Chapter 19: Portal

All eyes turned to the door.

Apparently they waited too long, because there was another knock. Otonashi, or Symphon, or whatever he called himself, could rip the door away easily. Instead, he waited. And then he knocked again.

Shiori moved to the door, not wanting him to resort to door removal. He knew they were there. Hiding had failed.

She opened the door and Symphon’s face relaxed when he saw Shiori’s face.

“You’re alright.” He was relieved. It was strange feeling a subtle sense of his emotions through her connection to his true name. “There’s another Speaker nearby. I felt something happening and came as soon as I could.”

He noticed Shiori’s mother and fell silent.

“It’s alright. She knows,” Shiori said. She felt relieved he couldn’t tell she had stolen his Grimoire and determined his true name.

Symphon took in Tsubame. “They attacked your house and you retreated here?”

Of course the soldier boy saw it as a ‘retreat’, and she supposed it was.

“Well we’re fine.” Shiori said, standing firmly in the doorway to block his entry.

“Princess, Honjou,” Symphon said to Shiori, using her family name, “Someone has stolen my name, limiting my power. I’ve been sabotaged. I expect an attack soon.”

“Wait outside,” Shiori demanded, thankful the step upward into the house nearly brought her to eye level with Symphon. She would have felt awkward giving demands while looking up. She felt for Tsubame in that moment.

“There’s more, Princess. The mirror I came with is being used. Our enemy might open a portal if they’re strong enough. I felt Kryptics like those that attacked you before. If I can…”

“Wait. Outside.” Shiori met his eyes.

Symphon looked into the house. He made a decision. The passion in his face retreated to a soldier’s stone face. Shiori felt a pang of something from him, then a stilling of emotion. “If those are your orders, Princess.”

Shiori considered saying they were orders, but she didn’t feel like a Princess.

Symphon turned and covered the space back to the road in a couple of steps. He looked like a soldier on guard duty, smoothly scanning the road for danger.

Shiori shut the door.

“Someone learned his true name?” Shiori’s mother asked. “That means they must have read aloud his name from his own handwriting, yes?”

Tsubame’s eyebrows went up. “How do you know that?”

“When a strange woman showed up at my door with a child for my husband, well, you can imagine I had questions.”

Tsubame laughed. “I can imagine.”

“Shiori wasn’t his child. The woman told us about Kryptopeda, it’s magic, and why she couldn't keep Shiori.” Her mother looked at Shiori sheepishly. “She hoped we would keep that name, ‘Shiori’. I liked it.”

Her mother seemed distant, staring beyond Tsubame’s house at something far away and long ago. “Anyway, she gave us this book, saying it carried Shiori’s true name.”

It was Shiori’s turn to look surprised. She had barely read The Last Word due to the last few days’ commotion. “So, my true name is in the book?”

Tsubame looked between the book Shiori’s mother carried and the one in Shiori’s bag. “So the book is…”

“My Grimoire. More than one.” Shiori finished.

“Clever, Otonashi-senpai, or Sheemfon,” Tsubame said, struggling with Symphon’s name, “hid his true name among fakes. But Shiori’s Grimoire from her mother, no one can read it initially but her. I can’t see the title on the cover even now.”

Shiori looked at her mother’s book. “But the text appears when I read the book. Not just in my copy from Motohara-senpai, but in the other one too.”

Tsubame nodded. “As you read further, you might encounter your true name. But anyone with a copy of the book can read the same thing.”

Shiori’s mother cleared her throat. “Your mother, who gave us the book, said your true name was protected by the book. Others couldn’t read it.”

“Powerful magic,” Shiori said, uncertain how such a thing could be accomplished. “Well, it’s clear that Symphon can’t tell I took his true name and weakened him.”

“You took that boy’s true name? Is he dangerous?” Shiori’s mother asked, bending to look out the small window in the door to where Symphon stood watch.

“Can’t be too dangerous,” Tsubame said, “their lunch date seemed to go okay.”

“Lunch date?” Shiori’s mother said, turning to her daughter.

“I’ll go back out to see if there are any friendly shadows,” Shiori said, avoiding eye contact with her mother. She pulled the Mirror from her bag.

It felt cool. Knowing what it was, Shiori imagined a sinister tone to the black rectangle in her hand. Something so black, smooth, and shiny should show a reflection, she thought, but it only swallowed light.

“What was this about a lunch date?” Shiori’s mother asked.

Shiori held the Mirror near her face and answered. “Sorry, can’t hear you, magic energy absorbing Mirror to another dimension near my ears.”

But Shiori knew the Mirror would eliminate the sound of her voice.

She saw Tsubame move to explain why they couldn’t hear Shiori speak with the Mirror was near her mouth. That gave Shiori time to work on the next part of Motohara’s plan.

Symphon was here. She had learned his true name and weakened him. She had the Mirror. But Motohara-senpai wasn’t really her senpai upperclassman.

He was another Outlander. A Speaker. He had cast a spell on her to influence her to go on a date with him.

She couldn’t trust him, but wanted answers. She opened The Last Word with one hand while holding the Mirror close to her mouth with another.

She read about their escape from the house and running through the streets. As she did, the Mirror began to swirl with color.

Motohara plan included using Symphon’s true name to steal his power and open a portal. He explained that opening a portal with a Mirror came at a terrible cost to any Speaker: a permanent loss of power.

Using magic temporarily wasted a Speaker’s connection to their well of knowledge and power. But the perturbed power would be available after time allowed it to settle back into restful order.

Opening a portal using the Mirrors was different. The Mirrors permanently consumed a portion of power, and Speakers were loath to part with power.

Motohara had confessed his power was too little to open the Mirror. Shiori’s grasp of magic was limited and unreliable. So his plan was to steal Symphon’s power to open the portal.

But Motohara was a Speaker from another world. Shiori should have seen it sooner. How else could he know Speaker magic so quickly? Symphon believed it took at least a year to first speak any magic, even though that clearly wasn’t true for her.

Shiori wanted answers from Motohara and didn’t trust Symphon. Or should she? Had she only distrusted the Outlander because she was under a spell that made her want to be with Motohara?

Shiori blushed, recalling the moment the night before when she had said “come back to me” in the instant before the Mirror went black again. She had been so thoroughly taken by the spell. It made her mad to think of it.

Shiori set the Mirror down to write in her notebook, recreating a less convenient communication setup using a full-length mirror in Tsubame’s entry foyer.

“Who is that boy in the little rectangle?” Shiori’s mother asked.

“Oh,” Tsubame said helpfully, “that’s Shiori’s new boyfriend who gave her the book that started all of this and she’s desperately trying to get back into this world.”

“Boyfriend?” Shiori’s mother said in a slow, curious tone that made Shiori cringe.

Shiori wrote in her notebook: “I know you’re a Speaker. You put a spell on me. I need to know why.”

When she turned the notebook to Motohara, he frowned. He shook his head and touched the middle of the mirror with one finger. A hole opened in space, a portal directly from Kryptopeda.