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The kettle began its quiet song. I set two cups on the table, without asking. My hands trembled slightly as I spooned in the tea leaves.
Damon slowly slid the box of cookies I had found across the table toward me and spoke, watching the steam rising from the kettle’s spout.
«I didn’t want you to come up against this so soon. I wanted… to protect you. Both this place, and you. It was a poor calculation. Forgive me.»
The last word came hard for him, but it sounded sincere. He waited for me to pour the tea; his large, scar-etched hands lay on the table palms up — a gesture of vulnerability and openness, unthinkable for him just a few hours ago.
Corbin descended from the shelf and settled on the back of an empty chair, completing the strange, but no longer hostile, trio at the kitchen table in the pre-dawn hours.
Chapter 7
I poured the tea and sat down across from Damon.
«Can you have cookies?» I asked the raven. «Or have you already eaten your share?»
Corbin cawed once — the sound was clearly offended and full of dignity. He stretched his neck out pompously and stared at me as if I had insulted his entire raven lineage at once.
Damon couldn’t hold back a short, hoarse exhale that could almost be taken for a chuckle. The corners of his mouth twitched.
«He can’t stand being taken for an ordinary bird,» he explained, and to my surprise, a warm, almost paternal forbearance sounded in his tone. «His ’share’ he most likely traded from Luka during the day for some shiny trinket. But… he does respect cookies, especially vanilla ones. Just don’t crumble them.»
As if confirming his words, Corbin hopped from the back of the chair onto the seat and settled with the imperturbable air of a king awaiting a handout. His black eye intently tracked the movement of my hand toward the box.
Damon took his cup, scalding his fingers but not pulling it away.
«Thank you,» he said quietly, looking at the steam. «For the tea. And for… not running off screaming after all this.»
He took a sip, winced at the heat, and the last traces of panic gradually faded from his face.
«So now you’re in the know. Fully. And you have… Margaret’s tools.» He nodded at the whistle. «And her trust, if Corbin brought them to you. What… what are you going to do?»
His voice held none of the old command or distrust. There was a question, respect for her choice, and a deep, weary readiness to accept it, whatever it might be.
«In the know?» my voice cracked into a near-shriek, but I stopped myself. I closed my eyes and took several breaths. «I don’t understand anything… There’s this place. It’s home to wonderful animals. Beyond that — the forest. In the forest — an arch. Beyond the arch — beings called Guardians. Margaret — my distant, unknown relative — was the ’keeper’ of what?! The Arch? The Guardians? The fabric between worlds is thinning? Why? How do we stop it? What happens if we don’t? Who are these Guardians?»
Each of my questions landed like a whip crack. Damon flinched. He set his cup down on the table with such a clatter that the tea spilled over.
«Keeper… of the balance,» he forced out, clenching his fists again, but now not in anger — in a desperate attempt to gather his thoughts. «Not of the Arch. Not of the Guardians. Of the very fact that this gap between worlds… exists. It’s supposed to be thin, like a spiderweb. Only… magic is supposed to seep through it. That very ’soft’ magic that makes the animals smarter, the stones warm, and the silence — speaking.»
He raised his gaze to me, full of torment.
«But something went wrong. Either on that side, or here. The boundary is thinning, becoming fragile. Not just energy, but… entities are beginning to seep through. The Guardians — they’re like border guards. From their own side. They’re not evil. They’re just… other. And they’re worried, too. What came to your door — it wasn’t aggressive. It was… lost. Searching for an anchor in our world that holds firmer.»
He looked at Corbin, seeking help. The raven slowly nodded, as if confirming his words.
«Why is this happening? I don’t know!» Damon’s voice broke. «Margaret tried to find out. In her diaries, there are hints… about a disruption of the balance somewhere far from here. About a ’muffled hum in the earth’ that started a few years ago. Perhaps we are to blame ourselves. People. Our… blindness. Our drive to tear everything apart and build over it.»
He took a deep breath.
«What will happen if we don’t stop it? The boundary will tear. And then it won’t be just one lost Guardian coming through. Everything that’s on the other side will come through. And we don’t know what that is. Margaret feared it would swallow our world. Or merge it with theirs into some nightmare chaos. And to stop it… you have to understand the cause. And, possibly, cross to that side to eliminate it there. But that’s…» He fell silent.
Corbin answered — low and mournful. The raven looked at me, then at the whistle on my chest, and a silent question was written in his gaze: «Are you ready? Are you the new keeper?»
Damon followed his gaze.
«She chose you, Annie. Not me, not Luka. A distant relative from the city. There has to be a reason for that.»
«Well, isn’t this a holiday,» I murmured. «What luck.» I sighed with irony and let my head drop onto the table. «All right,» I said after a pause. «I need to sleep… Tomorrow, after rounds, one of you…» I shifted my gaze from Corbin to Damon, «will take me to the Arch.»
Damon shot up so abruptly that his chair crashed to the floor.
«NO!» his voice thundered, full of primal fear. He slammed his palm on the table, making the cups jump. «That’s not up for discussion! You don’t understand! One wrong step, one glance in the wrong direction — and you could lose your mind. Or simply not come back, dissolve into that mist that hangs at the threshold! Margaret prepared for years before she approached it closely!»
His breathing quickened, his eyes white with horror. He looked at me not as an ally, but as a madwoman hell-bent on the abyss.
Corbin, on the contrary, didn’t stir. He sat on the chair, and his black, impenetrable gaze shifted from the enraged Damon to me, slumped over the table. Then he slowly, very slowly, nodded. Once. Distinctly.
That nod seemed to disarm Damon. He froze, staring at the bird.
«You… you agree with her?» his voice became a hoarse whisper. «You want to destroy her?»
Corbin let out an impatient caw and launched up, landing on Damon’s shoulder, despite his tension. He jabbed his beak at Damon’s temple, then toward the window beyond which the forest began, and then — toward me. It was a complex, almost eloquent gesture: «She is not Margaret. She is different. And the time is different. Waiting is not an option.»
Damon closed his eyes, his face contorted with inner struggle. When he opened them again, what showed in them was not victory, but surrender to something greater than his own fear.
«Damn it,» he exhaled. «Fine. But not tomorrow. The day after. Corbin and I will only escort you as far as the glade. Not one step further. My duty is to guard the perimeter from this side. If something goes wrong…» He didn’t finish. «We’ll be with you. But at the glade itself… beyond that, you’ll go alone. Or with Corbin, if he decides to fly closer. But Annie…» he looked at me, and his voice faltered, «please. Be careful. As you’ve never been in your life.»
He pulled back, lifted Corbin from his shoulder, and carefully set him on the table. The movement was tender, full of a deep bond between them.
«And now… sleep. I’m staying in the house tonight. In the living room.» He said it not as an offer, but as a decision. He was no longer going to let me be alone this night.
Corbin, having gotten his way, pecked at the last cookie and, with a flap of his wings, flew off deeper into the house, in the direction of the library — to his usual post, apparently.
I was left in the kitchen with Damon, who silently picked up the chair and began gathering the cups; his back was still tense, but no longer seemed hostile. The pre-dawn blue was beginning to blur the blackness outside the window. The longest night of my life was drawing to an end.
«What time are rounds?» I yawned. «There’s probably no point going to bed now, is there? Maybe coffee?»
The corner of Damon’s mouth twitched again. This time it was definitely an almost-smile, bewildered by my ability to think about mundane things after everything that had happened.
«7 AM,» he said, washing a cup with unexpected thoroughness. «You’re probably right, there’s no point in sleeping now. But there’s no television here. The antenna got torn off by a storm two years ago, and fixing it… I just never got around to it.»
He placed a clean cup on the drying rack and turned, leaning against the sink.
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