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It was an impossible choice. The number of variables numbering in the millions. Rhys could almost hear the gears turning in his brain-porium. Given a choice he would have taken it all, it there ere limits even to what pocket dimensions could bear. On the upside, they were also easy enough to allow even a mortal like him to pull one up like a new finder window.
“Bigger on the inside,” he said with a smirk.
His choices made, Rhys secured the most dangerous of artifacts in the depths of his most secure case. The protection sigils carved into the front of the pure silver latches. The better to keep the magic in.
Like thunder across a prairie sky, my stomach rumbled, tugging me out of the story. ‘Better than food’ might work in hyperbole, but not so much in practice, and despite my reluctance to pause in my reading, I knew it was time to take a break.
I’d always heard the kitchen was the most social room in any house. It seemed to me like it should have been the bedroom, that was likely a different kind of ‘social.’ Still, when it came to togetherness, I couldn’t really argue. I’d mostly grown up in the kitchen. Learning how to cook at my grandmother’s knee.
“This will come in handy when you’re married,” she would say.
I would agree, not really understanding the implications. Very few of the women in my family worked. Those who did were regarded as a little bit weird. To be fair it was the mid-1990s and we lived in a rural part of rural Spain where television was considered a radical new technology. I was 22 before I saw an episode of Seinfeld
The skillet was heavy and familiar in my hand. The very same one I’d used to learn on, Grandma leaving me her entire cooking set in her will. I didn’t know if she meant it that way, but I could hardly fry an egg without thinking of her.
Things were getting serious with the book, and I knew something a bit more substantial than an egg would be required, however. Fortunately, fast fry was one of grandma’s specialties. Something she was more than happy to teach me. On the off chance my future husband wanted something quick. At least in the food department.
Plate loaded up with greasy goodness, I returned to my home office ready to multitask. Filling my mind and my belly at the same time. If I accidentally stabbed my self in the gums with the fork on occasion, so be it.
It was an angle to make Pythagoras dizzy. It didn’t seem right for a hill to be so steep, but it was still only the fifth strangest thing Rhys had seen that morning. His primary concern at that moment was for the Emperor, the old Bentley’s suspension not what it had once been. Despite being technically street-legal.
“Watch me soar,” Rhys whispered.
The Bentley wafted into a spot in the long term parking. His foot nowhere near the gas.
It was a pleasant scent, familiar. Like cookies cooling on a counter. Rhys hadn’t been expecting to detect magic on the ferry. The rules were clear that it was for mortals, paras arriving by portal. Not that he was one to freak out over the unexpected.
Following his nose, the smell, similar to cooking mushrooms, getting stronger with each step, he spotted the source.
She was beautiful. Dark and exotic, dressed modestly in a peasant dress and sandals. Her eyes closed as she seemed to draw. Most would wonder how that was possible. Rhys recognized her instantly as an Oracle. One of the subtler para subsets, connected to mind witches, it was usually very easy for them to pass as mortal. Particularly if they were raised has human. He had no intention of outing her.
The submarine sounds pulled me back to the real world. Very much against my will. My attitude to the interruption softened, however, when I saw the name on the alert.
“Hey, rebel girl.”
“Maya! I thought you were in Rome.”
“Oh, I was. Turned out to be a bore. I skipped to Amsterdam for a couple of weeks and decided I might as well come back.”
Maya Domingo was my best friend by default. We never officially decreed each other as such. Not even when we were younger, but we didn’t really have to.
We’d grown up together, her house next to mine in our old neighborhood in Catalonia. A key point of overlap, and the basis of our relationship, was a shared sense of wanderlust. One that entailed an interest interest in English.
We could certainly be hardheaded in some ways. Despite my lack of computer, let alone the internet, Maya’s parents never denied her anything. No matter how strange it might sound to them.
So, when their little princess said she wanted to learn English, they got her the best, non-digital system they could find. Internet connection not a problem for the Domingos. Many where the hours we would spend in her room, deciphering the strange looking symbols and sounds until they made sense to us. There were many advantages to being two of the few English speakers in town.
