Chapter XXII
XXII
Magical factions rarely war with one another.
During periods of rapid upheaval, such as plague, famine, war, or technological advancement, new groups have emerged to challenge existing attitudes about the role of magic in society.
Most often these conflicts revolve around the proper means by which those equipped to use magic should approach the non-inclined public.
The heavy toll of taking these disagreements to the battlefield has, for the most part, discouraged rival factions from seeking drastic solutions through violence.
Such conflicts have been resolved through diplomatic means (see the Council at Oxford and the Tunisian Agreement for two examples).
As of the date of writing, there has not been a war between magical groups in a millennium.
“Sepsis from superficial wounds is incredibly unlikely but not impossible.”
“Jesus Christ, May. Lighten up. She’s not going to die.”
“I agree. I said it’s incredibly unlikely.”
Vic opened her eyes to Sarah and May at loggerheads on the other side of her bedroom. Beside her, Henry had pulled an armchair up to the bed. He sat with his head on his fist, propped up on the armrest, watching the two women bicker with an expression of extreme annoyance.
When he noticed Vic was awake and watching, he smiled before looking back at the other two and mouthing Kill me.
Vic’s laugh stuck in her throat, which was dry and sore from shouting. The rough sound stopped Sarah and May squabbling as they turned around and flew toward the bed.
“They’ve been arguing since they got here,” Henry told Vic, not bothering to hide the edge in his voice. “Around six this morning.”
“How are you feeling? Are you okay? Are you in pain?” Sarah volleyed questions at Vic like she was shouting answers to a quiz. Vic’s head spun.
“I am decidedly among the living,” Vic said with a pointed look at May, who didn’t even have the decency to look sheepish.
“As I said,” May replied, “it was always unlikely that your injuries would kill you. I don’t know why everyone got mad at me.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and leaned over Vic, scanning her face. Vic suspected Sarah would have peeled back an eyelid or opened her mouth for a more thorough inspection if she thought she could get away with it.
“I feel fine,” Vic assured an unconvinced Sarah. “Whatever that doctor gave me is working wonders.”
“Demerol,” May said with an appreciative nod.
Sarah swatted May aside with a flit of her hand. May moved to the foot of the bed and began inspecting the wooden bedpost.
“A manananggal!” Sarah cried. “Can you believe it! I can’t believe it. We’re never going to let you go anywhere alone now. I hope you know that. May and I are moving in. We’ll take turns escorting you to the bathroom.”
Vic and May shared a look of horror. Henry laughed, the bastard.
“It is remarkable that you survived,” May said.
“Not this again,” Henry muttered.
“I don’t mean her injuries. A few stitches and a mild concussion are nothing compared to what the Sentinels deal with on a regular basis.
” Vic did not feel the need to point out that her injuries would have been worse, much worse, if Xan hadn’t healed her.
Addressing Vic, May added, “You were alone with a manananggal for, what, five minutes? Maybe more? They usually take humans down in seconds.”
“Isn’t their quarry usually sleeping?” Vic asked.
“That’s true,” May said, not detecting the sarcasm. “I would be curious to see how likely it is for a human to survive when they’re conscious. Maybe everyone who’s awake gets away.”
“Come on, May,” Sarah said. “Vic did very well.”
“I’m paying her a compliment. She might be one of the only survivors out there.”
“Even if they start out sleeping,” Vic said, “I imagine most people wake up when the…” She stuck out her tongue and pointed to her throat, remembering the Orcan’s barbed tongue trying to wriggle inside.
“Excellent point,” May said. “Something else to consider.”
Henry interrupted, “Why don’t the two of you go see about getting Vic some food?” Vic smiled at the obvious ploy to get Sarah and May to leave. They must have been bothering him for hours before Vic woke up.
But at that moment a silver-domed tray materialized on the bedside table, and Henry sighed. Vic pulled the cover away to find toast, eggs, a cup of coffee. Max’s doing, no doubt.
“Speaking of,” Sarah said. “What did the tongue taste like? I’ve always been curious.”
“I don’t know, like something rotten,” Vic said. She chewed as she tried to find a fitting description. Oddly enough, discussing her ordeal like this eased her spirits. Henry stared at Vic like she had an arm growing out of her head.
“I would imagine it tastes like spoiled meat,” Sarah said, turning to May. “Like when you’re fighting and you accidentally get a little bit of Orcan blood in your mouth.”
May looked askance at her. “That doesn’t happen to me.”
“Really? It happens to me all the time.”
“That’s because you’re not careful.”
“Isn’t the legend that manananggals sleep in graves during the day?” Vic asked, and the two Sentinels nodded. “It tasted like something that came out of a grave.”
Henry lost his patience.
“That’s it,” he announced. “Get out.”
Vic burst into laughter at the shocked look on Sarah’s face.
“I want to talk to my sister.” Henry pointed at the door.
May looked affronted at the abrupt dismissal, but Sarah took it in stride. She pulled May from the room, shouting over her shoulder that they would be back soon to move their things in. Vic heard May object as the apartment door shut behind them.
Henry faced his sister. “They’re so fucking weird, Vic.”
“I like them,” she said, picking up another piece of toast.
As he watched her, Henry seemed to deflate. He looked exhausted.
“What happened to you?”
“I went to Mom’s old apartment,” Vic said, and a look of realization crossed his face.
She told Henry about the manananggal in Meredith’s office, the attack, and Xan saving her.
When she remembered what had happened afterward, Vic stopped.
She set her food aside and put a hand on Henry’s arm.
“Have you ever heard the name Aren Mann?” she asked him.
Henry frowned. Slowly, he shook his head.
“He’s the leader of another organization, that one the other recruits told you about. He calls it the Brotherhood. He and Max knew Mom when they all worked in the Order together.”
“What does this have to do with us?” Henry asked, still looking confused.
“Mom, Max, Aren, they’re all connected. What happened to Mom was because of all of this.
She warned you about bad men coming to find you.
She told you to run. What if she was talking about the Brotherhood?
What if they’re the ones we’ve been hiding from all this time?
” As she said it, Vic knew it was true. She heard the conviction in her own voice and realized that Meredith must have been worried Aren would come for Henry.
“Are you sure you haven’t heard about the Brotherhood?” Vic asked him, sitting up. “Nothing about Aren or another organization like that?”
Henry was shaking his head. “Maybe Mom was wrong, maybe I misremembered. I don’t know, but she’s been dead for a long time, Vic. We need to move on.”
Vic stared at him. “I can’t move on,” she said quietly. She couldn’t. “Max said this guy, Aren Mann, killed her. He says she was murdered for investigating the Brotherhood, that she was—”
“Look, Vic. All you’re doing is convincing me that you’re not safe here.”
Vic sat back, stunned. “I’m not—”
“Let me tell you what happened to me last night,” Henry said. “Max brought you here around two in the morning. I woke up to him pounding on the door. I thought someone was breaking in. Turns out, you were unconscious, and Max had you sort of levitating beside him.”
Vic found the mental image of her limp body hanging unsupported extremely unpleasant and tried to shake it off.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” he said. “I thought he’d killed you. I thought you were dead.”
Vic reached for his arm and squeezed it.
“I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you,” Henry whispered. “Probably burn the whole place down.”
“I’m sorry,” Vic said in a quiet voice.
“You’re sorry?” Henry said. “I’m sorry! I should never have let you come here. This place is too dangerous. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it is not okay!” Henry bolted out of his chair and paced the worn rug.
“It is not okay,” he repeated, softer now.
“You were supposed to be safe in the castle. The Order was supposed to keep you safe. At least keep the Orcans from getting inside the fucking walls. You know, the thing they’ve done for centuries?
But the Order can’t even do that these days. ”
The sudden reversal of their roles unsettled Vic.
She played the protector, the older sibling reacting with righteous indignation to the treatment of the younger.
She was the one who got angry; she was the one who shouted.
She paced back and forth while Henry sat nearby, smiling bemusedly and waiting for his high-strung sister to calm down.
He spun to face her, looking manic. Vic had never seen him like this.
“You have to go,” he said. “Leave Avalon. Every day that you’re here, I’m scared that something’s going to happen to you. I can’t let you stay.”
“But I’m fine, I promise. I have it under control.” But Vic knew, even as she swore, that she couldn’t promise anything, that she had nothing under control.
“You’re the only family I have,” Henry said. “I could never live with myself if something happened to you and I knew that you were here because of me.”
“But I need to be here. I just learned that Mom was murdered. I still need to—”
“I don’t care if Mom was murdered,” Henry said. He huffed a laugh like he’d surprised himself. “I don’t care,” he repeated with a shrug.
He sighed and fell back into the chair beside her. Vic watched in silent shock.
“Mom’s been dead since I was ten, Vic, and even before then, she was gone all the time. I don’t remember her the way you do. I don’t grieve her the way you do. I’m not going to let you kill yourself trying to avenge someone who didn’t even care enough to stick around.”
Vic swallowed. “I can’t leave you—”
“I know you think you can help me here, but you can’t. I’m more prepared for this sort of thing than you are.”
Vic wondered if that was true. They’d been in training together for weeks.
She’d seen Henry break rocks, maybe even move them once or twice.
But he wasn’t excelling the way some of the others were.
She watched him growing more frustrated with every day that he fell behind.
Did he blame her for that? Vic wondered.
If he thought she was distracting him, did Henry think Vic was responsible for his failure to meet his own lofty expectations?
Some of her thoughts must have shown on her face.
“Are you serious?” Henry demanded. “You still don’t think I can take care of myself.” He vaulted back to standing. “I’m a witch! I belong here. You’re not. You don’t. It’s that simple.”
“You don’t get to talk to me that way.”
“It’s the truth, Vic. This delusion has gone on long enough.
You’re tough as nails and you can fight—you don’t need to prove that to me.
And I know that some people have tried to convince you that what happened in the catacombs matters.
But the only way that the Rite matters to me is that they could have killed you.
And I would have had to watch. Do you really not see where I’m coming from? ”
Vic sank into the pillow behind her and said in a small voice, “It’s been my job to take care of you my whole life. Do you expect me to walk away the second it gets harder?”
Henry fell into the chair beside her again and put his head on the bed.
“I’m sorry for being mean,” he murmured into the comforter. “Last night scared me. This whole thing scares me, and I…don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.”
Henry looked so much like a child in that moment.
Doe-like eyes turned up at Vic like he was ten years old and she was the only person who could help him.
God, she loved the little guy so much it hurt.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? Vic hadn’t figured out what to do with the adult he’d grown into yet.
It would hurt to leave him—it would hurt to stay.
“It’s okay,” she said, touching his curls. “I’m sorry, too.”
For some reason, she didn’t tell him about Max’s request to help him take down the Brotherhood.
A shadow rose in her mind, the memory of Xan pinning her to the wall in Lethe, telling her to leave.
I know you think you can find something here, some purpose in all this madness. But you can’t. You’ll die trying to belong.
Realization dawned on her, the pieces clicking into place. Ice crept into her veins.
She had unfinished business with the Chief Sentinel.