Fi

This was Fionamara Kolbeck’s greatest challenge yet.

She’d spent four months preparing. Refining. Adapting. Laying the groundwork brick by painstaking brick. There’d been setbacks. There’d been slivers of progress. Now, all her cunning and charisma would be necessary to triumph over this latest test:

Taking Antal shopping.

“Ok!” Fi stood before him, hands raised like a show conductor. “Show me your best ‘I won’t eat any random civilians just for looking at me wrong’ face. Go!”

Antal stared back at her, a lethal lack of enthusiasm dripping from his glower.

“No, no, that’s not it at all,” Fi said. “Stand up straight. Make your face less scary. And pick your gloomy tail up off the floor.”

With a cataclysmic sigh, Antal lifted his tail to a less dismal sway. His face relaxed, not exactly glowing, but less anguished.

“Your eyes are big and red and scary,” Fi said. “Try opening them less wide.”

Antal narrowed his eyes to slicing slits.

“Oh. No,” she said. “That’s scarier. Back to wide eyes.”

She stepped around him, making micro adjustments. Shoulders less tight. Claws less strained. Did this immortal creature really think shopping was the scariest thing on the Plane?

“What do you think, Kashvi?” Fi asked.

The interim governor sat at her desk, sorting invoices for recent metal shipments. Fi had commandeered her office after their daily debrief. Kashvi’s gloom at the incursion rivaled the daeyari’s.

“Six out of ten,” Kashvi said, without glancing up from her paperwork.

“You didn’t even look.”

“Nope.”

Fi was going to break her back from carrying the entire weight of this sulky team.

For the occasion, she’d dressed on the upper end of presentable, a long red coat with a fluffy fur ruff. Antal dressed as he usually did, foregoing fancier daeyari attire in favor of trousers and a simple shirt. No buttons at all this time. The deep neckline revealed an audacious swath of bare chest down to his waist, which Antal explained made it easier to get the shirt on over his antlers, but Fi suspected was a ruse to distract her.

His schemes wouldn’t work.

“You’re ready. Let’s hit the town.” She looped an arm with Antal’s.

“I’d better not get any public disturbance complaints,” Kashvi called after them.

“She’s just angry that we stole her office,” Fi murmured. “You’re going to do great.”

Antal returned the low sound of a distressed animal.

The main avenue of Thomaskweld sparkled beneath a coat of fresh snow.

The city was busier than usual, for the Solstice. Winter never ended on this Plane, but the days did wax and wane. The Solstice marked the longest night of the year, when the sun didn’t rise at all, just a twilight glow on the horizon.

Ages ago, the Solstice had been a time of fear, communities huddling together for refuge, while the nocturnal daeyari were most active hunting.

Now, the Solstice marked the start of a week-long festival, a time to fill long nights with music and food, to celebrate survival against both cold and beasts.

Fi had helped collect foliage for the garlands. The decorations hung around lamp posts and draped every tree down the central avenue, a base of glass-leaved Void bracken harvested from nearby Shards, woven with Winter Plane evergreens, bright red berries, and silver energy capsules that lent an enchanting glow. More lights hung overhead, strung between the buildings the full length of the avenue.

But the surest sign of the Solstice were the bells.

Long ago, all humans had kept bells in their homes, to ring the alarm when a daeyari was sighted. Then, the immortals had traded their hunting grounds for capitol buildings and sacrificial shrines. The practice of warning bells faded away. Instead, humans brought out their bells during the Solstice festival, rang them all week long as the community gathered, a small act of defiance in the face of the daeyari’s “peace.”

The cheerful sound filled the streets. Round festival bells were made of copper and silver, hung by colorful ribbons in shop doorways and the backs of caribou-drawn carriages. Children chased each other through the street, laughing as they rattled bells at one another.

Fi loved visiting Thomaskweld this time of year. For the cheer, yes — and also the shop windows filled with lanterns and metal trinkets, colorful sweets and flaky pastries, warm clothes and warmer soups. She thrived on scouring for deals, dodging carriages and shouldering through crowds of shoppers.

At least, that was typically her experience.

Today, Fi strolled down the busy main avenue of Thomaskweld, arm-in-arm with a daeyari — a constant bubble of empty space around them. Every pedestrian swerved out of their way, passing with heads bowed and nervous smiles. Carriages found convenient places to divert. Even a trolley stopped to let them pass.

Stressed Antal defaulted to his scary face. Which meant Fi had to be doubly chipper.

“Ooh! Look here!”

She dragged Antal to a shop window. Twinkling string lights framed the glass and wove around displays of boots. Fi eyed a pair, calf height, the leather soft and matte black.

“Look at that double stitching,” she praised. “And thank the Void, soles with good traction. My boots never dried out properly, after we helped repair that water pipe break under the capitol building.”

Antal wasn’t looking at shoes. He watched the humans passing on the street, tail flicking every time eyes landed on him.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he whispered.

“All my ideas are good ideas,” Fi said indignantly, then pulled him with her into the shop.

An hour later, Fi had a new pair of boots. A fountain pen for Kashvi. An embroidered apron for the woman with the soup shop near the capitol building, who’d singlehandedly prevented hunger-rage Fi from tossing Kashvi into the river during several late-night meetings. And of course, tins of butter cookies for her smuggler colleagues who’d helped supply conductive metal to Thomaskweld. Even hardened Void smugglers couldn’t say no to butter cookies.

She hung her bags in a growing collection on Antal’s arms, earning curious looks from other shoppers. Fi wondered what rumor was spreading through town by now. Come to the main avenue, to watch the Lord Daeyari scowl at small businesses? See how many bags his strange human companion can hang on him, before he snaps and eats her? Fi bet at least twenty.

Good enough for a warmup. She steered Antal down the avenue, toward her real target for the day.

“We’re here!” she announced cheerfully.

“Here?—” Antal was a lash of suspicious eyes and tail, as she led him into a tailor shop.

It was one of the smaller stores on Thomaskweld’s main avenue. Fi preferred it that way, the small space warm with scents of fabric and cinnamon, displays boasting coats with elegant embroidery and long tails, others with thick fur ruffs. Chic and cozy. Who wouldn’t love it?

Antal eyed the racks as if a threat might pop out from behind one.

A curtain rustled at the back of the shop. The man who stepped out was short-statured, immaculately mustached, outfitted in perfectly cut trousers, a crisp shirt, and a suit vest with gilded embroidery that could have been framed in the capitol art gallery.

“Miss Kolbeck!” he greeted with arms wide, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

He hugged Fi, with a hearty pat on the back that left her slightly winded. Then, after a moment of hesitation, a formal bow for the grim carnivore at her side.

“And Lord Daeyari. It’s an honor to meet you.”

Antal returned a stiff nod, his tail anxious at his ankles.

“This is Harold,” Fi introduced. “Finest tailor in Thomaskweld.”

“Flatterer,” Harold chided, though his grin didn’t argue. “Your order is ready. Let me fetch it.” He disappeared behind the back curtain.

Fi had bought her coats from Harold for years — a friendship sweetened by the occasional gift of fine, questionably-legal raw materials, of course. She appreciated any craftsman with passion and discretion.

And Void alive, she needed new outerwear. Fi’s skirmishes with murderous immortals and vengeful exes had destroyed three of her favorite coats. Three.

While the tailor was away, Antal inspected the display jackets, eyeing the embroidery, leaning in to smell the fabric. Yes. Perfect. This was going exactly as planned.

“Your coat, Miss Kolbeck!”

Harold returned, brandishing a fresh masterpiece. The coat was fine wool, black as the Void. The sleeves and collar were decorated in crimson embroidery, studded with polished carnelian stones. Fi put it on, and it fit perfectly, warm and fierce—a coat for a daeyari tamer.

Most importantly, it made Antal immediately stop what he was doing, and stare at her like he’d forgotten all basic motor functions.

“It’s perfect,” Fi said.

“Always a delight to work with you, Miss Kolbeck.” Harold produced a pen and notepad. “And I’m ready to take your measurements, Lord Daeyari.”

Antal returned to consciousness, blinking slowly. “My . . . measurements?”

“Of course,” Fi announced. “I’m buying you a jacket.”

“I already have jackets.”

She stared at him like he was the densest creature across the Season-Locked Planes. Antal’s tail flicked.

“And I wouldn’t want to be an inconvenience,” Antal added.

“Nonsense!” Harold bowed. “It would be my honor to create a jacket for you.”

Antal cut Fi a vicious side-eye—which was very cute, but did nothing to stop her leading him onto the raised platform at the center of the shop. Harold circled his client, as professional as ever, though hesitant.

“I beg your patience,” Harold said. “I’ve never measured a daeyari before.”

Antal was nervous, too. His tail fell to a tight coil near his ankles, as Harold approached with his measuring tape. Posture steel-rod straight, as the tailor measured arms, then torso.

“Apologies, Lord Daeyari. Could you relax your shoulders? There, like that.”

Fi stood where Harold couldn’t see, miming to Antal an example of relaxed shoulders, unclenched claws, a not scary face.

Despite the friction, there was always a calm that came with routine. Antal breathed easier, when his chest measurements were completed without disaster. His tail found a milder sway, while Harold inspected his legs. As Antal relaxed, so did the tailor, fascination lighting his eyes as he measured the daeyari’s raised ankles. He filled the page of his notebook, a craftsman visibly delighted by the challenge of creating for a new species.

This was what it would take, for humans and daeyari to live peaceably in Thomaskweld: big promises, but also small moments.

Harold circled his subject, a frown deepening beneath his moustache.

“Pardon me, Lord Daeyari?”

“Antal, is fine.”

“Yes, Lord Antal. I’ve finished the measurements, but I have . . . a concern. You see, the current fashion is for longer coats. But I’m not sure the best way to accommodate your tail.”

“Ah, yes . . .”

Antal’s tail cut a wider swish, at the attention. He wore high-waisted trousers, with a built-in buckle at the back that fastened overtop his tail, easy to take on and off.

“Your comfort is my priority, of course,” Harold said.

Antal considered this dilemma with a low hum. “I have some daeyari-made jackets. I could bring you one, to consult the design?”

Harold stood to rapt attention. “Truly? You mean . . . from the Twilit Plane?”

“Yes.”

“Made with vesper fabric?”

“And some other materials. Apologies, I’m not an expert in cloth.”

Harold gasped in delight.

Fi was a mastermind. This plan to force Antal into making friends? Working perfectly.

“It would be my honor,” Harold said. “My delight, to study the work of a daeyari tailor. Can I pencil you in for tomorrow? Or today, even. Or whenever you wish, Lord Antal! My shop is open for you, anytime.”

They headed back outside with an appointment scheduled, a coat bag slung over Fi’s arm.

But the greatest victory: Antal was grinning. A small thing, a little sturdier each time it appeared. Fi looped an arm with his and rested her head on his shoulder as they walked slowly down the avenue. Her cheeks were cold, but the city was warm, bright with wreaths and conversations, singing with bells.

“It’s nice,” Antal observed quietly. “The way you humans revel in the passage of time. Most daeyari let years go by without a thought.”

“You never came down from your cliff to enjoy the festivities?”

“Do I understand correctly, your Solstice is a festival for guarding against daeyari?”

“But that’s not what the bells mean anymore. Now, they’re just meant to sound cheerful and . . .”

Fi grinned, as the idea came to her.

Antal looked understandably suspicious, when she told him to “wait here.” She ducked into a festive looking shop, scouring the shelves for . . . there. Perfect. She paid for her prize, not bothering with a bag.

Fi emerged with a giddy smile, six Solstice bells dangling from her fingers.

Antal appraised the proposition with a look of slow horror. “Fionamara . . .”

“Daeyari wear fancy things on their antlers. I’ve seen it.”

“Yes, but—”

“I even saw Verne wear bells once.”

“Those were—”

“Smaller, yes, I realize. Just hold still while I . . .”

Fi pounced, reaching for antlers. Antal caught her waist to steady her against him. His retaliation was a low growl, then a brush of claws beneath her shirt that tickled. Devious creature. She squirmed at the onslaught, but held her ground by clinging to his shirt, laughing as he tried to break her.

A kiss to his throat subdued the beast. Antal surrendered with his nose pressed to her neck, a purr as he breathed her in.

Fi leaned against him, elbows propped on his shoulders as she worked. The circular bells were bright silver strung on satiny red ribbons. She tied three on each antler, near the prongs, doing her best to work around his carvings rather than covering them. Once everything was secure, she stepped back to see how it looked.

The bells were much too big. When Antal tilted his head, they clanged loudly.

Fi laughed with her whole chest at the adorable sight.

A pair of smaller laughs joined her.

Two children watched from the sidewalk. Their eyes were huge, staring up at one of the fearsome forest beasts from the old folktales — but they raised their own festival bells, a timid chime. Antal cocked his head again. Fi didn’t even think it was intentional, just a perplexed reflex. His bells clattered against his antlers.

The children laughed.

That slow smile across Antal’s face would be the death of Fi. It snagged in her chest. Warmed her cheeks faster than a soft down blanket bundled by a hearth fire. Antal tilted his head, intentionally this time, and when the bells chimed, the children rang theirs with him, adding to the song of the street.

When parents appeared to move their children along, even they hid smiles behind their hands, nodding to Antal as they passed.

Fi poked a bell to make it chime.

“So ferocious,” she purred. “What a terrifying beast, prowling the streets of Thomaskweld. But your people shouldn’t worry. I’ll make you behave.”

“Will you now?” sparred back, just as low.

“You daeyari would have saved us a lot of trouble, if you’d just worn some of these to announce yourselves back in your days of forest skulking.”

“I imagine that would have made for some very different folktales.”

His arm wrapped her waist again, pulling her close. Fi leaned into his chest, admiring the glint of the bells, the brighter glow of his eyes.

“Happy Solstice, Lord Daeyari.”

“To many more, Voidwalker.”

He kissed her slowly, deeply, the soft chime of his bells making Fi smile into his mouth.

She had many fond Solstice memories, lively revels and loud music, bright lights and hot drinks. But this might be her new favorite. Warm in Antal’s arms. Savoring the unhurried press of his mouth against hers, the brush of his tail against her calf. He led her into a slow twirl along the street, wreaths and energy lights gleaming, bells singing against his antlers.

Now this was going to make for an excellent rumor.

They walked the rest of the avenue with arms linked, bells light with every step, until they reached the plaza with Iliha’s tavern.

After a month of hard renovations, the establishment was officially cleared of both splinters and mold. The exterior was nigh unrecognizable, freshly painted in soft blue with wooden trim. Light filled the windows, voices carrying from within.

A “Grand Opening for the Solstice!” sign hung above the doorway, as Fi and Antal stepped inside.

No more rotten floorboards. No more lichens in the rafters. Thomaskweld’s newest tavern was warm, and smelled of fresh sawdust and sweet spiced wine, copper tables already packed with customers — whose conversations quieted, when a daeyari walked through the door.

“The Lord Daeyari joins us for the Solstice!” Iliha shouted from the bar. “Spread the word! No other tavern in Thomaskweld can boast such dignified visitors! A free round on the house to celebrate!”

Let no one underestimate the coercive power of free alcohol. In an instant, conversations returned to lively chaos, as patrons vied to place their orders.

Kashvi sat at the bar — a rare excursion out of her typical habitat of paperwork and trade meetings. A small crowd gathered around her. The new governor election was fast approaching at the start of the new year. The current interim governor had been vacillating all week, prodded by her constituents and — if Fi had to guess —the grin on Iliha’s face as her pet project opened.

“You’ve done so much for us already,” one of the onlookers urged.

“I’ve never gotten such fast responses from the capitol building.”

“We’ve got new shops moving in for the first time in months.”

Kashvi, already rosy cheeked, scowled at her empty whiskey glass. “I guess . . . I could put my name on the ballot. Just to see what happens.”

A cheer went up. Then calls for another round. Kashvi raised a glass to join them.

Fi and Antal found a seat near the windows, overlooking the river. Iliha came by with black coffee for Antal, spiced wine for Fi, a merciless laugh at the daeyari’s festive antlers.

Outside, it started to snow, a lazy drift of white against the glass. Inside, Fi leaned her head on Antal’s shoulder, hands warm as she cupped her mug.

“I’m going to get Kashvi very drunk tonight,” Fi vowed. “I, also, am going to get very drunk. Then you’re going to carry me home safely, like a good boy. Deal?”

Antal chuckled. “No drinking contests this time?”

“The night is young. Are you sure you can’t get drunk?”

“Not with anything you have here.”

“A tragedy. I’ll drink for both of us, then.”

“Please don’t.”

Fi flicked a bell on his antler. Kissed him on the cheek. She changed her mind: this was her new favorite Solstice memory.

And so many more to look forward to, in this city they were rebuilding together.

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