Since Esmera was abandoned on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, the only person who has looked out for her is herself.
Until a lark starts visiting her, leaving behind exotic flowers and iridescent pebbles that the internet doesn't recognise.
Esmera...
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There was one book in Tauram's mountainside cottage that was written in the Latin alphabet, bounded by blue leather and embossed with golden spirals. It was that tome that Esmera had been poring over for the last hour since lunch, turning the pages carefully so that the gold leafing didn't slice into her fingertips. It seemed too expensive, too precious to be sullied by even the cleanest of hands, but Esmera had no choice.
Her auditory memory allowed her to understand Milatanuran, but she couldn't read the language if she saw it on a page, written in its original script. She had tried. Even when it was written in the alphabet she was familiar with, she had to sound out each word, muttering the story for her understanding and Jammas's enjoyment.
She had thought she was merely gifted at languages when she learned Spanish so quickly at school, but it had been her auditory abilities, helping her through life before she even knew they existed, before she even realised there was such thing as magic.
The page cracked against the air as Esmera turned it, transfixed by the beautiful words used to describe a sharp-eyed sparrow who found a big bean at the edge of the path. She had travelled into at least ten different eras by now. She had been an elephant, a peacock, a tiger, a beetle, and so many people, and now she was a little bird trying to secure his lunch.
She clucked her sympathy when the sparrow in the story lost the precious bean he had found and looked so forward to eating. Jammas shared her and the little bird's sorrow, stirring in the nest he had made of her curls.
It was only when the sparrow gained the ant's help and thus that of the elephant, the king, the minister, the captain, the soldier, and the carpenter and finally found his bean that Esmera's eyes detached from the book, and she noticed Tauram sitting beside her. His quick, dark eyes flitted from her face to scan the page while Lundas rubbed himself against his legs, staring up at Esmera with luminous, unsettling eyes.
Tauram leaned back into the couch, draping his arm across the back of it with his familiar half-smile. "Are you busy?"
Esmera gazed at Tauram and sent a pointed look towards the book.
"But you've finished the story, haven't you?" Tauram may be able to fool others' eyes with his invisibility, but nothing could fool his.
He had probably paged through this book more than once, maybe even marvelled at the beauty of the font and the elaborate sketches spreading over the ornate pages enough times to know that the end of every short story it contained was marked with an asterisk.
Esmera nodded.
Tauram cocked his head. "What did you learn from it?"
Esmera took a moment to consider that, setting the book on her lap with both hands. She had been reading for the sake of enjoyment and curiosity, not expecting that someone would plonk himself down beside her and ask her to take a lesson from the story, although she should know Tauram well enough by now to expect anything from him.
