teeth. It wouldn’t bother her if everything else here wasn’t almost circle perfect.
But some things simply can’t be rushed. Auri knew this for a fact. Besides, she needed the mirror set to rights before anything else. That meant covering. So she headed up the unnamed stair, her feet skipping back and forth to miss the unsafe stones. Then she headed through the broken wall and into Tumbrel.
Once there, Auri opened up the wardrobe’s drawer. She did not touch the sheets, instead her hands went to her pockets. She felt the smooth facets of the brave crystal. No. She touched the curved lines of the kind stone figurine. No. The flat black rock? No.
Then her fingers touched the buckle and she smiled. She brought it out and set it gently in the drawer. Then she lifted out the topmost folded sheet. It was smooth and creamy in her hands. Pale as ivory.
Auri stopped then, looking at the blackness of the buckle in the drawer. There was a stone in her stomach. It didn’t belong here. Oh it seemed sensible. Oh yes. Certainly. But she knew what seeming was worth in the end, didn’t she?
Reluctantly, she lay the sheet back in the drawer, her fingers ran over its perfect whiteness, smooth and clean and new. There was a hint of winter in it.
But no. There is a difference between the truth and what we wish were true. Sighing, Auri took the buckle back and pushed it deep into her pocket.
Leaving the sheet where it was, Auri headed back to Mantle. She moved more slowly now, no skipping. The trip down the unnamed stair cheered her somewhat. Her path staggered drunkenly back and forth as she moved from one safe section to another.
A stone turned underneath her feet, and Auri pinwheeled her arms to keep from slipping. She cocked her head to the side, standing balanced on one foot. Was this place Tipple then? No. It was too sly for that.
The mirror was still restless back in Van. And with no better options, Auri was forced to fetch her blanket from her bed. Careful not to let it touch the ground, she draped it over the mirror before turning it to face the wall. Only then could it be moved across the room so that it stood before the bricked-over window where it so desperately wanted to be.
She returned her blanket to Mantle and washed her face and hands and feet. Coming back to Van, she saw her time had been well spent. She’d never seen her mirror so content. Grinning at herself, she brushed the elf knots from her hair until it hung around her like a golden cloud.
But just as she was finishing, when she lifted up her arms to push her cloud of hair behind her, Auri staggered just a bit, all sudden dizzy. After it passed, she walked slowly to Cricklet and took a long, deep drink. She felt the cool water run all along her insides with nothing to stop it. She felt hollow inside. Her stomach was an empty fist.
Her feet wanted to go to Applecourt, but she knew there were no apples left. He wouldn’t be waiting there, anyway. Not until the seventh day. Which was good, really. She had nothing suitable to share. Nor nothing halfway good enough to be a proper gift.
So she went to Tree instead. Her pans were hanging in their proper places. Her spirit lamp just so. The cracked clay cup was sitting quietly. Everything was just as it should be.
That said, she had more tools than food in Tree. On the shelves there was the sack of salt he’d given her. There were four fat figs swaddled modestly in a sheet of folded paper. A single, lonely, withered apple. A handful of dried peas sat sadly at the bottom of a clear glass jar.
Set into the stone counter was a chill-well, running with a slow but constant stream of icy water. But it was keeping nothing cool save for a lump of yellow butter, and that was full of knives, scarcely fit for eating.
On the counter was a fine and wondrous thing. A silver bowl, all brimming full of nutmeg pittems. Round and brown and smooth as river stones, they had come visiting from long-off lands. They filled the air, almost singing of their faraway. Auri eyed them longingly and ran her fingertips along the edge of their silver bowl. It was etched with twining leaves. . . .
But no. Rare and lovely as they were, she did not think they would be good for eating. Not now at any rate. In that way they were like the butter, not food exactly. They were mysteries that wished to bide their time in Tree.
Auri climbed onto the stone counter so she could reach the apple where it perched up high upon its shelf. Then she sat next to the chill well, cross-legged, back straight, and cut the apple into seven equal pieces before eating it. It was leathery and full of autumn.
After that she was still hungry, so she brought down the paper and lay it in front of herself, unfolding it carefully. Then she ate three of the figs, taking dainty bites and humming to herself. By the time she finished, her hands weren’t shaking any more. She wrapped the single fig back up and set it on the shelf, then climbed down to the floor. She cupped some water from the well and drank it. She grinned. It gave her belly shivers.
After eating, Auri knew it was past time she found the brazen gear its proper place.
She tried to flatter it at first. Using both hands, she sat it carefully atop the mantelpiece beside her box of stone. It ignored the compliment and simply sat there, not one bit more forthcoming than it had been before.
Sighing, Auri picked it up with both hands and carried it to Umbrel, but it wasn’t happy in amongst the ancient barrels there. Neither did it want to rest in Cricklet near the stream. She carried it through all of Darkhouse, setting it on every windowsill, but none of them suited it in the least.
Arms growing sore from the weight of it, Auri tried to be irritated, but she couldn’t stay angry. The gear was unlike anything she had ever seen before in all her years below. Just looking at it made her happy. And heavy as it was, it was a joy to touch. It was a sweet thing. A silent bell that struck out love. All the while she carried it, it sang through her fingers of the secret answers that it held.
No. She couldn’t be angry. It was doing everything it could. It was her own fault for not knowing where it belonged. Answers were always important, but they were seldom easy. She would simply have to take her time and do things in the proper way.
Just to be sure, Auri carried the gear back to where she’d found it. She would be sad to see it go, but sometimes there was nothing else to do. Some things simply were too true to stay. Some merely came to visit for a while.
As Auri stepped inside the arching darkness of The Grey Twelve, Foxen’s light stretched up toward the unseen ceiling. His calm green glow reached out between the pipes that tangled on the walls. This was a different place today. That was its nature. Even so, Auri knew that she was welcome here. Or, if not welcome, at least indifferently ignored.
Auri made her way farther into the room, where the deep black water of the pool lay smooth as glass. Carefully, she set the bright gear upright on the stone edge of pool, the gap from its broken tooth faced upward at an angle. She took a step back and covered Foxen with one hand. With nothing but the dim grey light from the grate above, the gear was nowhere near as shimmerant as it had been before. She eyed it closely for a breathless moment, head tilted to one side.
Then she grinned. It didn’t want to leave. That at least was clear. She picked it up and tried it on the narrow ledge above the pool beside her bottles. But it simply sat there, all aloof, coruscant with answers, taunting her.
Auri sat cross-legged on the floor and tried to think what other place might fit the brazen gear. Mandril? Candlebear? She heard a hush of feather in the air. Wings beat hard, then stopped. Looking up, Auri saw the shape of a nightjar outlined against the dull grey circle of light entering the grate high above.
The bird struck something hard against the pipe, then ate it. A snail, she guessed. There was no need to guess the type of pipe though. The ting of it let Auri know it was iron, black and twice the thicken of her thumb. The nightjar tapped the pipe again, then dipped down to the pool to drink.
After it drank, the bird winged quickly back to its previous perch. Back to the pipe. Back to stand in the center of the dim grey light. It tapped a third and final time.
Auri’s gut went cold. She sat up straight and eyed the bird intently. It stared back at her for a long moment, then flew away, having done what it had come to do.
She looked after it numbly, the chill in her gut making a slow knot. She couldn’t ask for things to be more clear than that. Her pulse began to hammer at her then, her palms all sudden sweat.
She took off running and was gone a dozen steps before she remembered herself and hurried back. Embarrassed at her rudeness, she gave the brazen gear a kiss so it would know she wasn’t leaving it. She would be back. Then she turned and sprinted off.
First to Mantle, where she washed her face and hands and feet. She took a handkerchief out of her cedar box and pelted down through Rubric and Downings to Borough. Breathing hard, she finally stood before the unassuming wooden door that led to Tenance.
Her gut all sour and chill with fear, Auri looked around the edges of the door and relaxed to see faint cobweb there. There was still time. Perhaps. She pressed her ear against the wood and listened a long moment. Nothing. She slowly pulled it open.
Standing anxious in the