The Doktor's Spyglass

Chapter 14.1

In the fall of Key's fourteenth year, their sanctuary was discovered.

For almost two years, Seffa and Key had shared a universe of private afternoons in their cistern beneath the city, he investigating what mysteries of life would open to him with his paltry equipment and she growing into an ever more confident young woman who cherished the freedom she found in their secret place.

Key had realized at some point that one of the main appeals the cistern held for her was that it was a safe place to both store and read books, which she apparently did not get much access to outside their hideout.

When she turned fourteen herself, he presented her with the only gift she would want: a set of books stolen from his home library. They were expensive tomes, artfully bound and likely almost as old as the house on Kammerend Boulevard itself. But such was the genius of Oridosi bookbinders in the days after the Rehabitation that they felt almost like new: the spines tight, their pages crisp and secure.

The afternoon two years earlier, when he'd held her in her despair, had been a watershed moment for Key: he had realized soon afterward that his interest in Seffa was not insubstantial. He found that, unlike the analytical side of his mind that dominated his studies, this relationship—for that was what it was—was controlled by an altogether different side of him. He felt for her, perhaps in a more limited manner than another young man might, but nonetheless he experienced an empathy that was entirely new. He found that her emotional state seemed to affect his own, an observation that sparked a strange combination of personal emotive response and professional scientific interest.

He decided, consciously, to investigate the matter further, and from that day forward he made a conscious effort to pay more attention to the girl who had been sharing his most sacred space and, in a way, the truest aspect of his life for the better part of two years.

As such, he made sure, among other things, to peruse the titles of the books she read from time to time, and to engage with her in occasional discussions of her reading.

This made it rather simple to curate an appropriate selection for her birthday.

She had a taste for philosophy and history, two subjects with which Key's father's library was relatively well stocked. Certainly better so than anything Seffa was likely to have access to herself. While she did occasionally appear with a book of her own, most of the books in the cistern lab had been provided by Key, initially for purposes of his own, and later to please her.

He brought her twelve volumes in all, dominated mostly by treatises on metaphysics and the reconstructed history of Oridos and the western continent. The lack of written records found prior to the Rehabitation was a constant source of study for the Oridosi academic community, and one by which Seffa was particularly fascinated.

Included were Badrid's Sign of the Sign, Herud's Histories, a book of myths of the Eberai, Filius Kalan's The Nature of the Phiros, one of the very few surviving texts from before the Fulkawer, and a multi-volume set entitled The History of the Holy City, by Garrus and Bindt. He stacked the neatly on her table, facing the spines to her chair, and waited for her.

She arrived at the usual time to find him seated across from her spot, reading a book of his own.

"Happy birthday," said Key.

"You remembered!" exclaimed Seffa.

"Of course." She smiled at him, and his heart beat a bit faster.

"I got something for you," he said, and rose, taking her hand. He guided her to her old leather armchair, sat her down, and stepped back, gesturing as gracefully as he knew how at the twin stacks of old books. She looked at them, back at him, then quickly back to the tomes, eyes devouring their titles one by one.

"Oh, Key!" Her voice sounded as enthusiastic as he'd ever heard it. In that moment, he finally understood what it meant for one's heart to soar.

"You like them?" he asked.

"I love them!" She opened one of the volumes, scanning its title pages, then snapped it shut and thumped back on the pile. The next thing he knew her arms were around his neck, and her lips were pressed against his own, and everything else exited his brain.

His hands moved around her seemingly of their own accord, finding their way to her thin waist.

After a period of time Key was not sure he could have measured with a clock, Seffa broke away, met his eyes, and blushed. For several long moments, neither of them spoke. The elation of a moment before had been replaced by a strange, tender anxiety. Seffa sat down in her chair, and Key sat across from her, taking her hand.

"You're my best friend, Key," she said.

"You're my only friend," said Key. "I guess that makes you my best friend too." It was the kind of thing only he could say without intending it as a joke, and Seffa knew him well enough to know that. Which only made it funnier.

They burst out laughing, shatteringthe tension like a skim of ice on a bowl of water.    

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