Chapter XVIII #2
Still breathing hard, May reached to a lower shelf and tugged a thin wooden box about the length of her arm from behind a medley of objects.
A layer of dust coated the surface, and May withdrew a dagger, patinated with age.
Holding it in one hand and resting the blade atop her other forearm, May fell into a fighting stance.
She pulled it back like a bowstring and twisted, shooting forward and cleaving the air with the grace of an expert.
The blade whistled as it swung. When May brought it down in front of her hips, Vic stared, awestruck, at a pattern suspended in the light.
A rune, like those carved along the castle walls, glittered in front of May.
Vic reached for it.
“Don’t,” May warned as Sarah lifted a foot to nudge away Vic’s hand.
“It’s a defensive mark,” Sarah said. “It would burn you.”
“Try to untangle it,” May said, watching Vic closely.
Vic stared at the rune. She could almost see the threads they were talking about, but she couldn’t pick one apart from the rest. She couldn’t see a pattern to the shape’s construction, not yet.
The rune dissolved into the air.
“I didn’t do that,” Vic said, her eyes wide. “Where did it go?”
“Back where it came from,” May said as she replaced the dagger in its box and on the shelf. “Let’s go again.”
May did better this time, and Vic started to get winded.
“What did Xan say to you last night?” Sarah asked, peering at Vic where she lay on the floor. May had gotten her down, but she’d rolled herself in the process, lost control, and Vic threw her off. They lay panting beside each other.
“What? Nothing.”
“He said something that upset you,” Sarah said.
“Do we have to do this now?” May asked.
“We’re not doing anything,” Sarah said. “I’m just asking.”
“He didn’t say anything,” Vic said. “Again,” she told May.
May and Vic were mid-throttle, their arms locked around each other’s shoulders, when Sarah spoke again.
“You know he’s single.”
Vic’s head whipped toward Sarah, and May tackled her.
“Thirty-three. Never married. Unattached.” Sarah looked at her nails as she spoke. Vic rolled until she was on top of May, her knees locked around May’s waist. May groaned with frustration.
“Why are you bringing this up?”
“I thought you might be interested to know that.”
“I’m not,” Vic said. May tapped out.
“You are into men, aren’t you?” Sarah asked.
Vic stood to grab water from the fountain nearby. “Sure, but I never really date. I dabble.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” May asked.
“You have problems with intimacy,” Sarah said.
“I’m a liberated woman,” Vic replied, thinking of all the one-night stands that never made it to midnight. “I’m not afraid of sex.”
“I didn’t say sex—I said intimacy. You can’t let yourself be vulnerable enough to form a connection with anyone.”
Vic stared at her. “What is with you today?”
Sarah shrugged. “I’m bored. And my head hurts.” Turning to May, she added, “You know Vic stole a dagger from the load-out room? She took it to the assembly and everything.”
May raised an eyebrow at Vic. “We should go to the shooting range next. We’ve got some weapons down there that would blow your mind.”
“Fuck yes,” Vic replied, pointing at May. “But first, I am not leaving this room until one of you tries something with that elk skull.”
“I told you,” Sarah said in a wistful tone as she lay on the stack of mats with her head lolling off the edge. “Problems with intimacy. Can’t even have a conversation with her.”
May tried a few spells with the skull, none of which resulted in any reaction, until her final attempt caused it to emit a dull clacking noise, like a death rattle, and May replaced it on the shelf with clumsy fingers. Facing backward this time.
After a particularly hard round, May and Vic lay on the floor opposite each other while Sarah hopped down from the stack of mats and began sifting through the shelf near the floor.
“Where’s the door you want to open?” Sarah asked as she began sorting a row of brilliant gemstones by color.
Vic pursed her lips and considered avoiding the question. The thought of explaining her relationship with her mother made her stomach hurt.
“My mom’s old apartment is in the Northwest Wing,” she said. “But there’s some kind of ward on the door.”
The sympathy on Sarah’s face made Vic look away. She couldn’t stand when people looked at her like that.
“Is that why you’re still here?” May asked.
“I thought I was training,” Vic said, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapping an arm around her knees.
“You said you’ve just been staring at rocks.”
Vic sighed. “It’s not like there’s a place for me here. It’s a medieval castle, for fuck’s sake.”
“Cathedral,” May said. “You mean a cathedral.”
Vic shot a confused look at Sarah, and May added, “Everyone says ‘castle,’ but this place is actually designed like a cathedral. Medieval castles didn’t look anything like this.”
“So your plan was to find out what happened to your mother?” Sarah asked. “That’s why you’re here.”
“I wouldn’t say I had a plan.” Though, yes, Vic thought, with discomfiting awareness that Sarah had been paying more attention to her than she’d realized.
“How old were you when your mom died?” Sarah asked.
“Sixteen.”
“You’re stuck,” Sarah guessed. “You can’t move on, can’t love anybody, can’t do anything real, until you find out what happened.”
Sarah was watching Vic with an intensity she didn’t like, as if she could see right through her. Vic avoided her gaze. “I can’t do anything real,” she agreed in a half-sarcastic tone. “That’s how I wound up here, hiding from the real world with a bunch of witches.”
“This is the real world,” May protested.
“The real world has more people in it,” Vic said. “And waiting in lines and using public bathrooms and cooking for yourself.”
“Your real world sounds bad,” May said.
“It is, a lot of the time,” Vic said. “Let’s go again.”
When they finished, Sarah sat cross-legged on the mat beside them.
“Let’s talk about opening this door,” she said.