Tamora wrinkled her nose at the sight of the dark hearth. The inn was empty. The chairs rested on the tables, the floors had been swept, and the lingering scent of alcohol had been disguised with cleaning solvents and potpourri. Like all more-or-less public places at such times, there was an eeriness about it. She jumped despite herself when Gallerian’s fine boots scuffed on the floor. She turned and frowned into his radiant presence.
“No fire?” she asked. His shining brow quirked; she saw the way his eyes watched her hands when she picked up a cup drying beside the sink. She turned away from the unspoken questions in his eyes. Her fingers traced the simple pattern carved into the wooden goblet.
“We can both see in the dark,” he said. She heard the tired amusement in his voice.
“Not that there’s much of that, with you around. What about the cold, then?” Tamora demanded. This time, she was prepared for his footsteps, but not for his too-warm hand on her shoulder. Tamora whirled away and gave the offending hand a solid thwack with the goblet. He didn’t reach for her again. It was hard to see his disapproving frown because of the glare streaming from his face.
“I was just trying to help. I might abolish the darkness, but you need light, too. And I know how you need warmth.” Tamora’s shoulders hunched. The light shone off him, lightening his brown hair until it was almost blond. The glow gave his skin a gaussian blur and hid the wrinkles she knew must be there. Tamora had recently started finding bits of grey—lighter black—in her hair, and they were not so different in age.
“I don’t need anything,” she said as she set the cup down, “Except for you to tell me why you asked me here, in the middle of the night. It’s so unlike you, Lord Gallerian.” There were more footsteps behind her on the rich wooden floor, and Tamora braced herself to shrug off Gallerian’s hand again. He did not touch her. Instead he stepped into her line of sight. From here, he cast rays of stray light into the empty hearth and highlighted how absurdly clean it was. How long had he been planning on summoning her here?
Gallerian reached up and untied the rich purple ribbon holding his hair back at the nape of his neck. Strands of that back-lit brown hair fell across those shining eyes. It shielded Tamora from their intensity, a little, and made him look young. Thinking of him in their youth—Tamora’s black eyes narrowed.
“You need my help.”
“I need your help. Jinx,” he said. He smiled. Tamora bared her teeth and turned for the door. “No, hear me out just a moment, Tam.” He reached out for her wrist. His gleaming hand closed only on air; now she was behind him, as close as his own shadow. Gallerian began to turn to face her, but a chill on his back was her own ice-cold hand.
“Stay as you are.” Her breath was cold on the back of Gallerian’s neck. It ruffled his unbound hair, and he could not force away a shiver; Gallerian was not sure whether the sound Tamora made at his reaction was a murmur of disgust or… something else. “I told you I don’t want you to touch me,” she said. Must have been disgust. “Say what you have to say before I leave.”
Gallerian stared into the shadows that skulked in the corners of the inn. His aura could not obliterate all the darkness. His frown deepened.
“What is there to say, Tam—Guild Enforcer Tamora? You possess a particular set of skills in addition to a certain set of abilities. I have not practiced the skills for many years, and I never had the abilities. I want to hire you to go where I cannot, and to bring me there, if at all possible.” Tamora made another sound, and the cold presence at his back shifted a little.
“You’d ride along? I thought you hated that,” she said. Her voice seemed to hold a little less hostility; her cold presence pulled away a little.
“I do,” Gallerian admitted. “But enduring the cold inside your shadow will be a necessary suffering. My first-hand experience will be of more value than all the details you could bring me, but I lack the… stealth, t—” Her laughter was as cold as her aura.
“You mean you shine like there’s a star in your family tree.” Gallerian took a breath and knotted his hands in front of him.
“Yes. I do,” he said.
“If I were interested in accepting this proposal—supposing you were good for it in favor,” Tamora said slowly. “Where is it that the lauded Lord Gallerian of House Sunspot—”
“House Solara—”
“House Sunspot,” Tamora repeated over him, “Cannot go?” Gallerian’s gleaming golden eyes scanned nothing as the silence lingered. Tamora’s cool voice was happy to break the quiet. “Well? Mahini Women’s Temple? House Karlyn’s financial records in their vault? The Glass Triumvir’s bedchamber—”
“The Damisken Library,” he said. Gallerian saw the movement this time. Tamora rose as smoothly as thought itself, across the room where the shadows were thick and Gallerian’s aura did not reach. To look at her directly was to see only a silhouette; familiarity alone allowed Gallerian to see Tamora’s dark eyes in her darker face. They were wide with disbelief.
“Come again? You want me to sneak into the temple of portents and predictions? Do you realize you want me to sneak into a place that specializes in predicting the future?”
“Yes, I do. And I came to you—” Tamora scoffed in the back of her throat. Gallerian sighed. “Alright, yes. I didn’t come to you. I had you come to me. Either way, I wanted to meet with you because I thought you could do it,” Gallerian said wearily. He rubbed his face; this did little to detract from the light he emitted because his hand glowed just as much as his face.
“I might be able to do it, but why?” Tamora demanded. She rested her hands on her hips. If not for Gallerian’s light, she would have been invisible, even to his gifted eyes, in the darkness.
“I need... something the library possesses.” Gallerian said. “I have tried inquiries through my standard channels. They are withholding it, muffling any mention of it, and probably for good reason. Look,” he said as his exasperation outgrew his patience, “If you’re not interested in trying, I can call on someone else. I thought I would offer, for old time’s sake,” Gallerian almost could not ignore Tamora’s scoffing, but he held himself together to say, in a louder voice, “And because you are the best, and for this I need the best. I know the going rates, and I can certainly give you favor—with extra, for the nature of the job. Don’t you want to be the first person ever to break into the halls of precognition?” The shadowy woman dropped away from view, sliding down through her shadow and rising up through his own. Gallerian felt her presence behind him again as a resumed chill at his back.
“I think it might be interesting,” she said after a moment. “Perhaps. All set? Details finalized for everything on your end? Got a place we can get gear?” Gallerian turned to face the shadow-woman. Doing so put them nose-to-nose. This close to Tamora, Gallerian was able to pick out the opal gleam in her dark eyes, and the hint of color on her dusky skin. He also noticed the way her full, dark lips twisted angrily at how he had ignored her order not to move.
“Yes,” he said. The sudden, malicious joy on her face brought alarm into his. “Wait, I—” Both the nobleman’s words and his aura of light cut off as he dropped into his own shadow with nary a ripple.
“Tosser,” Tamora announced to the darkened room. “Told you to stay still. I hope the cold in there eats through your glowing aura.” She was black on blackness as she moved through the empty inn and on toward the back door. It was a shame that, without Gallerian’s shining aura to give definition to the darkness inside the inn, she could not jump through the big picture window looking out into the street. Out there, too, there were no shadows—only darkness. Gallerian was right.
Shadows need light.
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