Against The World

Chapter 110: Her Turn in Front

Evelyn asked Alistair to stop being polite.

He considered this.

Then looked at me.

I raised both hands.

“I’m not involved.”

“You’re standing behind her.”

“That has been explained to me.”

My wife glanced over her shoulder.

“Try to remain there.”

We stood in the smaller practice yard, where the walls kept most of the morning wind away. Alistair held a padded staff. Two chalk lines marked the path we were meant to follow.

The task was simple.

Evelyn would shield us.

I would watch the side she could not see.

We would reach the far line.

We had not yet managed it.

Alistair lifted the staff.

“As you wish, Majesty.”

He stepped toward her left.

Evelyn turned her shield.

He changed his grip and tapped my elbow from the right.

My wife closed her eyes.

I looked at the padded end resting against my sleeve.

“He has stopped.”

We tried again.

This time, I warned her sooner.

“Right.”

She moved the shield.

I stepped with her.

For three paces, everything worked.

Then I felt her power strain and began adding my own.

The little gold curve thickened.

Evelyn stumbled.

“Uriah.”

I released it immediately.

Alistair lowered the staff.

My wife turned toward me.

“I knew where it was.”

“I thought it was weakening.”

“It was. I was adjusting it.”

“I’m sorry.”

She took a breath.

Then another.

“Tell me before you help.”

I nodded.

Alistair waited while she settled the working again.

No lecture.

I almost wished he would give one.

It would have been easier than noticing exactly what I had done.

On the next attempt, I kept my power to myself.

Evelyn’s shield covered less space than mine.

That made every step matter.

When Alistair moved, she could not simply widen it until his staff had nowhere to go.

She had to turn.

I had to move with her.

Twice, she told me to come closer.

Once, she told me to stop breathing against her ear.

“That one may be difficult,” I said.

“Manage.”

We reached the far line with Alistair’s staff sliding across the outer edge of her shield.

It made a soft scraping sound.

Then the gold faded.

Evelyn stood still.

I watched her face.

Alistair lowered the staff and nodded.

“Well done.”

My wife looked back at me.

She was breathing hard.

She was also smiling.

Afterward, we sat on the low wall.

Alistair went to return the practice weapons.

I handed Evelyn a cup of water.

“Your wrist?”

“Tired.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

I nodded.

She drank.

For a while, we watched two guards cross the yard carrying a target between them.

Then I said, “I didn’t like feeling it weaken.”

“I know.”

“I wanted to make sure—”

“That we reached the line?”

“Yes.”

She turned the cup between her hands.

“So did I.”

I looked at her.

Evelyn leaned her shoulder against mine.

“I want to be able to do this when you aren’t standing behind me.”

That quieted the rest of my explanation.

I took her free hand.

“All right.”

She squeezed my fingers.

“And when you are.”

The lighthouse’s turning ring arrived that afternoon.

It came through the gate on a padded sled with Aldren walking beside it and Perrin looking as though he had personally escorted a sleeping dragon.

I met them in the workshop.

Tilda examined the ring.

Then the doorway.

“Who measured?”

“I did,” Perrin said.

She looked at him.

He swallowed.

“It fits.”

It did.

Barely.

Once it stood on the prepared supports, Aldren showed us the damaged teeth beneath the rim.

The old metal had worn unevenly.

Several repairs had been made with pieces that did not quite match.

“That explains the hesitation,” Perrin said.

“And the strain on the supports,” Aldren added.

Oswin rested his fingers against one section.

“This part is sound.”

He moved his hand.

“This one isn’t.”

Tilda marked both places.

For the next hour, the workshop sounded like work.

I found I had missed being there for that.

They did not need me to solve the mechanism.

They needed me to lift it.

Aldren asked whether I could hold the ring level while they removed the damaged section.

“Yes.”

“For a while?”

“Yes.”

“Without deciding to improve anything?”

Tilda folded her arms.

I looked between them.

“My reputation is becoming inconvenient.”

“Hold it there,” she said.

I did.

Perrin worked beneath the rim with a lamp and a narrow tool.

Aldren checked the supports.

Oswin listened to the metal while the pressure eased.

There was nothing dramatic about it.

No enemy.

No falling tower.

Only a heavy thing that needed to remain exactly where several people expected it to be.

When Tilda told me to lower it, I did so slowly.

The ring settled onto its supports.

Perrin emerged with the damaged piece.

He held it up.

We all looked.

“Lunch,” Tilda said.

Apparently that was the next stage.

At lunch, Mary brought news from North Point.

The three villages had reached an agreement.

Harl would receive a fixed allowance.

Oil deliveries would be recorded at the store and the tower.

A second person would learn the keeper’s work.

Linnet had volunteered to teach the signal code, provided her father stopped correcting her in front of the pupils.

I read that part aloud.

Evelyn smiled into her cup.

“Will he?”

“Tamsin has doubts.”

Beatrice took a piece of bread.

“The agreement also includes roof repairs.”

“Good.”

“And the road village is contributing a cart.”

I looked up.

“How did you manage that?”

“They explained how essential their road was.”

She buttered the bread.

“I agreed.”

That evening, Melody came to see the twins.

She arrived with a small cloth ball stitched in several bright colors.

Carol regarded it with interest.

Garrick reached for Melody’s sleeve instead.

She sat on the rug and allowed him to catch it.

“Excellent judgment.”

Evelyn settled beside her.

I took the chair near the window.

For a while, Melody rolled the ball slowly across the blanket while Carol watched it pass.

Then she stopped.

Our daughter looked at her.

Made a small sound.

Melody rolled it again.

“That was an order,” I said.

“Yes. Much clearer than yours.”

My wife laughed.

Garrick pulled on Melody’s sleeve.

She looked down.

“And you?”

He smiled.

Melody went very still.

Then looked at me as though I had arranged it.

I spread my hands.

For once, I was entirely innocent.

Aurelia was waiting in the garden courtyard when we next dreamed.

She had moved the stools beneath the climbing rose.

Evelyn noticed first.

“You’ve been gardening.”

“A little.”

There were new shoots trained along the arch.

The path beyond it seemed clearer too.

I could hear water somewhere farther away.

Aurelia watched me listening.

“A channel beside the old kitchen garden.”

“I couldn’t hear it before.”

“No.”

She looked pleased.

We sat.

Evelyn told her about reaching the chalk line.

Aurelia listened closely.

Then my wife described the attempt before it.

The one in which I had helped.

I looked at the fountain.

Our teacher said nothing for a moment.

Then she asked me, “What did her shield feel like?”

“Thin.”

“Where?”

I thought back.

“Along the lower edge.”

“And elsewhere?”

I frowned.

“The top was steady.”

Aurelia nodded.

“She was moving the strength she had.”

Beside me, Evelyn rested her hands in her lap.

I looked at them.

“I made it harder.”

“For that moment,” Aurelia said.

My wife nudged my foot with hers.

“We did reach the line.”

“Yes,” I replied.

“We did.”

There was no staff practice that night.

Instead, Aurelia asked us to hold a single small working between us.

A curve over the table.

Nothing more.

Evelyn shaped one side.

I shaped the other.

We had done something similar before, but this time our teacher asked her to change it without speaking.

The gold shifted.

I felt the edge draw away from me.

My first instinct was to pull it back.

I stopped.

Waited.

Then moved with it.

The curve tilted.

Held.

Evelyn looked at me.

Aurelia smiled.

“Again.”

We practiced until I could feel the beginning of her adjustment before seeing it.

Then we changed places.

When my wife followed my movement, the working settled with so little strain that I nearly lost it through surprise.

Evelyn laughed.

The curve trembled.

We steadied it together.

Before the dream ended, I told Aurelia about Selene Aven.

The shelter.

The inscription.

The family who still brought blankets and repaired the chimney.

She listened with her hands folded loosely.

“Did you know her?” I asked.

“I don’t remember meeting her.”

I nodded.

For some reason, I had expected otherwise.

Aurelia looked toward the garden.

“There were more good people in the world than I managed to meet.”

Evelyn smiled.

“Her descendants may like to know what we found.”

“Some already do,” I said. “Mary is gathering their accounts.”

“Then let them tell it,” Aurelia replied.

She rose and walked with us toward the arch.

At the threshold, she stopped beside the climbing rose and adjusted a young shoot.

Her fingers remained solid against the leaf.

I noticed.

She noticed me noticing.

Neither of us said anything.

The first letter concerning the coastal shelter reached Mary three days later.

It came from a woman who believed Selene had been her great-grandmother’s aunt.

She included a family list.

Mary opened it across the table.

Then unfolded it again.

I stared.

Evelyn looked at me.

“Familiar?”

“Alarmingly.”

The woman’s letter said she possessed a portrait.

It had hung in her mother’s house for years under the description of a stern relative nobody could quite place.

She would bring it to Orselle if we wished.

Mary reached for her pen.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Yes,” Evelyn said.

I looked at my wife.

She was smiling at the letter.

“A face,” she said.

After all the accounts and inscriptions, I understood why that mattered.

Near the end of the week, Aldren invited us to the workshop after supper.

The repaired ring stood on its supports.

Perrin had fitted a temporary handle.

The lamp itself remained at Orselle, awaiting further work, but the mechanism could be tested here.

Tilda stood with one hand on the frame.

Oswin watched the repaired section.

Brin held the inspection lamp.

Perrin looked at me.

“Would you?”

I stepped forward.

Then stopped.

Evelyn stood beside the table with her sleeves already drawn back.

I moved aside.

“My wife might.”

She glanced at me.

Then took the handle.

“Which way?”

Perrin showed her.

She turned it slowly.

The ring moved.

Passed the repaired section.

Continued.

No hesitation.

No scrape.

Aldren bent to listen.

“Again.”

Evelyn turned the handle through another complete circle.

This time, Perrin began to grin.

Tilda let out a breath.

Oswin tapped the frame once with his knuckle, apparently satisfied.

My wife stopped the ring and looked across at me.

I smiled.

Then we all leaned closer while Perrin explained what came next.

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