Chapter 13 #2
“Everyone else is a motherloving shifter,” Buck grumbled, but he let her lead him toward the campfire. “Five minutes tops. After that, we’re leaving. I’ll throw you over my shoulder if necessary.”
Now there was a mental image. Honey tried hard not to dwell on it. “I think that might attract comment.”
He shot her an indecipherable look. “You’d be surprised.”
“Ah, our newest counselors,” Zephyr greeted them both as they reached the circle of firelight. “And how was your first day?”
“You remember that nightmare I used to have?” Buck replied. “The one about being burned alive?”
Zephyr’s eyebrows rose a little. “How could I forget?”
Buck folded himself onto a log, like a very buff praying mantis. “This was worse.”
“Come sit with us, Honey,” Leonie invited, shuffling up to make room on the log she shared with Moira. “Was it really that bad, or is Buck just being his usual dramatic self?”
“I,” Buck said in tones of mortal offense, “have never been dramatic in my entire motherloving life.”
“Uncle, you once gave a long, heartfelt speech while holding me at gunpoint,” Zephyr murmured. “Not to mention the time you actually shot me.”
“Buck is being slightly dramatic,” Honey told Leonie. She sighed, thinking of Ignatius. “But not by much.”
“The first few days are always rough.” Leonie bumped her shoulder against Honey’s, like a friendly cat. “But I’m sure you can handle it. The kids will bond eventually.”
“Only if we tie them together with rope,” Buck muttered. He glared around the circle. “Please tell me this traditional first night celebration includes a traditional first night drink.”
“Yes, we must drink!” Ragvald boomed. With a flourish, he pulled a stoppered leather flask out from behind his back. “To the successful start of this grand venture!”
Zephyr cleared his throat. “Ah, Ragvald, you know that there’s no alcohol allowed on site, right?”
“Alcohol?” Ragvald looked at Moira for translation.
“I’m not sure I know the word in your tongue.” She furrowed her brow, then said something that didn’t sound like any language Honey had ever heard. When Ragvald continued to look puzzled, she added, “Strong drink? For adults only, at special celebrations?”
“Ah!” Ragvald’s quizzical expression cleared. He waved the flask. “No, no, jarl Zephyr. Of course we would not feast while duty lies heavy on our shoulders. The watchers must remain watchful, yes? This is only wyrm-bjorr, sweet and mild. Warriors of my people drink it at every meal.”
Zephyr still looked a little dubious, but he nodded. “Well, in that case, we would be honored.”
Ragvald beamed, showing broad white teeth. Honey had expected him to pass the flask round, but instead he put it to one side. With a flick of his wrist, he produced a small pottery cup… out of thin air.
Honey risked a glance sideways, but apparently neither Moira nor Leonie found anything peculiar about this. She tried to look equally nonchalant, though it was hard not to let her jaw drop as Ragvald made more cups appear.
Where was he keeping those? she wondered. They couldn’t have been up his sleeve, since he wore the same camp t-shirt as the rest of them. Apart from a pair of heavy golden bracelets that looked more like armor than jewelry, his brawny arms were bare to the biceps.
Buck looked down at the cup Ragvald had just handed him, then across at Moira. “Do I even want to know where he was keeping this?”
“Hoard space,” she replied. “It’s similar to the way some types of shifter can make their clothes disappear when they shift, and reappear when they return to human form.
A kind of private invisible pocket, outside our normal dimensions, that Ragvald can access at will. It’s a secret art of his people.”
Ragvald made a pffft noise. “It is not an art. Any youngling past first shift can carry their hoard with them, as easy as reaching out a hand. There is no trick to it. The only mystery is why you outlanders cannot do it.”
“Where are you from, Ragvald?” Honey asked, and then could have kicked herself. She was supposed to be a shifter, and for all she knew, everyone knew the homeland of giant Viking men with portable pocket dimensions.
Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have just done the shifter equivalent of asking someone with a strong Scottish accent if they came from Japan. Ragvald beamed at her, clearly delighted by her curiosity.
“Ormholm!” he declared, pulling the stopper out of the bottle. “Bleak and bitter, where the nights are long and the sky burns with cold fire.”
“It’s an island,” Moira said, rather more prosaically.
“A hidden island, populated only by shifters. Ragvald’s people chose to withdraw from contact with humans rather than live alongside them, much as my own people did.
But they’ve always maintained friendly relationships with us sea dragons.
Now that we’ve relaxed our own isolationist policies, some of the wyrms are starting to venture back into the wider world too. ”
“No,” Buck said flatly. “It’s bad enough having people who turn into motherloving wolves and wyverns and dog knows what else. I draw the line at worms. Next thing you’ll be telling me there are motherloving snail shifters.”
“Not worms. Wyrms.” The slight quirk to Moira’s mouth suggested that this was not the first time she’d had to clarify this. “With a y. They’re a kind of distant cousin to sea dragons, adapted to land rather than the ocean.”
“Uh,” Honey said. “Isn’t that just a—”
Dragon , she’d been about to say, but cut herself off. Both Moira and Leonie were frantically shaking their heads at her behind Ragvald’s back, mouthing an emphatic no . Apparently, wyrms were very much not dragons.
To her relief, Ragvald didn’t seem to have noticed her almost faux pas, busy going round filling up everyone’s cups with pale, straw-colored liquid. He settled back next to the fire, making the bottle disappear again.
“There, all is in readiness.” Ragvald took up his cup, lifting it into the air. “To what will we drink? Jarl Zephyr, as leader of this steading, it should be you who speaks the words.”
Zephyr grimace, for an instant looking remarkably like his uncle. “Giving speeches is my least favorite part of this job.”
Nonetheless, Zephyr stood, tucking one hand behind his back. He raised his cup.
“To the start of a new season.” His gaze fell on Honey, and he smiled, firelight painting his sharp-angled features. “To new friends, and new beginnings. May this be a summer to remember.”
“ Skol !” Ragvald boomed, and knocked back his drink.
Honey followed suit, and broke into a coughing fit. She wasn’t the only one. Leonie spluttered, her golden eyes watering. Moira gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, while Zephyr appeared to have lost the ability to breathe entirely.
Buck’s only reaction was a slow blink. He swallowed, set down his empty cup, and looked up at the stars.
In a voice that was only slightly more gravelly than normal, he commented: “Bracing.”
“Ragvald!” Leonie wheezed. “I thought you said this was mild!”
“Wyrm-bjorr is mild.” Ragvald looked around at them all with genuine bafflement. “An everyday drink, like you wanted, yes? Wyrm- mjod is what we would enjoy while feasting. Now that is a drink to thicken your scales!”
“I think,” Moira said, sounding rather strangled, “we need to have another talk about cultural differences, Ragvald.”
“So much for setting a good example for the younger counselors.” Zephyr coughed, thumped himself on the chest, and sat back down. “Guess I won’t be going to confiscate that beer cooler they think I don’t know is hidden under the dock.”
“Conleth!” Leonie called, waving at the business manager as he went past, engrossed in his phone. “Over here! We’ve got illicit drinks!”
“And also a smoking pit of carcinogenic fumes, I note,” Conleth replied without either pausing or looking up from his phone.
“Zephyr, I’ve emailed you that finance report.
Kindly do me the courtesy of actually reading it before our morning meeting, or I may be forced to resort to sarcasm. See you tomorrow. Six am sharp.”
Zephyr sighed, setting his cup to one side. “Sounds like I’ve got homework. If I want to get more than four hours of sleep, I’d better head home. Night, all.”
“The rest of us should turn in as well,” Buck said as Zephyr disappeared into the dark. He caught Honey’s eye, pointedly. “Action packed day tomorrow. Going to need our rest.”
“Oh, no, stay a bit longer,” Leonie said before Honey could agree. The head counselor turned to her, smile bright. “What with the kids, we’ve hardly had any time to talk. I want to hear all about you.”
“Er,” Honey said, aware of the increasingly aggressive eye contact coming from the other side of the fire. “Not much to tell, really. Anyway, you read my application.”
“Yes, but there’s so much that doesn’t cover.” Perhaps it was just because Honey now knew that Leonie was a lion—at least mostly—but she couldn’t help feeling that there was something unnervingly predatory about the head counselor’s smile. “I want details .”
“Er…” Honey groped for something safely neutral. “Well, I’m a teacher at a high school, but I suppose you already knew that. I’m originally from a small town in Minnesota, but I live in Chicago now.”
“What is Chicago?” Ragvald asked. “Another steading?”
“It’s a city,” Moira said, as though that was a problem. She was looking at Honey thoughtfully, the tiniest crease between her elegant brows. “A very big city. A fairly long way from here.”
Oh no. Honey’s instincts told her she’d made a mistake somehow.
Were there no shifters in Chicago? Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t imagine that city life would suit people who turned into animals.
Buck had mentioned that shifters tended to live in their own communities, where they didn’t have to worry about keeping their nature secret.