Kensei Jon's Arc

Chapter 30 of 49

The wall stood finished by week's end. Kensei sanded the last board while Ha-ni lay on a blanket by the window. Jeon-min sat cross-legged beside her, threading a needle. The three of them had a room now, and Ha-ni had her own corner, and the fear that once ruled the house was gone from it. Ha-ni waved a fist at the blurry face above her. She had watched that face for weeks. It made sounds she was trying to sort out. Now she worked her mouth around one of them. "Ah-pa," she said. Kensei froze with the sandpaper in his hand. Jeon-min's needle stopped. "Say it again," Jeon-min said. He leaned close. "Ha-ni. Say it again." "Ah-pa," Ha-ni said. She looked pleased with the sound. "Ah-pa." Kensei dropped the sandpaper and knelt. His chest was tight, but not with the old fear. "She spoke. Jeon-min, she spoke." "Weeks old and already talking." Jeon-min's voice cracked on the last word. He touched her cheek. "Smart girl. Smartest girl." Kensei laughed. He could not help it. He looked at Jeon-min, and Jeon-min looked back, and neither of them needed to say the thing they both felt. Kensei took his husband's face in both hands and kissed him. "We made her," Kensei said against his mouth. "We did this." "We did." Jeon-min kissed him again, harder. "Both of us." Ha-ni watched the two faces come together above her. She said "ah-pa" once more, quieter, working it out. When they broke apart, Kensei went to the shelf where he kept the few books he had carried from the old library. He had never read them closely. There had been no time. He pulled one down now to show Jeon-min, to mark the day somehow. The cover was worn. He opened it and stopped. The pages were not law, and not history. They were drawings of ships, and beside the ships, strange marks he did not know. He turned a page. A diagram showed a man's hand and light coming off his fingers. Words ran under it in an old script. "Jeon-min," Kensei said slowly. "Look at this." Jeon-min came and read over his shoulder. His face went still. "That's not a picture of a lamp." "No." "It says the hand makes the light." Jeon-min tapped the script. "It's teaching how." A sleek cat had wandered in through the open door. Its fur ran with bands of orange, black, and gold, like scales. It sat by the shelf and watched them, tail curling. Neither man had seen it before. Kensei stared at the page, then at the cat, then at Ha-ni working her small mouth around her first word. He had thought the old library held only law and dead history. He had been wrong. "Magic," he said. The word felt foolish and true at once. "There's magic in Kyurum. And someone hid the books that say so." Jeon-min closed the cover gently. "Then we're not done finding things out."