“Ready?” he asked Terisa over his shoulder. Without looking away from the glass, he extended his hand to her.
Where were Havelock’s rooms, Havelock’s mirrors? What had happened to Geraden’s talent?
No, she told herself, he can do it this way, everything’s all right. He had the ability to use mirrors for translations which had nothing to do with their Images. That was how he had come to her in the first place, how he had showed her the Closed Fist, how he had rescued himself from Orison. All she had to do was trust him.
Choose your risks—
She took his hand, started moving at once toward the glass so that she wouldn’t falter.
But she was holding her breath as the Image opened to embrace her like the sea.
Of course she didn’t fall into the sea: Geraden had too much control over his talent; he was in no danger of going that far wrong. Instead, she faded as if she had winked out of existence.
Holding his hand with all her strength, pulling him after her, she evaporated through the transition of mirrors, the instant, eternal plummet and soar between places of being; the vast redemptive and ruinous dark which her parents had taught her to know and fear and love by locking her in the closet.
When she came out of the translation, she lost her balance and collapsed in a heap, drawing Geraden helplessly after her – breaking his brief hold on the mirror’s frame, his only attachment to the world of the valley.
For some strange reason, she landed on a thick carpet.
A synthetic carpet, running from wall to wall on both sides of her.
Adept Havelock didn’t have a carpet like this in his rooms. No one had a carpet like this anywhere in Orison.
Across the deep, woven pile, she saw that she was surrounded by people: women in gowns; men in tuxedos. Some of them had yelled recently, dropped glasses full of ice and alcohol onto the carpet. They were all still now, however, motionless, staring frozen at Geraden and her with shock on their polished faces.
Until she recognized the angle of the hall leading to the bedrooms, and the shape of the entryway to the dining room and kitchen, she didn’t realize that she was back in her old apartment.
Back in her old world.
FIFTY: CAREFUL RISKS
Geraden was sprawled halfway across her; his weight held her down. Instinctively, she arched her back, tried to shift him so that she could get her legs under her. He didn’t move. Staring at the strange carpet, the chrome-and-wicker furniture, the astonished men and women in their inexplicable clothes, he murmured, “Glass and splinters. What have I done?”
She thought the answer was obvious.
He had brought her back to her old condominium. And during her absence time had passed; months had passed. Never one to cling to a useless investment, her father must have sold her apartment as soon as he felt sure she wasn’t coming back. And the new owners had redecorated it, of course—
All her mirrors were gone – every conceivable link to Mordant, every way back—
On the other hand, what imaginable reason could Geraden have for bringing her back here? for bringing her back here now? This wasn’t just an accident: it was an absolute disaster.
There was no way back.
“Get up,” she urged as if his weight were suffocating her. “Oh, God. Oh, shit. Get up.”
“Call the police,” a frightened woman pleaded.
“Call security,” suggested someone else.
“Who are they?”
Geraden got up.
As he rose to his feet, the people in the gowns and tuxedos flinched; some of them retreated farther. A shoe kicked a glass, sent it rolling across the tile on the kitchen floor. Terisa could hear ice being crunched underfoot, as if that noise were louder than the voices.
“Call security, I said.”
“How did they get in here?”
“I don’t know. They just appeared, that’s all.”
“What have we been drinking?”
Her heart beat so hard that she had trouble finding her balance, trouble making her legs lift her upright.
“What have I done?” Geraden repeated softly; he was appalled to the bone.
“Miss Morgan?”
No, she was wrong again, she had jumped once again to the wrong conclusions. The ice wasn’t louder than the voices: she had no difficulty at all hearing Reverend Thatcher.
He was there, squirming his way out of the press of people, a small, old man in a shabby suit. His pulse beat in the veins under his pale skin. He came a few steps toward her, then stopped; his eyes watered with surprise and relief and embarrassment.
“Miss Morgan?”
Her father was right behind Reverend Thatcher. His expression made him look like a startled barracuda.
Terisa gaped at him while her pulse faltered and her heart quailed.
Geraden, please. Oh, please. Get us out of here.
“Miss Morgan.” Reverend Thatcher seemed to face her through a veil of tears. “We thought you were dead. Kidnapped – lost—I went to your father.”
She had always considered her father mercilessly handsome in a tuxedo. His appearance was a weapon he knew how to use. And it made his anger more brutal; it implied that no one had the right to ruffle him.
He came out of the rich crowd as if he were stalking her.
She wanted to run. Dash into the bedroom. Hide under the bed.
It wasn’t her bedroom anymore.
Oh, Geraden.
“He was going to sell your apartment anyway,” Reverend Thatcher explained, driven by a need to justify himself. “I persuaded him to sell it for charity. For the mission. He’s going to auction it tonight. To raise money for the mission.”
Without warning, she nearly lost her fear.
Reverend Thatcher had persuaded her father? He had gone to her father and persuaded him, confronted him? Lonely and pitiable as he was, the small, old man must have risen to something approaching heroism, in order to confront her father like that – in order to best him.
This time, she didn’t need the call of horns to help her see the change in Reverend Thatcher, the valor underlying his superficial futility. She and Geraden had blundered into his night of triumph.
“You know these people?”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t care. Get them out of here.”
Or else her father had relented in some way? He cared about her enough to be made vulnerable by losing her?
That idea changed everything. She believed in his unlove. It was fundamental to her. Could she have been wrong about him? Was there another part of him, a part she didn’t understand, a part he didn’t see himself when he looked in the mirror?
If he cared about her, how could she ever leave him?
No. He thrust Reverend Thatcher aside with such force that the old man stumbled. Chewing his anger, he demanded, “Terisa Morgan, how dare you embarrass me like this?”
“Terisa,” Geraden asked as if he were panting, “do these people know you? Where are we?”
“You disappear without telling anyone,” her father spat. “You abandon your job, your apartment, you abandon me, you don’t have the simple decency to ask permission, you don’t tell anyone where you’re going, and then you show up like this, in front of my friends, when I’m trying to get a good price out of them for this place. Dressed like that? How dare you?”
Geraden, please.
Her father looked like he was going to hit her. “I’m ashamed of you.”
That was too much. Nothing was changed. She had found depths in herself which no glass could reflect; but her father was only what he appeared to be. Reverend Thatcher positively soared in her estimation. Instead of cowering or crying or pleading, she faced her father squarely.