In the long hours of the night before the seven gift-receivers meet, the physician Dalmar comes to visit the Taymons.

Edeline calls out to him from where she stands near the back door, beckoning him inside to examine her brother.

Dalmar, though skilled at his work, has no knowledge of where the corpse in the garden could have come from, nor what dangers its bite could possess. He's worried by the obvious pain Rian is in, who is fooling no one with his stoic expression on a drawn, bloodless face. Looking at the wound, which is relatively shallow given that the teeth grazed past his shoulder more than truly biting in, it shouldn't merit such an extreme reaction.

Dalmar washes it, applies ointment, dresses it gently. He instructs them to change the bandages at least three times a day, and to send for him should the wound worsen, or if Rian develops a fever. He looks at the injury, scrambles through all his knowledge for any additional advice or care he can give, comes up with nothing. Exhausted after trekking so far, he receives Edeline's thanks and returns home.

That night, he lays in bed considering the patient he does not know how to do more for, and the creature that had put him into that state. It had been hard to look at a monster like that and believe that any damage it inflicted could be healed.

————————————————————

The next morning, two households receive a letter in Tai's own hand, atypical coming from a man who usually dictates to a scribe.

Come to my residence at 6 o'clock in the evening, to discuss our gifts. I have, unfortunately, met again with the nuisance with the bell, and have instructed him to attend as well.

————————————————————

In the early afternoon, the young clockmaker Skander is summoned once more to Tai's home. The senior clockmaker volunteers to go in his stead, but Tai's messenger politely declines, explaining that it is Skander who was particularly sent for.

Skander is led into the same overly-lavish sitting room as before, only this time he is awaited by his summoner himself, who is somehow dressed even more ostentatiously than last time.

Tai dismisses the messenger so that it is only them two, wasting no time before slipping into clipped denigration. "The clock isn't working again. All that time you spent idling by it, and it didn't even last a day."

Skander's face burns. He had been so sure that it was fixed, but maybe the sudden appearance of that eccentric man Jasper had disrupted his work.

Too embarrassed to meet Tai's eyes, Skander pulls open the clock's access panel, peering inside. Then he frowns.

"One of the gears is missing. I could have sworn it was there yesterday."

Tai, who for all his condemnation of loitering is for some reason still here, doesn't even glance at what Skander is indicating.

"While I have you, I have a query to make. You mentioned yesterday that your brother had turned into a bird: explain that."

Skander's hand slips from where it rests on the wooden access panel, looking to Tai in surprise.

"You were listening?"

"I was right by you. And I was the only other person in the room, at the time."

"You didn't say anything; I thought you weren't paying attention."

"I heard you talk, I just didn't care about it."

Skander really does not like Tai.

"Was it true?"

"Well," now that he has Tai's undivided attention, Skander's not sure that he wants it. Tai's gaze is intense, and largely without warmth. "It was. My brother woke up to a feather pin from the chimera a few weeks ago, and he worked out that he can turn into a bird while wearing it."

Tai looks thoughtful and lets his eyes shift away from Skander's face, something the latter is grateful for. Then they snap back, and Skander tenses again.

"I'm hosting a meeting here at six o'clock with a few others who have received items from the chimera. Your brother may join, if he wishes."

"All right, I'll tell him." Tai doesn't move, and Skander's irritation rises. "I should probably get to work on fixing this," he says, indicating the nearly-forgotten clock.

"Oh, right." Tai reaches into his pocket and pulls out a gear, handing it to an incredulous Skander. "You can fit that back in and take your leave."

Skander looks at the small gear in his hand, the one that is a perfect fit into the interlocking system of the clock. Tai is halfway to the doorway before Skander speaks up.

"You know, if you wanted to talk to me, you could have just asked. You didn't need to sabotage your own clock." He feels a smile pulling incomprehensibly at his mouth. For all his bluster, Tai is as ridiculous as most people.

The smile drops quickly at Tai's response: "Yes, but I didn't want to you to assume it was a social call, or a visit between friends."

Hate is a strong word, so Skander decides to use it here: he hates this man.

————————————————————

At six o'clock, Giada, Fallon, and her trainee Kalila stand outside the doors of Tai's residence. Edeline cannot miss a second night at the observatory, and Rian's siblings have confined him to bed "until your shoulder heals". Left alone with his injury, Rian had pushed furniture against the doors and latched the windows shut against any creatures that would seek to crawl inside.

The late summer air is shifting to early autumn, and Giada can feel and appreciate the distinction in the few minutes they stand outside, waiting for their knock to be answered. The breeze is cooler, more hushed, promising earlier nightfalls and the secrecy that comes with them.

Eventually, they are admitted inside and led into one of the receiving rooms on the lower floor, where a truly unnecessary amount of the furniture and embellishments are golden. Who is Tai trying to impress? The Taymons live in a cottage on the very outskirts of the city, brushing up against what are apparently monster-riddled woods. She would have been awed by a single golden candlestick, let alone seven.

The windows in the room are flanked on either side by velvet drapes, a rich red to complement the gold. Outside, on one of the ledges, the inky blackness of a perched raven stands out among all the otherwise-elegant hues.

Tai already stands at the room's table, elaborately carved and supported by columns. Giada would have been content to sit in a circle on the ground as they conversed, but all right.

Zahara is also there, and she smiles at them in greeting, golden amulet hanging from her neck. She wears a short patterned coat in a brilliant red, and the same two braids as the day before. With the contrast of the brightness of her clothes against her dark skin, she is radiant.

Tai, their host, says nothing until he catches sight of Kalila. Angered by Giada bringing someone unknown to an otherwise-covert meeting, he opens his mouth to complain.

Giada cuts him off. "She has a gift too."

Kalila pulls on a chain around her neck, freeing an iron key wrought with a skeleton at the top.

Kalila, who assists Giada in the archives before her lessons at the academy and in the afternoons after them, had made a confession to her that morning. She had used this key to open the rare book case yesterday, to closely examine the texts she otherwise didn't have access to. Giada had criticized her for the carelessness, but was otherwise intrigued by yet another acquaintance having received a gift from the chimera.

"What can you open with it?" Zahara asks now.

Kalila looks down at the key, eyes glinting with promise. "So far, anything."

Tai looks grudgingly impressed. He taps a finger against the glass vial hanging from his belt, face drawn in thought.

"Who are we still waiting for?" Giada asks him.

Tai explains to them about both the clockmaker's brother and his supposed ability, as well as his encounter with the trespassing bell-boy.

"I told him to ring his way back here at exactly six o'clock for this meeting, but it seems he can't even do that."

The room sinks back into muted anticipation. Giada is, if she is honest, excited to talk again to a man that Tai believes comes from an entirely different world, one where he has never even heard of their city of Beledon.

"What's that sound?" Kalila asks suddenly. The others still.

There is an unmistakable light tapping, coming from somewhere in the room. They look around.

"I think it's the bird," Fallon says, pointing to the window. Exactly as he says, the raven is knocking the point of its beak lightly against the glass. Seeing their eyes upon it, it ceases its tapping before undergoing what looks to be a full-body shudder.

Soft-hearted Zahara rushes to it, perceiving its effort and distress. But before she is halfway across the span of the room, the bird has disappeared.

In its place is a young man, somehow able to balance himself on the ledge as he bangs his hand open-palmed onto the window glass. "Open up! It's starting to rain out here."

Zahara unlatches the window, pushing it half-open so as not to knock him off.

"Thank you," he says, smiling brightly at her as he climbs into the room. She grins back, eyes sparkling in delight at such an entrance. Giada can't say that she takes to him so quickly.

He looks to be around Rian's age, with black-brown hair, light brown skin, and an easy smile. A thin, braided leather circlet sits on his forehead, but his hair is pulled over it so that the circlet doesn't succeed in pushing any of it away. What's the point of it, then? Giada wonders with a touch of irritation.

She is not alone in her hesitancy to embrace the bird-man. Tai looks as if he cannot be less impressed. "If your boots are wet from the rain, take them off before you ruin the carpet," is all he says.

The man seems not to mind, pulling his boots away easily. "Skander was right about you." Before Tai can respond, he straightens up with another shining smile. "Nice to meet you all. I'm Lionel."

A knock on the door interrupts what was sure to be a stimulating round of introductions. Entering the room now is the freckled bell-boy that Giada is seeing for the third time now, sheepish as ever.

"Sorry I'm late. The bell took me to a few other places before I could land here." He closes the door behind him and introduces himself as Jasper.

"I'd also like to apologize for trampling part of your garden the other day," he says.

Fallon dismisses this with a wave. "Don't worry, it got completely ruined yesterday anyway."

"Please save these pleasantries for after our meeting," Tai says, whose patience had unfurled out the window at Lionel's arrival.

He motions for his six guests to stand around the table with him, and wastes no time in diving in.

"We all know already that a few weeks ago, we received gifts from the chimera. I'm no expert in the monster's lore, but I know that its gifts are typically a little more scattered than this, delivered to people who have never met or to much fewer than seven recipients." He looks to Giada for confirmation. She's read about chimera activities more often than most: all known information on it is stored in the archives.

Uncharacteristically letting himself fade into the background, Tai gestures for Giada to share what she knows. She bristles only a little at this: he had not told her beforehand that he would be calling on her to recite her knowledge like a student in front of a class.

"Every generation receives a few," she says. "But the usual number is closer to three gifts, not seven. And I do find it strange that so many of us knew each other before. Often you'll read of gifts being delivered to people who live on opposite ends of the city, with no prior connection to each another."

"Can I ask something?" Jasper says, then continues without waiting for a response. "I know I'm new here, but just humor me with this: what exactly is the chimera?"

There's a startled silence as everyone, even genial Lionel, looks at Jasper with incredulity.

Tai's voice is twined with condescension as he says, "Oh, to be you, Jasper. I can't imagine."

Jasper turns defensive. "I'm not from anywhere around here. I've never heard of a chimera before, and I don't know of anybody who has anything like this." He lifts his bell up.

Giada takes on the instructing tone she uses on her trainee Kalila. "We've had visits from the chimera as long as our city has existed. It leaves objects around every generation or so that give people strange abilities, usually only to be used by the person it's for. We think it's made up of lion, dragon, snake-"

"You think?"

Now Giada is abashed. "Well, no one has ever actually seen one, but it's widely believed that-"

"If no one's ever seen one, why are you so shocked I don't know what it is? Seems like you barely know about it either."

"It never shows itself! So we're forced to make guesses as best as we're able."

Jasper relents. "All right, fine. How does it choose who to give gifts to, and how can we give them back?"

"No one has ever returned a gift. At most, you can ignore it and never use it, but I've heard that that's difficult to do. There's something about the gifts that compel." Giada thinks on the knife that even now is strapped to her waist under her dress, despite there being no legitimate reason for its having to be there. "And we don't know how it chooses. It leaves a note with a hint, but nothing more transparent than that."

"I could be wrong," Lionel interrupts, "But didn't there used to be some old superstition that a sudden acceleration of gifts was a bad sign? I'm not really a follower of folktales, but I think this one had something to do with the end of the world?"

Jasper is thankful he is no longer the one being sent curious glances. Now, everyone turns to Lionel, sifting through their old memories of chimera lore, considering. Do the signs match up?

Only one is unimpressed by the suggestion, and it is easy to guess which one:

"Calm down," Tai snaps, "It won't be the end of the world."