7. Lucina #3
Mercifully, Devon makes no attempt to eat with us.
He takes both of his trays over to his coven’s table instead, sitting stoically between the Captain and his second in command, Pax.
As soon as Devon sits down, Callan slides a stack of paper over to him, and his grey eyes lift to mine.
He takes a long sip of his coffee, not breaking his gaze until he swallows, and the mug hits the table again.
Gemma grabs my hand, leading us to an empty table near the back.
“Are you working in the Infirmary today?” I ask, sliding onto the low bench, instantly reaching for one of the cinnamon pastries I found.
“Not today. You and I have big plans.”
My brows rise. “What kind of plans?”
“You need a tour,” she tells me, spreading a generous helping of strawberry jam onto a biscuit, “and I give the best tours.”
“A tour sounds nice.”
“Good,” she smiles softly to herself. “So, the Dame is overseeing your training personally… any idea why?”
I shrug, “Because I don’t have a coven.”
“You do have a coven,” she says, “you just don’t know which one it is yet.”
“Kind of the same thing, Gemma.”
She waves a dismissive hand, blue eyes cutting to the Captain’s table. “You know she trained Callan?”
My face falls, and I track her gaze, watching Callan explain whatever is on that paper to a stone-faced Devon and a bright-eyed Pax. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yup,” Gemma says. “She began his physical training the day he turned ten, then she started his magic training when he was sixteen, right after his Split. He was the first of us to go through it. He hated it at first; it took him weeks to build the stamina to meet her demands, but he’s the Captain…
he had to be the strongest of his coven.
” Gemma tucks a loose strand of blonde hair back into her clip.
“He trained with her until he and the others turned eighteen, then they remade the Ajax Coven, and have trained together ever since.”
“The Ajax Coven?” I turn back to Gemma.
“Males hailing from our most coveted bloodlines, they’re the guardians of the Sol.
The Dame’s coven is their female counterparts, but they are the governing body, whereas the Ajax are the first line of defense between us and a threat.
The night Streatham was attacked, the former Ajax coven didn’t hesitate; they ran straight into the heart of the chaos.
” Gemma exhales, her shoulders falling with the breath she blows out. “None of them came back out of it.”
My appetite vanishes.
“When everything went to shit,” Gemma explains, “it was women and children first. Callan and the other five in his coven were the only male heirs to make it out. Same thing with the Dame and her coven, she wasn’t even supposed to be the High Priestess, but the three of them were the only ones that survived.
” Gemma must see the instinctual apology forming on my tongue, because she quickly plasters on a smile.
“We’ve all grieved, Lucina, including me.
Everyone here… we’ve become the family that we lost.”
“Gemma,” I say warily, and her eyes flick to mine. “What happened that night?”
“No one’s told you?” is her response, and I shake my head.
“Rogues. They came up from the south—a whole army of them. They sacked our city in the night. All the nobility were killed, and their bodies were hung from the palace gates. The Dame, the Captain, and their covens are the only royal blood we have left.”
Oh, my gods.
“And Rogues are…”
“Dark witches. Converts to the sinister side of Vita.” Gemma jabs her fork in the direction of Vita’s stained-glass pane–the evil side of the two-faced Matron. “They’ve got those yellow eyes.”
My stare focuses on the yellow shards of glass used in Her pane. “And they just… killed everyone?”
“That’s where it gets controversial.” Gemma leans back with her mug of coffee. “About ninety-nine percent of the people here believe we’re the only Sol left on the continent. The majority believe Rogues killed everyone who didn’t make it out of Streatham.”
“And the last percent?”
Gemma looks earnestly back at me and says, “Callan is the last percent. He believes we have people alive in Streatham still. He thinks Rogues have kept them all this time, and that’s why he obsesses over these…
missions.” She nods to his table, and the papers he has strewn in front of him, a stern look on his face as he rubs at the back of his neck.
“He’s been at it since he was sixteen, so…
” Gemma looks up at the ceiling, doing some quick math. “Twelve years.”
“Gods,” I breathe, and Gemma nods. Twelve years…spent looking for something that no one else believes in? Why? “Not to be pessimistic,” I start, “but why hasn’t he given up?”
“Not in his nature,” Gemma says plainly. “Never has been.”
The Captain’s gaze lifts from his papers, and I yank my stare back to Gemma instantly. “So, are you two like…”
Her blue eyes flair and then she’s coughing, choking on the sip of coffee she’d just taken, and when I move to help her, she waves me off, sucking in a deep breath. “Lucina, Callan’s my brother.”
“Huh?” They look nothing alike.
“Adoptive brother, kind of…it’s weird. We were both orphans when we got to Pirn, and we were raised by the same people. Like I said, children were the priority when it came to getting people out. That meant a lot of us were parentless.”
They were…children. Taken from their home and their families. Forced to grow up here and forced, in the Captain’s case, to fight at the age of eight. Eight.
“The Hearth Witches were quick to take in the orphans, and their coven raised us all as their own without question. Being mothers is in their nature; it’s part of their magic. They’re the homemakers, always keeping you warm and fed and welcomed. They taught us patience, love, and family.”
Family. To children who had lost theirs.
“Callan and I were raised as siblings,” Gemma says. “He was just a scrawny little boy back then, but he and his gangly limbs grew on me.”
I imagine him as a boy, a little less stern and a little more carefree. Maybe there’s a softer interior beneath all that physical and mental armor he wears. Maybe there’s a side of him that would sympathize with my situation.
“Gemma, can I ask you something?”
“Yes,” she sighs, “he’s single.”
“Not at all what I was going to ask.”
Her brow arches skeptically, but she relents, waving a hand for me to continue. “Go on then.”
“I-uh…” I should just be honest with her, I’m sure she’d understand what I was trying to do, but what if she doesn’t?
What if she rats me out to Delia and her coven for trying to find a way to talk to people in Draycott?
They’re serious about the secrecy of this place, but I don’t need to tell Ivy and Jude where I am, just that I’m alive.
I don’t want them to waste their lives wondering where I went.
“I left some people behind that mean a lot to me,” I say finally. “Do you think he would help get them a message for me?”
“Like… to Draycott?” she asks, and I nod.
“I can’t go back there, my life was…” I fumble for the right words, but only the wrong ones find me. “I needed to get out of that place, and I’d like a chance to know my real family, but they were my family first, Ivy and Jude. They’re probably worried sick, and I just—”
“Want to let them know you’re okay?”
I blink at her words, at how quickly she was able to figure it out. “Yes. Exactly. If I wrote them something, just to let them know I was alive, do you think Callan would take it to Draycott for me?”
Gemma ponders it, really ponders it. “I suppose if you phrase it the right way, maybe. Callan…he values honesty. Just be as honest as you can, he isn’t a bad person underneath all the Captain bullshit.”
Oddly enough, I believe that.
“Alright,” Gemma sighs, throwing her napkin over her tray. “It’s tour time.”