“No,” he says, still staring at the screen with that mixture of fascination and suspicion.
Then it really hits me. He’s never seen a TV before. Why would he have? The Shadow Realm probably doesn’t have electricity, let alone consumer electronics and broadcast television.
“It shows you things,” I explain. “Like a window. But to anywhere. Or anytime, I guess. You can see things happening in other places, or things that happened in the past.” I’m not sure I’m explaining this well, but it’s the best I can do.
Dis leans forward, his entire body tense with concentration as he stares at the screen where a penguin is waddling across ice. The narrator is saying something about mating rituals. Dis looks utterly transfixed.
“There are tiny penguins inside the box,” he says, and he sounds completely serious.
I try very hard not to laugh. “No. They’re not actually in there. It’s just... images. Light and sound.”
“Magic,” he says with certainty.
“Technology. But close enough, I suppose.” I’m not about to try to explain cameras and broadcast signals to an ancient shadow king.
I flip through channels, watching Dis’s face as images flash past. His head tilts with each change, processing, cataloguing. It’s oddly endearing, watching someone so ancient and powerful be completely baffled by something as mundane as television.
I stop on the Great British Bake Off because at least it’s soothing, and after the day I’ve had, dealing with customers and Brian’s relentless enthusiasm and the constant low-level anxiety of having a shadow being in my flat, I need something gentle and wholesome and utterly mundane.
The opening credits roll. Pastel colours fill the screen, cheerful music plays, and an aerial shot shows a white tent in the English countryside. It’s all green grass and blue sky and the kind of idyllic setting that feels like it exists in a different world from mine, from my cramped flat above a coffee shop with its second-hand furniture and empty walls.
“What is this?” Dis asks, his voice hushed as if he’s witnessing something sacred.
“A baking competition.”
“Competition?” His attention sharpens immediately, his posture changing from curious to alert in a way thatreminds me he’s spent centuries surviving through endless wars. “As in combat?”
“As in... they bake cakes, and whoever makes the best one wins.” I try not to smile at how seriously he’s taking this. It’s just Bake Off. Literally the most wholesome show on television.
“Wins what? Territory? Tribute? The loser’s hands?”
“A glass cake stand and bragging rights.”
Dis stares at me like I’ve just told him the most incomprehensible thing he’s ever heard. “That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“And they fight for this? With honour?” He sounds genuinely incredulous.
“They don’t really fight, they just...”
“Look.” He points at the screen with the intensity of a general identifying enemy positions. “That one has brought her own equipment. She is prepared. Organised. The others scramble. She has the advantage.”
On screen, a woman is calmly setting out her ingredients while someone next to her frantically searches for a whisk. Dis is right. She does have the advantage. I hadn’t even noticed.
“I guess?” I say, bemused by how quickly he’s analysing the situation, applying combat strategy to amateur baking.
“And this one.” Dis gestures at another contestant with something approaching disdain. “Weak. Uncertain. Look at how his hands shake. He has already lost in his mind before the battle has even begun.”
“It’s just nerves,” I point out. “Most people get nervous when they’re on television.”
“In combat, doubt is death.” He says this with absolute conviction, like it’s a fundamental law of the universe that applies to all situations, even baking competitions.
“Dis. It’s baking. Nobody’s dying.”
He waves a dismissive hand, not taking his eyes off the screen. “The principle remains the same. A warrior who enters battle already convinced of defeat has no hope of victory.”
I want to argue, but I’m too fascinated by watching him watch the show. He’s completely absorbed now, his entire focus narrowed to the television screen, watching every movement like it matters.
