Where the Dark Stands Still

by A.B. Poranek

Look toward the light, she reminds herself. Then you will not see the shadow behind you.

Liska heard the word “laboratory” once from Father Paweł, when he talked about the scholars in his home city of Aniołów. He described it as a room where wisdom and chaos have formed a bargain, where a person realizes how truly little they know, and desires, suddenly, to know so much more.

He grimaces. “I preferred you when you were quiet.” “And I preferred you when you were a deer.”

“A…” He rubs his temples. “Of course. What did I expect? Something befitting an all-powerful demon? No, of course not. I have razed battlefields and summoned storms and created wonders from magic alone, but she wants me to grow cabbages.”

“Will I ever find you doing something that is not absolutely incomprehensible?” the Leszy asks.

“It seems I named you poorly. Clever, clever fox, with your inexplicable charms. You are my penance, aren’t you?”

Magic, at its fundamental level, is a heightening of the senses. People born with magic are capable of seeing things others cannot, so they can manipulate things others cannot. What they are sensing is the międzyświat, the in-between.

“I underestimated you,” the Leszy remarks. “When I met you on Kupała Night. I expected you to be a harmless thing, staying away and doing as you were told. Imagine my surprise when you led my manor and my house-spirit into what I can only call a mutiny.” “I didn’t mean to—” Liska starts, but he shakes his head. “I’m complimenting you. I chose the field of battle, and you disarmed me nonetheless. You do that frequently, I find. It’s actually quite annoying.”

“The people of Wałkowo are used to my visits by now,” he says. “At least I assume so, since they’ve stopped screaming at the mere sight of me.”

“If I look like a monster,” he says roughly, “then no one will be surprised when I do monstrous things.”

“He does not deserve you, Liska Radost.” “Nor I him,” she replies. “But nothing is ever equal with humans, really—we give and we take, the scales ever tipping. That’s just the way of it. I am what he has, and he is what I have—there’s no point keeping score.”

if the world has not prepared a place for you, you must take up a hammer and chisel and carve one out for yourself.”

“I just asked it politely,” she says, wiping her hands on her skirt. “She asked it politely.” The demon makes a sound that is half laugh, half wheeze. “I resent you, you absolute madwoman.”

“I must tell you, my dear fox,” says the Leszy, “that you deserve someone far better than me. And yet—” His fingers brush the tip of her ear, linger there. “And yet, and yet and yet, I am a selfish creature, and I do not want to let you go.”

you incorrigible antlered tragedy!

“I thought skrzaty are meant to serve the master of the house.” Jaga stretches, amusement glittering in her eyes. I do.

“What is fate but an excuse to surrender responsibility?

You are my soul, Liska Radost. I lived seven hundred years to find you.”