The Measure of the Magic (39 page)

“I’ll take you,” he promised.

She didn’t say anything in response, didn’t do anything. She went as still as the air in their forest of dead trees, staring down at her feet, keeping the contact with him that she had formed, but not increasing the pressure.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“You’re not just saying it?”

“What do you think?”

“I think maybe I love you.”

His eyes, lowered before, snapped up at these words, and suddenly he was staring out into the darkness, which was nearly complete, and finding in the space directly outside their makeshift shelter a pair of huge yellow eyes staring back.

It required massive willpower not to jerk away and leap up and instead to remain as still as she was, but somehow he managed it. The eyes were bright and their gaze intense, reflecting the glow of distant stars that peeked through the heavy clouds and filtered through the trees. Steady and unblinking, they seemed to float in the darkness like giant orbs.

“Phryne,” he said softly.

“What?”

“I want you to do something for me. I want you to lift your head just a little and look outside the shelter. But don’t say or do anything else. Don’t make any other movement at all. Don’t be frightened.”

She did what he asked, raising her head and staring out, and he felt the shiver that ran through her when she saw the eyes. But she kept herself from moving or speaking; she kept from panicking.

After a few long moments, she said, her voice very small, “What is it?”

As she said it, the eyes suddenly shifted, sliding to the right, and suddenly the body they occupied became partially visible, bits and pieces of it revealed by the ambient light. It was a massive cat, bigger than anything Pan had ever heard of and certainly bigger than anything he had ever seen. Its coat was a mottled gray and black, its head broad and flat with small ears, and its neck encircled by a thick ruff. When it shifted again, all the time studying them, he could see the muscles of its long, sleek body clearly defined beneath the sheen of its hide.

A massive paw lifted and pulled experimentally at the branches, which gave way easily to the immense pressure. Pan heard Phryne gasp and felt his own heart begin to race in fear of what might be coming.

But then the cat lowered its paw and circled away, gone as quickly as wind-blown smoke. Phryne clung to Pan, as if somehow she could find protection by doing so. He couldn’t imagine what he would do against something that huge. He had the staff and its magic to protect them, but he wondered how useful they would be. It was one thing to stand against something as bulky and slow as an agenahl, but something else again to face a creature like this.

The cat reappeared suddenly, materializing back in front of them in almost the exact same spot as before, eyes first and then bits and pieces of its body coming into view. The darkness was a perfect cover for it; when it blinked and the eyes disappeared, the rest of it seemed to vanish, as well. It watched them with renewed interest for a few long seconds more, and then casually yawned. Its mouth opened and kept opening until Pan had to look away to avoid staring any longer at those huge, sharp teeth gleaming in the dark. He could barely breathe, and he was pretty sure that Phryne was beyond even that.

When he looked up again, the cat was gone.

Phryne exhaled sharply, and then whispered, “That was the biggest, scariest …”

She trailed off. “I know,” he whispered back.

They sat close together in the darkness without moving for a very long time, waiting for the cat to return. But it did not reappear, and when he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, Pan said, “I think it was just curious.”

She nodded. “I think so, too. But I wouldn’t want to take the chance of being wrong.”

“Did you see what it was doing? It was studying us. It didn’t look hungry. Just … interested.”

“I guess it could have gotten to us if it wanted to. These branches wouldn’t have stopped it.”

“I don’t know
what
would have stopped it.”

“I don’t think we ever want to be in a position where we have to find out. How big was it? What do you think it weighed?”

“A cat that size? Five hundred pounds easily. Probably eight or nine hundred. All muscle. A hunter.”

“But not hunting us.”

“Not tonight, anyway.”

His arm was getting stiff from being wrapped about her shoulders all this time, and he started to take it away. “No, don’t do that,” she said at once. “I’m freezing. Can’t you feel it?”

She scooted over farther and pressed against him. He couldn’t tell from that alone, but when she put her hands over his, they were ice cold. He put both arms around her at once. “Are you feeling all right? You’re not sick, are you?”

“Not yet. But I don’t want to risk it. Can you put the blanket around me, too?”

He loosened the straps that bound the travel blanket to his backpack and carefully wrapped it about her shoulders. “Now get inside it with me,” she said. “Like before. Put your arm around me again.”

He did as she asked, pulling her against him and covering them both with the blanket. It would have helped if the blanket was bigger, but there was no help for that. They were lucky to have anything at all to warm themselves. “Better?”

She shifted her head until she was looking at him. He could feel her gaze more than see it, could feel strands of her hair brush up against his face as she leaned forward until her forehead was resting against his. “A little.”

He felt her adjust her position slightly, turning toward him. Then her fingers were fumbling at the front of his shirt, working at the buttons, loosening them. He felt a moment of panic, thinking that he needed to stop this, but not wanting to. He tried to think what to say. “Phryne, I don’t …”

“Shhhh,” she said at once. “Don’t say anything. Keep watch for that cat and let me do this.”

When she had all the buttons undone, she slipped her hands inside and pressed them against his skin. They were so cold that he jumped in spite of himself, shivering as they moved from one warm place to the next.

“Much better,” she murmured. “Am I too cold for you?”

He didn’t trust himself to answer, so he simply shook his head no. He closed his eyes as her hands moved around to his back. Pressing harder.

“I’m getting warmer already,” she said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Here, let’s try this.”

Her hands slipped out again, and he could feel her moving against him once more. Cocooned by the darkness, he waited to see what she was doing. Then, abruptly, she took hold of his wrists and pulled his hands inside her now open blouse and held them there.

He gasped in shock. “Phryne, this isn’t …”

“Don’t talk,” she said again. “Don’t say anything. Just leave your hands where they are.”

Then she slipped her own hands back inside his shirtfront and moved them up and down his sides.

“Listen to me, Pan. I don’t know what tomorrow or the next day or the next is going to be like, but I know about tonight. So just do what I tell you. I promise it won’t hurt.”

He was not surprised at all when he discovered that she was right.

W
HEN PANTERRA QU WOKE THE FOLLOWING
morning, it took him a minute to realize that he was alone. He was still rolled up in the blanket, cradling his head on one arm as he looked out from his prone position at the shadowy forms of the trees in the predawn light. Everything was very still, but he could smell the woods and the damp in the air, and when he glanced at the slowly lightening sky he saw a mix of heavy clouds and mist dropped down so low they scraped the treetops. He was warm and drowsy and filled with a sense of happiness and contentment he found hard to believe.

But when he reached back for Phryne, he discovered she was gone and jerked upright at once, the mood broken. He didn’t see her anywhere at first and cast this way and that, trying to make her out through the dimness and the shadows. He dropped the blanket, crawled from beneath their makeshift shelter, and climbed to his feet, ready to go looking.

Then he spied her, well off to one side, sitting quietly on a fallen trunk and looking off into the distance toward which they had been
traveling the day before, so still she might have been a part of the forest. He watched her for a moment, waiting to see if she would notice him. When she didn’t, he looked down at himself and, feeling foolish, quickly pulled on his boots and clothing. When that was done and she still didn’t seem to have noticed him, he began rolling up the rumpled blanket so he could strap it to his backpack.

“I thought you might be planning to sleep the day away,” she said suddenly.

He glanced up from his work and saw her looking at him. By now, he was vaguely irritated with her—first, for leaving him alone, and second, for acting so nonchalant about everything. The way she was speaking to him made it sound as if nothing at all of what he so vividly remembered had even happened.

“I didn’t know you were awake. In fact, when I didn’t find you next to me, I thought you might have gone somewhere.”

“Gone somewhere?” She laughed and brushed back her hair with both hands. “Where would I go?”

She rose from her log, walked over to him, and knelt close. “Did you think I might leave you? Is that what you’re saying?”

He shrugged. “No, I guess I didn’t think that.”

She reached up and touched his cheek and then leaned in to kiss him. “You are a terrible liar, Panterra Qu. That is exactly what you thought. But I forgive you.”

She was so beautiful in that moment, so bright and fresh and wonderful to look at, that he was pleased beyond words to be forgiven, even if he didn’t think for a moment he needed it. “I was just worried about you.”

“Just hold that thought. I might have need of it later. Do we have anything to eat?”

They didn’t, of course. They had eaten the last of their food the night before and drunk all but the last few swallows of their water. Until now, it hadn’t seemed all that important. But their hunger was real and pressing, and suddenly they could think of little else. Bereft of breakfast and anxious to do something about it, they packed up the last of their things in preparation for setting out. There would be little chance for food until they got back inside the valley, and nothing that happened before then was going to make things any easier.

They began walking once more, still heading in the same general
direction they had been going earlier, still looking for an end to the lichen-and-moss-shrouded forest. The sun rose above the eastern horizon, but the day remained overcast and gray while the air grew thick and sultry. Around them, the trees formed the walls of a maze that hemmed them in and held them prisoner. They could tell themselves there was an end to this, a way out, but it didn’t feel like it.

Neither of them spoke for a long time as they traveled, lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Pan didn’t know what was wrong, but something definitely was. Still clinging to the tattered remnants of his euphoria and anxious to share what he was feeling, he finally grew impatient. “What were you thinking about back there, sitting off by yourself?”

She glanced over. “Maybe I was thinking about you. Would you like it if I was?”

He grinned in spite of his uncertainty. “You know the answer to that.”

“I know the answer. But it isn’t what I was doing. I was thinking about something else.”

When she didn’t offer an explanation, he said, “Tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. Tell me.”

“You don’t have to know everything about me.”

“I have to know this. Tell me.”

She shrugged. “I was thinking about choices and how we make them. About how some are so easy and some so hard. I was thinking how we make some because we want to and some because we have to. Does that help?”

He smiled. “Well, I hope last night’s choice was one you wanted to make and not one you felt you had to.”

“Actually, it was both.”

“Because it was something you’d been thinking about and …”

She wheeled on him suddenly, bringing them both to a stop. “Pan, let it go. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

He could hear the irritation in her voice, and he was suddenly confused and hurt. “Don’t talk about it? What does that mean? I thought …”

“Last night was last night, and it’s over with. Don’t try to make more of it than what it was.”

“Don’t make more …” He glared at her. “That’s a little difficult at this point. Besides, didn’t you tell me you loved me? Are you saying I shouldn’t make anything of that?”

She studied him a moment, biting her lip. “That’s not what I said. I said, ‘I
think
I love you.’ There’s a big difference. Besides, there are other things that …” She left the sentence hanging and sighed. “Let’s walk while we discuss this.”

Side by side, they went on. Pan stared at the ground in front of him, caught up in a whirl of emotions, chief of which was a mounting sense of doubt that only moments ago hadn’t been there.

“When you lose a father and a grandmother, and they are the last of your family, you see things a little differently,” Phryne said finally. Her voice was softer now. “You think about how fragile life is, about how quickly it goes by, how quickly things become lost. You take life for granted most of the time. You live it in the moment and you don’t think a lot about the future because the future seems a long way off. But when people you love die, suddenly the future seems a whole lot closer and very uncertain.”