Page 43 of Chaos and Crowns

“When I was almost two, I tried to climb a bookcase, but it fell over and crushed me. My lower legs were beyond repair and had to be amputated. I can’t imagine how Irina must have felt. She still uses double the amount of drywall anchors to attach her furniture to the wall, even though she hasn’t had children living at home for years. Hell, even Nora sometimes says that she should have stopped me, even though she was only four at the time.

“And yes—my residual limbs ache when the weather changes and I get blisters if my socks bunch up. But what hurts even more? Knowing how much pain the people I love carry in their hearts for something I don’t even blame them for. This is just part of who I am, and I would pick my family over having my legs back a million times over.”

Odelle looked back at the Commander, noting the warmth in her gaze despite the firm set of her mouth. “I think, if she were here, she might feel similarly. If she sacrificed herself to save you, she cared about you enough to not want you to live with this sort of pain. She saw something worth preserving in you, and the best way to honor that is by celebrating what you are.”

Odelle’s gaze was jerked away from the portrait when Antony crushed her against his chest. She let her own arms snake around his waist as his breath tickled the crown of her head.

“Isn’t age supposed to make me the wise one?” he murmured into her hair.

“Maybe there is something to be said for a fresh perspective.” Her voice came out muffled from her face being smashed against Antony’s chest, but she didn’t feel inclined to pull away. After all, she was coming to see him as one of the Eteria’s brightest souls, persisting through their darkest hour to carry the Light forward, even when he didn’t always feel it with him.

* * *

It came as a surprise when Antony showed up at the office one afternoon. Odelle had spotted Thad hiding behind a newspaper in the café downstairs during lunch and assumed he was her security detail for the day.

As Odelle was shoving her papers into her briefcase, ready to head out for the day, a throat cleared behind her. She turned, ready to ward off Ernie badgering her about the talk show again, only to gasp in delight.

“Antony!” Odelle practically leaped at him, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing a kiss to his cheek. She pulled back to find him blushing, and her heart fluttered. Despite being used to public bathhouses, he seemed shy about public displays of affection. She pulled him closer and chanced a nibble at his ear just to hear his breath stutter.

“Someone’s happy to see me,” Antony commented, his voice coming out low and rough.

It was now her mission to make him sound like that as often as possible.

Odelle was about to tell him exactly how happy she was to see him when a shrill voice interrupted her.

“What do you mean there’s something wrong with the feed?” Mallorie demanded, pushing out of the studio door and into the office space. She still had her battery pack and microphone attached, something most broadcasters knew better than to do in the office area, but Mallorie didn’t seem to care.

Odelle frowned. Mallorie should have been on the air right now.

“We’re unable to broadcast,” A man said, sticking his head out of the technical room, “I don’t know what happened. Our signal just…died.”

Phones began to ring around the office.

“Channel four is down too—”

“And channel seven!” Somebody else chimed in.

“That’s all the local news channels,” Odelle murmured, looking around at the erupting chaos.

“Just got a message,” shouted the man from the tech room. “Some sort of weather phenomenon is disrupting all signals that are routed through the antennas on the Sears Tower.”

“What kind of weather would block a television signal?” Antony leaned in to ask Odelle.

“Lightening.” Odelle shrugged. “Maybe extreme wind.”

“Anything else?” Antony asked.

Odelle opened her mouth to explain that she just made the broadcast, she didn’t really know how it was transmitted, when she saw what Antony was getting at. Late afternoon sun shone clearly through the windows at the far end of the room.

Grabbing a remote, Odelle pointed it at the monitor on the wall, which normally displayed the feed of their channel but now just transmitting static. She flipped through channels, trying to find a national news station that would be broadcast via satellite. Channel nine was filmed locally but aired nationally. It might still be up and running.

“All Chicago area news and radio stations have lost signals,” Amy Biderman’s iconic voice announced as soon as Odelle found channel nine. “Initial reports are saying this could be a cyber-attack, and some are even claiming this might be terrorist activity.”

Odelle nearly screamed in frustration. Biderman knew better than to report such conjecture at a time like this.

“She’s going to cause a panic!” She jabbed her finger at the monitor as if she could compel Amy Biderman to stop talking.

Antony’s eyes had gone wide.