Page 27 of Daughter of No Worlds

It was cold. Threll didn’t get cold, and I didn’t particularly enjoy the unfamiliar sensation.

The flower leaves gently curled, like an animal getting ready to sleep. I wondered if he had put some sort of protective spell on them to shield them from the chill. My teeth chattered.

And then, finally, the door opened. I jolted so abruptly that my back screamed.

Maxantarius stood in the doorway.

“You look freezing,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Yes.” I saw no point in denying it.

“Are you planning on going anywhere?”

“I have nowhere for going.”

I tried to sound very pitiful.

He sighed. “Figures she’d leave you here on the coldest spring night we’ve had in years,” he grumbled. Then he stepped back from the door, eyeing me warily. “I’m inviting you inside, but only because if I let you freeze out here, I’d have to relinquish my moral superiority.”

I didn’t understand what any of that meant, except for the important part. I pulled myself to my feet, wincing slightly as my back straightened and offering Maxantarius my most charming, grateful smile. “Thank you, Max-an-tar-ee-us.”

I was very proud of myself for correctly stringing together all of those syllables out loud.

He rolled his eyes as he stepped aside, holding the door open for me. “Max, please. Otherwise we’d spend half our damn lives saying that ridiculous name.”

Thank the gods.

* * *

I had never seen somanythingspacked into so small a space.

I stepped through the door and immediately stopped short. It took palpable effort not to let my jaw drop. My eyes didn’t even know where the look first.

Max’s home was tiny, but every single wall —everyone — was lined with shelves that held trinkets and tools and art and sculptures and little strange whirring metal things. One shelf was devoted completely to what looked to be a very wide variety of sizes, shapes, colors and types of wine bottles. Four different rugs covered the floor, all overlapping each other at various angles, each a different color and texture.

A fireplace bathed all of this in flickering orange light, reflecting off little metal pendulums and curious, circling devices. A couch and two armchairs sat near the fire — none matching — and a dining room table with five different styles of chairs occupied the middle of the room. Around a corner, I caught a glimpse of a small kitchen, and a narrow hallway with a few closed doors.

“These are all very useful and important things,” Max said, somewhat defensively, as if he saw my eyes widen when I walked in.

I nodded.Sure.

There was no possible greater opposite to Esmaris’s vast, minimalist estate. At least it was clean in here. Cluttered, but clean.

“Are you hungry?”

Max disappeared into the kitchen. As if answering for me, my stomach rumbled.

“Yes.”

He emerged with a bowl of soup and a teacup, which he placed at the table, motioning for me to sit. I did, and he slumped into the chair across from me. He replenished a mostly empty wine glass from a bottle that was also mostly empty, and leaned back in his chair.

I sniffed. The soup Max had given me was different than anything I had ever eaten before — thicker, and heavy with the still-unfamiliar smell of the ocean. I would have inhaled it even if it was disgusting, but it was good.Spicy, but good.

“Thank you.” I was so ravenous that I barely remembered to say it.

Max had shifted to leaning on the table, his chin propped against his knuckles, watching me in silence. I returned the favor, regarding him warily between bites.

He was younger than I might have expected. Perhaps late twenties, though there was a certain sharp, observant quality to his expressions that made him seem like he could be older. High cheekbones doused in flickering firelight. A flat, straight nose. Delicate, upturned eyes beneath creaseless lids that only emphasized their unnerving, cloudy blue. Up close, they looked even more strange. I knew an old man in Threll who had cataracts that looked a bit like those, though certainly not in such a striking blue. Somehow I doubted that Max had eyesight problems, though. His gaze seemed too deliberate, too piercing, for that.

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