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Blade had been at Derkholm for two hours, and at this point he regretted visiting. From the anguished look Kit shot him over their mother’s head, his griffin brother felt the same.
It wasn’t that the place was a shambles, because Blade found the chaos familiar and comforting. And it wasn’t the fact that Flo and Angelo were shrieking outside at a pitch only small children could achieve, because Blade loved his siblings and found their antics energizing. It wasn’t even the distant, wistful feeling Blade always got when there were elves around, as there were today, admiring the winged unicorn that was Derk’s latest addition to the herd.
“You’re sure you haven’t heard anything from Lydda?” Mara said, for at least the third time.
“No, Mum,” Blade and Kit said in unison.
“At least Shona remembers to write,” Mara said, despondently. “Lydda doesn’t even do that.”
“She does live on the other continent, Mum,” Blade said.
“She could send it with Claudia,” Kit suggested. “Isn’t she running that express mail service these days?”
Blade shot Kit a dirty look. Kit knew about Claudia’s business venture well; he just wanted to change the subject to Blade-and-Claudia, not Lydda-and-that-Harrek-Acker-boy.
“She could,” he agreed. “Or we could set up a relay over the ocean, for the magic mirrors. I’m sure it wouldn’t take that much flying.”
Now it was Kit’s turn to glare. But Mara sighed, distracting both of them.
“It’s good of you to try,” she said. “But I just don’t think she thinks of it. And I suppose I can’t blame her. She’s just excited, and she forgets. Gets it from your father, I suppose.”
Derk did have a tendency to disappear for weeks at a time when he was working on something. For a moment Blade wondered what Lydda might be busy with— then forced himself to stop. He didn’t need to think about his sister laying eggs, and neither did Mara.
“What’s Dad up to, anyway?” he said instead. “Now that he’s done with the unicorn? Wasn’t he going to try breeding some more orange cultivars?”
“I wish!” Mara said. “No, he’s onto chocolate, of all things.”
“Chocolate?” Kit said.
“It’s some kind of Pilgrim sweet,” Blade remembered. He’d only encountered it once, on his own disastrous Pilgrim Tour. The terrifying Ms. Ledbury had brought some, and her brother Eldred— or rather Prince Talithan’s brother Eldreth— had snuck Blade a small piece, with that vague smile of his. It had been sweet and rich, with a smooth, melting texture— one of the few bright moments among the rain, mud, murder, kidnapping, exhaustion, and terror that had characterized the end of the tours.
“It was good,” he added. “But I don’t see how Dad’s going to grow any if he hasn’t got the seeds.”
“That’s just the problem,” Mara said. “He heard about them from one of the younger wizards, and now he wants them, and they’re all in the other world. I’m terrified he’s going to try to open a portal. Or worse, summon a demon to do it for him.”
Blade shuddered, but Kit’s crest had fluffed up the way it did when he was thinking hard.
“What was it like?” Kit said. “The chocolate thing.”
Blade blinked at him. Kit’s buff-colored beak was pointed toward Mara, but griffins didn’t have to face you to look at you. Slowly, the huge golden eye closest to Blade blinked once.
He’s got some plan. All right.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said. “Right now I think Mum’s probably heard enough about chocolate. And Mum, I’ll do my best to remind Lydda to write.”
“Thank you, Blade,” Mara sighed. “That’s all I ask. Now if I could get so much out of your father—”
“I think I hear him calling now,” Kit said, scrambling to all four feet. Blade followed him out with a hasty goodbye to Mara. The last thing anyone wanted from their parents was to be asked to take sides.
Outside, Kit deftly avoided Flo and Angelo’s notice in a way that quite belied his size, and took refuge in the orange orchard, just outside the winged herd’s pasture. Blade was careful not to look at the elves, who were all tall and ethereally beautiful and made him feel distinctly shabby in comparison.
“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Kit said, wheeling about. Blade had to duck to avoid Kit’s lashing tail. “Mum wants Lydda to visit, right? And Dad wants this chocolate stuff. And you said it’s some kind of food, and what does Lydda like best? Food. And cooking. Especially cooking new, weird, exotic food.”
Blade had to admit he was right. It was a brilliant solution… if you ignored the fact that getting their hands on chocolate involved traveling to the other world. Mr. Chesney himself might be safely locked away, but the thought of visiting his universe still made Blade uncomfortable.
“Do you know how to open a portal?” he prevaricated. “Because I didn’t get a good look at any of the tour portals, and I don’t think you did either.”
“I think you need a demon for those really big stable portals,” Kit said. “At least, that’s what Mr. Chesney was doing.”
“Oh, is that all,” Blade snapped. Just the thought of the three-legged blue demon made him feel weak and sick.
“But we don’t need a big portal,” Kit said. “Don’t you remember? Querida had to send all those Pilgrims home. I know you saw her do it. Your tongue was sticking out of your mouth.”
“That doesn’t mean I know how to do it,” Blade defended himself.
“Yes, it does,” Kit said. “I know you. And I bet if we pool our magic we can make one just as good as Querida’s, and maybe a scrying spell too. Maybe we’ll pull Claudia in on it. She’d probably be good at portals, with that translocation talent of hers.”
Blade felt a hot blush rise to his face.
“I suppose,” he said.
“There we go,” Kit said. “Come on. If she’s free we can get it knocked out this afternoon. I’ve got to talk to those elves.”
Without waiting for a response he turned and swept out of the orchard, enormous and black against the shiny green of the orange trees. The elves all turned as he emerged. Blade sighed.
“I didn’t even agree,” he said to no one in particular, and followed.
“Is that all there is to it?” Claudia said.
They stood on a grassy hillside just outside the University. Kit had just finished explaining portal-making to Claudia; Blade had mostly been surreptitiously admiring the wet sheen of her hair in the afternoon light.
“It’s not hard at all,” Kit said. “Just tricky, and you don’t want to do it where there’s been a lot of portal-opening in the past. But this hill should be fine.”
“We still need a way to aim,” Blade mentioned.
Kit grinned. “I’ve got a letter in my bag,” he explained. “Prince Eldreth asked me to deliver a thank-you letter to that fierce-looking woman who helped him. While the elves were falling all over Dad’s winged unicorn.”
“Ms. Ledbury,” Blade remembered. He shivered. He’d been convinced at the time that Ms. Ledbury had been spying for Mr. Chesney. She’d turned out to be spying on Mr. Chesney, and was therefore presumably not a bad sort, but somewhere in his feet he was still terrified of her.
But Claudia was looking, so he said, “All right, let’s see it.”
Kit opened the bag— cleverly disguised against his feathers; all the griffins had bags like that— and withdrew a piece of paper that glowed like silk, its corner delicately impaled on his talon. Blade peeled it off. He could feel the odd elfin magic thrumming through it.
“Oh,” Claudia said, just over his shoulder. “That feels s trange. Can we really aim off that?”
“We can try,” Kit said.
Once they got into position— Blade and Claudia standing across from one another, with Kit’s wings mantled to enclose them— the magic came together quite easily, like dancing to a tune they all knew well. A wind rose about them, and with it the dusty smell of the air before rain, and the feeling of imminent lightning prickling across Blade’s skin. Claudia’s hair rose in great crackling tendrils; Blade felt the hairs on his own head go up, and his sleeves rise away from his skin.
And then, quite without fanfare, there was an opening between their extended hands. Claudia said, “Eep!” and Blade said, “Whoa!” and Kit squawked and sat down hard on his tail. But the portal didn’t move. It stood there, like a frameless door in the air, opening not onto another world, but a damp, flat grayness.
“Huh,” Kit said. “That should have worked.”
But Claudia leaned closer. “I think it did,” she said. Gingerly she poked a finger into it, and then, to Blade’s horror, leaned in so that her entire head and most of her upper body disappeared. “It’s all right!” she said. “It’s just foggy over there.” Without waiting for a response she stepped into the portal, and vanished.
Blade looked at Kit. Kit shrugged.
“Well, I can’t go in,” he said. “Someone has to hold the portal open, and in any case they haven’t got griffins on that side. I’d stand out rather.”
Blade couldn’t fault the logic, though he thought resentfully that as usual Kit had managed to exempt himself from the really difficult, unpleasant work. Then he felt ashamed. Kit had done very well toward the end of the Tours, and during the war. Neither of them were fifteen anymore.
“See you soon, then,” he said, and stepped through the portal.
He couldn’t help but hold his breath on the way through. But his foot landed in wet, muddy grass and slipped, and without meaning to he gasped in a great lungful of air. It smelled of green and damp, and beneath that something faintly acrid: the smell of cinders, or lightning.
“Was that you, Blade?” Claudia said, somewhere to his left. After a moment she emerged from the mist. “There you are. Is Kit coming through?”
“He’s holding the portal,” Blade explained. “Come on, let’s find Ms. Ledbury. She ought to be quite close.”
It only took a few moments to get their bearings: the portal had been designed to drop them outdoors, but otherwise as close to Ms. Ledbury as possible. From the sunny half-wild hillside overlooking the University, they’d stepped onto a square of mist-wreathed grass so neatly trimmed it looked like it had been done with a scalpel. A white gravel walkway led to the front step of a brick house with white shutters. Beside the door, a painted wooden sign said, “No Solicitors, Please”, and beneath the sign lay a small ivory-colored button. Blade wondered if you were supposed to push the button to prove you weren’t a solicitor, and then what would happen if you were a solicitor and pushed it anyway.
“Well,” Claudia said. “I suppose we knock?”
“Suppose so,” said Blade. Feeling foolish, he lifted his knuckles and rapped on the door.
“Just a moment!” someone called inside. They heard a rustling, and the door opened inward.
Ms. Ledbury looked as if she had just stepped out of a stasis spell from the end of the Tours. She still wore steel-rimmed glasses above a sharp, lean face, and her hair was still pure white and neatly scalloped. Instead of the sweaters she had worn on the Tour, she wore a rather smart midnight blue bolero jacket over a crisp white blouse, and pressed gray slacks. The sight of her quite dismayed Blade. He felt fifteen again, and terrified. But she lifted an eyebrow, and with difficulty he cleared his throat.
“Ms. Ledbury?” he said. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Wizard Blade. We met toward the end of Mr. Chesney’s Pilgrim Parties. I’ve a favor to ask of you, if you don’t mind…?”
“Oh,” Ms. Ledbury said. She smiled at him. It made her look much softer and nicer, and the jitter in Blade’s stomach settled. “It’s been some time, hasn’t it? I didn’t recognize you without the beard. Come in, please. Wipe your shoes.”
Beard? Claudia mouthed as Ms. Ledbury stood aside to let them in.
Blade shook his head at her, and entered.
Ms. Ledbury led them down a short hall to what was evidently a kitchen, with a round table and some handsome wooden chairs off to one side, decorated with white crocheted covers. She gestured for them to have a seat at the table, and they obeyed, looking curiously about. Many of the things were familiar— a sink, an oven, the electric light fixtures— but there was a tall white box with a door on the front that Blade couldn’t make head nor tail of, and an equally mysterious black box on the countertop, with a small digital display like one of Callette’s pocket calculators.
Ms. Ledbury poured tea for all three of them, and offered some very hard currant scones.
“So what brings you here?” Ms. Ledbury said. “Or is this purely a social call?”
Blade took a deep breath. “Well, it’s like this,” he said.
Ten minutes later he had given her Prince Talithan’s letter and explained Derk’s interest in chocolate, and Ms. Ledbury had matter-of-factly informed him that chocolate plant seeds— “cacao beans”, she said— were available a short distance from where she lived, at a fancy shop she liked. She offered to take them by rail— some sort of carriage, Blade gathered— but accepted Claudia’s counteroffer to translocate, raising an eyebrow at Blade’s surprise.
“You didn’t think I’d want to?” she said.
“You didn’t seem to like magic very much before,” Blade apologized.
“I was working then,” she said. “But you don’t get offered a job investigating a fantasy adventure tour if you don’t like magic at all.”
The translocation took them to a damp pavement, just outside a tall, narrow shop with a sign saying HARCOURT CACAO in thin gold letters above the black-painted door. The mist was thinner here, and a passing woman in a black coat gave them a startled look. Ms. Ledbury clucked her tongue.
“Should have thought of that,” she said. “Come on, inside.”
She opened the black door; a little bell jingled somewhere as she entered. Blade and Claudia glanced at one another, then followed.
The inside of the shop was cool and a little damp, and smelled strongly of chocolate. It was done up in tasteful shades of gray and blue-green, with a long counter and several assortments of small dark confections arranged on white doilies beneath domed glass. Blade had stood in palaces that didn’t scream expensive the way this shop did. Ms. Ledbury fit right in. She walked briskly to the back of the shop, toward a display of small foiled-paper sacks in blue and green and silver. A shopkeeper’s assistant in a black apron trailed behind her as if caught up in her wake, and so did Blade and Claudia.
“Here you are,” she said. At the very back of the shop were several shelves of plump burlap sacks. She bent and picked up one of the sacks, and thrust it into Blade’s hands. Blade took it gingerly, the coarse fabric prickling against his palms. It had a pleasing weight and density, and inside large grains or beans shifted with a soft rustle.
The front of the sack said in bold letters:
HARCOURT
CACAO
SINGLE ORIGIN
HACIENDA AZUL |SÃO TOMÉ
and then in smaller but no less elegant letters at the bottom:
FAIR TRADE | 2.2 KG | ORGANIC
A scalloped and gilt-edged paper tag proudly proclaimed that the beans bore notes of cherry, toasted almonds, and earthy red wine.
“It looks like there are a few varieties,” Ms. Ledbury said. “That one’s from São Tomé, but those are beans from Belize, and Ecuador, and Madagascar—”
“Are they different?” Claudia said, cutting through Blade’s confusion. “Blade, your father probably wants a few kinds, right? If they have different, I don’t know, growing seasons or something?”
“I think the growing seasons are likely all the same,” Ms. Ledbury said.
The shop assistant made a strangled noise. “The local microclimate of each bean variety is very distinct!” he said. “The bag in your hands, for example, was grown on the north-facing slope of—”
“Oh, good, thank you,” Blade said hastily, sensing a discussion of notes and flavor profiles ahead. Some wizards liked to discuss coffee that way, but Blade personally had never noticed much difference between one cup of coffee and another. He hefted the bag, and estimated that it probably contained two or three thousand individual beans. That was plenty.
“How much does it cost?” he said.
“Thirty pounds,” the assistant said. “Are you sure— this isn’t a plant nursery—”
“I think we ought to get some chocolate as well,” Claudia offered, smiling at the assistant. “As samples, sort of. To see what the end product is supposed to be like.”
The assistant brightened up. “Oh, if you’re going to cook with the beans— we do offer classes on alternate Saturdays—”
“Chocolate sounds like a good idea,” Blade said hastily. Cooking classes were the opposite of the point— he wanted Lydda to get to experiment, after all. “What would you recommend?”
With the help of the assistant and the somewhat sterner help of Ms. Ledbury, Blade and Claudia chose half a dozen chocolate bars wrapped in gold foil and glossy black paper with HARCOURT CACAO FINEST 80% DARK written across the front in more elegant serifed gold letters. But Ms. Ledbury waved away the gold Blade offered, and paid the shop assistant with an assortment of flat colorful paper bills.
“You can give me a few of those to pay me back,” she said, eyeing the buttery gold coins Blade offered. “I think the exchange rate’s a little different here.”
Another way Mr. Chesney had probably profited off their world, Blade thought glumly, but he was glad for Ms. Ledbury’s help.
Once outside, they translocated back to Ms. Ledbury’s front yard, still thickly wreathed in mist. The portal was just visible, a scrap of blue and green in the middle of swirling gray. Blade tucked the chocolate bars into his bag, and hoisted the HARCOURT CACAO SINGLE ORIGIN sack onto his shoulder.
“Thanks for everything,” he said. “I don’t know how long that would have taken without your help.”
“It was my pleasure,” Ms. Ledbury said. “Thank you for bringing me Prince Talithan’s letter. I don’t always get to hear how these cases turn out. Travel safely, you two.”
“We will,” they chorused.
Ms. Ledbury disappeared into the mist; somewhere beyond the gray Blade heard the front door open and shut. He glanced at Claudia, who shrugged, and stepped through the portal. Blade looked back toward the unseen house, then stepped after her.
Kit closed the portal as soon as they’d stepped through. It shut with a sigh, blowing a few last tendrils of mist across the grass.
“Did you get them?” he said.
“Yes,” Blade said, “although you might have asked before closing the portal. What if I’d left something on the other side?”
“Then we’d open it again,” Kit said unrepentantly. “Excellent. I knew you could do it. And now I’ve got to get on, I feel like I’ve been hanging about on this hill for hours. Are you all right to hand the beans over to Dad by yourself?”
Without waiting for an answer, Kit took two steps and launched himself into the air. Blade stood watching his black wings dwindle into the distance. He felt small and very put-upon.
“I suppose it’s very boring waiting around on a hill, instead of getting to visit the other world,” Claudia said, behind him. She paused, then said, “I can translocate you to Derkholm, if you want.”
“I’m fine,” Blade said. Then he kicked himself. Claudia had offered to see him home, and he’d refused? “I’d like to walk you back to the University, though. If you don’t mind. It’s a nice afternoon.”
To his surprise and delight Claudia blushed greenly.
“Sure,” she said. She offered her hand. Blade took it, hitched the burlap sack higher on his shoulder, and together they strolled down the grassy hill in the afternoon sunshine.
“Mum mentioned you were looking for these,” Blade said as Derk peered into the sack of cacao beans. Derk had just come in from the pasture, and was slightly sunburnt. Without asking Blade cast a gentle cooling spell on him.
“Oh,” Derk said. “Thank you.” But he didn’t look up. Instead he reached into the bag and pulled out a few beans, rolling them in his hands. He looked vague and distant, as he always did when he was concentrating very hard in a magical way.
As always this made Blade feel itchy, as if he needed to fill up the silence. “Mum’s been fretting over Lydda,” he said. “And I thought, if there were some sort of new cooking ingredient being grown at home, something exotic like the coffee or the oranges…”
Derk nodded slowly. “It might work,” he said, but Blade could tell he was distracted. “Blade, these beans. You went to Mr. Chesney’s world to get them?”
There wasn’t a lot of point denying it. “Yes,” Blade admitted.
“And Kit?”
“Of course not, they don’t have griffins there,” Blade said. Derk gave him a sharp look, then shrugged, accepting it.
“Your Mum’s not going to be pleased if she finds out,” was all he said. “Do you have any idea what they need to grow?”
“Tropical places,” Blade said. “Warm and wet.”
“Like the oranges,” Derk said. “All right, I can work with that. I’ll let you know how they’re doing in a few weeks.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Blade said.
True to his word, a pigeon arrived from Derkholm two weeks later, fluttering in Blade’s open window and landing with a rustle on his breakfast table, which was covered in paper and open books.
“Good morning,” Blade said to the pigeon. “What’s the news, then?”
“Message from Wizard Derk,” the pigeon crooned. It offered its foot, where a message was rolled up very small and tied to the pink ankle with a bit of thread.
“Thanks,” Blade said. Carefully he undid the knot with a twist of magic, and the paper tube dropped to the table. He picked it up and unrolled it with his fingertips as the pigeon investigated the crumbs of his first piece of toast.
Blade, the letter started, in Derk’s usual scrawl.
The beans turn out to grow into trees. I coaxed them a bit and they’re already producing pods, though I don’t think they’re quite mature yet. Expect the first mature crop in another week or so.
It’s not obvious how to turn the beans into chocolate, but the coffee wasn’t obvious either. We’ll experiment. I’m bringing Elda in on the problem, since she’s home from university on term break. Will keep you updated with new developments.
Love,
Dad
He’d need to warn Elda not to tell Mum, Blade thought idly. Derk might have mentioned it, but it might have slipped his mind, and Blade didn’t want Mara finding out about the portal.
“Tell Elda it’s a surprise for Mum,” Blade said to the pigeon. “And make sure to tell her when Mum isn’t there, all right?”
The pigeon gave him a look that was almost offended, but crooned acknowledgment and fluttered off, scattering Blade’s books and papers as it went. A stray paper drifted over Blade’s toast, and stuck to the jam. He sighed. This was probably why Mara didn’t like him to eat at the table.
Still, it sounded like work was progressing. Trees grown; Elda enlisted and sworn to secrecy. Carefully Blade peeled the paper off his toast, congratulating himself on his quick thinking.
It didn’t occur to him that Elda might tell anyone besides Mara.
“Elda,” Blade said. Exasperation welled up through his throat and made the name come out harder than he meant. “What’s this about?”
Elda looked up, her orange eyes wide with surprise and wounded innocence. Derk and Mara had expanded the front veranda during the Tours, and found it so convenient that they had never bothered to change it back. Now Elda lounged on the flagstone-sized tiles, surrounded by her university friends: fair-haired Lukin and Olga, dark slender Felim, the dwarf Ruskin with his red pigtailed beard, and of course Claudia. An assortment of small objects huddled between them: mugs and pitchers, a mortar and pestle, a hand-cranked coffee mill, and a cheery little portable stove with a shiny kettle on top.
“What?” Elda said.
“I said to keep it a secret,” Blade said.
“From Mum,” Elda said. “You didn’t say anything about my friends. And Claudia said she already knew anyway, so there.”
Blade bit his tongue against another snappish reply. She was right: he’d completely forgotten. And it would have been fine if she’d told Kit, or Callette, or Don, or Shona. Just not…
“Here,” Ruskin said, breaking Blade out of his distracted self-recrimination. The dwarf thrust a warm mug into Blade’s hands. “Try that.”
Blade looked down at the mug.
The liquid in the mug was a medium brown— like Callette’s feathers, actually— and a carpet of oily droplets gave the surface a velvety sheen, evidence of cream that had been beaten until it started to grain, or some mysterious property of the cacao beans themselves. The distinct scent of chocolate wafted up from it, along with something fainter that Blade couldn’t place. He wasn’t at all sanguine about drinking this concoction… But it was Elda’s experiment, and Elda’s friends, and Blade had drunk worse things in his time. He tipped the mug up, and sipped.
And kept sipping. The drink was warm and sweet, and just as rich as he’d expected. Not as sweet as the chocolate bar he’d tried, and somehow sandy— but it was definitely chocolate, and eminently drinkable.
“Huh,” Blade said. “This is good. A little gritty, maybe.”
“I think we need to do a better job of grinding the beans,” Claudia said. “We tried steeping the first batch, and that was horrible. It works better to keep the beans in, but it takes a lot of effort. We did this batch with the coffee mill, and then with a mortar and pestle, and it turned into paste but I think if we took it all the way to liquid—”
“I thought my arm was going to fall off as it is,” Lukin muttered, but Elda bounced, good humor restored.
“Ruskin, you should make him try the other one,” she said.
“Already on it,” Ruskin grunted. He performed some kind of arcane ritual with the cocoa pitcher and a mug; Blade watched, fascinated, until Ruskin passed the mug to Claudia, who passed it on to Blade.
Blade set aside his half-drunk chocolate beverage and peered at the new one with interest. It smelled of chocolate, and coffee, and it was covered with a blobby swirl of… whipped cream?
“What is it?” Blade said.
“Ruskin invented it!” Elda said, bouncing happily. “Go on, try. It’s good.”
Blade sipped cautiously. At first he only tasted the cream, frothy and cool. Then a warm, sweet liquid met his tongue: bitter coffee, and rich, slightly gritty chocolate, and the sweetness of who knew how much sugar and milk. He drank half the mug before he realized it.
“That’s amazing,” he said. Ruskin beamed, his pink round face like a small sun. “Have you gotten anywhere on chocolate candy?”
At that everyone’s face fell.
“The chocolate develops an unattractive white sheen upon solidifying,” Felim said. “I suspect if we used a piece of finished chocolate as a seed we might be able to control the crystallization process.”
“The problem is, we’ve already used up half a bar trying to figure out what it’s supposed to taste like,” Lukin said. “So we’re going to try some other ideas first, but it’s slow going.”
“I’m sorry, Blade,” Claudia said. “I know you wanted it for your sister. We’ll get it right.”
“Oh, no,” Blade said. “This is good. This is perfect.”
They all exchanged glances. Then Elda said, tentatively, “What’s perfect about it?”
Blade grinned at them. “Lydda loves cooking experiments,” he explained. “And you’ve gotten just far enough to show there’s something good here, if only you can solve this problem. She’ll want to fly right over to figure it out. And then she’ll want to cook with it. Elda, you remember when she put orange zest into those cinnamon buns—”
“Those were godlike,” Elda sighed.
“So if you’ll make another one of these coffee chocolate drinks, I can head right over and tell her all about it,” Blade said. Then he faltered. “Uh. Not that I can translocate across the ocean by myself.”
Everyone had brightened up, just like Blade intended. Claudia gave him a wry smile.
“Yes, I’ll help,” she said. “But I’ve already done my big translocations for the day, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“That’s fine,” Blade said, relieved. “I’ll meet you tomorrow, then. At your usual translocation point?”
“I’ll be there,” Claudia agreed.
“See you,” Blade said, and translocated away. Euphoria bubbled in his chest; Kit’s idea had worked. Blade was so pleased with himself that it didn’t even occur to him to ask who else Elda had told about the chocolate experiments.
In the morning Blade stopped by Derkholm, and then met Claudia at her usual translocation point on the western coast, chocolate-coffee drink safe in a jar with a screw-top lid and a knitted wool cozy to keep it warm. She gave him a quick smile as she hoisted her sack of mail onto her shoulder. Once again Blade was struck by the unexpected brightness of her smile, and the way her black hair gleamed in the low raking light.
“Ready?” Claudia said.
“Ready,” Blade said— and then, simply and suddenly, they were somewhere else. A fresh, warm wind blew in Blade’s face, smelling of dune grass and driftwood, instead of scrub pines and sun-warmed limestone.
Claudia really had the smoothest translocation of anyone Blade had ever met, he thought admiringly. Except maybe Querida, and that comparison was a compliment all by itself.
“Thanks,” he said to Claudia. “Do you want to come along?”
“Of course!” Claudia said. “I didn’t spend all that time grinding beans just to be left out now. Let me drop off my mail first.”
She trudged up the beach to a building made of weathered wooden planks, with a high open loft and a whitewashed roof. Pigeons fluttered in and out of the loft as they approached. Inside the building, a smallish white griffin with black-barred wings lounged behind a long counter, lashing her tail in boredom. She brightened when Claudia came in, and her crest fluffed.
“Claudia!” she said. “What’s new on the other continent?”
“Hullo, Casia,” Claudia said. “Not a lot. I’ve got…” She counted. “Three letters for smart pigeons, and five for regular pigeons.”
“Slow day,” Casia commented. “All right. Let me write that down… and then I think you should give the letters to the pigeons yourself. They’re twitchy today. Hullo, who’re you?”
Blade waved. “Blade. Lydda’s brother,” he added as Claudia climbed the ladder to the loft.
“Oh, I remember you! You were at the wedding!” Casia said. “You’ll be here to visit your sister, then? Nice girl. Why, just the other day—”
Within minutes Blade was completely lost among the intricacies of griffin courtship, or possibly griffin feuds— it was difficult to tell which. Fortunately Claudia returned before Blade had to say more than an oh or I see.
“And they’re still not speaking to one another,” Casia concluded. “Hullo, Claudia. Done already?”
“Didn’t take long,” Claudia said. “Blade, you’ll have to take us to Lydda’s place. I’ve never been.”
“You ready?” Blade said. “It was nice meeting you, Casia.”
“Nice meeting you too,” Casia trilled. “Say hello to Lydda for me!”
“Ready,” Claudia confirmed, and Blade translocated.
Lydda’s home with Harrek— whom Mara still called the Acker boy — was an aerie built between three enormous pines, with straight pillar-like trunks and bark growing in thin red platelets. The ground beneath the aerie was twined with small roots, and thick with sun-dappled brown needles, and a wonderful resinous scent filled the air.
“Oh, it’s lovely,” Claudia said. “Although I don’t think I’d like living in a tree. I expect it’s different for griffins.”
“I wouldn’t like it either, and I like heights,” Blade confessed. A bell-cord stretched taut from a bell high beside the aerie to a hook embedded in the nearest tree. Blade carefully unhooked the cord, and rang the bell, which chimed and echoed among the trees.
“Who is it?” Lydda shouted from above.
“It’s Blade,” Blade bellowed back. “I’ve brought a present for you!”
“Blade!” Lydda shrieked. Something huge and golden arrowed down, so fast Claudia jumped back, and then Lydda’s wings came forward in a great blast of air and she dropped neatly to the forest floor. Dust rose from the pine needles, and a few downy feathers drifted down. Lydda wrapped a foreleg and both wings around Blade— who hugged her back and then headbutted her griffin-style— and then clapped her wings to her back and sat, tail stirring the pine needles.
“Present,” she said. “Give. Oh, hello there. Blade, who’s this?”
“Oh, this is Claudia,” Blade said. He dithered over my friend and Elda’s friend and finally settled on, “She’s the one who runs that transoceanic mail service.”
“Huh,” Lydda said. “That’s a useful talent. I flew across the ocean once, but I can’t do it twice a day.”
“I like to travel,” Claudia said cheerfully.
“Well, you’re certainly good at it,” Lydda said. “Blade, you said a present—”
Blade laughed, and offered her the jar in its knitted wool cozy.
Elda had poured the coffee-chocolate drink, and had therefore remembered to use one of the soft caps that the griffins could dig their talons into. It was pitted and scarred from much use, but Lydda untwisted it easily and investigated the steam that rose from the jar.
“I take it I’m supposed to drink this?” she said. “It smells like coffee. It’s not magic, is it?”
“It’s just a drink,” Blade said. “And yes, it’s partly coffee. Be careful, it’s hot.”
Lydda rolled her huge orange eyes at him. “It’s hot, he says, like I’ve never drunk coffee before.” She lifted the jar and poured half the drink into her beak, then tipped her head back to swallow, bird-style.
“This is good,” she opined, after a moment. She tipped the rest of it into her beak, savoring it. “Hm. Coffee, obviously. A little cinnamon. Sugar and cream. But what’s the other thing? I feel like I’ve tasted it before, but I can’t place it.”
“Chocolate,” Blade said. “It’s some otherworld thing. Dad’s been growing it up.”
“You make it from a sort of bean,” Claudia said, surprising Blade. “I brought some in my bag, if you want to have a look?”
“Ooh, you didn’t tell me you were involved. Let me see,” Lydda said. She flexed her talon in a give-it-here motion. Claudia dug the cacao bean out of her bag, and Lydda carefully impaled it on a claw, lifting it to her beak. “Hm,” she murmured to herself. “That’s the smell, all right.” She sliced into it with the tip of her beak, crumbling it slightly. “Ooh, bitter. And fatty. You added sugar to the drink?”
“We did,” Claudia said. “But it’s still harsher than it should be, and it looks almost like it molds up when it solidifies.”
Lydda snipped off another small piece of bean and crunched it, her crest fluffed up in thought.
“I have some ideas,” she said. “I may come by later, as soon as I’ve wrapped some things up here.”
“Mum’ll be happy,” Blade said. Lydda rolled her eyes.
“Of course she will,” Lydda said. “Why do you think I live all the way over here? Honestly, Blade.”
Blade had no idea what she was talking about, but Claudia nodded sympathetically, so he didn’t ask.
“How long do you think you’ll be?” he said instead.
“Maybe a week,” Lydda decided. “I want to fly, anyway, and it’ll take that long to find a crew fast enough to keep up.”
“You could translocate back with us,” Blade offered, but Lydda shook her head.
“I told you, I’ve got things to do. Plans,” she said mysteriously. “Now shoo, you. I said a week and I meant it. I’ll get to it faster if you don’t distract me.”
“All right, all right,” Blade laughed. “I’ll shoo. You want to keep that jar?”
Lydda handed it back. “And don’t tell Mum,” she said, thoughtfully. “I want it to be a surprise.”
“That was my plan too,” Blade said. Lydda grinned at him, beak agape.
“See you in a week, Blade,” she said.
Blade returned to the eastern continent much heartened, and translocated with Claudia back to Derkholm. But upon their arrival they found not only Elda and her friends, but a flock of pigeons, fluttering and milling about and pecking at the chocolate-making materials.
“Get out of it, pigeons!” Elda shrieked. “Oh gods — Blade, do something about this!”
What she expected him to do, Blade didn’t know, but her words had the effect of making the pigeons focus on him, so he supposed he’d better handle it.
“What’s all this, then?” he said, and was answered by a confusion of burbling. “No, not all at once! You.” He pointed to the nearest pigeon, and the others obediently shut up.
“Message from the Emir,” the pigeon crooned. “For the chocolate-makers.”
“The chocolate-makers?” Blade said incredulously. “What— are you all here for that?” The other pigeons bobbed their heads, and Blade swore under his breath. “All right, fine. I’m the one who brought the chocolate into this world, will I do?”
In answer the pigeon who had spoken offered its pink leg. Blade untied the rolled-up message and scanned it hastily.
“It’s an order for chocolate,” he said. “The Emir wants to know how much it costs— who told him?”
Felim had the grace to look embarrassed. “I might have been indiscreet in my musings,” he said.
“Don’t feel too bad,” Lukin said glumly. “I expect one of those is from my father. I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret, you see. I’m afraid I let it get out rather.”
Blade untied the rest of the letters and scanned them. Sure enough, the letters hailed from not only the Emirates and Luteria, but the University, three dwarf fastnesses, and the Empire. Blade held up the letter with its tiny red Imperial seal, and raised his eyebrow at Claudia.
“All right, I told Titus too,” Claudia confessed. “And I brought him one of the cocoa drinks.”
“What’d he think?” Blade said, distracted.
“He thinks your father’s about to make even more money,” Claudia laughed. “But you’re right, we must have miscommunicated something. Let’s get this all dealt with.”
Olga suggested sending the pigeons back with a note of apology, which struck everyone as perfectly reasonable. They brainstormed together to come up with suitably professional-sounding wording, and then Claudia, who had the nicest handwriting, wrote out the notes while the others rolled them up, tied them to the pigeons, and sent them off again. Once the last pigeon was gone, Blade translocated home, relieved that the problem had been solved so easily.
Or at least he thought it had. Five days later, Blade awoke to a thundering noise that jolted him from his bed. Dust drifted from the rafters.
“BLADE,” Kit squawked outside the front door, as loud as only a full-grown griffin could be. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”
“What is it?” Blade yelled back. He stumbled about putting on his shirt and pants, and flung the door open in Kit’s face. “What happened?”
“Dad and Mum’s house has been overrun by all sorts of people asking after chocolate!” Kit said. “From everywhere!”
Blade remembered the pigeons with a sinking feeling. “I told them it wasn’t ready,” he said.
“Well, it looks like they didn’t listen,” Kit said. “Come on. I think Dad’s going to yell himself hoarse, and Mum’s furious.”
“Oh, gods,” Blade groaned. If Mara had found out there was no hope at all. He jammed his feet into his boots and translocated them both to Derkholm without even tying his laces.
He was groggy enough that the translocation landed them in the herb garden, between the rosemary and thyme, and squarely on top of the sage. The smell of crushed herbs rose around them. Blade hardly noticed. A confusion of people filled the drive: dwarves with axes and pigtails, legionnaires with spears and plumed helmets, official-looking men in togas, differently official-looking men with loose pants and pointed shoes, wizards in a wide array of outfits, and one lone diplomat in clothes that had once been fine and were now somewhat shabby. Derk was shouting at the dwarves and wizards while Mara shouted at the officials and diplomats. The legionnaires stood back, professionally expressionless as statues.
Blade struggled out of the mass of pungent silver-fuzzed leaves and fought his way past the nipping vampire snapdragons. “Mum,” he said as he came to the edge of the drive. Unwisely, as it turned out. Mara wheeled on him, transitioning seamlessly from lecturing the officials to lecturing him.
“You are in such trouble for this,” she said. “Your father told me all about your portaling shenanigans. And this chocolate experiment! You made a portal to Mr. Chesney’s world for chocolate? Do you have any idea what could have come through?”
“It was my idea,” Kit protested behind him. Blade felt a surge of gratitude. “And Elda helped. And Claudia.”
But not even the implication of Blade-and-Claudia could soothe Mara this time. “Then you’re both in trouble,” she said. “I am so disappointed in you. I can’t believe you would put yourselves and the entire world in such danger for something so trivial.”
At the word disappointed Blade involuntarily cringed. It was funny, some small distant part of him thought. You could be the fourth most powerful wizard in the world and still not want your mum to be disappointed in you.
But before Mara could really get started, Blade heard the whupping of wings, faint but growing stronger above the yelling of the various contingents. He turned to look; so did Mara, and Kit, and half the other people in the drive. Far away, something small and golden twinkled in the blue sky, growing rapidly into the distinct shape of a griffin, and then a flock of griffins. Lydda, Blade realized, and then they arrived.
Golden Lydda landed first of all, and was clearly visible for an instant before her friends caught up: white and gray, brown and rust-colored. In a moment the courtyard was a mass of wings and talons and lashing tails. Blade caught a confused glimpse of the legionnaires— half kneeling, the other half trying to form some kind of defensive formation with their spears— and the dwarves, who suddenly seemed to bristle with axes and bones. Someone screamed.
“SHUT UP,” Derk shouted.
He must have used magic to reinforce his voice, Blade thought, dazed, because everyone actually did shut up, even the griffins. Derk cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry most of you have come all this way for nothing,” he said. “Yes, I do have a chocolate project in development, and no, it’s not ready yet. Thank you all for your interest. If each of you will come forward— one at a time — I’ll take your names and send you a pigeon to inform you when we’re ready to start taking orders.
The addition of griffins to the mix had made everyone uneasy, and it didn’t take much more convincing to make everyone line up, and then start trudging away, except for the wizards who translocated away instead.
When everyone had cleared out, Derk turned to Lydda, who was hesitantly patting Mara’s back with one great yellow talon. Mara herself was hardly visible, half-buried in Lydda’s feathers with her arms wrapped tight as she hugged Lydda’s massive neck.
“So what brings you here, Lydda?” he said. “Not that we’re not happy to have you, but it’s a surprise.”
“Oh, Blade came to tell me about the chocolate thing,” Lydda said. She fixed him with an orange eye. “He said you’ve been having some trouble with it, and I thought I’d come to help. Although I didn’t realize he’d told half the world about it too.”
“That was Elda,” Blade muttered.
“Anyway, it sounded interesting,” Lydda said. “And most everyone else is here to join the colony, except Harrek of course. Mum, I love you, but you’ve got to let go. I can hardly breathe.”
Mara disengaged herself, careful not to bend any of the golden feathers. Blade thought he caught the shine of tears in her eyes, but she wiped her face and it was gone.
“I’m glad to see you,” she said, still sounding a little choked. “And all of your friends. Hello, Harrek.”
“Hullo, Mara,” Harrek said, somewhere in the crowd. Blade caught the glimpse of a lashing white tailtip before it disappeared again.
“In any case,” Mara said. “I haven’t had breakfast, nor has your father, and it’s nearly noon. I imagine you’re all hungry? We’ll have lunch and you can all relax for a bit before you go on to the colony.”
This was met with a general cheer, and some squawking as the pandemonium resumed. Mara sighed.
“Blade, I need you to go down to the village and buy some cows off the mayor,” she said in a much lower voice. She squinted at the milling griffins. “Three, I think. Maybe four. And hurry, it’ll take forever for that many cows to cook and Lydda will insist on being in charge.”
Blade wanted to protest, but it was the least he owed her after accidentally filling Derkholm with griffins and diplomats, so he just said, “Yes, Mum.”
But to his surprise Mara came over and wrapped her arms around him.
“And I’m not angry,” she said. “It was a nasty surprise finding all those people this morning, but you meant well, and it was very sweet of you to arrange for Lydda to visit.” She let go, holding Blade at arm’s length. “But don’t think I’ve forgotten about the portal. We’re going to discuss that later, you and me.”
Blade sighed.
“All right,” he said. But in truth, he didn’t even mind. He’d cheered her up, and Derk too, and that made it all worth it. No matter what he’d had to do to make it happen, or how much trouble he got in as a result.
From the smug look Kit gave him, his griffin brother agreed.