The Chimera

Chapter Sixteen: To Be Beloved

Out of respect for the shaking of their world, Jasper spends the next long month avoiding the friends he's made in Beledon. He doesn't knock on Zahara's daisy door, avoids the cottage where Fallon gardens in the sun.

He lets them say their goodbyes and pack their belongings, to go to their employers and explain the situation of their leaving. The city has said they must be on their way to Sunset Citadel in early October, before the chill grows too strong for easy travel.

This doesn't mean that Jasper ceases his use of the bell.

He rings it often, but only stays if there's a chance for solitude. One September afternoon is spent under the canopies of the western woods, leaning against the textured brown surface of a tree trunk to watch the way the light collides with the overhead leaves: warm orange and deep red.

Even in the grace of the moment, Jasper is tense. His hand grips the bell tight, ears alert and waiting for any sign of a milky white specter looking to encroach on this small paradise, to crack his breakable bliss.

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Alongside Jasper's quiet retreat, the same conversation cycles tiresomely through the gift recipients' households.

"You can't follow me out of the city. It'd be like banishing yourself too," says Giada (or Fallon, or Zahara, or Lionel. Who says it depends on the home and the day, but they all say it eventually).

"I'm not letting you go alone. And I've already volunteered, so you can't stop me," says Edeline (or Rian, or Dalmar, or Araceli, or Skander).

"You can't leave your work behind. You love the observatory," Giada says. She is desperate to make her sister stay. Pushed farther, she might even mention Hilo.

"If you and Fallon are being forced to leave the city, why wouldn't Rian and I come along if we can? The four of us should stay together."

"Because the council shouldn't get to ruin all of our lives. You two can at least keep what you have here."

"Listen to me, Giada. You are my sister. I am meant to take care of you, and I will always do that. And that means that if you're moving to live in some abandoned castle in the west, I'm not going to stay behind just because the observatory here has an especially nice telescope."

Giada doesn't want to say it, but what choice is there? "I'm not talking about the observatory only.  Hilo can't just quit his role at the university: you'd really leave him here?"

Giada watches the breaking of her sister's wants. Often she has marveled at her share of Edeline's heart, but now it seems a cursed thing, to cost her something as dear to her as Hilo.

Something shivers within the blue of Edeline's eyes, but she does not look away. "I can send him letters. And the council said we can come back to the city for four days every month, yes? It isn't as if I'll never see him again."

Giada knows her sister well enough to recognize that this is a lost battle: she and Fallon will doom the other two. Farewell to their little cottage on the edge of the city, where Giada chops wood in the mornings and Rian lays out their breakfasts. No more of Edeline shooting the straw target outside or Fallon trimming his roses. Giada already knew that all of these things were precious, so she had expected the loss of them to sting. The magnitude of the feeling, though, is still staggering.

Instead, they will be at Sunset Citadel, where the innermost castle is said to be abandoned after becoming "chimera-touched", whatever that may mean. The gift recipients and their accompanying volunteers will stay in that castle, while a garrison of roughly a hundred men lodges nearby, removed from the powers and suspicion of those whom the beast has chosen for its tricks.