memory
I opened my eyes and yawned tremendously. My eyes still gummy and clouded over from sleep, I could vaguely make out a petite yet shapely silhouette hovering near the side of the bed. I sat up and blinked several times, moistening them enough to clearly see my naked fiancee standing next to the bed.
“Good morning to you, too,” I managed as I peeled the covers off my legs. They were still a little sticky. My skin felt slightly clammy and the sheets were about as trashed as one might expect after a night of repeated and enthusiastic lovemaking.
Misaki leaned in toward me, her expression filled with concern. “You were having a bad dream. You started tossing in the bed and flailing around and woke me.”
“I gathered that much.“
She sat down on the edge of the bed, her brilliant green eyes soft with worry and anxiety. I reached a hand out and brushed my fingertips against Misaki's cheek.
“Calm down, love. It was a weird dream, sure, but I'm awake, I'm safe and you're here with me—nothing could be better.” I smiled. “Well, maybe coffee would make things better. Coffee always makes things better.”
Misaki ignored my weak attempt at humor and gazed at me worriedly. “Can you remember it?”
“Enough to wonder if it was actually a dream at all,” I mused, leaning forward to kiss her on the cheek. That seemed to please her a great deal more than it should; her vulpine ears lay flat and forward and I could see her fluffy tail curling up toward her back. “There was a weird person cloaked in shadows who spoke mostly in cryptic bullshit, but they mentioned Isao Tsukimura. Actually a major topic of conversation.”
“That's definitely suspicious,” Misaki agreed. “While you were tossing and turning, there was a disturbance in the ambient mana.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was subtle, but someone was working magic within these walls. The spell was cast carefully, stealthily, obviously by someone who has great skill.”
She had my full attention at this point. When it came to magicky stuff, Misaki was the resident expert. If she said there was magic being invoked, there was no reason whatsoever to doubt her.
“So you're saying this dream I had—was, what? Some random mage talking to me in my dreams, like some kind of wizard's instant messenger? Seems pretty inconvenient, if you ask me.”
Misaki couldn't keep the smile from her lips. “Ordinarily, sendings require consent. A conscious person, even lacking any magical talent, would be able to refuse the psychic connection without much difficulty. By approaching you in your sleep, the mage was able to bypass some of your mind's defenses.”
I frowned. “You're sure this is what you think it is?”
“I'm sure,” Misaki insisted, taking no offense at my obvious caution. “I recognize the spell from the patterns in the loose mana. There's no doubt in my mind at all that this was a sending—and a very puissant one at that. Even sleeping minds can be difficult to reach if the target is a stranger.”
I asked the obvious question. “But why?”
“I don't know,” Misaki admitted, her tail uncurling and drooping down to lay atop the mattress. “What did the shadow-cloaked figure say to you about Lord Isao?”
“Like I said, a lot of cryptic nonsense, but there
was
something in there that I didn't already know—that I don't think AEGIS knows, either.” My expression became pensive as I regarded my wife-to-be, her tail curling and swishing slowly across the mattress in her worry. “I
think
I'm relating this properly, but the weird person in the dream claimed Isao Tsukimura used a permanent spell to punch a hole through the boundary between this world and the astral, using it as a conduit to pull more power through.”
“That explains much,” Misaki murmured, a troubled look on her face. “The fusing of his soul to spectral essence would explain how he was able to channel so much power and make use of miasma safely, but it would not be the source of that power.”
My eyes narrowed sharply. “You knew this might have been possible and didn't think to mention it sooner?”
Misaki blushed. “I-I'm sorry. I didn't think it was relevant at the time.”
"Don't start that again," I admonished her. Misaki hadn't
entirely
broken the habit of apologizing extensively any time she made anything resembling a mistake. “You've been doing so well, too.”
“A-anyway,” Misaki continued, her cheeks flushing slightly at the praise, “what you're saying makes sense. If Lord Isao used magic to tunnel through the boundary, keeping the link open would take considerable effort. His continuous invocation would have started to fail the moment you destroyed his miasmic core with the Relic.”
“The weird person said that, though in a more confusing way.” I stood up and stretched my arms over my head. “They claimed that the boundary between the astral and this world has been weakened because I killed Isao.”
Misaki's lack of objection was a disturbing confirmation.
“What does that even mean?”
“I don't know,” she admitted. “The boundary separates this world from the world of spirits and magic. It's never been completely impermeable, but the strength of the boundary
has
fluctuated over the centuries.”
“Speculation is probably a waste of time at this point.” I shrugged and took a long swallow from a glass of water I kept on the nightstand. “Get those dark thoughts out of your head for now. I'll make us some breakfast.
“You never eat breakfast,” Misaki pointed out.
“I have a feeling that it'll be a good idea today.” I threw on something quickly, not really caring much what it was—in this case it happened to be the stuff I usually wore to the gym, a loose t-shirt and a pair of thin shorts. I walked out of the bedroom and into the living room of the apartment. It still felt a little strange not to be sleeping in the same room I spent most of my time in at home, but I was sure I'd get used to it eventually.
Misaki followed and sat down at the small kitchen table, a heavy and old antique that Mama insisted I take when we moved. Most of the contents of the Takeda family home were still there in Osaka, but she already had a goodly amount of furniture shipped to my sister's home in Portland.
I opened the fridge and started rooting around, pulling out the things I'd need to cook something. The strange feeling I had before led me to pick something high in all sorts of energy: I pulled out a package of breakfast sausage and a roll of lazy-bake biscuits. There was a little bacon left over, too, and a half a bunch of scallions. Perfect.
“I'm making biscuits and sawmill gravy,” I announced. “That sound good?”
Misaki's ears perked up. “Sausage and bacon in the gravy?”
“Of course.” I busied myself prepping the ingredients necessary while I watched my fiancee out of the corner of my eye. She was uncharacteristically quiet; usually when either of us cooked, Misaki was a chatterbox full of things to say.
Instead, she stared out the window pensively. I turned back to my work, frying off the sausage, bacon and a minced shallot in the pan with some crushed garlic. The fat rendered out of the meat and soon I had all I needed to make the roux. As I threw a little flour into the pan and started to brown it up, I could feel a telltale odd pressure in the air that always accompanied the use of magic.
Misaki was tracing a series of runic symbols in the air. Her eyes were strangely unfocused and I knew just by looking that she was performing some type of searching or scrying magic. It certainly looked out of place in this otherwise utterly normal scene of domestic bliss, that's for damn sure.
“I'm searching for the source of the sending,” she explained.
I shrugged and went back to my cooking, pouring cold milk into the skillet and whisking the roux-meat-onion mixture vigorously. “I doubt you'll find anything.”
“The mage covered their tracks well,” Misaki agreed. “What do you think we should do about this, Karin?”
I slowed my whisking as the gravy thickened up, turning smooth and creamy without any trace of lumps. I threw a few pinches of kosher salt and many more than a few of coarse ground black pepper—it's sawmill gravy, for fuck's sake, pepper is
required—
and turned to my fiancee with a troubled expression on my face.
“Talk to Star about it, of course.”
Misaki nodded grimly. “I was thinking the same thing. Our affiliation with AEGIS is not a very well-kept secret among those involved in the arcane underworld. It may be someone targeting AEGIS as a whole and not you specifically.”
“Yeah, could be. We don't have just ourselves to worry about. Contact Star through the secure comm and arrange a face-to-face meeting.”
Misaki pulled out her phone and tapped at the screen for a few moments. I opened the oven up and was greeted with the sight of six very fluffy and golden-brown biscuits. Working quickly so they wouldn't burn my fingers, I split four of the biscuits and arranged two each on plates, then spooned the hot gravy over the top. Thinly sliced scallions and red chilies went over the top of each, being especially generous on my plate.
“Breakfast is served,” I announced, setting the plates down. Misaki's thoughtful expression disappeared at the sight and smell of the food. The sawmill gravy was good and creamy, with big chunks of well-browned sausage and bacon showing through. I retreated to the kitchen and grabbed two glasses and the carton of orange juice from the fridge before returning to the table.
“Star has arranged to meet us at the secure office in two hours,” Misaki informed me. I nodded, expecting this, and sat down, pouring the both of us a glass of juice. Picking up my fork, I got right to it, cutting off a hunk of gravy-drenched biscuit and popping it into my mouth.
“This turned out good.”
Misaki seemed to agree; I raised an eyebrow upon noticing there were only three halves left on her plate, mere moments after taking my seat. The two of us finished our breakfast in companionable silence, considering the time limit we had if Star wanted to meet so soon. Our boss's quick response time likely meant she already had something she wanted to discuss.
Even so, Misaki still finished first and pushed away from the table. “Thank you for the meal. I'm going to get in the shower.”
“I'll set something out for you to wear,” I offered. Misaki smiled at me and turned to walk toward the hallway, her tail swishing as she walked. I would ordinarily have taken that as an opportunity to engage in mischievous acts of physical affection, but my mind was too busy contemplating the dream.
She left the door to the bathroom open and I heard the shower cut on. I knew she wouldn't take too long, especially not with the meeting coming up, so I quickly gathered up the plates and silverware, depositing them into the sink and rinsing the residual gravy and biscuit crumbs away.
Back in the bedroom that Misaki and I shared, I opened her side of the closet and started pulling out articles of clothing. Call it intuition, call it a hunch or a gut feeling, but it seemed like a very good idea for the both of us to wear something comfortable. After a few moments of consideration, I decided on setting out a pair of thick leggings—it was already starting to get cold—and a ruffle-trimmed pink tunic.
The white noise of the shower cut off abruptly and a few minutes later Misaki came padding back into the bedroom, her hair still damp. She plopped down on the edge of the bed and I couldn't help but laugh as her right hand was suddenly enveloped in a sheet of dancing reddish-orange flame.
“It works better than the hairdryer,” Misaki insisted. I wasn't about to argue with that; she was one hundred percent correct. The spell-flame sheathing her hand would only burn what she wished it to, would only emit as much heat as she desired. My cheap drugstore hairdryer would do considerably more damage to her hair.
Still, it was a strange sight to watch my fiancee sit on the edge of our bed while a ribbon of animate flame orbited around her head, gently drying the moisture from her abundant reddish-gold hair. In most stories about people gifted with supernatural powers, the heroine was often admonished for using her powers for mundane conveniences.
“I bet you could cook the most perfect steak with that,” I remarked as I stripped for the shower.
“We should try that next time.” Misaki giggled. Of course she wasn't even remotely opposed to such an idea, especially since it involved the possibility of eating meat cooked over an open flame.
I turned and walked toward the bathroom while Misaki dressed. She'd left the place cleaner than it was before she used it, as usual. After almost a year together, I no longer felt guilty about it. It would take a lot longer to reverse the personal quirks and habits picked up over the course of six centuries.
More importantly, it was different now. Misaki didn't act as she did out of fear or out of some ritualized behavior imposed upon her. No, we
both
bent over backwards for each other because we loved each other. That's really all there was to it.
I turned the shower on and stepped underneath the flow. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to enjoy the feeling of hot water cascading down my back. I could still feel sharp spikes of weakness and pain in my left leg and the muscles that ran from my thigh to the small of my back.