Sandalwood was a nice scent until you were surrounded by it. Like the time Jim had accidentally broken a glass container of old rose-scented perfume and cleaned it up with a bathroom towel. No matter how many times she washed the towel afterward, it still stank of fake roses.
Real sandalwood was better than fake roses anyway, but hopefully Tolan’s memorial wouldn’t last long.
Barb already had a headache, and Jenny’s barrage of ridiculous questions hadn’t helped.
She adjusted the fall of the loose-fitting kurti.
It was far more comfortable than the black slacks and blouse she’d been wearing, so that was a win. But all in all, it was just one more thing in a long line of things that had hit the proverbial fan that week. Of course, the best use of her time was to attend a memorial service for a man she had only met during his last living moments.
She cracked her neck and walked toward where Jim hovered awkwardly near Meg’s side. Meg stood, graceful and lovely, near the center of the village. The kurti she wore glimmered in the dimming sunlight, a row of four opalescent buttons marching down her chest. The slightly flared sleeves reached to her wrists, and the tasseled hem of the kurti fell to mid-calf. She wore a similar pair of pants to what Barb had on, white, loose-fitting, flared at the ankle. She still wore her regular boots, though.
And the headscarf, of course—white without beads or patterns.
It was a fascinating tidbit of Josharon culture to note. Even as Barb walked toward the center of Chandan Village, she eyed the headscarves of the females milling about. A good number of them all wore white headscarves with dyed patterns on them. If she understood the symbolism, she might have been able to identify certain families. But she didn’t.
Meg met her gaze and offered a small smile.
“Thanks for the head’s up on the outfits,” Barb said as she approached.
Meg sighed. “I’m so sorry, Barb. I didn’t even think.”
“It’s okay.” Barb patted her shoulder. “You’ve had a lot on your mind recently.”
It was true. Meg had been attending Peregrine Academy for the last three or four weeks, taking grueling test after grueling test to judge her competency. She would pass. Barb had no doubt of that. Then she would move on to the physical trials, which Barb was also confident that she would pass.
Meg Mitchell would be a Peregrine Agent within the next three months.
Barb just wasn’t sure it was the best idea. If Meg had been joining for the challenge or the educational benefits, it would be one thing. But that wasn’t why Meg had joined. Meg wanted to track down Phoenix Munroe and bring her to justice for the murder of Tolan Ittai.
It wasn’t anything new. Phoenix Munroe had killed before. But for her to kill someone she didn’t even know, in cold blood without any provocation they could imagine, it just seemed—out of character. Even her assassination of J. Marshal Anderson ten years earlier had been motivated by the changes happening within the Peregrine Agency.
Tolan had been—random.
But not random at all.
Barb knew Phoenix well enough after all the years pursuing her to recognize that nothing the woman ever did was truly random. Killing Tolan had been the push Meg needed to join Peregrine, and that’s what Phoenix had wanted all along.
The question no one could answer, though, was why.
But then, Phoenix had done a lot of things out of character last month. It made no sense. None of it did. And the more Barb tried to put the pieces together, the less sense it made.
It didn’t help that the Peregrine Board was breathing down their necks too. Mr. Austin and his flunkies didn’t like not knowing what Phoenix was up to. Peregrine always had an idea of what Phoenix’s next step would be, but with her behaving so erratically there was no way to tell what she would do next.
And that did not make for a happy Peregrine Board.
They’d been leaning on the analysts for weeks. They’d been pressing the global agents for longer than that for any hint of Phoenix’s whereabouts, but as usual, she’d dropped off the map.
Until Phoenix Munroe wanted to be found, nobody could find her. But that didn’t change the fact that something else was going on. Something deeper.
“Jim, are you okay?” Meg faced Jim with a concerned expression. “You keep—ducking.”
“Fine.” He waved off her worry. “Just fine.” He bent slightly as he pulled on the sides of his trousers.
Barb leaned over to Meg. “He’s hiding his hairy ankles.”
Meg blinked at her. “What?”
Barb smiled sweetly. “You know. His very hairy ankles.”
“Barb.” Jim hissed, face so red it was nearly purple.
A pair of Josharon youths, females linked arm in arm passed them, giggling as they stared at Jim’s discomfort. Jim pulled on his trousers again.
“Jenny was kind enough to let us know the dangers inherent in a man displaying his hairy ankles.” Barb winked.
Meg rolled her eyes. “Of course, she did.” She glanced at Jim. “Jenny likes to tell stories, Jim. You’re not attracting a mate today.”
Jim gawked at her for the briefest second before he collapsed in relief. “Geez, I was terrified.”
“Come on.” Meg took Barb’s elbow and pulled her toward the seating area at the center of the village. “We might as well get comfortable. There’s nothing left to do until the Josharon high council gets here.”
Barb followed her friend into the rows of cushions set on the ground.
Beautiful vines of fragrant white jasmine hung overhead, strung from roof support to roof support. Fairy lights twinkled and shone in knotted balls at varying intervals around the seating area. In other spots, torches burned with flickering warmth. The air smelled of spices and baking meat and hot wood coals, almost strong enough to cover the pervasive scent of sandalwood.
Almost.
“So.” Barb settled beside Meg on a cushion. “How exactly is this going to work?”
Meg offered a smile. “Well, you don’t need to do anything if you don’t want to.”
Barb arched her eyebrows, and Meg kept smiling.
“There will be some speeches and some remembrances, and then anyone who has a farewell to say can stand and take the alavida data.”
Jim folded his long legs onto the cushion next to Meg. “Farewell gift?”
Meg turned to him in surprise. “Yes.”
Jim nodded. “I got that one.”
Meg shook her head. “I keep forgetting that some of the words are the same.”
“The vocabulary is similar,” Jim said. “The grammar and syntax—I can’t make heads or tails of it.” Jim absently pulled on the legs of his trousers to cover the generous amount of ankle that was showing. “Like that gal we talked to—or that Jenny talked to. I didn’t get her name. But Jenny told her we were blind.”
Meg laughed. “She said anhaa?”
“Yeah,” Jim nodded.
“I guess it does mean blind, but here it’s the word Josharons use for Terrans. The Blind.”
“Really?” Barb wrinkled her lip. “They really don’t like us, do they?”
“That’s because they don’t know you yet.” Meg patted her knee. “And they will. Once they do, they’ll like you just fine.”
“So what farewell gift are you taking?” Barb folded her arms.
Meg pointed toward a pile of white irises laying beneath a tall, broad sandalwood tree.
“Tolan’s favorite flowers,” Meg said. “The alavida data is—it’s not a memory, but it’s an opportunity to make your peace with not seeing someone you love again for a long time. It’s not goodbye.”
“It’s farewell,” Jim supplied. “Until you meet again.”
“Right.”
Jim and Meg stared at each other for a moment until Jim realized it was happening. Then he choked on his own spit and started coughing.
Smooth, Romeo.
Meg reached for Barb’s hand and squeezed it. “There’s no need for you to participate.”
Barb nodded. “We’re here for you, Meg. Whatever you need.”
Meg’s gaze softened, turning glassy and moist for a moment before her expression hardened. Barb glanced in the direction Meg was staring and spotted a blond head of hair flowing white robes fluttering back and forth between two very fluffy Josharon females.
Jenny.
“She wanted to know if I was married,” Barb muttered.
Meg shrugged. “It’s a normal question.”
“For a Josharon.” Barb tilted her head. “Jenny’s human. She doesn’t realize that Terrans have different cultures?”
“Of course, she realizes. She just doesn’t understand them.” Meg folded her hands in her lap and picked at the white tassels on the bottom of her kurti.
“Don’t you think she should?”
The line of Meg’s shoulders tightened, her jaw clenching. “Did Jenny get you on her side?”
Barb scowled. “What side?”
Meg pinned her with a glare. “She wants to go to school in Terran. We were fighting about it before you got here.”
“You don’t think she should?”
Meg crossed her arms and huffed a strand of hair out of her face. “Terran is dangerous.”
Barb snorted. “And here is just a walk in the park, right?”
Meg’s glare didn’t dim.
“That’s why those yodha dudes are hanging around like ghosts.” Barb jerked her thumb at the forest where the shadowed figures of the Josharon warriors, the yodha, shifted in and out of vision like phantoms.
Meg sighed and looked away.
Barb bit her lip, and they fell silent. Jim leveled an irritated look at her, and Barb glanced to the forest and watched a particularly slow yodha blink into view momentarily.
Mottled brown fur. Two tails. Billowing pants that flapped and tapered around his ankles. Lacquered armor draped along his thighs, hanging from his chest, and a scarf wrapped around his triangular ears.
The instant Barb saw him, he was gone.
It still felt surreal, being among a culture of talking fox people that walked upright and stared at her like she was the alien. And Jenny was right. No one in the gathered assembly wore black. A smattering of orange or yellow. A dab of blue or green. But mostly white.
“Nowhere is safe, Barb,” Meg mumbled. “I get that. But here? Jenny and Danny and Mickey have a better chance of being with someone who can protect them. In Terran, that’s not the case. I can’t watch them. I have a duty to uphold.”
“So as long as you’re with Peregrine, they don’t get to come to Terran.”
Meg flared her nostrils. “Why are you supporting this?”
“Don’t you think they could use friends?”
Meg gestured around the village. “They have friends. They have lots of friends.”
“Friends without tails?” Barb raised her eyebrows.
“What’s wrong with tails?” Meg snorted. “I’d give my right arm for a tail.”
Barb chose not to pursue that statement. “Nothing’s wrong with tails, but I think it’d be good for Jenny to have a friend more like her. I think it would help her see that she’s not—”
“Not what?”
Barb held Meg’s gaze unflinchingly. “Alone.”
Meg turned to watch her little sister, and Barb followed her eyes. Jenny and the two fluffy Josharons were covering pits of coals with long green leaves and chattering away about something. Bright and bouncy and happy and sweet, Jenny looked like she fit right in. She was one of the Josharons, just a tail-less version. Accepted. Loved. Protected.
As long as you didn’t look too close.
Only the older Josharons seemed drawn to her. None of the younger ones even spoke to her, as far as Barb could tell. Meg didn’t see it. She was too busy with her own struggles, undoubtedly with her own grief that she wouldn’t acknowledge. All she knew was that Jenny was as safe as she could make her, and that’s all she needed to know.
But safe didn’t always mean sound.
Meg’s expression hardened again. “Jenny’s not a fighter, Barb.”
“No, she’s not,” Barb said. “But she could learn.”
“She’s not going to learn.”
“Why not?”
“It would break her.” Meg met Barb’s eyes again. “Her heart is too gentle, Barb. She can barely cut flowers. She can’t pick up a sword and stab somebody. She’s not strong enough.”
Barb fell silent.
Meg had a point. Jenny wasn’t exactly a poster child for hand-to-hand combat. If anything, she could have been the mascot for people who needed self-defense lessons. But if Meg wouldn’t allow her to learn? There wasn’t much Barb could do.
“I think you’ll regret holding on to her so tightly,” Barb said quietly.
“More than I regret losing Tolan?” Meg turned her hollow eyes to face the front of the village. “I don’t think so.”
A quiet horn blew from one corner of the village, a soft sound that settled over the people in attendance like a cloud. Toward the back of the village, Jenny and the other two Josharons found a place to sit.
On the other side of the village, Barb spotted red-haired Danny Mitchell and his much-taller cousin, Mickey, as they slid into view and took seats as well.
A somber silence drifted across the village as a line of Josharons walked into the center of Chandan Village and one by one settled on the cushions at the front of the main seating area. Some were of the Nibe Tribe, just like most of the Josharons in this particular village. Others boasted impressive curling horns and antlers, which marked them as members of the Harna Tribe. And then, the Avi Tribe stood out with their mighty feathered wings and flowing robes.
Seriously.
Surreal.
At the rear of the procession walked Velanna Ittai and her biological daughter, Tzaitel.
Barb frowned slightly to herself as the Celtican elder and her daughter marched stiffly to the cushions at the very front of the seating area and sat. It didn’t seem right to her that Velanna and Tzaitel would be considered the only family members. Tolan had four children. Only one of them shared his blood, but from what Barb understood, if asked Tolan would have indicated that blood had never mattered to him.
Apparently, Josharons saw family differently than Celticans. Meg had explained that adoption didn’t really exist among their people. Apprenticeship, sure. Individual respect and regard, of course. But if you didn’t share blood, you weren’t tribe. That’s how the majority of Josharons felt.
Barb had never expected Velanna to be considered a revolutionary, but supposedly her opinions on family went against the majority in the Josharon High Council.
Velanna the rebel. Go figure.
The final entrant was a gray-furred Josharon with two tails and a tuft of white hair between his triangular ears. He approached the large stone at the center of the village and set his clawed hand upon it before he faced the people who were seated.
He bowed to them, and everyone bowed their heads in return. Barb mimicked what Meg did.
Then, the gray Josharon began to speak. Barb glanced at Jim, who was straining to understand.
It would probably be better to get a summary when it was finished. Jim might be able to pick out some of the words, but without context, it was meaningless.
The gray Josharon bowed his head and continued speaking, and Barb followed suit.
However long this lasted, whatever she ended up needing to do, it would be worth it in the end. She’d decided to invest in Meg, to support her. Meg was something special, and so was her family. They didn’t make any sense, but what family did?
The gray Josharon had just finished speaking with a resounding chorus of agreeing sounds from the gathered participants when a dark cloud slid across the sky overhead. The shadow of its passing drowned out the lights of the torches. A cold wind hissed through Chandan Village, and the hair on the back of Barb’s neck stood on end.
No big deal.
It was an alien dimension, after all.
The weather might change quickly.
She settled herself more comfortably on her cushion and glanced at Jim, still with his eyes narrowed and his focus solely on the gray Josharon.
Such a nerd.
Then, the wood and grass-thatched gathering place at the center of Chandan Village exploded.