ll be there.”

There should have included dinner. Margrit shot a glance toward the door, thinking longingly of the hot-dog stand up the street. It had already shut down, but the idea was appealing after an evening meal made up entirely of red wine. She’d been trying to nurse them, not wanting to face the Old Races at anything less than her best, but the best-laid plans had fallen in the face of raised toasts, and she’d lost track of how much she’d had to drink.

The alcohol, though, hadn’t gone to her head the way it would’ve done even a few weeks before. As with the fight against Grace, she could almost feel her body responding to the wine, metabolizing it and shunting its effects away. It seemed very much like a conscious response, as though because she didn’t want to be drunk, she couldn’t become drunk, even with wine flowing freely and friends doing their best to see her under the table.

Cameron and Cole had arrived around six-thirty, Cam waving a greeting and Cole at least making an attempt to wipe away a scowl when he met Margrit’s eyes. She caught a glimpse of them again and, smiling in unmeant apology to her coworkers, slipped away to try to catch up with her housemates. Someone thrust a fresh glass of wine and an uproarious congratulations at her, and she accepted both with as much grace as she could, then found herself distracted as she searched for somewhere to put the glass down without drinking from it.

Cole cut in front of her unexpectedly, dropping his voice below the general uproar of the party. “So you’re really going through with it.”

Suddenly glad she still had the wine, Margrit took a fortifying swallow and then handed it to the nearest passerby, who looked startled, then grinned in thanks, toasting her before he moved on. Margrit’s returning smile felt pained, and fell away entirely as she looked back at Cole.

“I really am. I thought that Upper East Side apartment would be such a nice move up for all of us…” She’d always anticipated losing her housemates when they got married and moved to a place of their own, but the possibility of losing them more permanently loomed too large now. “Cole, can we get out of here and talk?”

“What are we going to say, Grit? I’m not going to change your mind and I don’t think you’re going to change mine. I want you to be happy. I just don’t think I can watch it, if this is how you’re going to get there.” Cole sounded tired. “I don’t think I bend that far.”

Every argument Margrit had died in the making, all of them metaphors that failed on a fundamental level. Humans struggled with skin colors and cultural differences, but it was too easy to see how those could at least be filed under the vast range of human differences, and perhaps accepted and understood. Alban, though, was very literally of another race. Inhuman.

She looked up at Cole, trying to find a way beyond the barrier Alban had created between them. “He’s a sentient, caring person. Isn’t that what should matter?”

Cole sighed and pulled her into a careful hug that felt full of regret. “Maybe.” He was quiet a long moment before shaking his head. “That’s about the best I can do. Good luck, Grit.”

“Thanks.” The whisper hurt her throat. Margrit disengaged from the hug and slipped out of the bar alone.

Alban remained still in the first minutes after sunset released him, savoring a subdued sense of belonging that had not been his for well over three centuries. As a youth he would never have noticed the quiet sense of connection that lingered in the back of his mind: the awareness of his people, both physically and mentally. They shared their lives and their thoughts easily, an endless background murmur, and not until he’d cut himself off from it had he realized that it had a sound of its own. Not until he could hear it again did he understand how alone he had been with his own memories.