Chapter Fifteen - Tammy

Most of the books we’d figured things out from were gone. They’d been in Teresa’s backpack – and I either didn’t remember or couldn’t pronounce the titles to ask for backup copies. Scully was…not helpful. Sitting at a table in the Archive, I asked her to bring me copies of what we’d been going through before we – before I – met her.

The first one looked familiar. Different binding, but it had a rundown of the awakening ritual in it. With a few notable differences. I didn’t have time to dwell on those, though – the second, when it came, looked like it was writhing as a wisp of light brought it to me. My teeth started to itch and my hair stood on end as it got closer, a coppery smell flooding my nose. It hurt to look at and, I realized, was causing the ceiling of leaves to shift.

The branches themselves bent to avoid it. I didn’t even realize they could do that. In the gaps, there were just more leaves and more branches, higher up.

She took it away when I asked but the branches didn’t shift back to cover the holes and my skin didn’t stop crawling. That was the kind of thing grandpa had been working with before he died? If relying on Scully for help meant I might get something like that or worse thrown at me…

She didn’t even mention what she’d done. To her nothing wrong or even weird had happened, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see her glitch out again if I poked. The half-decayed hand from Alara’s study was still clear in my mind when I looked at her, even if she looked normal now.

Working with Alyssa and her mom was feeling more and more like the right decision.

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My head was still throbbing as I pulled up at the sphinx compound. My hair was soaking wet since the jewelry seemed content to sit on my wrist today after a night spent trying to change my magic. I could, sort of, move the fires around on my fingertips, if I was focused and watching the little streamers of mana that fed them close enough.

Literally just blowing on it was both faster and better, though, and didn’t leave me pulling up to the first day of magic school or whatever I could call this with a gaping pit where my stomach should’ve been since I hadn’t even had time to eat cereal between plugging in Mini’s tablet and okaying one of Scully’s weird requests.

I didn’t know what ‘thaumaturgic countermeasures’ were or why she needed my permission to deploy them – or even where she was using them, since ‘Orerry Sub-Space Three’ wasn’t particularly descriptive – but I trusted her judgement more than mine.

I didn’t even get a chance to press the speaker box before the gates slid open. Alyssa was leaning against the main doors as I pulled up, the only one I could see outside. Even the pool was empty, for the moment.

She was done up again to look like a regular human. Even with the deeper layers of the Sight, she still looked mostly normal. Her eyes glowed as red as her hair – which was weird, since they were clearly green – but somehow even the wings were hidden. Or maybe they were just folded really well? I couldn’t see her back from this angle.

“Great, you’re on time! Most of us aren’t up yet since out here we aren’t exactly morning people. All of the old broads wait for the sun to warm things up, but the kitchen will definitely have breakfast starting up if you’re hungry. Like, don’t overeat or anything, but we’ll be at it today for awhile. Things are a lot worse on an empty stomach.”

I caught myself before I asked about what they’d have.

“Saw that! Come on, there should be sausage biscuits. Even the traditionalists came around to local food since, apparently, none of their partners are good at the old-fashioned stuff. Mirin and their people usually refuse to make us pancakes, but they’ve always let me back if you want some of them. We’ve got the good syrup too, from Canada – Mom refuses to get anything that won’t scream or at least whisper opulence, so she gave in and started stocking it awhile ago.”

I winced and wished the ibuprofen would get to work already. She was definitely just as upbeat as yesterday, before the meeting. I liked that energy, but my head…

“Uh, sure. Pancakes are nice.”

“Great – head on in and take a left. I’ll make some.” She opened the door and waved me through. The hall was mostly empty, save for a single leonine sphinx rubbing at her eyes and yawning wide enough to show a mouth full of fangs. I had to blink a few times before I realized her shirt was covered in ducks.

Alyssa held me in place as the other one blearily vanished through a big set of doors to our left. Her voice was low, serious. “Remember, no questions. You’re the only human here that isn’t bonded or layered with protective spells. It’ll get easier once you learn, but that…we aren’t allowed to teach it. Mom might have you check in your old man’s hoard for one if there’s an incident.”

She spun off into the kitchen before I’d finished processing that, leaving me at a table in a room that looked taller than it should be. There were a handful of people that looked human sitting around, usually nuzzled up close to one of the sphinxes. It was the fanciest cafeteria I’d ever seen, complete with TVs and a lounge with fancy benches and chairs that a few of the sphinxes laid themselves out on.

I tried not to stare, but the soap opera they had on was an episode Mini had been watching last night so I already knew where it was going and the WWII documentary was worse. It meant that my eyes kept going back to the one specific pair, a dark-haired man and a similarly colored sphinx off to the side. His head was resting on her tits, and I had to push down the thought of how that would feel.

The sphinx’s eyes met mine before Alyssa came back. She pulled the man in closer with one arm before I looked away, moving to the one who’d walked in before us. She had two plates, one with some kind of taco and the other piled high with bacon. The mussed-up hair and fur made it obvious that the other girl hadn’t been lying that nobody here was a morning person. Her coat was snow-white and vaguely spotted – it made me wonder if everyone here was related or if Matriarch was more of a title than a signifier that Alara was the head of a family.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Alyssa made her way back when the other sphinx was halfway through the bacon. Between the plates and the pitcher, magic had to be involved in how she was juggling it. The way little streamers of something a lot paler in color than my magic swirled around her arms when I looked validated my guess.

“Here you go! Just regular ones, sorry. Couldn’t find where they hid the chocolate chips this time – I think they’re still upset at how much of a sugar rush I put the cubs through last year. They only really like me going back there.”

Her plate was swimming in syrup before I even managed to take a bite.

“Since we’ll be doing this a lot, I’ve got a bit of advice for you. We’re all raised to avoid questions – it’s just rude to challenge someone like that, or too intimate if it isn’t one. The younger generation doesn’t have the control to avoid it. It comes across as crass to people that weren’t raised this way, but we use imperatives instead. Like, don’t ask how someone’s day was: tell them to say it. I promise, we aren’t being condescending. Well, most of us – some of my aunts are just that bitchy.”

I could sort of see that working. Phrasing and intonation had to matter – even my unfocused search through the archives had made clear that symbolism was nearly as important as intent, and that both shaped reality. Then again, the books contradicted each other. A lot. The fading remnants of my headache twinged at the thought of that rabbit hole.

“So, it’ll be like this. Tell me what we’ll be doing today.”

Fuck it felt weird to talk like an interviewer. The lurch in my gut didn’t come, though. Alyssa was still just a cute girl – less cute with how fast the pancakes were disappearing and how she had syrup splattered on the back of her hand in a pattern that only made sense because I knew it was covered in fur – without any of the hypnotic pull her mother had that night.

That had been there already, right?

“Yeah, like that! Just watch the inflection. Anyway, we’ll be seeing what you can do first. Spells, rituals, what you know and what you’ve actually done. Some exercises come next, they’re how Mom tests someone’s skill at the basics. If you pass all those, uh, I’ve got no idea. You’ll probably end up puking or wanting to pass out first.”

“Wh…” I cut myself off and choked on pancake in the process, getting looks from all around the room as I coughed my throat clear. “I’m not sure I like that.”

“Nobody does! If we don’t have a baseline for how much mana it takes to run you dry, though, it makes things rougher in the future. Once we have an idea we can split more evenly between practical lessons and theory.”

Choking aside, the food was good. She cooked a lot better than I did. Like Teresa could, when she was here and I convinced her to feed me. My hands clenched. The fork scraped on the plate and my palm started to burn as nails dug into it at the reminder. The brand, though, was still quiet. I was just upset as I finished the rest.

“Alyssa? Thanks. Having someone explain…”

She hummed, off key, for a second. Her neck tilted at a slightly unnatural angle. “That…wasn’t quite a question, I don’t think. Maybe don’t say things like that, though, it feels weird. Trust me, girl – I know how hard it is to put being grateful into words. I was raised to know all of this and people still get all dismissive when I need help or have to ask something. They treat me like little miss perfect and give me so much more shit than they do my cousins. I bet people are treating you like a mini-version of your grandpa, just like they do with me and Mom.”

I nodded.

“Mmm. Thought so – real big shoes to fill, there. I can tell you about it later, but we should really head out now and get started.”

More of the other sphinxes were trickling in as we dropped our plates off. Most leonine, the ‘regular’ sphinxes as best I could tell. I’d managed to pull a book about them from the archive – not every sphinx was like Alyssa or her mom. Being able to shift like they did was a hallmark of a subspecies – ‘royal’ sphinxes.

Alyssa’s hand landed on my arm as we moved out into the hall. There were two girls playing air hockey along one wall. The bigger one was another of the furry, shifted sphinxes – she waved at us as we kept moving, then scored when her opponent froze. That one was small. There was no way she wasn’t a child, and the way her human torso twisted on top of the lion one was a little sickening. Her eyes were very, very wide and unnerving as Alyssa dragged me along.

“My cousins; Demetria and Euanthe.” I could hear the frown in her voice. Her illusion flickered for a bit – glimpses of her wings and fur showing through as the door slammed behind us. “Euanthe should not have been up here while we have guests. Obviously, nobody else cares. Mom will just sigh like usual. I can hear her now: why didn’t you do something about it, Daughter?”

Her voice actually changed. The rapid, cheerful tone she’d been using lengthened into Alara’s weightier, dignified sound. And with it, a faint metallic tang seeped into my nose. She let go and whirled around.

“Shit! Don’t answer that, I’m an idiot. Me and my fat, sarcastic mouth forgetting that I can’t use rhetorical questions with you. It’s – well you’ll be fine, just don’t answer when I slip up. Poke me or throw something if I don’t notice and I’ll break it off. Euanthe though…fuck, I’ll sort it out later. It’s not fair to her or you if something happens, so just…stay away and find someone if you see her or any of the other cubs.”

By the time I got through saying that it was fine and I understood, we’d made it past the pool. The colonnade marked the end of the concrete sidewalk, pale flagstones taking over and fading to pale sand that crunched underfoot. It looked more like a lake or a lagoon or a slice of a wide, mountainous river than a pool – at one end, rising even with the houses and the columns, was a wall of rock that the water cascaded from. It was speckled with shadowed nooks and an…artificial?...cave that Alyssa led me inside.

“Watch your step here – depending what your manor’s like you might get a little nauseous. The expansion’s a bit heavier since Mom just outright stole the grottos when she moved here and they uh, didn’t quite fit.”

I realized what she meant as we stepped inside. It wasn’t as bad as Scully’s teleportation or translocation or whatever it was, but my stomach still twisted and the air swam for a second. When things snapped back into place, a canyon of twisted rock streaked with moss and lichen stretched out around us. Salt hung heavy in the air and the sun, so much brighter and hotter than it should have been, bore down on us. Little offshoots shot off from the main path, each marked with a green or a red card. Alyssa led us through the first green one, flipping the Velcro patch over to red as we went through another spot of twisted space.

Damp stone and climbing vines stretched up around us, an aperture in the roof letting the sunlight in and onto the pool. It merged with the glow of the coral at the bottom, a dancing twilight of shimmering reflections falling over us. Just like the archive – it didn’t fit with the rest of the town. But this? This was beautiful.

Alyssa flopped to the ground in a puff of sand, rolling over and then grinning up at me as I gingerly sat in front of her. “So! Show me what you’ve got!”

Did she just wink at me? Again?