The door creaked open and she glanced up from the book open in her lap, brushing her thumb against the edge of the pages, feeling the paper catch against callouses. Davion closed the door behind him, seeming somehow subdued as he sank down on the bench near the front door to take off his boots. She frowned, swinging her legs down from over the arm of the chair where she sat, setting the book aside.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, instincts screaming that he’d lie and tell her that it was nothing, even though they both knew that there was something.
He shook his head, unlacing one boot, then the other. “Nothing worth the breath to explain right now. I was just thinking while I checked on something. Going to make some tea—would you like some?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly, reaching for the book again but not resuming her previous position—sideways in the chair, her legs draped over one arm as she leaned into the place where the arm of the chair and the back met.. “Please.”
He nodded, setting his boots in the gap between the bench and the door’s frame before he stood and padded across the wooden floors in stocking feet toward the kitchen and the stove. “I didn’t worry you, did I?”
“Not until you came back inside,” she lied. “Not really, anyway.”
The ghost of a smile curved his lips and he nodded, putting a kettle of water on and pulling out a canister of tea. “I was out there for longer than I intended. I’m sorry. I probably should have warned you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said. “It’s okay. You do what you need to do when you need to do it. I’m the one imposing on you.”
“It’s not an imposition,” he said. He was taking out more than just the tea and a bit of honey for it, now. She watched as he pulled out more canisters and supplies. It took a few minutes for her to realize that he’d pulled out baking supplies and fruit and was already starting to measure flour and other ingredients into a large bowl.
“Besides,” he continued, getting down a second bowl for another set of ingredients. “I’m the one who brought you here.”
“From a prison. That you rescued me from.”
He waved a hand as if to brush aside the logic, though it had already landed squarely. “I couldn’t exactly leave you there and I wasn’t going to let that place keep standing.”
“How did you find it?” She asked softly. “I don’t think you told me.”
“I didn’t think it was important. Hell, you can probably guess.”
“Magic?”
He glanced back, one corner of his mouth curving in a rueful smile. “That was part of it, at least.”
“Only part?” She drifted to the tiny kitchen table, the book still in her hand, and sank down into one of the chairs so she could watch him. “What else did you do?”
A quiet laugh escaped him and he shook his head. “It’s a long story. The short version is that I know these woods pretty well by now. There was something off a few miles from here—something didn’t feel right. That was the first clue. I’d been away for a few months so if something was happening out there, I might’ve missed it. Some friends helped me do some intelligence gathering that was enough to help confirm what I suspected.”
“That someone who wasn’t supposed to be here built a prison?”
“I didn’t know exactly what it was going in but I had some pretty strong suspicions,” he admitted. “I was hoping I was wrong, but I was able to pull you out of there, so I think it was worth it.”
“Thank you,” she said, getting up to rescue the kettle as it started to sing on the stove. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to say it enough.”
He shook his head, taking the kettle from her and starting to make the tea. “You don’t have to thank me for righting a wrong.”
“I kind of do,” she said with a wry smile. “Not everyone would have.”
“I know,” he murmured, then shook his head. “That’s the sad part, right? Sometimes we look right past it because we either decide there’s nothing we can do or it’s too big or it’ll put too many other people in danger and we have to let it go, at least for now. Sometimes the reasons are real and good and sometimes we just make them up to justify what we’re doing—or what we’re choosing not to do.”
“That’s remarkably philosophical,” she said quietly, taking the mug he passed her.
“Not what you expected out of me, huh?”
She smiled. “Actually, I think it’s exactly what I’m starting to expect from you. You’ve got a lot of layers, Davion. It hasn’t taken much to figure that out.”
Was it her imagination, or had he blushed before he looked away? “Is that a compliment?”
“I think that depends on you.” She watched him start to mix the ingredients he’d dumped into the bowls, her brow furrowing slightly. “Do you want any help?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ve got this. Hope you like tarts.”
“Is that what you’re about to make?”
“Seemed like a good idea when I started pulling down bowls,” he said, grinning at her sidelong. “Sometimes something sweet can make it feel like the walls aren’t closing in on you.”
As she sank back down into the kitchen chair, she knew that while he was directing the words at her, trying to imply the words were about her situation, they were much more about him and his. Whatever had happened outside had left him more rattled than he wanted to admit or show—but the latter had already happened and maybe someday he’d feel safe enough to do the former.
If there’s enough time for that someday to come, anyway. She frowned for a moment, running her thumb along the edge of the book’s cover. “I’ll just keep you company, then, if that’s okay.”
He nodded. “Not like there’s much of anywhere to go. Outside in the grass or a tree. The bedroom. Back over by the shelves or by the fireplace but those are both within eyeline. I don’t think you’d go sit on the floor in the bathroom to read, though.”
Laughter bubbled up and she grinned at him even as he shot another smile her direction over his shoulder. “More likely the tub, but I’d have to ask you to fill it and warm it up for me first. I’d hate to take you away from pastry dough.”
“I appreciate that,” he said. “It can be temperamental. Which book are you reading?”
“One of the books of legends,” she said. “I’m guessing you’ve read them all.”
“Most of them twice or three times,” he admitted, starting to cut butter into his mix of ingredients. “A few more than that. I don’t know. A good book by the fire at night when the weather turns is a quiet comfort that few things can match, I think, let alone surpass.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.” Her gaze drifted to the armchairs that faced the fire. One was clearly more worn than the other, and she could imagine him sitting there on a winter afternoon with a mug of something steaming and a book in his hands. “Do you think there’s any truth to the legends?”
“That depends on the legend,” he said. “I think there’s some truth to a lot of them, it’s just knowing which bits are which. Something tells me it’s not always the bits you think.”
She propped her chin up on her hand, watching as he dumped the pastry dough out onto the counter and started to form it into a ball. “So if we’re talking about the legend about how people came from beyond the Seal?”
He shrugged. A bit of magic flared at his fingertips, the barest chill suffusing the air around his hands to keep the butter in the pastry cold as he worked the dough. “I think more of that is true than any of us like to think about. That does beg a question, though, doesn’t it?”
“If humans originally came here from beyond the Seal, why can’t we get through it now?”
“Exactly.” He wiped his hands and finally poured himself a mug of tea. “It’s a tantalizing question, isn’t it? A mystery enough to drive a thousand more questions, more pursuits.”
“I suppose so,” she said softly, watching him. At least some of the weight seemed to have lifted from him. She wasn’t sure if she believed that part of the legend herself, but he clearly did, and the questions that came along with that belief clearly excited him.
It made him smile and that, she decided, was enough for her.
“So what’s your theory?” She asked quietly, watching his eyes. “On why we can’t get through it now?”
“I have a few,” he said. “The most likely is that we’ve just lost the technology to do it—that however we got here in the first place, whether it was all of humanity that’s here now or a fraction of it, we’ve since lost the technology that let us do it. If that’s the case, you start to wonder how and why that would’ve happened—how and why it would have been allowed to happen.”
“And you have a theory on that, too?”
He grinned, though it was a wry, rueful smile. “The simplest explanation in that scenario is probably the best, though it comes with a whole host of other questions, like the best mysteries. I think that it was purposely lost, either destroyed or sealed away and I think it was done to protect the people who came here from something or someone. I think the people who came here were running from something and this area of space became their sanctuary.”
Arching a brow, she lifted her chin from her hand, staring at him. “So the Seal is actually protection from something in some long-ago yesterday that’s been lost somewhere along the way?”
“That’s what I think, anyway. I don’t know. I could be wrong. I don’t think we’ll ever know but there’s something fascinating about the possibility, isn’t there? Especially when you read the legends surrounding all of it. There’s a romanticism and tragedy to all of it but out of hardship comes so much hope and promise.” He glanced away, shaking his head, voice growing soft. “I don’t think there are enough stories like that anymore.”
“Well,” she murmured, “when I get more frame of reference, I’ll let you know what I think.”
He startled, staring at her for a second, then laughed, nodding. “Right. Right. I’m—uhm. I’m going to get this pastry shell baked.”
“Yeah,” she said softly, slowly opening the book again. “That sounds good. Something sweet’s probably a good idea.”
Davion stared at her for a moment longer, then nodded, smiling a tight little smile before he turned away to tend to his baking. She turned away, back to to the book.
She wasn’t sure what had just happened a moment ago, but somehow, she knew it felt both important and right.
