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  “Your family room,” Istvan said to me.

  We stood in the internal doorway in a corridor of the magistrate hall. The furniture I’d ordered was all in place, along with stone bench seats beneath the windows. The sheepskin rugs stacked in my room would be perfect to soften them.

  “You can purchase additional furniture as required from one of the town’s merchants,” Istvan continued. “Are there any changes you’d like?”

  “This is better than anything I’d imagined. The chessboard is cool.” The floor in a corner of the room was laid out with stone worked in two distinct shades of gray, and big enough for people-sized pieces to be moved around it. There was ample room for Istvan and another two people his size, but the room still managed to feel cozy. That was a testament to Istvan’s skill with proportions and lighting. “Thank you. I didn’t mean for you to lose sleep making this.”

  “I only sleep three hours a night.”

  “Oh.”

  Istvan indicated a blue pebble beside the gray pebble that controlled the wall sconces. “I have keyed the room to you. This means that only those you allow inside it can enter. To add a person, touch the blue pebble and say ‘allow entrance to whoever’. To prevent them entering in future touch the pebble and say ‘revoke entrance for whoever’.”

  I nodded to indicate I understood, but I was a bit overwhelmed. “I thought this would be a common room, a family room?”

  “It’s your family room. This is your home. Much of the rest of it will be overrun by staff and strangers. I tend to retreat to my office and room. You may always interrupt me in my office.”

  By his tone, the promise was a big deal.

  “Thank you. I won’t do so without reason.” I offered him a small smile. “My parents were important people in their business worlds. I know about respecting your work.”

  “As my familiar, my partner in magic, you are equal in importance with my magisterial responsibilities. Please believe that.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath, trying to let that truth sink in. “Okay.”

  He nodded. “Good. Now, I believe it is breakfast time.”

  I gave him a quick hug. The family room and my control over it were significant gifts, but his statement that he’d be there for me meant more. I could feel the truth of his commitment.

  Nonetheless, Istvan wasn’t perfect. He didn’t enter the kitchen with me, but headed for his office; leaving me to confront Peggy’s volubility alone.

  I let her chatter about her plans for the kitchen and for the week’s meals wash over me.

  Nils seemed to be doing the same, sitting opposite me at the table as we ate our porridge and refilled our coffee mugs in companionable silence.

  Oscar walked in while stuffing a list—it was paper: it was undoubtedly a list—into his trousers’ pocket. He momentarily halted Peggy’s flow of words. “Write down your menu plan. In future, we’ll go over them every Friday for the following week.”

  He ladled porridge into a bowl, sprinkled salt on it and joined us at the table.

  “Salt?” I shuddered.

  “I save the sugar for coffee. That stuff is bitter.”

  I saluted him with my mug. “Delicious bitterness.”

  Nils finished his breakfast and leaned back in his chair. “Amy, what are your plans for the day?”

  Istvan’s surprise of the family room already complete and giving me control over who entered it had derailed my brain. I’d been eating porridge and thinking about the implications of his gift. Nils’s question brought me back to my original purpose for the day.

  “I thought I’d visit Pavel, the tailor, and order clothes. What time do you think he opens for business?”

  Oscar snorted. “In normal circumstances, probably eleven o’clock.” The steward obviously considered that hour scandalously late.

  With a reminiscent pang I recalled lazy high school Sundays when I’d slept till then.

  “But given that he’s getting his business started, I imagine Pavel will be available from eight o’clock.”

  I glanced up at the clock on the wall. Then blinked. “We have a clock on the wall.” It was wooden with a white-painted face and large black hands. A practical clock for a practical room.

  “Expecting Pavel to be ready for business by eight is unrealistic,” Nils said. “He needs an hour to dress and another hour to scream at his assistants. I’ll accompany you to the tailor shop at nine.”

  Which meant I had nearly two hours available to me.

  It also meant that Nils had been lingering over breakfast, waiting for me. “Are you my assigned guard for the day?”

  He smiled. “Rory decided I was the safest choice for a tailor’s shop.”

  “You all guessed I’d follow Tineke’s advice immediately.”

  “You’re not a haverer.” Oscar swallowed the last of his coffee, and grimaced.

  “There’s tea in the pot.” Peggy had been watching—and listening.

  I jolted, reminded of the new level of surveillance in my daily life. The magistrate hall required staff to function, and those staff would always know their boss’s business—and I was Istvan’s business. They’d be tracking me, advising me, and seeking to use me.

  That had to be part of why Istvan had keyed the family room to me. It was a space where only those I wanted to find me could do so.

  “Istvan added the family room overnight,” I said to Nils, who nodded. “Can you please find me there when you’re ready to go to the tailor’s?”

  I returned to my bedroom to collect three sheepskin rugs, huffing as I staggered under the weight of the first one. Fleece is much heavier than its fluffiness suggests. I decided I’d do a few trips rather than attempt the impossible, so I trotted up and down the stairs, carrying the fleece as well as blankets to the family room.

  Yana intercepted me on the fourth and final trip. “Your slate.”

  I nodded in explanation at my arms full of blankets. “Come with?”

  She tucked the slate on the blankets and in against my chest. “I’ll get the books Tineke brought.”

  In the family room I crouched so that the slate could slide safely from the blankets onto the seat of a sofa. Then I hurried back to the doorway to touch the blue pebble. I hadn’t yet added anyone to the room. “Allow entrance to Yana.”

  “Istvan keyed it to you,” she observed. A grin flashed. “A couple of Peggy’s family tried to enter. They bumped their noses.”

  “I don’t understand the magic of the doorways,” I admitted. I’d tested not just the internal doorway but the one leading out to a walled garden. At the moment the garden was bare earth, but I’d prepare it for spring. Depending on how the family room dynamics operated, I might ask Istvan to make the garden invitation-only as well. “I can see through them, but wind and weather don’t enter.”

  “Magic doors.” A wry note colored her voice. “Griffins prefer them. Do you realize people can’t see through them? I couldn’t until you added me to the guest list.”

  Guest list sounded wrong. A family room meant that the people in it had a right to be there.

  “What does the door look like?”

  “Timber.” She smiled. “Ironically. Istvan would add real timber doors if you preferred.”

  I picked up a sheepskin the color of silvery storm clouds and shook it out. “I like these. But what happens if the magic fails?”

  “Does gravity ever fail?” Yana asked.

  I looked up from laying the sheepskin on a window seat. I sat down on it. “I can’t wrap my head around magic as a force in the world. I see you all using it.”

  “Some of us more than others,” she interrupted. She crossed the room with a long-legged athletic stride. “Most Faerene have very little magic and what magic we do have tends to be specialized. Don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re more powerful than you.”

  “Except that you are. Rory has someone guarding me. Nils drew the short straw this morning.”

  She sat besi
de me. “He volunteered. Can you see me in a tailor shop?”

  “If I have to be there…”

  She nudged my shoulder. “You’re a more girly-girl than me.”

  “Huh.” I didn’t mind the thought of new clothes. I got up and retrieved the slate. “I guess I should look at fashions.”

  “Huntress would suit you.” But the suggest was absentminded. “Amy.”

  I put the slate aside. Yana had sought me out for a reason, and by the serious tone of her voice, she was about to share it.

  She smiled crookedly. “It’s not that big a deal.” She wrinkled her nose. “Or maybe it is. I just…” She gestured at the room. “This is yours. You shouldn’t feel pressured to invite anyone into it. If you want to keep it just for you—and Istvan—do that. In a way, you’re building a pack here, and pack life can be overwhelming at times. Until everything is organized and we’re certain of your security, you’ll have to hang around the magistrate hall or be escorted most places. If you need a retreat, this is it.”

  She looked worried, as if I might be annoyed at her for checking that I understood my current reality.

  I smiled, ruefully. “I was thinking about that last night. Not that I guessed that Istvan would key the family room to me. But I was thinking about how I’m living in a public building now.”

  She nodded in relief and understanding, and to encourage me to go on.

  “In part, privacy is going to be a state of mind. It was a bit like that at college. There were people everywhere and I was sharing a dorm room with two other girls.”

  Ilsa and Stephanie were probably dead. With six sevenths of humanity lost to the apocalypse, death was the assumption I had to go with for anyone I hadn’t actually seen in the last couple of months.

  I kept my voice even. Compartmentalizing my emotions mightn’t be a healthy long-term solution, but for now, the strategy let me function despite the trauma of the apocalypse and my personal upheavals. “The next best thing to privacy is just not caring how others are judging you. Tineke reminded me that I can’t slack off. I’m Istvan’s familiar and what I do reflects on him. But as long as I’m comfortable with who I am and what I’m doing, then the fault-finders can take a running jump into the river.”

  Yana bounced to her feet. “Well! And there I was thinking you might need a pep talk.”

  I was determined, and meant every word I’d said, but I wasn’t bursting with energy like her. “No pep talk. Just a friend.”

  She smiled. “You’ve got those.” Without waiting for a response she exited via the external door.

  I watched through the window as she strode away.

  Were the windows enchanted like the doorways so that people couldn’t see in?

  “Ask Istvan.” Idly I scrolled through the slate, learning how it worked, and focusing on fashion. Fortunately, it was as intuitive to use as a computer tablet with internet functionality.

  I made a mental list of the people I would grant the freedom of the family room.

  Istvan, although he probably already had it. This was his creation and hall.

  Rory, Yana, Berre, Oscar and Nils. I pondered whether to just welcome the Hope Fang Pack, but decided against it. I liked what I knew of its initial members, but what if the people Rory added to it next weren’t as congenial?

  Tineke. Last night I’d interpreted her statement that my behavior would reflect on Istvan as a criticism. Today, I could acknowledge that she’d been trying to help. The slate on my knee and the box of books Yana had carried in were tangible proof of Tineke’s good intentions.

  Lajos? I really had disliked the elf when he was hosting the trials. However, hating the role he’d played, and perhaps been compelled to play, was distinct from disliking the man himself. He’d said he intended to start a herb farm across the river. When I thought of Stella and how much she loved her herbs, I softened toward Lajos. There must be good in the man. He liked Tineke, after all. And it would be too pointed to exclude him.

  Yana was right. I didn’t need to grant everyone entry to the family room. But I needed to trust people whom others trusted even if I had a personality clash with them. Families weren’t composed of people who all thought the same.

  I added Lajos to my mental list.

  A few other names came to mind from the familiar trials, as well as Dorotta the messenger dragon who’d given me good advice before I started the trials.

  Act with goodwill, she’d said.

  The wisdom of her advice still held. People could judge me however they wanted. As long as I was acting with goodwill, their judgement didn’t count.

  I jumped up and pressed the blue pebble to add to Yana’s name the others who could enter the family room. I left off Dorotta. Until people arrived at the hall, it was silly to add them.

  “We need a clock in here.” What if I’d thoughtlessly left Nils standing in the corridor?

  I checked.

  There was only a passing goblin, and although he stared at the doorway, his untracking gaze showed that he couldn’t see through it.

  Picking up the slate, I concentrated on learning the most popular Faerene fashions.

  “Ready?” Nils’s aquamarine hair was tied back in a sleek ponytail. He was lean and seemed ageless; the expression in his eyes much older than his lithe way of moving. He wore a dark brown leather vest over a linen shirt and dark woolen trousers tucked into his boots.

  “Nice room.” He surveyed the family room and strolled to a window, looking out at the empty garden. “All magistrate halls should have one.”

  I put the slate aside, more than ready to be up and moving. I’d brought my leather coat down from my room and now I shrugged it on. Outside looked windy with a promise of rain. “Don’t they? Aren’t magistrates married or whatever? Where do their families live?”

  “Magistrates’ children tend to be grown and living independently. A magistrate and his or her partner share a suite in the hall. Their family home is somewhere else.”

  I bit back the question of whether Istvan had chosen a home site somewhere else. That was a question to ask him, or not to ask at all. If I wanted privacy, I needed to give it, too. “Lead on, Macduff.” I’d studied Macbeth in high school.

  Nils frowned quizzically. One of the chasms that would have to be bridged between the Faerene and humanity was our pop culture references. Not that Shakespeare was precisely pop culture.

  We exited through a gate in the wall of the garden and started down stone stairs. A winding path nearby offered an alternative, more meandering route down to the town.

  The view from the windows of my room had shown me some of the progress that had been made in just a couple of days. By human standards, it was astounding.

  “Can you tell me what everything is?” I asked Nils.

  He pointed. “The all-faiths temple will go up there. Beyond it is the town hall. Turn around. No, to the west. The new building is the customs office.” He turned me back around so that we headed south at the next corner. We could have cut across vacant land, but instead, we stuck to the roads. “Remind me when we get back and I’ll call up a town map on the slate for you.”

  I tripped over fresh air out of plain shock. “There’s a map already?”

  He grinned even as his hand shot out to steady me. “This is a planned city. Earth is the seventh Migration. We have a standard layout for new towns. People know what they can claim and what they have to invest to hold that claim. All those wooden houses and commercial buildings that have gone up are pre-fabricated. Those of us who weren’t involved in defending and sealing the Rift concentrated on producing settlement items. Prefabs enable people to achieve the building element of finalizing their claim on a plot of town land.”

  I studied the scene with newly informed eyes. “So the timber buildings are prefabs?”

  “The majority are. Non-timber construction indicates special skills or magic. That brick warehouse over there is Peggy’s family’s. They built it, having hired a messenger drago
n to carry in building supplies. Oscar did well to form an alliance with them via employing her. The brick house over there with a view of the river is also theirs.”

  “It looks like an apartment block. A fancy one.” Although not as elegant and gracious as the stone building beside it. “Who owns the neighboring one?”

  “Hope Fang.”

  This time I didn’t trip over my own feet in shock. I simply froze. “You built a stone house in two days?”

  His grin widened. “Not two days, overnight. And I didn’t. Rory did. Last night.”

  I resumed walking, albeit slowly, staring at the mansion with its verandas on each of the four levels and the prime corner position that maximized the views and breeze from the river.

  “Rory decided the pack needed a house. Not everyone who joins will want to work for the magistrate hall, and nor should they. A solid pack is more than a one trick pony. Hope Fang House gives new members a place to stay. The first floor is communal space. The next two have apartments suitable for families. The top floor works for single people. Plus the roof allows for flight-capable members to land.”

  He nodded approvingly at the house. “For the moment, we’ll rent out the rooms. In a new town, having a building stand empty vacates your claim to it.”

  I was stunned. “I think the town map will be handy.” The business of establishing a pack and staking a claim in Justice was more information than my overloaded brain could handle right now. I would have stumbled on, but Nils tugged me to a halt outside a wooden building with an ornate sign.

  “Pavel’s.”

  The shop dummy in the window wore an elaborate gown that I recognized from my hour’s research as the pinnacle of the gomba, or mushroom, style.

  A door chime tinkled at our entrance.

  “So early! So eager! Good morning, good morning.” Pavel was elegantly outfitted from the flat cap in scarlet that sat atop his white hair through the billowing pirate shirt in royal purple and his emerald green trousers. His shoes were scarlet, presumably to match his cap. “Please, please excuse my work clothes.”

  I’m not sure what expression my face wore in response to that statement, but after a glimpse of it, Nils snorted a laugh.