Page 112 of A Fae in Finance
Roman looked down at his hands, twisting a hunk of stone between his fingers so it flowed and changed.
“I cannot divine why anyone will die. Am I a god, to be so wise?”
Sahir and I exchanged a glance. I had only one question left, and Roman wasn’t playing nice.
“WillI die if I step through a portal?”
“You will die if you step through a portal, and you will die if you do not. We all die, in some way and at some time.”
Roman must have looked at my face and seen his own imminent death, because he stood hastily.
He bowed his head again, more perfunctory than polite. With a lazy finger, he dissolved the spinning blue wards around us.
“Wait!” I said. “Why does everyone think it will kill me?”
Without the wards dazzling my eyes, the entire clearing felt gray.
Roman stared at me steadily. “I owe you no questions, child,” he said. “What will you give me?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Looked down at my hands.
“I don’t have anything with me except my pack and my clothes.” I held up my empty palms for emphasis.
He looked at my raised hands without interest, and then looked again, squinting. He pointed at my index finger. “That ring is of faerie make,” he said. “Where did you get it?”
I touched my ring, as was my habit. “It was passed down, mother to daughter,” I said. “And now it’s mine.”
“Give me that ring, and I will give you your life.”
I looked at Sahir, wondering why he’d never expressed interest in my ring. He shrugged, probably to indicate that he had never studied the finer points of jewelry making and the provenance of my ring was of no interest to him.
Roman watched me hesitate.
“Human,” he said, “I require no questions. The ring is worth all my knowledge and more. I will owe you some other fair recompense, too.”
Some small part of me wanted to refuse; the ring was always on my finger, and had been my mother’s and my grandmother’s.
I shut that thought down. My mom and grandma would much rather have me than a ring.
“The deal is made, Builder,” I said, twisting the ring off my finger. I held it out to him.
He leaned forward and snatched it from my hand, too fast for my eye to follow.
Which obviously didn’t make me thrilled about parting with the ring.
“The magic wrought by my father and his companions wrung pockets of space from the breadth of our planet. The land of Faerie is a patchwork of earth, of mountainsides and desert spans. Imagine a sewn quilt, with magic for each seam. To enter, and to leave, my father and his companions left crevices in the quilt, places where they did not sew as tightly.” He frowned at me, to check if I understood. “There are several crevices, which you call portals.”
I nodded, which I would’ve done even if I didn’t understand.
“There is a physiological difference between humans and Fae,” Roman continued. “But it is largely benign.”
He paused. “Well, there are many physiological differences,” he amended, staring judgmentally at my non-goat-adjacent legs. “But only one relevant to this explanation. Fae are anchored in time but not in space. Humans are anchored in time and in space. Their inchoate sense ofplaceis more stable than ours…” He trailed off.
“Sorry, what?” I said, before I could stop myself.
“It is the difference between…” He stopped again. “Imagine stepping through a doorway, knowing that the vacuum of space presses down on you from beyond the lintel.”
I nodded.
