Tai's first thoughts after Giada and Fallon's abrupt leave-taking are that of gratitude for there being two less people in his house.
This contentment is then compromised by the fact that he is now left with the following:
1. A patently immature bird-man, who almost tracked muddy rainwater onto one of his family's best carpets
2. An art-addled painter who can barely make her gift manifest power before it exhausts her
3. A confessed biblioklept with a key that grants her boundless access
4. Jasper
Refusing to keep this company for any longer than necessary, Tai finishes the account of their gifts by adding his signature with a flourish. In it, he lists their gifts, their discovered uses, and a description of the monster seen by both Jasper and the Taymons. Zahara even contributes a sketch of the creature, guided by Jasper's narration of it since she has yet to see one herself.
Tai concludes the account with a request for the city council to arrange for the body to be removed from the Taymons' cottage, where Edeline had pushed it temporarily out of sight behind the tree line, using a shovel.
There is little that Tai finds admirable, but he has always given due credit to Edeline's tenacity.
He wonders if the council will have the body examined, and if they do, what they will find.
The report now sealed, Tai considers asking his guests to stay for a meal, or at least refreshments, then decides against it. He wants to be alone again, to feel the silver run through his hands like water, to watch the flow of sand transform for him.
"Feel free to ring your way out now," he says to Jasper, who lingers anyway. He straightens his posture to look Tai right in the eye.
"Thank you for not telling them about me."
Jasper had requested not to be included in the account, explaining that as the chimera's first foray into inter-world gift-giving, he did not want to publicize his presence and foreign origin without being certain he would be welcomed.
Tai didn't care overly much one way or the other, and figured that the fewer people introduced to Jasper, the better. He cited an anonymous contributor as the eyewitness to the monster in the valley, and alluded no further to Jasper's presence in his writing.
He waves off the gratitude impatiently, but Jasper isn't finished.
"Also, not that it hasn't been a pleasure being dropped without explanation into wherever the bell takes me," he says, "But I was thinking it would be nice to have a map of this world, or at least of this area within it. And from what I've seen of your house, I'd bet you must have a map somewhere in here."
Tai wants to deliver some sort of scathing comment right now, but can't come up with one. Jasper makes a sensible point. Leaving his place at the ornate table to stride across the ornate floor and open the ornate double doors, Tai calls for one of the ornate household workers, asking her, ornately, to see to Jasper's request before escorting both him and Zahara to the exit.
After dismissing the two, Tai turns to Lionel and Kalila, who remain.
"You can leave the way you came," he says, gesturing toward the window where Lionel's bird-form had perched only an hour ago.
Lionel looks outside to where the rain falls steadily now, small damp stars coming to earth. He tilts his head in thought, dark hair following the movement. "I don't know how well I can fly in this. I think I'll go the old-fashioned way."
YOU ARE READING
The Chimera
FantasiaA (mostly) cozy fantasy in which the rule of three is misused, the slow burn is glacial, and the cast of characters is twice as large as it needs to be. Also, there are monsters now. -------------------- In a city unknowingly on the edge of chaos...
