“No, not that.” She paused, frustrated with the limitations of language. “I can slightly shift things around me. Or a better way to say it is, I can shift myself in relation to everything else around me. Slightly. Not enough to really dematerialize, but enough sometimes to go unnoticed when I want to.”
“Is that how you hid with Robin from Gawain?”
“Yes. In my mind, I say that I pulled shadows around me, but really what I’m doing is stepping into shadows that existed at some time in that specific place. It’s—it’s like turning a corner. I know that sounds kind of mind-bendy, but believe me, it’s nothing like listening to full Djinn carry on a conversation. They literally don’t experience reality the same way we do.”
He shifted his weight onto one hip and gestured to her. It was as princely a gesture as she’d ever seen him make. “Show me.”
She scowled. “I’m not a trick pony to perform on your command.”
“No, a trick pony doesn’t know how to talk back like you do.” The exasperation was heavy in his voice.
What on earth did he have to be exasperated about? It was enough to make her exasperated with him.
She rolled her eyes. “Besides, it doesn’t work very well out in the open, in full sunlight. You know I’m standing here, and you’d be watching for it, so I wouldn’t be able to fool you. So getting back to what is actually relevant, what if the house is ever so slightly out of alignment with this Earth? And what if I could shift slightly enough to align with it, open the door, and get inside? If I’m right, a full Djinn could do it, but again, who wants to owe an unnamed, possibly dangerous favor to a Djinn? I certainly don’t want to ask one, and I don’t want to suggest it to Kathryn, because if I can do it, I win the land and the annuity.”
“If you’re right, the house is dangerous and probably unstable,” he pointed out. He turned to study it again. “According to the story Kathryn Shaw told you, it shifted even further while her father was alive. Parts of it must exist in different broken pieces of land magic.”
“Kathryn called it a Rubik’s cube, but all the colors don’t line up. It might be more like a jigsaw puzzle, with pieces sitting on different planes. All the pieces together make up a full house, but the separate pieces themselves exist in different time-space-dimensional realities.” She shrugged. “As far as it being unstable goes—it hasn’t gone anywhere for several hundred years, so I’ll take my chances. I mean, who knows what’s still inside there? There could be anything. The family didn’t keep records of what they had left behind.”
“You said nobody could break a window when they tried,” he said slowly. There was something dawning in his expression, an extra alertness or a comprehension.
“That’s what Kathryn told me. Apparently, the house as it stands right now is pretty impregnable.” It was her turn to watch him closely. What was he thinking?
He said, “Okay if I give it a try?”
Chapter Ten
She cocked her head and shrugged. “It’s not my property… yet… but Kathryn’s family already tried it before, so I’m going to take a chance and say sure, go ahead. Besides, if you can break a window, I can crawl through it and get inside, and then the house will be mine anyway.”
This time she was the one to follow him as he stalked slowly across the lawn, looking at the ground. When he came to a broken piece of flagstone, he squatted, pried it up, and hefted it. The stone was big enough it would have been uncomfortably heavy for her to lift, but he carried it as if the weight was no big deal, a small but telling piece of evidence of how different they were.
Once he had selected a stone, he strode closer to the nearest window. Then he whirled like a discus thrower and hurled the stone at the window. He moved so impossibly fast she felt both a shock and a thrill just watching him. The stone shot like a bullet, and when it hit the window, the sound of the impact rocketed across the clearing.
But the window didn’t break.
Excited, she jogged over to him and took his arm. “That’s exactly what Kathryn described.”
He didn’t seem to mind that she touched him. Rubbing the back of his neck, he muttered, “But if it connected, why didn’t the window break?”
“It hit,” she said. “It just didn’t hit exactly right.”
He tilted his head. “But we can actually touch the house. The stone hit the house. We heard it.”
She rubbed her face as she tried to formulate the right words. “You know how in a fight, you might throw a punch, but you are only able to land a glancing blow? Or if you brush against something—you’re touching it lightly but not completely.”
“You’re saying we’re not fully touching the house,” he said.
“I think so.” She paused. “Or maybe this is a better explanation. I’ve only traveled down a crossover passage a few times, so I’m no expert, but I know if you come at one from the wrong direction, you don’t enter the passageway. Assuming the terrain will allow for it, you can walk right across one and never go inside. It’s part of the land magic. You’re touching the land—you’re walking on it—but you’re not in alignment with the passageway.”
“The house is inside the crossover magic, so it’s the alignment that matters.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Except the crossover passageway is broken. It’s in pieces, so there’s no smooth entryway like there is with passageways that function normally.”
“Is that how you hid with Robin from Gawain?”
“Yes. In my mind, I say that I pulled shadows around me, but really what I’m doing is stepping into shadows that existed at some time in that specific place. It’s—it’s like turning a corner. I know that sounds kind of mind-bendy, but believe me, it’s nothing like listening to full Djinn carry on a conversation. They literally don’t experience reality the same way we do.”
He shifted his weight onto one hip and gestured to her. It was as princely a gesture as she’d ever seen him make. “Show me.”
She scowled. “I’m not a trick pony to perform on your command.”
“No, a trick pony doesn’t know how to talk back like you do.” The exasperation was heavy in his voice.
What on earth did he have to be exasperated about? It was enough to make her exasperated with him.
She rolled her eyes. “Besides, it doesn’t work very well out in the open, in full sunlight. You know I’m standing here, and you’d be watching for it, so I wouldn’t be able to fool you. So getting back to what is actually relevant, what if the house is ever so slightly out of alignment with this Earth? And what if I could shift slightly enough to align with it, open the door, and get inside? If I’m right, a full Djinn could do it, but again, who wants to owe an unnamed, possibly dangerous favor to a Djinn? I certainly don’t want to ask one, and I don’t want to suggest it to Kathryn, because if I can do it, I win the land and the annuity.”
“If you’re right, the house is dangerous and probably unstable,” he pointed out. He turned to study it again. “According to the story Kathryn Shaw told you, it shifted even further while her father was alive. Parts of it must exist in different broken pieces of land magic.”
“Kathryn called it a Rubik’s cube, but all the colors don’t line up. It might be more like a jigsaw puzzle, with pieces sitting on different planes. All the pieces together make up a full house, but the separate pieces themselves exist in different time-space-dimensional realities.” She shrugged. “As far as it being unstable goes—it hasn’t gone anywhere for several hundred years, so I’ll take my chances. I mean, who knows what’s still inside there? There could be anything. The family didn’t keep records of what they had left behind.”
“You said nobody could break a window when they tried,” he said slowly. There was something dawning in his expression, an extra alertness or a comprehension.
“That’s what Kathryn told me. Apparently, the house as it stands right now is pretty impregnable.” It was her turn to watch him closely. What was he thinking?
He said, “Okay if I give it a try?”
Chapter Ten
She cocked her head and shrugged. “It’s not my property… yet… but Kathryn’s family already tried it before, so I’m going to take a chance and say sure, go ahead. Besides, if you can break a window, I can crawl through it and get inside, and then the house will be mine anyway.”
This time she was the one to follow him as he stalked slowly across the lawn, looking at the ground. When he came to a broken piece of flagstone, he squatted, pried it up, and hefted it. The stone was big enough it would have been uncomfortably heavy for her to lift, but he carried it as if the weight was no big deal, a small but telling piece of evidence of how different they were.
Once he had selected a stone, he strode closer to the nearest window. Then he whirled like a discus thrower and hurled the stone at the window. He moved so impossibly fast she felt both a shock and a thrill just watching him. The stone shot like a bullet, and when it hit the window, the sound of the impact rocketed across the clearing.
But the window didn’t break.
Excited, she jogged over to him and took his arm. “That’s exactly what Kathryn described.”
He didn’t seem to mind that she touched him. Rubbing the back of his neck, he muttered, “But if it connected, why didn’t the window break?”
“It hit,” she said. “It just didn’t hit exactly right.”
He tilted his head. “But we can actually touch the house. The stone hit the house. We heard it.”
She rubbed her face as she tried to formulate the right words. “You know how in a fight, you might throw a punch, but you are only able to land a glancing blow? Or if you brush against something—you’re touching it lightly but not completely.”
“You’re saying we’re not fully touching the house,” he said.
“I think so.” She paused. “Or maybe this is a better explanation. I’ve only traveled down a crossover passage a few times, so I’m no expert, but I know if you come at one from the wrong direction, you don’t enter the passageway. Assuming the terrain will allow for it, you can walk right across one and never go inside. It’s part of the land magic. You’re touching the land—you’re walking on it—but you’re not in alignment with the passageway.”
“The house is inside the crossover magic, so it’s the alignment that matters.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Except the crossover passageway is broken. It’s in pieces, so there’s no smooth entryway like there is with passageways that function normally.”
