“Our shieldmate!”
“Where is he?”
“How did you find him?”
“What happened?”
“Is he okay?”
“How do you know?
Gwen took a deep breath to calm herself. “The kid who got hurt, Lawson, he recognized your ornaments. I got his mom’s number and her address, and I’ll just go and pick it up tomorrow.” She managed to speak casually, like it was no big deal.
Trey and Rez gave whoops of joy, ignoring the doorbell to pound each other on the back, sweep their keys into their arms, and dance them around the kitchen. Gwen dodged back and slipped up to perch on the counter, grinning despite herself because of their contagious glee.
“Finally!” Daniella said, escaping Trey’s embrace to hug Gwen. “You must be so excited.”
Excitement was the smallest portion of what Gwen was feeling; she was dizzy with conflicting emotions as she hugged Daniella back.
She’d gone willingly with Robin to follow her destiny, thrilled to be part of something bigger and more wonderful than her narrow life of serving coffee and teaching little kids martial arts. The fated partner of a noble warrior, with true love like Daniella, and later Heather, had found? Yes, please!
The months since had dampened her enthusiasm as doubts crowded in: what if they never found Henrik? What if she couldn’t be a proper key? What if Robin had made a mistake in finding her? The fable’s power was unpredictable in this world, and they admitted that they didn’t have complete control over their magic.
Now she’d find out for sure if she actually measured up, and she could feel the pending judgement like a storm on the horizon.
The doorbell rang again, and the knights abruptly remembered their candy duties, excusing themselves.
“Do you have questions?” Heather asked kindly, when the three of them were alone in the kitchen.
“I don’t think I have any questions,” Gwen said brightly. “I kiss the ornament and bam, naked knight. Beats hiring a stripper in a cake!”
Daniella and Heather exchanged a look that Gwen couldn’t quite identify. Pity, maybe? Amusement? It was definitely at her expense.
“You’ll know before that,” Daniella warned her. “I saw Trey’s ornament and I had to have it. Like Fabio getting a whiff of steak. I was in the middle of a job orientation, and I practically shoved Ansel out of the way to get it. He must have thought I’d had a mental break or something.”
“I almost accosted a customer who wanted to buy Rez’s ornament!” Heather giggled. “Like, I was fully prepared to vault across the counter and start a fistfight if they didn’t give it up to me.”
“So don’t...you know...punch Lawson’s mom in the mouth when you see her, or anything,” Daniella warned her with a grin.
Gwen smiled stiffly. It was a sore point with her; when people found out she had a black belt in karate, they liked to tease her about beating people up, but she’d never actually fought anyone off of a sparring mat. Twisted out of a few holds, maybe, but she stayed out of trouble for the most part and had never been in a place where she needed to prove her skills.
Not until she’d battled the bleak in Ansel’s warehouse, and that had been an exercise in frustration as her physical sword had been able to do little damage to the shadowy creature.
“I’ll try to avoid brawling with the woman who has already agreed to sell me the fragile glass ornament,” she quipped.
Heather and Daniella both laughed.
“It’s worth it,” Heather said contentedly. “All the bleaks and dours and horrible oncoming darkness to battle, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
There was a moment of awkward silence where they all remembered that the world might actually end with the year…and if not this year, the one after that, or the one after that.
Swiftly, Gwen said, “Well, I hope you’re right, because oh my God, I will never hear the end of it from my mother if I traveled halfway across the country for a boyfriend I haven’t even Internet-met and it turns out we don’t actually get along.”
2
Gwen was glad for the warning that Daniella and Heather had given her the following day when Lawson’s mother opened the door holding Henrik’s ornament. They had offered to pick it up with her, but Gwen insisted on coming alone. She wasn’t going to ask someone else to do something this important for her. Also, she didn’t want witnesses if she ended up making a fool of herself.
And making a fool of herself seemed like a very likely possibility now.
The ornament in the woman’s hand was wrapped in tissue paper, but Gwen didn’t even need to see it to know that it was the glass gryphon that they’d been searching ten months for; the wave of possessiveness that swept over her was as irritating as it was undeniable. Gwen found herself feeling angry and helpless all at once, dizzy with need.
“Ornament! I’m here for the ornament!” she blurted.
Lawson’s mother was understandably dismayed by her ferocious statement and stepped back in alarm, sending Gwen into a tizzy of panic. She couldn’t lose Henrik now! Not when they were this close! She was furious with herself for being so weak and so ridiculous.
Gwen stuffed her swimming emotions back down. “Sorry, I mean, we, ah, talked on the phone. Forty! I brought forty dollars! For the ornament!”
The woman paused in the act of shutting the door, eyeing the bills that Gwen was desperately waving. “It’s fragile,” she cautioned, not offering to hand it over.
Not supposed to punch her in the mouth, Gwen repeated to herself. “I’ll be careful,” she promised cheerfully.
They made the exchange like a hostage negotiation, with exaggerated, careful motions. Even through the layers of tissue paper, Gwen felt like she was taking a handful of angry bees.
Angry bees, but sexy, because she was absolutely on fire. It was so embarrassing.
“Thank you,” she squeaked, and she turned and fled, certain that Lawson’s mother must think she was utterly insane.
She’d chosen to walk the few blocks to pick up the ornament, and that also appeared to be a terrible mis-judgement. It had been a brief, brisk trot to get there, but going back was the longest walk that Gwen had ever taken.
She desperately wanted to unwrap the ornament and see it with her own eyes, but she feared that if holding it through layers of paper felt like this, if she held the bare glass, she’d arrive home soaked to the knees.
She concentrated on her goal, on the prize at the end. She’d spent the morning clearing out Henrik’s room with Ansel. No one gave her any grief for insisting he got his own room, but the knowing looks could stop any time. Trey and Daniella had helped her pick out clothing for him.
She’d kiss the ornament, there would be a flash of light, she’d explain the circumstances, they’d save the world. How hard could it be?
Really hard, apparently, because she was still half a block from the house and putting one foot in front of the other was sheer torture.
They would all be waiting in the living room, Robin and the knights and the keys. They wouldn’t be unkind, but they would grin at her and look knowing, and Gwen didn’t think she could face them in her current state.