However, that night, not for the first time, I would not succeed.
* * * * *
“You jest,” I declared.
I was leaning across the arm of my chair (rather inelegantly) toward Noctorno, who was lounged (rather negligently) in his chair, whiskey in hand, dancing, startling light-blue eyes on me.
“Nope,” he stated.
“Nope” I had learned through the fullness of our discourse these past hours in his world meant “no.”
Incidentally, we’d had a good deal of whiskey.
We’d also finished all the wine.
And I was sure I was likely to lament how deep in my cups I was at that present juncture.
I just didn’t have it in me to care.
“You can speak to any being you want in the entirety of your universe, as long as you have this…number you describe? By just entering it into a gadget and putting it to your ear?” I asked.
“Yep,” he replied. “And as long as they also have a phone.”
“Yep” I’d learned meant “yes.”
So did “Yup,” but we had that in my world too.
I examined his face.
He looked relaxed and amused.
He did not look as if he was dissembling.
Even so, he had to be dissembling.
Therefore, I moved back an inch on my accusation. “You lie.”
He shook his head, leaning forward and reaching behind him, stating, “Nope.”
He then pulled out a thin, rectangular piece of what looked like metal and glass. It had rounded edges. It was simple but somehow exceptionally handsome.
He leaned toward me, holding this thing my way, and as I watched the little window illuminated, showing a variety of tiny pictures on it, all lined up precisely in rows, up and down.
“By the gods,” I whispered, reaching toward it but stopping, struck immobile by the fantastical.
“Yep,” he said, moving his thumb on the window. A white screen came up with a listing of text. “That’s email. You can send mail to anyone too, if you have their address. And it gets to them in a couple of minutes. Of course I can’t do that now, seeing as I’m way outside service. But if I wasn’t, I could call ’em, mail ’em, text ’em.”
I turned my gaze from his gadget to his face.
“Text them?”
“Type in a message,” he said, my eyes dropped back to his contraption as his thumb moved over it. “Hit send, it goes to someone else’s phone, bings, they get the message within minutes. Seconds even.”
“That’s extraordinary,” I breathed, reaching out yet again but stopping before I touched the little box of magic.
“You can take it, Franka. It won’t bite you.”
Laughter laced his words and I again looked at his handsome face.
I didn’t take his gadget.
I asked, “Is it magic?”
“We don’t have magic in our world like you do.”
I sat back in shock. “How bizarre.”
“We do,” he went on to clarify. “It just isn’t out. As in, practiced openly.”
He could not be serious.
“That’s very dangerous,” I stated primly (perhaps in order to hide I also did it uncomfortably).
“It probably fuckin’ is,” he muttered.
“You should do something about that,” I informed him with authority. “It’s my understanding you’re in the city guard. You should speak to your constable. Perhaps he can speak to your…whatever title your ruler bears. They can surely do something about that. And as you can imagine with your activities here, it’s advisable.”
He shook his head. “If the president went on record making folks come forward to register that they’re witches and sorcerers…or whatever…he’d be removed from office in about twenty-four hours.”
“That’s ludicrous.”
A small grin flirted at his lips as he shook his head again. “It’s the truth.”
“Odd,” I murmured, looking back to his…phone.
He shook it side to side in a coaxing way. “Take it, babe. You can’t hurt it. It can’t hurt you. There’s games on it if you want me to show you how they work.”
I again caught his eyes. “Games?”
This time, he nodded. “Solitaire. Tetris. Trivia Crack. Think there might be Fruit Ninja on there still.”
“Fruit…ninja?” I asked the question like I was trying out the words.
He simply chuckled at that, but he did it in a way I knew he was being gracious for he appeared to be fighting roaring with laughter.
I ignored this and told him, “I don’t know these games.”
He again smiled. “That would be me showin’ you how they work.”
I took in his smile.
I looked in his eyes.
There was amusement there (as there seemed to be since he entered the room, something I’d never encountered in my life, such good humor).
There was also intelligence, a great deal that could not be hidden even if, for some reason, he were to wish to try.
And there was kindness, so much, there was more than enough to exploit should one have that in mind.
But there was no guile.
Even Antoine had an agenda when it came to me. To anyone. That was how one lived in my world. Not just my universe, the world I lived in due to the status I carried.
Noctorno Hawthorne of the world of magical gadgets had none.
And staring in his eyes, I felt a sensation gathering behind mine I hadn’t felt since I was a young child.
“You should not be kind to me,” I whispered.
His expression changed.